Obey ye the promptings of the Holy Spirit! ------- Making the Zwingli Video

Our recent video on the Swiss Reformation will give you a good overview of the Reformation and its spread into Switzerland as well as Ulrich Zwingli, Heinrich Bullinger, William Farrel and the Anabaptist movement. Seminaries charge you a good $1000 per class to learn this stuff, then just barely touch on the subjects, with the proviso that you need to do the hard work yourself to really learn something (why am I paying all this money then? was my question to those professors.) Well, we've done the hard work for you, on many essential historical and theological topics that are insightful and essential to understanding the development of the Christian Faith. Many more of our programs on Historical Christian figures as well as missions, miracles, divine appointments and a whole lot more are available for free by clicking here.

This video actually came to be through a divine appointment: We were in Biarritz, France, after ministering in Spain, when I was taking a walk up the beach along the Anglet shore. As I was checking out the surf, I noticed a guy sitting with his board up the beach and using his board to block the onshore winds while resting behind a little sand bluff. The Holy Spirit prompted me to go talk to him, so I took a step of faith and went over.

He turned out to be an Aussie living in Switzerland taking a surf holiday in France, quite the interesting combination, and a Christian on top of it all, something rarely encountered in this area of France—well, you could say that for any area of France, just even more so for the South Coastal regions.

It was not much of a day for surf due to the onshore wind conditions, so we spent some time talking and hanging out and eventually exchanged information.

Later on, I contacted him on the way to Switzerland and, after talking for a bit, he ended up having us stay for a bit in his flat. It seemed so strange to think we were staying for free here in the expensive city of Zurich, Switzerland, all through a divine appointment while checking out the surf in France. Even more interesting is that we ended up ministering later on in Switzerland as well.

While in the city, we noticed what striking scenery it had. And, also remembering all of its rich Reformation history, we grabbed the camera and threw together some videos, doing our best to avoid what we could of the seeming constant construction noise everywhere, prosperity is all a good and fine thing, but it gets a little annoying while filming.

Well, we did our thing there in Zurich for a bit and then figured it was time to pack up and head out to some ministry we had planned elsewhere. We went out the night before to book some train tickets when something went horribly wrong with our calculations and we were now almost completely out of cash, not a hard thing to do in one of the most expensive cities in the world. I was pretty frustrated and concerned the whole way back to our friend's flat, and spent most of the night not sleeping but mulling over how did we come up so short.

Coming up short of cash happens easily while traveling in Europe, especially in Switzerland--travel books tell tales of American tourists jumping back on the train shortly after they got off and scrambling out of the place as quick as possible when they see the prices.

We had never said a word to our Aussie/Swiss host about our financial situation but when we were headed out the door the next morning he casually handed us an envelope without saying a word to either of us. I opened it up a little later down the road and was surprised to find not a card or letter but a good amount of Swiss francs, which met our needs and then some for that time, this from a guy we just met on the beach in France.

I then remembered that, in the middle of that last night, I had been semi-praying while half asleep in a state of semi-comatose-sleep-waking frustation: “Oh Lord, how much money and gold is stored in these vaults underneath this city…Please Lord, break open a vault and bring us some supply right away.” It was a half-conscious prayer that was born of desperation and frustration, but God knows what we need even before we ask, even if not making some "positive confession" of faith.

Well, Swiss Francs and coins have a very unique look to them and when I thought about it and the generous amount he had given us, it did look like someone had broken open a vault to give us some immediate supply.

We got to stay in Zurich for free in what is well-known as a prohibitively-expensive city, filmed some important videos of the Reformation, and got our financial needs met supernaturally, all through one step of obedience to the prompting of the Holy Spirit when on the beach in France.

When thinking how God supplied our financial needs it also struck me that God sure has a way of answering what was a strange prayer in a most surprising way! Even though he knows our needs before we ask (Matt. 6:8.) He often waits and brings us to that point of having us cry out to Him in prayer first so He can demonstrate that He is responding to our prayers.

Glory!!!!