Last summer, Robby Dawkins was bemoaning the fact that American Airlines would not allow him to pray for God to raise from the dead a passenger who died in-flight. Thankfully, no one at the church at which he was ministering in the United Kingdom put such restrictions on the Holy Ghost.
Dawkins, author of Do What Jesus Did: A Real-Life Field Guide to Healing the Sick, Routing Demons and Changing Lives Forever, saw a resurrection from the dead at his April meeting in Northern England. In fact, he was leading the prayer.
The drama started just as he announced the title of his message. That’s when congregant Matt Catlow’s face contorted. His hands withered up and he starting twitching. Sitting next to him, Catlow’s mother started screaming for an ambulance.
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“What I saw was a strong demonic presence over him. His head was contorting and looked to me like it would almost twist, as well as his jaw, face and hands contorting,” Dawkins recalls. “They were drawn up towards his chest and neck. It seemed every muscle was at an extreme strain in his body. He was jerking and twitching severely.”
Dawkins wasted no time responding. He rushed over to Catlow, put his hand on his chest and forehead. Dawkins started binding demonic powers and commanding his body to be loosed in Jesus’ name. He did not see immediate results. In fact, Catlow started turning blue as the life-and-death drama escalated rapidly.
“His lips turned from purple to blue-black. It turns out there was a doctor right beside me and he started praying with me,” explains Dawkins, pastor of Vineyard Church in Aurora, Illinois. “Several people started gathering around. We laid him on the floor and began to rebuke the spirit of death.”
It looked hopeless as Catlow’s pupils become fixed and dilated. According to Dawkins, he heard the death rattle—the sound a dying person makes when fluids accumulate in the throat and upper chest—and then it stopped. Dawkins says the doctor was checking his pulse while he had his hand on the man’s heart. The mother screamed out: “He’s dead. He’s dead.” The doctor confirmed no pulse.
“As I continued to pray I began to bind the spirit of death and say, ‘You can’t have him!’ I began to declare the resurrection life of Jesus Christ over him. People were beginning to get a bit restless but then I could hear his breathing start to recover and his color started to return,” Dawkins says. “His lips that were purplish black started to get less dark. His eyes stopped being fixed and dilated and started to move. We rolled him onto his side at that point to allow his tongue to fall forward, but he was starting to come round.”
Suddenly, Dawkins says, Catlow’s color started returning and his breathing was less labored. He started rolling back and forth and then did something he couldn’t do before the episode—he spoke. Past strokes had left Catlow unable to speak but he was not only raised from the dead, his speech was fully restored.
“I turned him towards me and pulled him into my chest—like a hug—and declared a full impartation of life. He let go and then embraced me again,” Dawkins says. “I did this because I had a friend who had raised the dead and said there is something about the chest-to-chest connection—like in the Bible—that seems to impart life. I continued to pray and break off the enemy’s assignment against him. Some men helped him to the back of the church to wait for the ambulance.”
The experience changed Catlow’s life, but it also changed Dawkins’ life. Up until that day, he had only seen someone raised from the dead on a video.
“My faith for sure took a leap forward. I kept hearing in my head, ‘You can’t do this! Stop or people will accuse you of his death!’ I knew all of this to be the lies of the enemy. I have heard them all before,” Dawkins says. “It’s Satan’s fear he feels about us destroying his kingdom. He launches those thoughts and feelings at us as fiery darts. I feel affirmed by them knowing that the feelings of fear I feel are his feelings about me doing what Jesus did. He should be afraid.”
Click here to read the entire transcript of my interview with Robby Dawkins.
Click here to read part three of this article: What’s Stopping You From Raising the Dead?
Jennifer LeClaire is senior editor of Charisma. She is also director of Awakening House of Prayer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and author of several books, including The Next Great Move of God: An Appeal to Heaven for Spiritual Awakening; Mornings With the Holy Spirit, Listening Daily to the Still, Small Voice of God; The Making of a Prophet and Satan’s Deadly Trio: Defeating the Deceptions of Jezebel, Religion and Witchcraft. You can visit her website here. You can also join Jennifer on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.
