Disclaimer:
Due to the large amount of sermons and topics that appear on this site I feel it is necessary to post this disclaimer on all sermons posted. These sermons are original to the author and the leading of the Holy Spirit. While ideas and illustrations are often gleaned from many sources including those at Sermoncentral.com, any similarities and wording, including sermon titles, that may appear to be the same as any other sermon are purely coincidental. In instances where other minister’s wording is used, due recognition will be given. These sermons are not copyrighted and may be used or preached freely. May God richly bless you as you read these sermons. It is my sincere desire that all who read them may be enriched. All scriptures quoted in these sermons are copied and/or quoted from the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible.
Pastor James May
IS GOD IN YOUR MIRACLE?
Acts 19:11-17, "And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul: So that from his body were brought unto the sick handkerchiefs or aprons, and the diseases departed from them, and the evil spirits went out of them. Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye? And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, and overcame them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this was known to all the Jews and Greeks also dwelling at Ephesus; and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified."
Do you believe in miracles, signs and wonders? Do you believe in the casting out devils and deliverance to those held in bondage by the powers of darkness? Do you believe that the name of Jesus has all power over every sickness, disease, trouble, trial and even over the power of death, hell and the grave?
I certainly hope you believe in the manifestations of the Holy Spirit and in the operations of the Gifts of the Spirit in the church. I certainly do!
Tonight I want to bring a message that will either encourage you or maybe, in some ways, discourage you as well. Whether you are encouraged or discouraged from allowing the Holy Spirit to use you will depend upon how much spiritual discernment you have and whether you really know the voice of the Lord or not.
I want you to notice that Paul had special miracles happen as a part of his ministry. Paul would wear certain articles of outer clothing which, after he had ministered in them, were taken and given to those who were sick, possessed or diseased and the power of God in those clothes, anointed by the Holy Spirit, drove out the evil spirits, healed the diseased bodies and set people free from all sorts of maladies.
Today we see whole ministries whose doctrine is based on “healing cloths”. Is the modern day use of a “prayer cloth” or a “healing cloth” contrary to the Word of God. Of course it isn’t. God is no respecter of persons and what he did for Paul he will do for anyone whom God desires to use in that fashion. But God doesn’t bless every prayer cloth that we can cut from an old pair of pants or a shirt. God doesn’t make a whole ministry out of prayer cloths. Those are “special miracles” and not something that is a constant ongoing thing that works under every circumstance.
One church that I know of uses these “prayer cloths” occasionally and God has done some great miracles as a result. We cannot discredit the reality of the mighty power of God to work in any fashion he desires.
Another example of this type of “spiritual manifestation” or faith object, if you want to call it that, was in use for a number of years and may still be used by certain ministries. There was a “Faith Nail” that you could order. The nail was free and when you got the nail you were to write down all of your prayer requests on a piece of paper, push the nail through the paper, then enclose your best offering and send it in.
Do you suppose that the nail made any difference? Were prayers answered that were “nailed to the paper”? I’m sure they were, but I believe that those prayers would have been answered without nailing them. The answer was due to faith in God, not some nail. The nail was mainly a method of getting people to send in their offerings so the ministry could keep sending out more nails and stay on the air.
Another example would be the “miracle anointing oil” that is offered, or at least was offered by several ministries for a time. For an offering of $15 or more you would receive a “free” bottle of special oil that contained the anointing of the Holy Spirit and the power to bless, heal, deliver and set people free from Satanic oppression.
What a bunch of foolishness is this! Oil in some bottle, no matter where the oil or the bottle have come from, carries no power in and of itself. Perhaps a few miracles did occur because of this oil but it was not of the oil, it was of the faith in God that brought the healing. To say that the oil had some special power is to take the glory that belongs to God only and share it with a bottle of oil. Do you think that God would approve of that?
The oil was nothing more than a method to get money to keep the ministries active in sending out more bottles to pay for air time.
These are only a few example of the stupidity of Christians who will fall for anything because they don’t know what to believe in and who don’t have a close enough relationship with Jesus to know what is real and what is not!
-There is also a ministry that is called “the Ministry of the Miracle Medal”. Wear this medal and it will bring you blessings. Sounds like witchcraft to me!
-There is another ministry that offers paper prayer rugs like the Muslims use to pray to Allah. They also offer prayer candles for a Christmas offering to support the ministry of light to a dark world.
-Another ministry offered a 4” long piece of wool and called it a “prayer fleece”. The only thing being fleeced was the people of God who were foolish enough to send an offering to get the thing.
-Another ministry offered a white piece of cloth in shape of a cloud, promising that somehow, the same God who led Israel with a cloud by day would lead you into some great miracles in your life as well. Send your offering and I will send you a cloud.
-A few other ministries offered “Miracle Coins” that were supposed to bless your pocket book. Send in an offering and we will send this miracle coin back to you. Put in next to your money and watch God bless your wallet! For an even greater financial blessing, wrap your largest bill around the coin and return to this ministry and God will bless you even more abundantly. I wonder how many $20, $10, $100 bills ever multiplied in someone’s wallet because a coin sat there beside them? It’s no wonder that God can’t bless some of his children with financial blessings when they have no more stewardship than that!
-Another ministry offered to put your name in a “Covenant Book” that would buried in the Land of Israel. Of course the more offerings you gave the higher your name would be on the list. This buried covenant book in the Holy Land would somehow allow you to be blessed miraculously. The only thing that really happened was that you sent in your hard-earned money and the book, if it ever was buried, just decayed into dust. That book is another testament to the ignorance of the ways of the Lord.
If you were to keep the covenant that you made with the Lord when you gave your heart and life to him and depended upon his provision for your life, that covenant would have kept you more than any covenant book.
Other means of fooling God’s people and supporting their own agenda were done through “Burlap Connected Crosses”, “Cornmeal Miracle Packets”, “The Widow’s Mite”, “The Prodigal Ring and Robe”, and “The Miracle Producing Picture of a Prophet”. I wonder how many people were blessed with might miracles of God by staring at a picture of some prophet who wound up sitting in a prayer tower down the road, claiming that if he didn’t get all the money he needed by a certain day that God was going to take him to Heaven?
The sad thing is that a lot of people did receive miracles and did receive blessings but they never realized that it wasn’t some magic talisman that brought the miracle to them. The miracle was a result of two things: their faith and belief in God’s promise and the mercy and grace of Almighty God.
It is not my intent to put down on any form of obedience to the voice of the Lord that is truly of the Lord for I am convinced that God can and does use means to accomplish his will in the lives of people that are beyond my finite understanding. I don’t want to try to put God in a box because he certainly won’t stay there.
While we cannot discredit any means by which God moves to perform his will in the lives of people, we must realize that not everything we see that may appear to be a manifestation of the Spirit in our churches is actually of God. It is so very easy for anyone to step over the line of being led and anointed by the Spirit into being led and deceived by their own heart and mind, or being influenced to grieve the Holy Spirit by getting out of order and causing confusion.
Is confusion always a result of missing the will of God in the service? Can there be confusion and the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the service still be ordered of God? The answer is both yes and no, depending upon the spiritual condition of the congregation. If people are in the place where they should be in God and the manifestation of the Holy Spirit is real, there will be no confusion there. No one will doubt its reality. No one will be offended by what happens. No one will be driven to fear or be concerned that God’s will is being done.
But, if the congregation is not where we should be in the Lord because of some factor that has caused us to not get into the service the way that we should. If we haven’t been entering into the worship as we should have; or if we haven’t spent time in prayer and meditation before the Lord; or if our minds are wandering and not really in tune with what God is wanting to do in our midst, then we will find ourselves often in confusion when God begins to move because our spirits are not in communion, so to speak, with the Spirit of the Lord at that moment.
In other words, confusion is not always the result of a man or woman of God missing the mark in using their gift or allowing the Lord to speak through them. Confusion can, and often does result from people not listening to the Lord in their own heart.
Confusion can also come because there are unsaved, unregenerate souls in the congregation. Not everyone who calls Jesus their Lord and Savior are actually saved, nor have they all given their lives over to his Lordship. As a result of the sin in their lives, they are separated from God and do not discern or understand the move of the Spirit. For these people, any move of the Holy Spirit, and any manifestation of the Power of God in a church service is confusing. They don’t see God moving. They don’t understand the ways of the Lord. And they certainly can’t hear his voice as he speaks because they are spiritually dead.
All of this being said, I want to reiterate what Paul said to the church at Corinth in 1 Corinthians 14:33, "For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints."
God’s ultimate goals in every manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the church can be summed up like this. God’s gifts are given so that:
1) God can be recognized and worshipped for blessing his people and thus receive glory.
2) God brings forth the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in various ways in the church to edify, or build up, encourage and strengthen the Body of Christ.
Any “manifestation of the Holy Spirit” or use of the “Gifts of the Spirit” in the service that injures the body, angers those being ministered to, stops the flow of the Spirit, grieves the Holy Ghost, or brings division in the Body of Christ, is not of God and must be considered as works of the flesh.
All too often we see people who have tremendous zeal for the manifestation of the Gifts of the Spirit in the church, but they lack the spiritual maturity, discernment of the things of the Spirit, and/or the knowledge of how to allow God to use them without causing injury.
Have you ever seen someone who thought that they were moving under the anointing of the Holy Spirit go to someone, or call them out of the congregation, to minister to them, and then later hear that same person who was ministered to, complain that they didn’t feel anything or that they were embarrassed by whole scenario, or that what was said to them was nothing more than common knowledge?
My friend, that is not a true move of the Spirit. Whoever stepped out under their own knowledge and the desire to force a move of the Spirit, or to make a show of the flesh in appearing to be used by the Spirit, became a hindrance to the real move of God and has placed the entire church in jeopardy.
Attempting to force God to move is not only impossible to do, but to do things because you want to see them happen without God’s direction is very dangerous. It opens the door for anyone who wants to act in the flesh to do their own thing and pretty soon there is nothing but confusion because there is no more divine order and those who are attempting to hear the voice of the Lord are left grieved because the real move of God has been stopped.
I have seen those who claim to have been “slain in the Spirit” who were simply lying on the floor looking around, talking, even laughing the one lying next to them. That’s not being slain in the Spirit but it is a work of the flesh that hinders the real move of God.
I have seen those who claim to have a Word of Knowledge, or a Word of Wisdom, or a revelation from God for someone else and that “knowledge” was from their own mind, not God’s; and that “ wisdom” was wisdom of this world, not of God, and their “revelation” was given to them not by God but by some gossiping saint.
I tell you we had better test the voice that speaks to us to move “in the Spirit” to make sure that it is the Spirit of the Lord speaking to us and not our own spirit or, even worse, the spirit of confusion that comes from the devil. Don’t be fooled, Satan will not allow God to move in our church without attempting to bring the false manifestations along with God’s true works. He will attempt everything he can to destroy the work of the Lord, to bring confusion to this church, and to cause doubt in the hearts of God’s people because, all too often, the people of God don’t exercise their ability or learn to discern what is really of God and what is not.
I don’t know about you but I am very cautious about what I do in the House of God concerning the operations of the Gifts of the Spirit.
There are a lot of “manifestations” or “special gifts” that are in use in Pentecostal churches especially, that are nothing more than works of the flesh and ways that men use to get rich, gain recognition, or gain power and control over God’s people. These “wolves in sheep’s clothing” are not Christian, not men and women of God, but they are tools of the devil to keep God’s people in confusion. Never forget that God will not share his glory with any man and any preacher who stands and seeks your praise is a false teacher. Run from them as fast as you can lest you get caught up in their error.
Not that the people who listen to them are innocent either. Paul pens these words in Philippians 2:12, "...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. " That makes each of us responsible for what we accept as truth, even when it is a lie. That makes each of us accountable for what we, and who we allow, to control us. If every man or woman of God would have the relationship with Jesus that we should have then these false teachers and carnal preachers wouldn’t have an audience. They exist simply because we allow them to and because so many will heed their words and support their works.
We may all laugh at these antics of preachers as though they were a joke but I believe that the Holy Spirit is grieved and the work of the Lord is hindered by such things.
There were some men in Corinth who thought that they would make a “ministry” by duplicating the miracles in the same fashion that God had done them through Paul.
Acts 19:13-15, “Then certain of the vagabond Jews, exorcists, took upon them to call over them which had evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, We adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preacheth. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, and chief of the priests, which did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are ye?
I think its important for us to notice the kind of people who would attempt to fake their miracles. I think it’s a pretty good description of the kind of people who will fake the moving of the Holy Ghost in the church and who will perform as though they were operating under the Gifts of the Spirit.
The Bible calls them “vagabonds”. They were Jews who wandered from place to place, pretending to be prophets and tell fortunes, pretending to perform miracles of healing by using charms and spells, and pretending to cast of devils by conjuring and incantations. It was only a small step for them to step from performing lying signs and wonders to getting into serious combat with the powers of hell that they had no control over.
They attempted to imitate the real move of God and to force the devil to obey them, thus bringing even greater recognition to themselves. They wanted money, applause of the people and support for their ministry.
I want you to know that they might have fooled the people who stood around. They might have fooled Paul too. But they would never have fooled the Holy Ghost and they never would have fooled the devils either. Man may surrender his power and his will to any unscrupulous preacher but the devils will never surrender to anything that has no authority over them unless it is done deceitfully to bring men deeper into sin.
God knows those that are his and the Holy Spirit is not fooled by our antics. Our manifestations of the Spirit that are nothing more than manifestations of the flesh don’t impress God, in fact, they grieve him and limit his ability to move in his people the way he desires to.
The things that make Pentecostal worship so different and so much more meaningful to the Children of God are the same things that bring so much division and can be so dangerous to the church.
I want to impress upon you the importance of knowing the will of God before we step out.
1 Corinthians 14:32 says, "And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets."
That means that even though God may be moving, and the Holy Spirit may be anointing you to do some great thing for God, or to be used in the Gifts of the Spirit, or some ministry to the Body of Christ, that instant when you first receive the inspiration is not always the exact instant when we must begin to move out.
All things must be done decently and in order according to 1 Corinthians 14:40. That means that there is a time and a place where the Gifts of the Spirit will be made manifest. It is better to wait upon the Lord and have the Holy Spirit confirm what God is telling you and then wait for the opportune time, when it will not hinder the flow of the Spirit in the service to bring forth that which God has given to you.
Also, it is not wrong to ask God for confirmation before you speak out or do that which you believe God is telling you to do. It is far easier to confirm your words or to be really certain that it is of God before you act than to try to correct your error after it’s done. If you get goose bumps, wait to see if you are just cold or if it really is God’s presence upon you.
Acting rashly will often backfire, causing all kinds of grief and trouble in the church, while those that are done after prayerful consideration and listening intently, using spiritual discernment, and waiting until God’s timing is right, will have an even greater impact because the power of the Holy Spirit will be with you all the way.
Remember, God’s goals in bringing forth the manifestations of the Gifts of the Spirit are meant to bring him glory and to edify the Body of Christ. Always ask yourself – Is this my own mind, my own thinking, my own knowledge, or my own desire to see God do something in my life and the life of this church – or is this really of God?
I believe it would be better to err on the side of allowing the opportunity to go unnoticed than to move in the flesh and bring irreparable damage to the Body of Christ or offend one of my brothers and sisters in the Lord. That’s why I am so very cautious about any manifestations of the spirit in our services.
Lest anyone would think that I am opposed to the manifestations of the Holy Spirit and the operations of the Gifts of the Spirit in our church, let me say that I long for the day when we will see more and more of this in our midst.
While I pray that God would move mightily in our service to perform miracles of healing and deliverance, I also pray that God will give us the wisdom and discernment to know when it is a real move of God and when it is not.
My greatest desire is that God will move in our midst. Isn’t it wonderful when the Holy Spirit begins to have his way? I love to see people slain in the Spirit, speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gives the utterance and gloriously saved, delivered and set free from sin. That’s one of the greatest things about Pentecostal worship and serving the Lord.
Those seven sons of Sceva went away screaming, naked and beaten by the devils that they attempted to cast out wrongfully. Let us pray that when we begin to move under the anointing of the Holy Ghost that we are doing so by God’s direction. If not then we might find ourselves being defeated by the devil’s wiles as well.
Let’s just make sure it’s the Lord that we are serving and not ourselves. AMEN!
