What Miracles Have You Seen?

well I'm glad you asked that question because I do want to make sure we understand our focus is the Gospel of Jesus Christ it's not about miracles it's about proclaiming the truth uh you must have faith in Jesus Christ repent of your sins be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ receive the Holy Spirit uh live a holy life pursue Holiness be a disciple those are the main themes but Miracles are important because they're important throughout the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and particularly our model is the Church of the book of Acts the Church of the New Testament we are part of that church and we find that Miracles were an expected and normal part now they did not necessarily have Miracles every day like praying for God to miraculously Supply breakfast and then a few hours later praying for God to miraculous Supply lunch you know they lived a normal life like we do with the principles of hard work and good stewardship and and operating according to the laws of this world um natural laws economic laws Etc however when they preached the gospel they expected God to confirm the word in various ways ways through anointing through uh uh a feeling through um observable answers to prayer through observable Miracles so you actually see this for example and that's what I preached about in Mark 16 that these signs shall follow those who believe and that lists a number of Miracles and then Mark 16:20 concludes by saying they went everywhere and they preached the word the Lord confirming the word with signs following so Miracles are important we don't seek after Miracles necessarily but we seek Jesus Christ and we proclaim the gospel and we expect that Miracles will accompany the gospel and I also used Hebrews 2 which says we've we have such a wonderful salvation so a great salvation what excuse do we have if we neglect it because this gospel was preached and confirmed by miracles signs wonders and gifts of the Spirit so we expect that same confirmation today and every every book of the New Testament which is written to the church has answers to prayer Miracle signs wonders and so we believe that should be part of the experience of of today's church as well

sure sure and let me give you a reference I have a book called spiritual gifts and I go through each of the nine gifts the spirit listed 1 Corinthians 12 and I give biblical examples and then I give examples in my own personal life so my parents were missionaries in Korea Pioneer missionaries I grew up observing many miracles there and then my own Ministry starting the church in Austin Texas um I and and before uh I saw miracles in my own Ministry so I tried to give contemporary examples so you can go there also I wrote another book called reaching Austin which I more particularly talk about how my wife and I started the church there how we grew to about a thousand started 16 daughter works and accompanying those were a number of Miracles so if you want more in fact I have a whole chapter in reaching Austin just listing and briefly describing various Miracles and healings as well as uh notable Miracles woven throughout the text so uh let me just mention a few now uh we often use the term miracle as an umbrella term which en en covers healings which I think is is correct but in 1 Corinthians 12 miracles the working of Miracles and healings are mentioned two different times so that there are some Miracles that don't involve healing so let me give you an example the one I used in my message this year was Raising of the Dead we prayed for a man and I after I preached my oldest son Jonathan said Dad remember that he he was a child but he was old enough he said I remember him being laid out on the floor and he was dead we could all see there was no signs of life and we prayed he came back to life so that Pro would a it's that's more than a healing that's someone who apparently in you know you can read the story in reaching Austin or you can watch or listen to my message but he fell out with a stroke it seemed to be no sign of life his eyes rolled back his mouth hung loose he was limp uh he wasn't breathing didn't have a heartbeat didn't have a pulse he was gone but when we prayed for him the first time nothing happened we prayed the second time he came back to life he coughed he sat up he breathed in everything came back to normal color came back to his face and when we took him to the hospital the doctor said well you know we we find uh his artery in his neck is 99% BL blocked we need to do immediate surgery cuz he he can die of a stroke literally at any moment and I I said well doctor I think he already that already happen and he says no if if he had a stroke we could see the damage we could see the place in his brain that was affected we could see the symptoms but there's nothing I said what happened well he just fainted and you're lucky that he fainted because that made you bring him to the hospital where we could find this unrelated life-threatening situation and fix it well obviously that's all the doctor could say because he had no evidence of that anything had happened but we were convinced he was dead of a stroke and God raised him up that that's a miracle more than a healing that's a miracle I also told a number of years ago this would be a healing but I think it's a not a gradual healing but miraculous I told my own story that happened back in 2007 I was sitting at home eating dinner with my wife getting ready to go to back to church to teach a lesson and suddenly uh my hand started moving of its own accord Accord um without my will and I looked up and I said something's wrong but when I said something's wrong my face drooped and I couldn't get the words out they were slurred of course my wife immediately ran called emergency and we're just kind of sitting there and uh obviously I had the symptoms of a stroke and and what are you going to do so I laid my hands on my head and I began praying in the name of Jesus and when I did suddenly I was able to talk all my symptoms were away the uh medical personnel came they took me to the hospital but uh that so that that short time uh I also had a symptom of I couldn't I could think of what I wanted to say but I couldn't say the right word I would say the wrong word and I knew it was the wrong word and I remember while they were trying trying to get me ready uh I I I was focused on what I was going to teach that night and so I mentioned my pastoral assistant tell him to cover the class and here's what I'm teaching on I couldn't say it but I I could write it and then as I was going in the ambulance I was talking to the uh the woman that was monitoring me and trying to help me and and I said uh you know I'm a pastor I have many people playing for me I said no what I mean to say I just have many people playing for me and she said don't worry I understand stroke you know uh but by the time I got to the hospital that symptom in her way never came back the reason I say all that is uh I've kind of skimmed through it pretty fast but when they first checked me out they said I had a stroke but when the neurologist came he said there's a problem here because with your left hand and the right hand hand of the right side of your face and with that very specific inability to find the right words that indicates you had a stroke on the left side of your brain which is where your uh your language area is and on your right side of the brain which which covers U the left side uh so he said you had a massive stroke but we don't see anything in your brain where that you had anything and you have no symptoms so he says it can't be a stroke this kind of like the other story I telling you about you know you had all the symptoms of a massive stroke that affected both sides of the brain but you have no uh residue effects you have no spot on your brain that has happened and you know they check my buildup possible buildup cholesterol heart brain you have no risk factors there's nothing in your body that would indicate you're susceptible to a stroke everything is clear normal fine and and so he's really puzzled and I I said well what's the problem he said well you know when you have a temporary symp that goes away we would usually say it's a TIA which is a very small part a blood vessel in your your head that is temporary blocked so it causes a temporary s symptom but then it gets unblocked everything's fine that would explain I said well okay what what's the problem he said because it happened on both sides of your brain so it couldn't be a TIA so your symptoms would not a TIA could not affect both sides of the brain by definition I said well how would you explain it he said well the only explanation I have is you had a massive stroke and in the middle of it it spontaneously reversed itself in went a way well that's not really a medical explanation but when he said that I thought I know exactly when that massive stroke reversed itself when I laid my hands on my head and prayed in the name of Jesus so to me that is a miracle amen now I could give you other examples but U I remember a time when I was teaching years ago at Jackson College of Ministries and we were facing a financial crisis I didn't realize how bad but I later found out the president was in negotiation to sell the property at that very day and a man walked in my office he said I'm from the neighborhood I need to speak to the uh the president or well I was the highest person there he says well he said I'm trying to sell my house I haven't been able to sell it it's here in the neighborhood Hood do you know of anybody maybe one of the faculty members that needs a house and I was thinking I don't have time for real estate and he said because if you do he said I'd just like to give the house to the school well that got my attention let's talk and he finally said you know I don't really care what you use it for I just want to give it to you and um so we did this and we went to closing and the president was there I was there and so the President's trying to make small talking he said well are you Christian and yes I'm I'm Methodist and so the president said well you know we Pentecostals are a lot like the oldtime Methodist he's trying to connect the guy said I'm a modern Methodist so he thought you know we better be quiet he's trying to sign these papers and then his wife spoke up because she had to be there to sign she says I don't know what put in his head to give this property to you because they were going to be taking a write off I guess they're going to get some value out of it she said I don't know why we're doing this we just kept our mouth shut until closing we end up selling it and we netted it sounds small now but we're talking about the mid the the late 80s we netted $60,000 so that I don't know what that'd be it' be twice that but that was you know in today's dollars it' probably be $150 $200,000 just out of the blue that cash at the very moment we were so urgently needing it I feel like God just moved them they had no connection to the church no interest in the church they didn't support what we're doing but something put into them we're going to give this to the school and to me that's a miracle now I can give you a lot of other examples but uh those are some of the notable Miracles that I've another one I'll tell you another one years ago I was preaching in poville Mississippi and a woman came up in a wheelchair we prayed for her it was a powerful move of God so she stood up and she took a few steps walked around and sat back in her wheelchair well you know when somebody comes to the wheelchair doesn't mean mean they're incapable of walking all the time so I just figured you know she has a hard time walking she got blessed she got up and took a few steps sat back down so that's great you know but it's probably not a miracle well the pastor called me probably a month later he said brother Bernard did I ever tell you what happened to this woman said no and he told me I I have the in I think it's I I think I quote it in my book spiritual gift I can't remember now but um anyway she hadn't been able to walk for something like 10 years so when she took those five or six steps that was truly miraculous but he said you know what happened every day she started walking more and more and more and today she's walking completely she hadn't walked like this in 10 years and she's walking fine he said I went to the hospital and her doctor was there he said hey preacher Pastor do you you know that woman that's my patient he said yes he he said pastor I want to tell you that woman is a miracle so so if the pastor says a miracle okay maybe he's just being you know full of Faith but when the doctor tells the preacher it's a miracle yeah well I think that's a miracle