Faith & Miracles

Let's get into the Word tonight and let's take our Bibles, like we do around here at Glorious Way, and pick them up and wave them around, make Jesus glad and the devil mad.

Let's say this together Say Heavenly Father, I've tuned in on purpose just to hear what the Word of God has for me tonight.

I'm not listening for someone else.

I have a teachable spirit.

I know I don't know everything, but I want to draw near to you and I want to receive the Word that will build my spirit, strengthen my faith, so that I can accomplish what I'm here to do in Jesus' name.

Amen, amen, all right, let's look at Galatians, chapter three.

Tonight, get out your knife and fork.

You're gonna probably have to use a little.

You know it's not gonna be milk tonight.

You know sometimes you want to drink your dinner, but tonight you're gonna have to cut it up and eat it bite by bite.

Okay, little meat.

Galatians, chapter three, verse one.

Oh, foolish Galatians, who have bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ have been evidently set forth, crucified among you.

And then he asks a series of questions.

This only what I learned of you.

Received you the spirit?

By the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?

Are you so foolish, having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?

Are you so foolish, having begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh?

Have you suffered so many things in vain?

If it be yet in vain, here's another question.

He, therefore, that ministry, you, the spirit, and worketh miracles among you.

Everybody, just stop and say miracles.

Yeah, he that worketh miracles among you, does he do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?

Even as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, remember, abraham called the things that be not as though they were, and it resulted in a great miracle His wife conceived.

So know ye, therefore, that they which are of faith verse seven the same of the children of Abraham, and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify that.

He then, through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham.

How did he do that?

He said in thee shall all the nations be blessed, and so that then, they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

And so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled faith and miracles, because I see a lot of the same tendencies in the Galatian church, in the modern church of the 21st century, especially the church since I got saved 40 plus years ago, been in the ministry 35.

This is my 35th year in the ministry and I've just seen a lot of changes in that time.

And the Galatians moved away from the word, and so have a lot of churches They've moved away from the word.

And he said you know, let me ask you a question Did the one that was ministering the spirit and did the miracles among you, did he do it by works of the law, by the hearing of faith?

See, that's a good question.

The hearing of faith is the word of faith, the word of faith.

Just say that out loud.

The word of faith, See, the word of faith is not a movement, it's not a denomination.

It's the Bible, it is the way that Jesus talked about what faith is.

It's the word of faith.

And so what happened the Galatian churches?

That they substituted what Religion?

They moved away from the word of God in the New Testament and went back to Judaism.

They went back to the works of the law, they went back to trying to please God in the flesh.

They went back to trying to keep the dietary laws and offer up sacrifices of animals and so forth and so on.

You know, it feels good to do something to help yourself.

See, that's what religion does.

Religion works its way to heaven and they become justified in their own.

Well, you know, nobody does it like I do it.

I'm the most worthy person I know.

I do all kind of good works all the time.

Well, you know, christians do good works, but we're not saved by the good works.

The good works are just proof that we are already saved.

So they substituted religion and Paul challenged them further.

He said did you get filled with the spirit by keeping the law or by the hearing of faith, See?

Or we could say, the word of faith.

Well, pastor, it doesn't say word of faith, it says the hearing of faith.

Well, let's keep your place right there.

Turn back to Romans, couple of chapters by, or a couple of books.

Back to Romans 10.

First nine, that if you shall confess for the mouth the Lord Jesus.

So remember now you've got the word in your mouth.

Everybody say the word is in my mouth and you shall believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

So you've got the word on your mouth.

You've got faith in your heart.

Faith believes that God raised him from the dead.

What do you have to say?

You have to say it and you have to believe it.

That is what the word of faith For.

With the heart, man believeth under righteousness.

With a mouth, confession is made unto salvation.

So, whatever it is that you're believing for, if you're believing to be healed, if you're believing to get baptized in the Holy Ghost, if you're believing for favor, if you're believing for, whatever it is that you're believing for, if you have faith in your heart and you confess with your mouth, you're going to get that thing.

Jesus said.

You know, whosoever shall say to this mountain, be thou removed, be thou cast into the sea, shall not doubt in his heart but shall believe that those sayings which he saith shall come to pass.

He shall have whatsoever he saith.

That's the definition of the word of faith.

That's what Jesus preached.

It's not just what Brother Hagin preached, it's not just what I preach, it's not just what Brother Osteen used to preach.

It's what the Bible teaches preachers to preach the word of faith and so that you can have the hearing of faith and those miracles are not going to occur otherwise.

So he asked those questions.

The word of faith, it's so awesome and we see in verse 17, chapter 10, romans 10, 17,.

So then, faith coming by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

If you're not, if you depart from the word and you're not in a place or a church and under a ministry that's preaching the word of faith, then you don't have any faith, you don't have any place for faith to enter into your life.

See, and this is what I've seen, we'll get more into those types of churches later.

Why do I say that?

Because we're in a time right now where people are fed up with religion.

They don't really even know what it is they're fed up with.

They just know something's wrong.

They know they're hungry.

I talk to them every week.

They come by this church.

Some stick, some don't, and my heart breaks for them because it's so terrible not to have a church, not to have a pastor.

And so Paul preached the word of faith.

I mean, you read all the epistles.

That's the word of faith.

It's not a movement.

I've been following a website.

In fact, I've been a pay for the privilege of visiting this website and getting a weekly report from this man.

I won't mention his name because I'm not against him.

I feel sorry for him, but he happens to be a messianic Jew and personally I'm kind of fed up with people that brag on being messianic Jew.

So I'm a messianic German, I'm a messianic Cajun what difference?

Once you're saved, you're no longer Jew or Greek, you're a new creature.

That's what the Bible says.

Quit magnifying your Jewishness.

I don't care, you were Jewish, but then you got saved.

Now you're a new creature.

Quit, always coming from the standpoint of your Jewishness.

See, now, paul did that because, again, that's the first century AD, they didn't have a revelation we have today, and plus, he preached to a lot of Jews.

So on the flip side, I can see if messianic Jews say Jews that are actually born again.

They're preaching to Jewish people.

I can see why they wanna own their Jewish credentials.

I would see why they wanna talk about their former beliefs.

But you're not talking to somebody that cares.

I don't care about your former beliefs.

So he magnified that, and so there were some things on there that I didn't like.

He knew a lot about Israel.

I liked his expertise on Israel.

I liked his expertise on a lot of things, but I knew that he wasn't baptized in the Holy Ghost.

I knew that and I just overlooked that just to get some good, solid background on some things.

And in the last few months he started calling people that I'm partners with part of the word of faith cult.

When he said the word of faith cult, I ripped him off a blistering email.

I rebuked him and I said I'm rebuking you, sir, in the name of Jesus, you need to repent because you blasphemed God right here.

You're so religious and blind.

That's not a cult, that's God's word.

I was so mad so I waited for a month.

I didn't see any change and he came.

I think he must have read the email.

And he came a little stronger and mentioned another one of my people that I love and I exed him off my list.

I don't read him anymore and I quit sending him his $57 a year.

But you know what?

It's time.

You know, pastor, we need to get along.

Well, you know I get along, until somebody's going to blaspheme the Holy Ghost and call what I believe.

Let me tell you something the word of faith.

I treasure what I know.

I treasure the things that I preach that are the word of faith.

Those are things that I didn't have, that were added to me by these great men and women of God that I was brought up on, and it is a treasure.

It'll save you, it'll heal you, it'll keep you free.

Glory to God, it'll prosper you and all this other stuff is just so much religion.

So I see this departure, you know.

And yet he sees a departure from the Bible, but then he lumps in the word of faith as a departure we are.

He went too far when he did that, with me reading it.

So Paul preached the word of faith.

You know, believe God's word in your heart and speak it, confess it.

Word confess means to say the same thing as.

So when you believe in your heart the word of faith and you speak in your mouth the same word of faith, you shall have, whatever you say.

But you do have to believe it, and believing is more than just a mental ascendant.

It's acting like the Bible is true, acting like that word is true.

And I believe that the word of faith acting like that word is true.

An action has to be associated with your belief, and the initial action is always your word, but then it takes more than words.

You have to have a course of action that lines up with what you're believing.

And so then, this is how you got saved.

That's what the Bible says in Romans.

This is exactly how everybody got saved, but it's also how you get healed.

It's also how you get blessed.

It's also how you navigate and get everything that belongs to you, that Jesus bought and paid for.

It's by the Word of faith, and so that's faith and miracles.

You don't have the Word of faith, you don't have any miracles, amen.

So when faith is released, that's when your miracles occur.

Now I know there's gifts of the Spirit, I know that there's nine gifts, and when those gifts are operating, there's a gift of working of miracles.

But it still takes faith to operate in those gifts.

Those gifts don't operate unless there is an atmosphere of faith.

Remember, jesus walked in those gifts.

I mean, he opened blind eyes, he healed deaf ears, he healed the leper, and yet in his own hometown he could there do no mighty work.

And why?

Because of their unbelief.

There was an atmosphere of unbelief and it hindered miracles.

They all needed miracles, just as much as anybody else and any other town.

They didn't respect him.

Because they knew him, they were raised with him and they said who does he think he is.

We know who he is he's the carpenter's son.

So they were offended at him and Jesus marveled at their unbelief.

And he could there do no mighty work except healed a few minor ailments.

One version says he healed a couple of coals and a couple of coughs, and you know there was probably lepers there.

You know there's probably blind people there.

So when faith is released, that's when miracles occurred.

When faith is released, the Holy Ghost shows up.

No Holy Ghost, no miracles.

I'm not even talking about the gifts now.

I'm talking about your faith and my faith.

I'm also talking about corporate faith.

I'm talking about when we come together as a church, having an atmosphere in which miracles occur.

And so let's look at Acts 14.

I'll show you that very thing happening here.

I've been in the book of Acts recently, sparkling with the supernatural.

I wanna see the church get back to the Word of God and get back to the Holy Ghost and quit being ashamed of the Holy Ghost.

Acts, chapter 14, verse eight.

Acts 14 · chapter mention

This is Paul and Silas for doing their missionary travels.

And they're sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked.

I want you to think about that Never had walked.

And he's an adult, so you can imagine his legs.

His legs had to be shriveled up.

You know, if you don't walk, your bones don't develop, your muscles don't develop.

I mean he had never walked.

And so the same heard Paul speak.

What was Paul speaking?

Well, he was speaking the Word of Faith.

He's preaching the Word of Faith because that's what Paul did.

And who steadfastly behold him?

Paul steadfastly beholding him and perceiving that he had faith to be healed.

Keep in mind he'd never walked he's not walking right now, but Paul perceives that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice stand upright on thy feet.

And he leaped and walked over to God and see.

That's not a gift of the spirit, that's not a gift of the spirit.

It's just that he perceived.

Paul perceived didn't say the Holy Ghost showed him, said he perceived he had faith to be healed.

I don't know, they just looked at his countenance.

You know, when I'm preaching up here and looking at people, sometimes I can just see them receiving everything I'm saying.

I can also see people that aren't, you know, in this church.

I've been here pretty good while.

You know, I've been doing this 28 years.

I've been doing this 28 years and I've been preaching to people.

We always have rows of chairs, no matter what building this building we've been in for let's say 2004 or so to now.

It's 18 years.

This past May was 18 years we've been in this building.

So you know, I'll see people and they start off on the first or second row and they're just drinking in what I'm saying.

And then, you know, I noticed one time that they're not quite as excited.

And now they've moved back a few rows and then I look at them and they're not quite as excited.

Sometimes they just have their hands folded like this and I can tell, you know, they've got their guard up.

What's wrong?

What do they doubt?

I'm not preaching anything different.

I've preached.

And the next thing I know they're on the back row.

And the next thing I know I don't see them again.

They're gone.

So I've learned to take note.

But others I see them.

I mean, they're so eager.

In the first building I remember a guy that I knew from Lakewood.

I knew him pretty well and I knew his wife and they came for a few Sundays and I looked at him and he was sitting on the edge of his chair.

He was drinking in everything.

I said he loved it and his wife was like, had her hands folded, kind of looking at the ceiling.

I thought, well, I don't miss the last.

And they didn't.

But I'm talking about an atmosphere For miracles to occur.

And there was atmosphere there because Jesus Paul was preaching the word of faith and he perceived that man had faith to be healed and all he did was tell him to get up, rise up and walk, and he leaped and walked.

Praise God.

He leaped up.

Oh, I'll tell you, right then there was an instant miracle.

But you know, whether it's instant or not, miracles, sometimes we're expecting instant and many times miracles are progressive and they come in stages as people are faithful to believe and hold on to what they know they have and speak it out.

So this cripple had faith to be healed by hearing what Baloney, the law, what he'd always heard better not eat pork, no bacon.

No, he was healed by hearing the word of faith.

And so the logos, this is the logos right here.

This is the logos.

You know, god's word is logos, but the Ramah of God, faith coming by hearing and hearing by the Ramah.

The Ramah is the God breath word.

That's the word that the Holy Ghost makes real to you, and when you believe that in your heart and speak it with your mouth, then it comes to pass.

And I don't know if this cripple man started speaking I'm healed, or what he did.

But I know one thing he obeyed the man of God and he leaped and walked.

So the logos becomes Ramah, as the logos is illuminated by the Holy Ghost.

Let's look at 1 Corinthians, chapter two.

I trust you're getting something out of this.

I'm talking about faith and miracles and I'm just.

You know, my heart is to see the church start, and not just our church, but including our church.

I want to see more miracles.

I believe that's the answer to today's trouble.

The church has got to have that backing up.

God said he'd confirm the word with signs following.

He won't confirm your ideas, he won't confirm your religion, he won't confirm your plans.

He will confirm his word with signs and wonders and miracles.

Every time I come to church, that's what I'm praying and I'm asking God for unction and utterance.

Father, I pray that you'll confirm the word that I'm speaking, the signs, wonders, miracles, gifts of the Holy Ghost, in other words, demonstration.

Let's look at that first.

In first Corinthians, chapter two, paul is speaking to a kind of a backslidden church.

You know they, they came out of the occult and they were very carnal.

They came behind and no good gift.

They had the gifts flowing, but they, you know they were they had a lot of sin, they had a lot of immaturity.

So gifts can come even with an immaturity.

So his job was to make a mature in the word.

So in first Corinthians, chapter two, verse one, I, brethren, when I came to you, came, not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring under the testimony of God, for I determine not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

In other words, here's a guy that's highly educated, sat at the feet of Gimaleo.

He can preach, he could, he can teach circles around anybody about the Old Testament, but he didn't want that.

He wanted to come on his preaching Jesus.

He didn't want to lean on anything else.

And I was with you in weakness and fear and in much trembling.

You know, I used to bother me.

You know what's he talking about.

See, afraid of the crowd?

Is he afraid of the persecution?

Is he afraid of you know what's he afraid of?

Well, he's not really afraid of anything.

What he's talking about is the reverence of the Holy Ghost.

He does not want to say one thing or do one thing that would violate what the Holy Ghost wants to do in any particular moment when he's preaching.

I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, not because of man, not fear of man, but we can call it the fear of God.

But he's not afraid of God, he's.

He's reverencing the, the anointing I think that's a better way to say it.

He's referencing the anointing and you know, if we don't reverence the anointing individually, then we'll just run right over him because he's a perfect gentleman and he will not insist on his prayer and he will not insist on his way.

And you know we have to and I have to.

That's the kind of the way I approach services, that I am a little bit on edge.

I'm a little when I say that.

I'm a little bit when I say careful about the Holy Ghost, I want to make sure he has the lead.

I don't want to.

I don't want to take over and run over him.

He will allow it.

He will just get right out of the way unless you take the lead.

And when you wake up 15 minutes later you're all by yourself and he already left the building, so to speak.

He didn't leave me, but I mean the anointing.

So that's what he's talking about.

He's referencing the anointing and you know what the crowd needs to reverence the anointing.

I mean, if we're going to have miracles in the church and outside of the church, we all have to have that fear of God working in our life, that reverence for the presence of God, and not to do anything that would upset it.

And so my speech, verse four and my preaching was not with enticing or persuasable words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

He didn't want you to have all this faith in a man, even though it's him he doesn't want you to have.

Oh, paul said it must be true.

No, he wanted, he wanted the Holy Ghost to show up in what he called demonstration of the spirit and of power.

Demonstration, demonstrated.

You know, when Paul was preaching, demons came out of people, they came straight out and you know, really, the literal Greek of that means showing off of the Holy Ghost.

He said my preaching and my teaching was with the Holy Ghost showing off, not me.

The Holy Ghost showed off and I reverenced his presence.

I was careful to say and do just exactly what he wanted me to say.

And do you know, jesus said I only do the things I see my Father do.

I only say the things I hear my Father say and say.

It's much that way in our life, not just the preacher, but our believer's lives let's be sensitive I guess we're getting back to the sensitivity of the Spirit of God and let's be more sensitive, and so so that's really the Word of faith.

That's what he preached.

He preached in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.

And what is that?

That's the Word of faith, because that's what people, when they hear it, their faith is built, and their faith is not in man, their faith is in the power of God.

Oh, come on, let's lift our hands.

Thank God, I'm telling you if more of the church would get back to it, and I want our church to develop even more in it.

We're developed in it, but we can all.

There's always room for improvement.

I just have a burning desire to see us go up.

I know there's been a shifting in the atmosphere in this country because of the decisions that we made at the ballot box over the last few years, and it took a while for those to get in.

But, you know, we elected the right president in 2016, donald Trump, and he then in turn appointed some pretty good people to the Supreme Court and because of that, we've got the right decisions here in the last few days and because of that, there's been a shifting in God's hand is coming back on this country and there's a blessing, more and more blessing coming, and that also means that more and more people are going to get saved.

They been.

Everybody say signs, wonders and miracles.

So you know, in my experience in the modern church I've just been watching this now for a number of years, since God told me to wake up the church and even before that you've got two ditches for every mile of road.

You've got a ditch on each side.

So two miles of ditches for every mile of road, and so one ditch is little or no word or little or no Holy Ghost.

And so what kind of church is?

Well, I just think about a guy that 30 years ago, started almost like a denomination.

It was a type of church called Seeker sensitive, and his brilliant idea was that he wanted to go to Chicago, not in the inner city, not where the poor people are, but out in suburbs where the rich people are.

And he and he did a demographic survey and asked people and paid a bunch of money for it.

He had a bunch of money people gave him and he spent time doing a survey.

And what are the reasons why you don't go to church?

And people said, well, it's, you know, it's boring.

Number two it takes too long.

Number three you know, blah, blah, blah.

You know all the other reasons and basically it's people that don't love God, people that are not saved, people that aren't saved, don't want to go to church.

Even if they go to church and are not saved, they don't really want to go.

They might go for business reasons, they might go for social reasons, they might go to, you know, see if they can hook up with somebody or something like that, but it's carnal reasons.

They don't go for God.

So you get this list of stuff and they made a church that would appeal to those type of people and they and the numbers, they were successful, but they failed because none of those people would ever work in the church?

None of them.

You had a constant flow in and a constant flow out.

You just had changes.

It didn't matter what, how much extravaganza, it didn't matter how many dancers that you hired to twirl around the platform and to the music and their little Fufu cloth costumes and their ballet slippers, and it didn't matter.

You know how many jokes were told and it didn't.

You know it was just a flesh display with practically no Bible and it failed.

And he admitted later, took him 25 years to admit he failed.

His wife is anti-Semitic, done a lot of damage to Israel all by herself because of all the influence they had.

But no unction, no utterance, no substance.

Well, pastor, I've never been to a church like that.

Well, there's degrees of all of it and I have to say that a lot of churches, so you even charismatic churches.

You don't hear the word charismatic much anymore.

It's kind of an old word, it's kind of dated.

So instead they picked up spirit fail.

So they'll advertise.

I talked to people how did you find out that you wanted to come here?

Well, I was looking for spirit field church.

I said how many of them have you been to?

He said oh, this is the first one.

That really was.

They go to spirit field churches and there's no spirit.

And so you have those kind of churches that advertise their spirit field but they're not.

They might have the gifts A lot of times they have prophecies and they're one on one prophecies.

There's teams of people prophesying over other individuals.

Personal prophecy, that's out of order.

Nobody does that in this church and if I ever find out about somebody prophesying to another person, you know they'll get rebuked and we don't do that.

That's not in the Bible.

It's the prophecy is for the whole church, it's not for one on one.

I may prophesy over someone, but then I'm.

It's different.

I'm a full time ordained minister for many, many years experience, and I don't do it very often at all.

Anyways, it's not something that happens just on, you know, drop of a hat Very seldom.

So these churches have gone to seed on the gifts.

In fact, really, they're not gifts of the spirit, they're mostly familiar spirits and they're demonic, really more witchcraft than it is Holy Ghost.

And I've seen these churches, you know, and they try to teach people how to do it.

Well, yes, there's no gifting.

So you might preach half of a verse.

Most of the preaching is a testimony, long testimonies.

Oh, praise and worship is an hour, you know, after an hour of, people do almost anything.

I mean so.

But, pastor, hundreds of people came to the altar.

I went to those meetings.

I had a guy that wanted to go Kansas City to some meeting.

I said no, he was working for me at the time.

I said no, you can't go.

What do you mean?

You can't go.

You work for me and I'm telling you you can't go.

It's not God and I don't want you up there getting polluted and bringing it back to our church.

So no, you can't go.

I'm not used to people telling me what I said.

I said that's your problem.

You know he didn't last.

So you know I see things and I know when I, when I see something you know, and not everything that's on God TV is God.

You better be careful what you're watching.

On Christian television I like the victory channel.

You know I kind of depend on the victory channel myself and Brother Copeland.

But boy, some of these, some of these are flakos.

Pastor, why are you preaching like this?

We cause we've got to get back to the word of faith.

We've got to get back to the real Holy Ghost.

We've got to get back to reverencing God, can't just?

You know, that's the other thing all these churches that I'm talking about have in common they don't reverence the presence of God because he's not there anyway for them to reverence.

They wouldn't know it if he showed up.

So then you have the other ditch.

This is all in one ditch.

The other ditch is churches that do have the Bible, their Bible churches, community churches.

You know they're, they're kind of like a Baptist church, without, without the back.

Southern Baptist or any other Baptist denomination they don't have, they're non denominational.

So they have mass grade, is not, and I guess they are non denominational, but but they they're.

They may be evangelical, but there is just, it's just the word and no spirit.

The word and no spirit.

Let's look at a second.

Corinthians three kind of describes these churches, and I've seen lots of those too.

At least they preach the word, but with the word, without the spirit, without unction, without demonstration, without reverence of the Holy Spirit.

See again, the Holy Spirit a lot of times is not even the word, isn't the one it.

But if you haven't spent any time preparing, are you with me now?

Second Corinthians, chapter three, verse five.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God, who have also, who have also made us able ministers of the new Testament, not of the letter but of the spirit, for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

So a lot of these Bible churches, community churches, that type of church is non denominational, lots and lots of those.

They're not affiliated with any denomination.

There's really not any credentials necessary, they're just out there on their own.

They have their own traditions.

And Jesus said the traditions of men rendered the Word of God in an effect.

Without the Holy Ghost, the letter of the Word killeth.

Only the spirit can giveth life.

If there's no Holy Ghost, where's the Ramah?

There's no Ramah.

So you just preach the logos, logos, just preach the logos without really rightly dividing.

And you've already ripped out the part about the baptism of the Holy Ghost and said that doesn't apply for today.

You've already torn out the place where it says lay hands on the sick.

Laying hands on of hands is a doctrine of the church, according to Hebrews chapter five, but they don't lay hands on anybody.

So you see, when you start tearing pages out of your Bible and preaching the rest of it, maybe you get somebody saved?

I don't know.

I'm not their judge, I don't know, but I've just seen that that's not where miracles are going to occur.

We're talking about faith and miracles.

And the Word of faith will produce miracles when you believe it in your heart and speak it through your mouth.

So, uh, just to wrap this up, been preaching a while here, a little bit longer than I thought, but it's me, so it takes time to cut it up a little bit.

You can look at it later.

For faith and miracles to occur.

Number one let's look at Mark four and read through what Jesus had to say.

This was the chapter where the sower sows the word and he was telling the parable, you know.

And he talks about the four kinds of dirt.

Three kinds of dirt have a crop failure, only one produces a crop.

And then he gets down to 23, verse 23, for Mark four, 23.

It says if any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

Do you suppose he's talking about these ears?

He's talking about your spiritual ears.

He's talking about your heart.

If you have ears to hear, what the word of faith?

He didn't say it, but that's what he means.

If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.

And he said of them take heed what you hear, with what measure you meet.

It shall be measured to you again and unto you, that here shall more be given for he that hath hath what hath heard, he that hath heard to him shall be given, and he that hath not heard, from him shall be taken, even that which he hath heard.

So what does all that mean?

These are three things I want to talk about to wrap up, having faith and miracles to occur.

Number one you have to have ears to hear.

So you just determine when you're going to church.

Hey, I'm, I'm teachable.

I don't know everything.

I'm going to come with an attitude of humility.

I'm coming with a right relationship.

I'm going to make sure that I don't wait to get to church to get right with God.

If I've been fussing with my wife, I'm going to repent beforehand.

They don't bring all your sin into the, into the church.

You know, just get, get right with God first.

I'm talking about an atmosphere now and, as as far as that's concerned, keep short accounts with God, because you never know who you're going to meet on the street.

You might meet somebody that's ready to get saved and you've got all this unforgiveness and you know anger and you built up in you and all this let's, let's, let's get ourselves lined up with God's word and and accept his righteousness, which is by faith, and then that way, when we meet people, we're ready, we don't feel condemned ourselves, we can help others.

So have that, have ears to hear, be in right relationship with God and stay that way If you ever fall out of relationship with him or fall out of, I should say, fellowship with him.

And what does that?

Well, sin does lack of love.

Not walking in love is the main thing, not walking in forgiveness.

Get it right and be correctable, be teachable.

Don't wear your feelings on your sleeve when you come to church.

See, we're talking about having ears to hear.

And then number two hear.

That's what he said having ears to hear, hear, open your hearing and listen.

Don't listen for somebody else.

Oh, I wish Carol was here.

Oh, I wish Jenny was here.

Oh, I wish Fred was here.

No, you're listening for you, it's your ears and the message is for you.

Sometimes I find I used to find it helpful to me.

I said, man, this message is right for me.

I might not feel like it was, it might feel like I don't know why he's preaching.

One thought might have been I don't know why he's preaching this, and then I just say, boy, this message is just for me.

See, I would correct my thinking, because that thought didn't come from me.

That thought came from the devil trying to get me distracted and get me out of sync with what the anointing is bringing.

Amen.

So hear for yourself, not others.

You know, three groups of people heard and they had a crop failure.

Only one group heard and they brought forth fruit, and that was varying some 30, some 60, some 100 fold.

So you have more to do with your crop than anybody, your attitude.

So hear, have ears to hear.

Then hear.

Mix faith, in other words, with what you hear.

Hebrews four, one and two, you know mix faith.

You know the children of Israel didn't mix faith with what they heard.

They heard, they all heard.

It's a promised land, it's where you're, I'm going to give you, I'm giving it to you.

But they didn't mix faith with it.

So mix faith with what you hear.

And then it says take heed.

Jesus said this, it's written red in my Bible Take heed what you hear.

And you could say it this way Take heed how you hear it.

In other words, a lot of times we hear things and we don't quite understand what we just heard.

So that's when we've got to be careful.

Give benefit to the preacher In this case, give me benefit of the doubt, because I think I've earned it.

I've been around a long time.

If I misspoke, I think I can come back around and own it, but under the anointing you know when I'm speaking it's better for you to doubt your doubts and do some additional study and find out what it is that I really was saying.

And he said if, if, again, jesus hometown, they, they got in the way of it.

They said who does he think he is?

See, they couldn't doubt that he did all the miracles.

They didn't doubt that all the stuff that occurred.

But here he is, in their midst and instead of hearing what he had to say and receiving it, they dishonored him.

Who does he think he is?

We know who he is.

Isn't this the carpenter's son?

So they didn't want to.

They didn't want to receive him.

They didn't want to receive him.

And so Jesus said if you do hear, then more is going to be given you to hear.

But you start raising questions and you start saying I don't know about that.

Well, I don't know about that.

I don't know about that.

I remember one time I had a guy that came in.

He was a law enforcement officer.

He came with a friend of his and it was a Wednesday night and I had a word of knowledge.

You know, somebody's got a big, some kind of a growth on top of your hand and God wants to heal that.

I don't know if it's a rash or a boil, I'm not sure exactly what I'm seeing here, but right on top of your, I think I said right hand.

Well, his friend that was a member of the church, he noticed the guy had that and he was hiding.

When I said that, he put his other hand on top and he didn't want to admit that he had it and so he held boys up he's talking about you, get up there and he kind of reluctantly came up.

He didn't, he didn't like it.

Really, he didn't like you know, he wasn't used to this, he wasn't used to what I was saying, he wasn't, he'd never seen this.

And God healed him, I mean right there, instantly.

It disappeared, you know, and his eyes big.

And he came another time or two and he just he couldn't.

He didn't like what I was saying, and God healed him.

See, he just had his own idea.

See, he didn't want to hear.

He didn't want to hear what was behind that miracle.

He didn't want to hear the teaching that would have helped him keep it.

I don't even know if he still has a hand left or not by now.

You know, I've seen it all pretty much.

So if you do hear, then more is on the way for you.

More revelation, more rama, more results are on the way for you.

If you hear in the healing area, guess what you can hear in the financial area.

You can hear in the relationship area.

God can heal your marriage.

God can heal your relationship with your children, amen.

But if you don't hear, then even what you've heard will be taken from you.

Do you think it's Jesus that takes it from you?

Do you think it's God that?

No, it's the devil that takes it from you.

He's the thief.

It's not God punishing you, it's law.

These are laws that Jesus said in the motion when he was on the earth.

And so this law of faith, the word of faith, oh, come on, let's lift our hands, father.

We thank you for the word of faith.

I want to wrap this up by just.

You know, I often just tell God, thank you for having me hook up when I got saved in a word of faith, church, that I was able to get more skillful in the word of faith.

I'm not saying I've arrived, but I've learned a few things.

I've operated in it.

It's operated in my life successfully, in my life of my children, grandchildren even, and I'm so grateful for the Shoulders of the men and women that I stand on because I, without them, obeying God.

I think about this one thing.

I was reading Brother Hagan the other day and God spoke to him Back in the early days when, when, really in most Pentecostal churches, they only recognized the evangelist and the pastor.

So if you were in the traveling ministry, it meant that you were an evangelist.

And if you're evangelist, what do you do?

Well, you preach, preach, preach and you spit cotton.

And there's got to be miracles.

Well, brother Hagan had some miracles, all right, and he was a preacher, but God called him a prophet and a teacher.

That's what God told him he was.

And it came time for him to resign his church and go on the field.

He's so he tried to do the evangelist ministry and he wasn't paying the bills.

He couldn't get enough money in, he couldn't get enough dates in.

And he went to the Lord and Lord said where you're not obeying me, you're preaching.

And I told you to teach my people faith.

You're not teaching, you're still preaching.

He said God, I can't make a living on teaching.

Nobody wants teachers.

Most of them only recognize the evangelist and the pastor.

I'm not a pastor, I must be an evangelist.

That I told you what you were and I just got out there and obey me.

So when he launched out to start teaching, say that was a huge move for him.

He had to just believe God against all of what was going on in those years.

And not only did they not recognize the teacher, they didn't even recognize the prophet, but he had to function in those, in those offices.

And when he did, you know, the God opened doors for him.

More and more people started calling him to preach and by the early 60s God said okay, I want you to stop preaching in local churches and I want you to go to neutral sites in the towns that I call you to and I want you to do meetings outside the local church, because the churches are at war with one another.

If you go to a church on one side of the city, even though they don't have the same crowd, you know, a church wouldn't be a couple hundred people's about.

Big church would be 500 max.

In those years you didn't have mega churches and so one church on the north side of the town they might have 200 people, the totally different crowd.

And that meant that he couldn't go on the south side with a different Denomination because they get insulted that they were coming and wouldn't come into their church, you know, and they didn't invite him anyway, see.

So they had this war going on.

So in order to alleviate that, god said go to a neutral site, go to a Hotel ballroom, go to a you know whatever a VFW haul, go to some neutral site and have your meetings and then just advertise locally and have whoever comes come.

And so he reluctantly separated from local church.

See, god knows how to get the word of faith out.

Well, these are all years, days gone by, and and what we stand on right now are the shoulders of men like that that obeyed God when it was hard to do.

And you know, I admire all of them, but mostly I just treasure the word of faith.

Hallelujah, let's receive the word of God tonight.

Thank you, lord.

We give you praise for the word of faith.

We reverence you.

Holy Spirit, more of you and less of us.

In Jesus name.