Actor Nick Shakoour, who plays Zebedee in the popular Biblical series, The Chosen, recently spoke about a supernatural encounter that he had with.the Holy Spirit in an interview with CBN.

Shakoour immigrated to the US from Lebanon. His grandfather was a Spirit-filled Greek Orthodox priest.

Though he came from a Christian background, after he accepted the role in The Chosen, Shakoour reached a low point spiritually. To some extent he was questioning God, asking “if this is real, like, where is God? Where is God?’”

During this period, people were telling him to turn to the Bible. But Shakoour wanted more than just head knowledge, he wanted to experience God personally.

This desire was answered through an unusual encounter that he had with the Holy Spirit at a church conference.

But before he got there, Shakoour had what he described as a demonic attack, while driving to the event.

“I actually had a physically tangible, I guess you could call it low energy demonic attack … where I felt like I was being swallowed alive and my body froze,” Shakoour said.

The encounter terrified him and by the time he reached the conference, he was “desperate.”

But he met God through a supernatural encounter with the Holy Spirit at the end of the last service.

The arena was basically empty at this point. But nine people had stayed behind to pray for Shakoour.

“And the next thing I knew, when they placed their hands over me and they were praying in what they called speaking in tongues, all I know is what happened was on a cellular level, my cells started to vibrate and it was like I was in a massage chair, man. Like, it was insane,” Shakoour said.

“A force outside of me was growing larger, and larger, and larger as my body was just almost shivering … quivering in fear. … And, as that was happening.”

Shakoour added that initially he was confused by this supernatural experience, but added it transformed him spiritually.

This is normal Christianity. Most of the great revivals reported unique encounters with the Holy Spirit.

Initially many of the revival leaders had no idea what was going on. This included Johathan Edwards, who was part of the Great Awakening that hit the US in the 1700s.

But eventually he acknowledged that the Holy Spirit was moving in a unique way and described them in his book, “The Distinguishing Marks of the Work of the Spirit of God.”

“It was a very frequent thing”, Edwards wrote, “to see a house full of outcries, faintings, convulsions, and such like, both with distress, and also with admiration and joy.”

Along with this, the Bible describes the many times God moved on people.

We see it when Saul encountered a school of the prophets in 1 Samuel 19:24. It resulted in this backslidden king lying on the ground in what famed Old Testament commentators, Keil and Delitzsch describe “an ecstatic state of external unconsciousness.” Unfortunately, this experience did not change the spiritual character of Saul.

But a similar encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus transformed Saul from a persecutor of the church to one of its greatest apostles.

Moses encountered God in the burning bush. Daniel met God along the Euphrates River. Abraham had several encounters with the Angel of the Lord, who most believe was actually the pre-incarnate Christ. Joseph was receiving and interpreting supernatural dreams.

In the New Testament, people were being filled with the Holy Spirit, casting out demons and healing the sick.

It is clear, that God doesn’t want us to have a dry religion, the Lord wants us to personally experience His power through the Holy Spirit.