The Miracle Of Increase

your Bibles up, let's wave them around.

Make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, I'm so glad to be in alignment with you as I stay close to the Word filled with the Holy Ghost.

I can't miss, I overcome all circumstances, I'm overcoming all the contrary winds and I'm blessed and can't be cursed in Jesus' name, amen, all right.

Well, I got to preaching this morning on defrost your faith and because it's Thanksgiving day, don't forget to defrost your turkey before you cook it and make sure you pull the stuff out of it before you put it in the oven.

Just a public service message from the app, the app store, but tonight anyway, I got to talking about the loaves and fishes a little bit this morning and made me want to preach on it.

I was reminded while I was preaching this morning that once I preach three hours, I won't preach three hours on this subject tonight.

There's a lot in it.

So let's look at a different chapter John, chapter 6, and I'm talking about the miracle of increase.

John 6 · chapter mention

You know the loaves and fishes and you know there's such a thing as the double enunciation of God.

You know where Saul, saul, why persecute us, thou and me, and so forth.

You know, whenever Jesus would, verily, verily, whenever he would say something twice, it was the double enunciation of God.

It's like you could underline it.

This is true, and so this is, this is something to pay attention to.

So this miracle of increase is twice.

And Jesus, minister, we have other miracles of increase.

Elijah had one, elisha had one, jesus had two, where you had the five loaves and the two fish, fed 5,000 men.

You had the four loaves and, and the fish didn't tell you how many, that fed the 4,000.

In each case, the first one, you had 12 baskets left.

The second one, you had seven baskets left.

And so what is that?

That double enunciation means that we need to pay attention to that.

It's not just in there to to make us go, wow, it's.

It's.

It's useful for us to keep in mind that the miracle of increase is available to us, to to believe God for what he has given us, that he can, in our hands, he can multiply it, multiply the effect of it.

So let's look at John, chapter six, verse one.

After these things, jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberius, and a great multitude followed him.

Why?

Because they saw his miracles which he did on them that were diseased.

See, they were after the miracles, and Jesus went up into a mountain and there he sat with his disciples, and the Passover, the feast of the Jews, was near.

So when Jesus then lifted up his eyes and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, when shall we buy bread that these may eat?

Loaded question, Loaded question.

Why was it loaded?

Because he's just locating where they are, locating their faith, locating where they're.

See their alignment, see if they're synchronized.

Where shall we buy bread that these may eat?

And this he said to prove him, for he himself knew what he would do.

And Philip answered him and said 200 penny worth of bread's not sufficient for them, that every one of them may take a little.

One of his disciples, andrew, simon, peter's brother, saith unto him there's a lad here which hath five barley loaves and two small fishes.

But what are they among so many?

And Jesus said make the men sit down.

Matthew.

It says, make them sit in companies of 50.

And so if they did sit in companies of 50, and you had, let's just say you had 5,000 men and a wife for each one and kids for each one, I think 20,000 is a conservative number of people.

So you know, engineer that I am, I want to do the math on that 50.

That's 400 groups of 50.

Now 400 groups for 12 disciples means you had each disciple had 33 groups.

Now you wouldn't wade into 20,000 people and just start handing out food.

You got to get them.

You know God wanted to know, wanted them to see the multiplication factor.

You'd get lost in a sea of 20,000.

But when you've got them arranged and companies of 50, and you've got one man standing in front of those 50 people, then you know, then you've got a definite multiplication factor.

Are y'all with me now?

So he said make them sit down.

And now there was much grass in the place.

So the men sat down in the number about 5,000.

And Jesus took the loaves and when he'd given thanks he distributed to the disciples.

He distributed the bread and the fish to the disciples.

He distributed, he supplied.

Everybody say he's my supply.

And likewise are the fishes as much as they would.

So let's break that down.

It's a little confusing.

Say, because he gave first of all, he only had, he only had two fish, so that wasn't as much as they would.

I mean that after the multiplication started.

See, originally, all he's given the disciples is what he had.

He didn't multiply it from him to the disciples.

The multiplication happened in the hands of the disciples Are you with me now?

It happened in their hands, right, because Jesus gave them charge of it.

So, 12 disciples, you've got five barley loaves, you know.

So that's five, twelves, five barley loaves, 12, you know, disciples, all right.

So you'd have to multiply.

How many, how many?

How much of a loaf is that?

See, that's about.

You know, five divided by 12 would be like 40% or something like that of a loaf.

If the loaf was a big loaf, like two foot long.

40% of a two foot long loaf is not even a foot long.

I mean, it's just barely about, like that, that much bread.

And then you've got the two fish divided by 12.

That's one sixth of a fish.

Let's just make the fish 24 inches, for you know easy math, that means a four inch piece of fish and a six inch or eight inch piece of bread.

I mean, you could just have a fish sandwich and give the whole thing to the first person and that's it, you're done.

But what did they do?

Well, they broke off of the little piece of fish and the little piece of bread and gave it to each person, and they'll just say that there's 50 of them.

I mean, you know, you just go down the line.

Here's a little bit for you.

Here's a little bit for you.

Here's a little bit for you.

Now you've gone through the whole 50 and you're going to the next group of 50 and you look at your hands.

Man, I still got fish.

You shouldn't brag.

How did that happen?

See, they just kept on going.

They kept on going, didn't they?

They kept on going, they didn't stop.

You got 20,000 people to feed.

You don't stop.

You just keep going, don't you?

Can you imagine the riot would take?

I mean, if people are really hungry, they might be pressing to the front.

All that, all right.

So it says the people ate as much as they would.

It says, and when they were filled, they had to fill up.

Now, you'd think they just had a snack, but no, they got filled up.

So how many more trips did the disciples make?

I mean, they must have been working pretty hard, huh?

I mean, they went down the end of the line and by the time they finished, 50 people.

They had another group of 50, then they had another group of 50 times 33 groups of 50 each.

How do you fill that many people a little more so at a time?

You've got to work.

I mean there's a lot of work to get all that fish broke off and given to them.

They didn't feed their face all at once is what I'm trying to say.

I hate a little snack worth long enough until they were what filled.

They were filled.

Everybody said they were filled.

And then so, when they were filled verse 12, he said unto his disciples gather up the fragments that nothing be lost.

Therefore, they gathered them together and filled 12 baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.

And then those men which had seen the miracle that Jesus did said this is of a truth, that prophet that should come into the world.

So the miracle of increase.

I just wanted to give you seven facts tonight about this miracle of increase, because you know this is related to the gospel to the poor.

You know we God always shows you a need bigger than you can meet, and you've got to get a handle on how important it is to get started.

Get started with what you had, you know in John 20, let's hold our place there.

In John 6, flip over to John 20.

I want you to see this Verse 30.

I believe this is where the church is gonna start to make a move in the harvest time.

He says here in verse 30, and many other signs.

Truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book.

In other words, he did a whole lot more than what's written In another place.

John said I would say that the world itself couldn't contain the books.

It could be written about what Jesus did while he was in three and a half years of ministry.

He said the world itself couldn't contain the books.

So he was a busy man.

He said.

But these are written.

See, there's many that weren't written.

But these, these that we're reading tonight, this one tonight is written that you might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name.

Well, if the church would start doing the things that Jesus did, we wouldn't have so much trouble with people believing in Jesus.

As long as the church is broke, as long as the church is ineffective, as long as the church is asleep, I mean, nobody's persuaded about Jesus.

They're not persuaded of his reality.

But when the church starts to rise up and do the mighty works, greater works, amen, all right, so let's let's examine these seven facts.

First one, and in the first five verses, I like to say it this way Jesus is interested in the nitty gritty of life.

He just noticed that these people had followed him into the wilderness and he's interested in their welfare.

He had already healed their sick.

He had done this great work and supernatural work.

That's the main thing.

But now I mean they're not gonna starve to death in 24 hours, they're not gonna die in the wilderness.

I mean he's interested in the fact that they're probably hungry and they're gonna get hungrier before they can get back to the house, and he wants to supply, he wants to feed them.

I said he wants to feed them.

He's interested in the nitty gritty.

He's interested in things that you know.

I just didn't know that when I was a Catholic boy, I was a.

I was an altar boy.

I spent a lot of time at the Catholic church.

I served mass when I was 10 years old, all the way until I was 14, 15 years old.

I trained altar boys.

I hung around the priests and the nuns, and I never knew that Jesus was interested in little things.

I just never.

It never occurred to me to pray for him to help me pass a test or for him, and later on, when I got to be an adult, I never prayed about my business.

I never asked him to help me sell one of my houses.

I didn't think God was interested in my houses.

There's a lot of people like that.

They don't know that God is interested in every little thing.

He doesn't, he doesn't miss anything and he cares about little things.

If he cares about little things, he certainly cares about big things.

And so he had healed them and now he's concerned for their hunger.

I like what Mark six says he had compassion on them.

See, this same miracle is in John, it's in Matthew, it's in Mark.

He had compassion on them as sheep without a shepherd.

He looked at them and he just his heart yearned for them.

They're like a sheep, they're like sheep for a shepherd, and you know, shepherds they care about their sheep, they care about whether they're cared for, and he did that.

So the first thing that you have to notice here in verses one through five, is you've got to identify the challenge, don't hide from the challenge.

Jesus didn't hide from the challenge and he wouldn't let his disciples hide from the challenge.

He said where can we buy bread to feed 20,000 people?

He saw the challenge and he wanted to see if his disciples were lined up.

And they weren't.

No, they weren't See, still, like we talked about this morning, I mean, he'd already given them power over all demons and to cure diseases.

You know, in John and Matthew, chapter 10, the 12 and the 70, they all went out with that power and they came back to Jesus.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

Give him a report.

Oh Jesus, even the demons are subject unto us in thy name.

They were so thrilled with the power of the Holy Ghost.

It was manifest and Jesus had given them authority.

He didn't take it back.

He said, okay, I'm taking my authority back, nevermind.

So they missed the opportunity to take authority and to say, yeah, okay, jesus, you said to feed them, we're gonna feed them.

What do we got?

No, see they.

He did find.

They did look.

They did look for the food.

They only found one little boy's lunch is all they found.

So they, you have to identify the challenge.

Don't hide from the challenge.

Don't act like the challenge isn't there.

Don't hide your head in the sand like an ostrich and ignore the trouble or the problem.

Identify it, because let me tell you something God already knows it's there and he cares.

Do you care?

That's the question.

All right then.

Then I see here in verse five you know Jesus questioned the disciples to locate their faith.

You know here, show you needs greater than you have the ability to meet 70% of the world population's unsaved.

What do we got now?

Six billion or something.

Is that the figure?

Let's just assume it's six billion.

I haven't seen a figure lately but 70%, that's 4.2 billion people are unsaved.

I mean that's a pretty large amount, isn't it?

I mean, when you think about 4.2 billion, I mean that's a pretty large amount, isn't it?

I mean about 4.2 billion people that are dying and going to hell.

And then in those areas they're the ones that are having babies.

In America we're having fewer babies, and so you go to places like India and Middle East.

I mean they're multiplying faster than you get people saved.

So the number of people lost is increasing as every decade goes past.

It's a need greater than we can meet in the natural.

That's why we what Need a supernatural plan.

So you identify the challenge and then you need to receive the strategy.

You know, okay, we've got 4.2 billion people.

What do we got to do?

Well, we have to go and we have to send others.

That's what we have to do.

We have to go and we have to send.

How do we go and send with that many people?

Well, we've got to have a miracle of increase and we got to have a level of obedience among the people.

Laborers in the harvest, are you with me now?

So you identify the challenge and then you receive the strategy.

The strategy is what Go and send?

In their case, the strategy was to break off little pieces of bread and fish and feed 20,000 people.

It seems crazy.

It seems just like are you kidding?

12 men are going to go out here among 20,000 people and break off a little bit like that until everybody is gorged.

They got filled, they didn't just get a little snack, they got filled.

So they identified the challenge, they received the strategy.

You know, god spoke to me years ago when we moved in this building, had architect design the campus.

You know, at the time we had 85 acres total and I thought then we found out we didn't really, because they had, we had a, you know, immovable.

At the time when we moved in this building, we had a big old easement right through this.

Through it.

It's going to be very difficult, but we had enough room for 10,000 seats sanctuary, and that's what I thought we would do.

I thought we'd just build 10,000 seats right here and it took me about a year to find out that that wasn't God's plan.

He said you're going to build a barn for the harvest and this isn't it.

And I thought, oh boy, it wasn't.

It wasn't what I wanted to hear, but I mean, you know.

So it gave us release.

It gave us a release.

Then you know to start thinking about selling the excess property.

If this is all you want to do, we don't need all this property.

There's no point sitting here with all this property, which worth money.

We can pay the loan off.

And, of course, one thing happened after another.

It was a real battle to get in position and alignment.

Boy, you talk about position and alignment.

For that to happen it took years.

I said it took years.

We acquired this property in 2003.

And we didn't sell the excess property until 2018, 17, something like that.

So it took over a decade.

Lawsuits it took I don't know how.

It took a lot of prayer.

It took a lot of aligning, aligning with God and synchronization, but it happened.

And let me tell you something.

God said we're going to build a barn for the harvest.

Just like we possess this land and paid this mortgage off, we're going to build a barn for the harvest.

How in the world can a group of this size build even a bigger building what we have now?

We hadn't even filled this one.

I don't know, but I know it's the miracle of increases.

What's going to happen?

I'm not going to hide from the problem.

I'm not going to stick my head in the sand and act like God didn't tell us how to do it.

Amen.

We're a regional center.

I think more of you believe that now than you did before.

We're impacting areas of town that are way outside this local area, even areas of the state and the country.

I was interviewed recently and it went all over the country again.

It went into the Washington my statement about the election, about the religious freedom amendment in the Texas Constitution.

I made a statement and it went all the way to the Washington post.

How many of you know, the Washington post is not a very friendly newspaper amen to Christians.

But there I was, hallelujah, amen.

So you know, we're starting to break off what we have and put it out there.

And we're starting to break off a revelation and put it out there.

And we're starting to break off things and put a post on the Facebook page and people all over 8,100 followers.

Now I'm on my page.

That's amazing, 8,100 people follow me on Facebook and I'm not teaching them how to make their face up.

Like Dominique, you know, she's got I don't know 10 million people that watch her put makeup and so she's getting so rich she could retire and just go on being an internet star.

I'm not trying to do that.

I'm trying to do what I'm breaking off what God has given me and I'm putting it out there.

We are, we are Amen.

Are y'all getting this now?

All right.

So they and then in verse nine through 11, they actually start the process and the bottom line is we have to do the possible and God does the impossible.

We do the natural, god does the supernatural.

They actually had to take that, that little boy's lunch.

Jesus did bless it.

Jesus did divided up among the 12 apostles, but you know, I think we've all gotten the idea that Jesus is the one that multiplied it.

Well, really, he distributed it and they'd multiplied it.

It multiplied in their hands.

I'm not saying Jesus didn't perform the miracle.

It was his faith, but yet his hands didn't do it.

Their hands did.

Are y'all, are y'all with me now?

And they had to have enough faith to keep breaking all fish and bread for 33 groups of 50 each.

I wanted you to see the magnitude of what kind of work it was.

I mean, it wasn't just slam dunk, it wasn't just standing up here and throwing out a you know a few loaves like that, throw a few fish out.

No, they had to break it off.

They had to go down the line and get each mouth chewing something, and they had to do it over and over until everybody was full.

Are y'all?

Are y'all right?

Are y'all with me now?

So we do the possible, he does the impossible.

We do the natural, he does the supernatural.

We have to do something.

We have to put our little, whatever it is we have.

What is our supply?

It's little compared to the need.

Always, our supply, our, our little, is always small compared to the need.

Every time, all the time, some people that are intimidated by the size of the need, don't do anything.

They rob themselves of being a witness of the miracle of increase.

So put your little in the master's hand.

Just think about the woman with the jar.

She didn't have enough either.

All she had, just little bit of oil in her house is all she had.

Okay, go borrow a bunch of jars, get your house full of jars and start pouring out.

Did the?

Did Elisha work the miracle?

No, he spoke the miracle and she worked it.

She's the one that poured out and she kept poured out and she went down and she poured out and she poured out and she poured out.

She poured out every, every, just.

She filled every jar in her house and when she didn't have another jar to fill, that's when it stopped and there wasn't another mouth to feed.

That day it stopped.

Go back to Elisha or Elijah rather and the widow at Zarephath.

They had a miracle of of increased every single day for a year.

He said you know you, you baked me a little cake first.

In other words, you tied you, you honor God with the first fruits.

And he said the meal will not run out, the cruise of all will not go dry until the Lord sends rain in Israel, and she and her son and and the prophet, ate for a whole year, but every day when she cooked, that's when the miracle happened.

It, you know an 18 wheeler didn't pull up to her house filled with with meal and you know all that.

She didn't get a tanker a full of oil delivered.

No, every day that she went to cook is when the, when it replenished, and so 365, however many times she cooked in a day, I don't have any time she cooked, but she had a miracle of inquiry.

So, jesus, listen, this is a law.

It's in here twice.

We have the same law.

We have the same supernatural available to us.

What I'm trying to get over to you Right now is the greatest opportunity will ever see Inflation going through the root.

Don't be intimidated by inflation.

We got a supply.

I'm telling you inflation.

I don't care whether I don't care if it's $10 a loaf, I Don't care.

Fish is $50 a pound.

I'm telling you, we'll have plenty of money to do whatever we need to do.

We're gonna put together the work miracle of increase.

So a little boy's lunch fed 20,000 people.

And so we have to act and speak the word.

That's what the disciples did.

They acted on the word that Jesus told me Jesus had feed them and they acted on it.

Oh, you got enough here.

I'll be right back, I'm gonna.

I got some more for you.

Let me get over here on this side, I'm coming right back.

Yeah, they're going back and forth.

Just think about the activity.

I mean it, I'm telling you, man, it must have been some kind of a site.

I wish we had a video To see those 12, 12, 12 men.

I don't.

I want you the magnitude 33 groups.

Whoo glory to God.

We're proving in this over and over again.

You know it.

We might make it work once, and then we kind of get overwhelmed sometimes we forget these things.

That's why I'm teaching it.

I Like what brother Bill Deerman used to say.

He was director of missions at Lakewood and I was so privileged to get close to him and his latter days and he'd say this.

He'd say we can't do everything, but we can do something, and we must do something lest we do nothing.

I've never forgotten it all these, all these years.

It's an absolute truth.

You have to do something lest you do nothing.

Just what?

What is the little boys lunch among so many?

And so he proved it.

It was enough, it was enough.

Whatever your supply is, it might be equivalent to a little boys lunch is enough, it's enough if you'll start breaking off pieces of it and meeting the need that you have.

Meeting the need that you have, all right.

So in verse 11, he, jesus, took the loaves.

When he'd given thanks, he distributed the disciples, of disciples of them that were set down, and likewise the fishes, as much as they would, as Much as they would, and when they were filled, see, they were filled.

So they didn't just have a snack, they were filled.

So, jesus, miracle of increase is all about multiplication and abundance.

You know, multiplication is one thing, abundance is another.

I Mean he could have multiplied it and gave them all a snack, but no, he multiplied it To such a degree that they had more than enough.

Jesus came that you might have life and life more abundantly.

That is Superior and quality, super abundant in quantity.

I would say that he supplied the super abundant and quantity there for sure, because they had 12 baskets left over.

They were all filled, not just, you know, they didn't just get a little snack, they were all filled.

And after they were all filled 20,000 people they had 12 baskets left over.

So it's all about what?

Multiplication and abundance.

Let's say that multiplication and abundance, multiplication and abundance, see, adding Won't do it, it takes multiplication.

You know they don't use multiplication tables anymore, but when I was in school we had multiplication tables.

We memorized, we had these little cards, you know, and we memorized the multiplication tables.

When you learn it, didn't it work.

When you find, when you learn that 12 times 12 is 100, we I don't know for whatever reason they stopped at 12.

In my school we didn't go to 15, but 12 times 12, I still remembers 144.

I don't, you know, I just memorized it.

Kids nowadays they don't have that and so they labor to.

You know, they've got the new math and so they'll give them half of a problem.

Say, why is this the answer?

You know that kind of crazy stuff.

But you know, two times two is four.

That's not, that's not impressive.

But when you start getting 12 times 12, that's impressive.

When the numeric you know when that, when that number starts rising up, you start, you start having an exponential rise in the amount that you're dealing with.

Multiplicate, everybody say multiplication, it's all about multiplication.

It's not, it's not about addition.

God not adding, he's multiplying, we're adding, we're adding to our faith virtue.

We're adding, you know we're adding on our side, but he's multiplying on his side.

They were all filled.

So the the point there we've got.

The first point was identify the challenge, don't hide from it.

Receive the strategy, act and speak the word.

And this one is don't stop short.

Don't stop short Once you begin this miracle of increase, don't you stop short if it might have to do with you filling up Another barn.

You know God talks about barns.

Your barns shall be filled with plenty.

So I mean, I, you know, I just think it's a good idea to have more than one bank account.

Biden is trying to appoint a communist Chinese woman who believes that the government ought to appropriate all the bank account and now all your money will be held by the Fed.

Isn't that a good idea, boy?

I mean, she's a real winner.

They shall soon be cut down as the grass and wither is the green herb.

So don't stop short.

Just think about the woman with the jars.

I mean, the only limit is the amount of money that you can get With the jars.

I mean, the only limitation was how, and, and of course the prophet knew that.

He said you know, you need to get it in your house.

So he knew there was going to be a limitation.

But on her side, she filled her house with jars and she filled every one of them and she was able to then sell All of the oil in the jars and pay her debt and she lived off.

The rest of the money.

Go where did God?

She didn't stop short.

What if she had not borrowed very many jobs?

What if she had just borrowed half a dozen jars?

Well, she would have stopped short and the miracle of increase would not have filled her and there wouldn't have been a surplus.

You know, god wants you to have a surplus, he wants you to have more than enough.

Well, I don't know how that's ever gonna.

Well, it's by faith.

You're gonna have to get us.

Why I'm preaching this?

I've preached this in India.

I've preached in India.

I've preached this in the Philippines.

I Don't know if they got ahold of it, but they heard it.

They'll always be accountable for it, because they can't plead ignorance.

Those 1200 preachers and Elo, elo city.

Let me tell you something, they'll always be accountable, because they heard me preach three hours and then I laid hands on all of them.

I was done for the day.

Praise God, I was ready to get in my airplane and fly home, amen.

So don't stop short.

Keep.

Keep doing what you're doing, keep filling those jars, amen.

You get anything out of this, all right.

So he said now the results are your responsibility.

The results, verse 11,.

Jesus took the loaves.

When he had given thanks, he distributed the disciples and the disciples to them that were set down, and likewise of the fishes, as much as they would, and when they were filled.

So it was their disciple, it was their.

He gave them charge over the actual feeding of the twenty thousand and they had to keep working, they had to keep moving till they were all filled.

So they had complete charge of the results.

If any of the twelve had gotten tired and said well, that's enough.

You know, I don't think I can break off any more fish, my man, I'll.

I'll have to wash my hands from now on.

Get all this oily fish off my hand, or whatever other excuse.

You know, a lot of times people have excuses for not really fully obeying God.

But God gives us charge, he gives us responsibility and the results are our responsibility.

If they had stopped short, they don't stop short, that's.

That's number four.

But number five.

The results are your responsibility.

So he delegates authority by giving portions.

So he gave.

He gave each of the twelve the same portion.

They all had the same portion.

Now, in a crowd like this, sometimes we have differing amounts of supply, and it's not because he has favorites, it's just because we have gifts differing.

But whatever your supply is, it doesn't mean that that's the way it's going to be forever.

You can always get an increase in supply.

Are you with me now?

Because multiplication is an increase, isn't it?

I mean, did Jesus give each of these guys more fish and more loaves while they were down there?

No, he gave them a set amount, you know, eight inches of bread and four inches of fish.

We already figured out what they ought to start with.

That's all they had to start with, and yet they kept breaking off of what they had and everything.

So it was like an eighteen-wheeler pulled up, but it didn't right, it didn't come, it didn't, it didn't pull up, they didn't win the lottery.

No, they kept giving of what they had.

And that's the same.

You know, when you start giving of what you've got.

It's just a thing.

This is what we're proving in day and over and over and over.

Jesus is the one that blessed and broke it to begin with.

But then they distributed their portion and it wound up being more than enough.

You know, we were in the Seventh Day Church.

We lost about half our church when we moved from down the street here to the Seventh Day Church Because, you know, most people were there because it was located where they wanted to be.

But we're a regional center.

God said we were a regional center.

A lot of people didn't ever have that revelation.

You know half the crowd didn't have that revelation.

They came here because it's close to their house and they heard me say what I said, but they didn't register with them.

So as soon as we moved, they moved.

They didn't want to drive 15 miles down Beltway to a smaller church.

So we lost about half our crowd.

But then God did a miracle and we got 92.7 acres of land.

You know we'd already acquired that land and then we had the miracle of land where we gave that property back and acquired this debt free.

So we'd been in that Seventh Day Church from November of 99 to early 2002 when the miracle happened.

We closed on this property January of 2002.

And we started examining what kind of building we were gonna build and Frank went with us.

How many went?

Anybody here still here that went on that trip to Fort Worth?

We went to Fort Worth and you weren't there because it was only guys.

Tom, did you go?

You didn't go.

Huh, how did you go to Fort Worth with a bunch of guys?

She's bold, she doesn't care.

I don't think her husband will let her do it if she'd gotten married, got married later she quit being able to do whatever she wanted.

So we went up to Fort Worth to look at a building that seated 500, this will actually seat 1,000.

We've never seated that many, but we've got the capacity.

And so we went and of course they all were looking at that building.

Pastors lost his mind.

They poked on the side of the building.

You know, it's a piece of vinyl and that building didn't even have insulation, it was single.

It was single pieces.

Between you and the weather.

It's a single piece of you know it gets cold in Fort Worth, it gets hot in Fort.

I don't know how they ever heated and cooled that building with no insulation, no insulation.

And so you poke on that building, you know, and they just all poked on the building.

They said, pastor, you sure.

And so we got the loan going.

We started the process and I thought we ever got just a handful of people.

How are we gonna?

You know, we got a miracle of land, but now we've got a $3.7 million loan to build this building, phase one of this building.

And how are we gonna do that?

How are we gonna physically do that?

So I went to the Lord.

You know how do we arrange for this to work?

He said you tell my people to tithe Everybody in your church needs to tithe and then give offerings over and above the tithe, as I direct, and if they will all be obedient, I will take care of this building.

And that's all the instructions that we had from the Holy Ghost.

We didn't hire a company to come in.

You know, a fund ray, a capital.

We didn't have a capital campaign, you know.

We didn't hire some company and pay them.

In fact, our lender wanted us to do it.

In fact, there, for a while I thought they were gonna just force us to do it because they had another division of their company that was a capital raising company and they wanted to charge us 75 grand to come in here and sit in your living rooms and grill you about what you will give over the next 10 years of your life and how much of your you know finances you're willing to pledge and then sign in blood.

You know what I'm saying?

Well, you know, I just didn't like it.

I never wanted to do that, I wouldn't do it.

And God just gave us that plan and we obeyed that plan.

And look at us now.

We've paid this thing off.

It took a while, wasn't it?

But we, you know, we're here.

10 acres of land, 50,000 square feet under roof, paid for Ain't too bad.

It's a miracle of increase.

And of course, on the other side, the people did their job.

And of course the church, you know, sowed its seed.

We sowed a lot of seed in those years.

We still sow a lot of seed.

So the results are your responsibility.

All right.

And then verse 13, where it talks about, all the late, the 12 baskets left over.

He said gather up verse 12, gather up the fragments that remained, that nothing be lost.

So one thing you've got to understand about the Lord is everything is His and he cares about waste.

He doesn't like it.

He doesn't like us squandering.

There's different.

I mean, I'm not talking about having to always shop at the resale shop.

No, I'm not talking about the quality, I'm talking about wasting money.

I'm talking about you just don't even investigate.

You go and pay over sticker price for some car.

Don't do that.

Maybe you can do it, but that's not right.

You're going to waste God's money.

You ought to be very diligent when you go to make a major purchase.

You ought to be very intentional.

And I'm not saying that you have to be a skin flint to the salesperson.

I'm not saying that you have to cut their knees out from under them, but I'm saying that every price of any major thing that you're going to buy is negotiable.

Everything is negotiable.

And this church, everything that we put in it, everything that we do here, I'm telling you we rarely just go out and buy something we do without it.

I mean, we've been needing a new console it's found console now for the longest time.

It's going out.

It's number one, it's obsolete.

Number two, it's got channels that are no good and we're just now going to have they know, they know back there.

Well, I don't see anything wrong with the sound.

Well, yeah, today, but you know who knows how much longer.

I mean, do we want it to go out.

Well, we tried that this morning.

How did it sound in here without any sound and any electricity this morning?

I mean, this building would just absorb all the sound you can't even hear.

You know you can't hear anything.

So we've got another one on the way State of the art, latest technology.

But we didn't just go and just snap it up.

You know, we spent time investigating.

That's what I'm talking about.

Let's be good stewards over the increase.

They gathered up 12 baskets.

Let nothing be lost.

Let nothing be lost.

In other words, don't waste God's resources.

And then, finally, verse 14, then those men, when they had seen the miracle that Jesus did, said this is of a truth, that prophet that should come into the world, in other words, a Messiah.

So the miracle of increase is witness that Jesus is alive and he's the same.

Yesterday, today and forever.

Your brother Roberts.

When I went to interview him in 2005, he said the gospel to the poor is the guts of the gospel, his words, it's the guts of the gospel, guts.

What does that mean?

Well, it just means the center.

It means you're not alive without your guts.

I mean, you know, when somebody took a sword to the abdomen, I mean it was nasty, it was a kill shot.

They didn't die immediately.

You know, that's what happened.

I think it happened to David Can't remember which king, I think David, no, not David, saul, saul and so his bowels came out and he was wallowing on the side and he was begging somebody to kill him.

So why are you being like that?

Because it's the center For brother Roberts to say that the gospel is really not alive without the gospel to the poor.

Why?

Because it takes money to preach it, it takes money to spread it, it takes money to go and it takes money to send, and so that's why the miracle of increase is so important.

Amen, come on, lift your hands and receive tonight.

Hallelujah, glory to God.

Let's do this tonight.

Amen, two people, all right.