Sid: To call Lydia Stanley, the Worship Leader the Psalmist from the Bay of the Holy Spirit Revival in Mobile, Alabama; to call her red hot is, I think an understatement. But Lydia, so you’re leading worship for John Kilpatrick, they have a guest preacher that comes in from England and most of the people weren’t even that familiar with him; you were tired one night.
Lydia: I was tired, yes Sir.
Sid: And you wanted Nathan, the Evangelist, he says I want to pray for everyone in the house and you said, as much as you love God, you said a Hebrew expression, no you didn’t, but if you had known it you would have; “Oi evy!” Is what you would have said, but so take me from there.
Lydia: I will, we had actually been in a conference, called “Open the Heavens” and so the Friday night service revival broke out, we had no idea that revival was going to break out and it was probably my eighth or ninth consecutive service; so I was exhausted and Nathan saying “Were going to pray for everyone here so I looked at my usher and I said, “Listen, tell the guys in the sound booth I’m going to play about two songs and then they can roll a CD because I’m just, my I’m worn out.” And it was right about then, I turned back around and I was playing the keyboard and I don’t remember what Nathan said or what anybody else said, but I know that a wind of some kind blew across the platform, and it’s like if hit me right in my abdomen area, it’s like it hit my stomach and it didn’t hurt, but it was definitely, it was definitely something had hit me and I doubled over. And I thought oh, my goodness.
Sid: But wait a second, you’ve been raised in revival in Pensacola Florida at the Brownsville, Revival. You went to Bible School there was this any different than what you experienced in your life for you personally?
Lydia: It was, it was totally different. I have always heard people talk about the fire of God and I really thought that we were using a metaphor for the Holy Spirit, I really would have thought that and that is what I would have said “it wounded what?” I would have said it was. I didn’t know that the fire was a tangible manifestation that you could feel. And I didn’t know what had struck me that night, but it was the fire of God. And it struck me right in my stomach, and I was doubled over and I thought oh no, what is this? And so I thought and I’ve got to sit up because they are going to need me play, you know I’m trying to get myself together here you know. And it doubled me right back over, I couldn’t stand up and the same usher came over to me and he said, “Listen, we’ve got you a chair,” and so my famous last words as the Revival broke out, I looked over at the usher and I said, “I’ll never make it that far.” And he laughed, but the next thing that happened was that that fire picked me up and put me right back down on the floor. And so I had been very politely body slammed, I was the first person to get struck like that by the fire of God in the Revival and as matter of fact…
Sid: Now, what is it like when the fire of God enters you? Describe this to me.
Lydia: Oh, I was burning hot, I had never felt me, it was actually very cold in the room, the air conditioners were, you know in South Alabama, in July it is hot, very, very hot.
Sid: Brutal.
Lydia: So the air conditioners had been raging so it was very cold in the room and I had been cold. But when I hit the floor it’s just like, I understand what the Burning Bush must have felt like because I was on fire, I was not being consumed, but I was on fire!
Sid: What was God doing to you?
Lydia: Well, I asked Him; because it was so intense I thought you know my God I’m going to die right here in front of everyone you know. I said, “Jesus, what are you doing?” And I couldn’t say it out loud, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t talk, it would be an hour before I would be regain the ability to talk. But in my Spirit, I just prayed, “Jesus, what are you doing, and immediately, He said, “Well, it’s the last night of the “Open the Heaven’s Conference;” you didn’t think that you would let it get to Friday night without doing it did you?” And just as the Lord spoke that to me, my pastor took the microphone because I did not know this, but Nathan Morris had been struck by the fire as well, he was out, it was over. So Pastor took the mike and he said, “Friends this feels like Father’s Day 1995, this is it, get in,” and he began to pray and I began to weep.
Sid: And Father’s Day was when Brownsville Revival broke out under the same leadership of Pastor Kilpatrick and he said, “He knew it!” In other words, he had lived it once before, so he literally knew it one more time, it’s happening again!
Lydia: He recognized it right off the bat, I mean he just began to facilitate it by saying, “Jesus do it again,” and when he said that, you know having grown up touched by revival and going to the Revival every month the way we did; I ‘m going through the School of Ministry at Brownsville and then not being in revival for several years; you know good church, but not being in revival being on the floor and hearing him said to me that, and hearing what the Lord had said to me, I thought, “Oh Jesus, please let this be true!” And of course it was and it’s just been it’s just been about eight glorious months in that same Revival. But that’s what happened to me the night that it broke out; it was the most intense experience, without question; it is the most intense experience I have ever had with God when the fire of God hit me for the first time.
Sid: Now, as you look back and it’s doing nothing but increasing intensity with so many miracles we don’t have time to talk about these documented miracles, but as you look back I think you have to think about the prophecy your Grandfather had over you. Would you remind us of that prophecy?
Lydia: I would be happy to my Grandfather was a wonderful man of God, he pastored. He pastored the church in Augusta, Georgia for forty-six years. He was a ministry for well over sixty years and he was a wonderful man of God and he was actually getting ready to go home and be with the Lord, and he passed away in May of 2009. So I was actually home in Augusta and saw him for the last time in March of 2009. And this one afternoon my Grandfather, we were all at their house, we were all at my grandparents house; and my Mom and my Dad and Aunt Lydia. Dad had sat down at the piano and the three of them had begun to sing and just worship and there is nothing quite like that; their still my favorites, out of everybody I know their still my favorites to hear worship. But they were playing and I looked at my Grandfather and he was so sick, he was actually dying with cancer and he was seated there with me in the den and I said, Grand Daddy would you like me to take you in there where the worship is happening? And he said, “Well yeah, so I helped him in there and we all began to worship and the presence of Lord came in there in such a special way. And he called the whole family around and he began to prophecy to each of us and he was describing experiences that he was having with the Lord, and he looked at me and he said, “Something coming, he said “Baby it’s like nothing you have ever seen and it’s the blessing of the Lord and you’re going to see it with your eyes.” And he looked at my family and he said, “It will come to our church too.” But he kept looking at me and he said, “But it’s the blessing of the Lord and its coming and its coming.” And he said, “The Lord is going to make you like Esther, you’re going to stand before the Lord like Esther.” But the thing that he repeated over and over again, “But it’s the blessing of the Lord.”
Sid: What does that mean to you though, “Stand before the Lord like Esther,” what does that mean to you?
Lydia: I think that he was trying to say that God would give me unusual favor like Esther had. You know and I thought about that Sid, I have thought about it many nights in the Revival you know when the presence of the Lord will come and it’s been so heavy it’s like those words just echo in my spirit. I hear him going, “It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen, but it’s the blessing of the Lord, and you’re going to stand before Him like Esther.” And the unusual favor that Revival has brought in and the weighty presence of the Lord; it truly is like nothing I have ever seen and we’ve seen so much, but it isn’t like anything we have ever seen; the miracles have been so unusual. So night after night I just remember that prophecy that he spoke, it is just amazing.
Sid: Tell me about the song, “Even So Come,” tell me about that song.
Lydia: I would love too, actually one afternoon in my home, I was just, you know I was just going about everyday life, I was getting ready for a service that we were having at the church, with some ladies and I knew that I would be leading worship that night. And I’m the kind of song writer that I don’t force a song. If the Lord gives a song then I’ll write it, but if the Lord’s not you know, providing it, I’m not going to force something to happen, that’s just not me. And I was actually in my home just getting ready for that service and I began to hear in my spirit, I began to hear the chorus of that song and it’s just and I heard, I heard just as clearly as anything, I heard, “Desire of the Nations, King of the Ages, Call to Your People.” So immediately, I stopped what I was doing and I went into my room where the piano is and I got out my notepad, and so in about ten minutes the whole song had come and I just wrote that down and that’s been, that’s been really that’s been the cry of my heart.
Sid: And you doing this in live worship under that anointing, I mean there’s something about “Your bride has been waiting for Your appearing “and with all of the hundreds of voices singing out…
Music segment by Lydia Stanley
Looking for You, for Your return, we don’t belong here, Heaven’s our home.
Your beautiful Face, we’re longing to see, Lord can you hear us, your bride, the redeemed.
Desire of the nations, king of the ages, come to your people, your bride has been waiting, for Your appearing; even so come, even so come, we long to be…