The following account of an angelic visitation is taken from daddy's journal, dated April 29, 1979:
"Early this morning I was awakened about 2:10 AM by voices downstairs. I dressed and went down, and as I suspected, Gabriel and his great companion were there. I will never get accustomed to the penetrating radiation that beams from them. Again, they had to restore my strength by their words and touch. What an exciting message from God's heart they had for me. After a few words of comfort, Gabriel seemed to speak direct words from God in the first person.
"The Lord speaks now to you. All your life forces are in me. Your drives, your talents, your skills, as you commit yourself, wholly, even your potential springs from me. Bring these words to the world. I have loved you, cared for you, yes, I have planned your steps, and when you would yield, have directed your path. Your successes come from me, your wealth has come from my hand. Your creative skills, your abilities to succeed are because of me. Because of your failure to recognize me and walk in my ways, you have limited the Lord your God, your lives have been restricted so that you have not known the potential of your life. As you make Him Lord of all, He will also be Lord of what you can be, not only of what you are (Exodus 31:1-6). Money and its power belong to the one who directs the use of it. Those who possess it. It is not a force apart from the one who controls it, Satan or God."
"As Terry Law was concerned about his future and the seeming peril of his work in darkened countries, he asked if I was permitted to inquire of God concerning these things. Normally, questions seem so trivial to ask, but God somehow let me know that it was all right. Here's His answer. "Terry Law has been chosen and prepared by God for a very special work, that of being in the forefront of His work in penetrating darkened countries with His life-giving light. The Father has interwoven a demanding urgency into all areas of his life. He has placed within him a persistence that refuses denial and a courage that accepts no defeat. God has opened to him long-closed doors, and has accompanied him by His Spirit. He is a chosen messenger. The Father has given him guidance and protection. He has provided for him in ways he has not known, by His Spirit, by men and by angels of the Lord. Though many have had a part in the preparing of this life, the turning point came as a young man under the Spirit-directed ministry of one of God's friends, Dwight McLoughlin."
Terry read from my dad's journal words used by God spoken through an angelic messenger to describe him, and his eyes filled with tears. It was overwhelming to see in writing what God had to say about him.
Alan and I were in Terry's hotel room. He had just flown in from Warsaw, Poland, for services here at Central Assembly. I had asked if I could interview him for this book because his name appeared in dad's journal, and also because of the involvement of our church in the ministry of Living Sound.
Alan and I spent an exciting two hours with Terry, as he shared with us confirmation of a tremendous breakthrough in his ministry with Living Sound, as dad had said would happen in the fall of 1979. We had just concluded our session when Terry read for himself what God had said.
Terry had many things to share, and Alan and I felt the blessing of the Lord so much as we talked, that here in essence, in Terry's own words, is our interview:
"I first met your dad in 1997 in a Mission's Convention here. Murray McCleese had been booked to speak but there was a conflict of dates, so Pastor Buck asked me to take over the conference as speaker.
"After the service, Pastor Buck drove me back to the Rodeway Inn. It was a dark, gloomy, rainy night. I remember sitting in his big brown Lincoln, and he began to tell me about his visit to the throne room. At that time he hadn't as yet had any angelic visits.
"He shared with me that when he came back from his visit to God's throne room, he was still holding the piece of paper God had given him with the list of 120 events that would happen either in his ministry, or in the world situation. He told me that some of the events on that list had already come to pass.
"I was so taken aback by this, that I didn't tell anyone, not even the members of Living Sound. The next night, pastor had supper with Joel Vasenen, the leader of the group, and myself. We sat there with our eyes bugging out because we had never heard anything like this in our entire lives.
"I was invited back to Boise in 1978 with Living Sound to appear with Little Richard in an "Up With Jesus" crusade in the football stadium. This time pastor began to outline for me some of the amazing things from his private conversation with the angels.
"Visiting the throne room is one thing, but talking to Gabriel is another. One of the things that the angel had said to him was that he and the church were going to have a direct ministry in the Soviet Union. Central Assembly raised the finances for us at that time for our first Russian ministry. I flew directly from Boise to Helsinki, Finland, and our team went into Russia for the first time. Pastor Buck considered that to be a fulfillment of one of the 120 items revealed to him.
"In 1978 I was here twice, and during these times pastor began to tell me the message of Gabriel, about the home, the atonement, and the importance of the blood.
"I did like Mary in the New Testament where it says 'Mary heard all these things, and pondered them in her heart.' That's exactly what I did.
"Pastor Buck also told me that Living Sound was going to have a relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. This was before the election of Pope John Paul II. We already had a relationship because of our ministry throughout Poland in 1976 with crowds up to 250,000 people. But Pastor Buck indicated to me that we were going to have a more intense relationship with the Roman Catholic Church. I listened to what he said but didn't realize at that time that he had already been told by the Lord the name of the pope who would be elected. The Lord told him that this pope would be responsible for bringing unity to the fragment body of Christ, which by the way, is the primary goal of the present pope. He, more than any other pope before him, has been accentuating the importance of bringing the entire church together.
"The introduction of Karol Wojtyla as pope in October literally blew me away because we knew him and had been in his home, he had talked with the group and loved the music. He even has our albums in the Vatican. I phoned Pastor Buck right after Karol had been elected, and he told me that he had known before hand. I remember sitting on a plane with him and he opened his diary and showed me the notation from 1977 when God took him to His throne room, and the name of the pope was number 113 on the list of events.
"In 1980 Living Sound and I were invited to an audience with the pope and had the opportunity to present a concert in St. Peters Square.
"The thing that shook me up the most regarding pastor's angelic visitations happened 1979. I had flown directly to Boise from Australia in April. Gordon Calmeyer was with me on that tour with Living Sound team I. Gordon is the kind of person who says what he thinks. I had not shared with him a lot about pastor's visitations, because I had continued to ponder them in my heart.
"We were once again at the Rodeway Inn in the dining room. Pastor had shared with us for a while, when Gordon said, 'If the angels have said certain things about Living Sound and our relationship to your church already, next time they come, why don't you ask them about the future of Living Sound?' I looked at Gordon in shock and said, 'Gordon, you don't ask angels things like that!' Pastor Buck just looked pensive for a moment as though he were thinking, and then he said, 'Well, they can only say what the Lord has told them to say, but perhaps God will let me talk with them about Living Sound's ministry.'
"We dropped the subject and went on to something else. Later on in 1979 pastor had an appointment to be on the PTL Club. I was going to be there that same week anyway, so they phoned me and asked me to appear with him, I had a good time with him the night before we appeared on the show, but I hadn't had a chance to talk with him alone. The day of the program, I went into the makeup room and Paul Olson was there as co-host. Other than Paul, we were alone for the first time.
"Pastor looked at me and said, 'Terry, does the name Dwight McLoughlin mean anything to you?' My eyes opened wide, and I said, 'Yes it does. Why do you ask?' Then I said, 'Oh, no, you've been talking to the angels!' He just nodded his head. I asked him, "What on earth did the angels say?' He said, 'Do you remember a time when you were a young man and received a call to the ministry?' I was dumbstruck. I didn't want to say anything. My mouth was hanging open. Pastor didn't go into that much detail except that he knew what had happened.
"From my standpoint, what happened was that I was a thirteen-year-old boy. My parents were pastoring an Assembly of God church in Mount Vernon, a little town in British Columbia. I had gone to a camp meeting that summer on Vancouver Island. I had been deeply moved upon by the Holy Spirit in the service that night. When everybody else left the old tabernacle with the sawdust floor, the lights were turned off, and I was just sitting in the darkness praying.
"The camp evangelist, who was Dwight McLoughlin, had left his Bible on the pulpit and had come back to find it. He didn't know how to turn on the light, and was just trying to get to the pulpit.
"All of a sudden out of darkness he called, 'Is anybody here?' I said, 'Yes.' He felt a sudden urge in the Spirit and walked down the pew to where I was seated, laid his hands on me and began to pray. As he prayed the Spirit of Prophecy came upon him, and he began to say things that shocked the daylights out of me.
"He said, 'Young man, I see you standing before tens of thousands of people proclaiming the gospel all over the world. I see a ministry to your generation that is going to be totally unprecedented in the history of the church thus far.'
"I began to tremble as the power of the Holy Spirit came on me. I knew I was hearing from God and yet it was a little bit more than my thirteen-year-old-mind could take in.
"The next night Dwight McLoughlin called me up to the platform and announced to the entire audience of about 1500 people what I was going to do and be. He asked me to say something to the people, but I was hardly able to speak.
"I had almost forgotten the whole event. It was always in my subconscious, I'm sure, but when I walked into PTL and Pastor Buck mentioned that incident, I was absolutely overwhelmed.
"Pastor had been allowed to ask about Living Sound when the angels came to visit, but the answer hadn't come back about the Living Sound. It had come back about me.
"The angel told pastor that before I was ever born God had a specific plan for my life, and an outreach that only I was going to be able to accomplish. In other words, there was a sovereign call on Terry Law, that was distinctly for me.
"Gabriel told Pastor Buck to tell me that the struggles in my young life were ordained and planned by God to get me ready for the ministry.
"Gabriel went on to tell Pastor Buck that my ministry was directly ordained of God and that I would remain on the cutting edge of evangelism in areas where other people could not go. The angels said that the things I had gone through as a youngster prepared me for what was to come and the kind of head-butting I would have to do against people in communist countries who were violently opposed to the gospel that I would preach.
"Gabriel told Pastor Buck that these instances in my life were prepared by the angels. He didn't say exactly how the angels had organized them or been involved with them, but there had been a protective covering and preparation in my life.
"Pastor Buck said Gabriel told him there were two bands of ministering angels who traveled with our team and that is why we have not had accidents or difficulties with health. They have protected us during dangerous times in the midst of the Soviet World.
"Pastor began to tell me that the Living Sound was going to experience a breakthrough in our ministry at the end of the summer. I though it was going to be in Red China because I had just been to Hong Kong, and some doors had begun to open for us there. But the breakthrough was in Russia. Pastor didn't specifically tell me what those open doors would be, but he mentioned that something unusual was going to happen. And it really did happen. We were able to schedule a 33-day tour in Russia and make major contacts with the underground. The ministry was tremendously successful.
"I felt impressed to come out before the end of the tour. I had been traumatized in Russia by facing the officials, living in the razor's edge of danger, not being able to sleep at night, and meeting with the underground churches. I lived knowing that our rooms were bugged. We had to plan our services leaning over a balcony on the fifth floor with a KGB man below pointing a radar mike at us, listening to our whispers.
One of the hardest things I have ever gone through was getting a call from one of Central Assembly's board members at about two o'clock in the morning three days after I had returned home from Russia telling me that Pastor Buck had gone to be with the Lord.
"I was sick but I literally crawled out of bed, got on an airplane and flew to Boise. I wasn't strong, but I felt I had to come.
"Since that time, I've meditated a great deal on our experiences together. I don't feel that it was by accident that the Lord brought me in contact with Pastor Buck. The things the Lord revealed to him about me have been reinforcement for me in my ministry, especially because I am constantly moving in the center of danger.
"I have a sense of assurance in my heart that there is a sovereign call on my life, verified by angelic visitation to Pastor Buck, and this has put me into overdrive. It has been a special experience for me. I know this is why God merged our paths. The Lord knew where I was and also knew that Pastor Buck would be a man who walked with God and be able to sense the call of God on me.
"Our whole friendship has been very sacred and special."
Next: God Knows Your Name