The Stigma Of The Supernatural — Part 2

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.

A new mother, a new Father

• "You evidently have forgotten: if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature; all things have past away" (voiced without citation — see packet.md). "Do you know what we do with the passed away? Every preacher here knows what you do with a passed away: you bury it. Come on, and bury what past away in your life."
• "You got a new mother: Jerusalem which is above is the mother of us all" (voiced without citation — see packet.md). "Don't come here telling me about how bad your mother was — but all you just don't know how bad my mother was. Don't you know, when you got born again, you got a new mother? Well, you don't understand my father, and how he treated me. Beloved, now are we the sons of God" (likewise voiced without citation — see packet.md). "When you got born again, you didn't just get a new mother — you got a new Father. And he's not a child molester, and he's not a dead beat dead, and he's not a forsaker: he's a preserver, he's a provider, he's a protector." (The statement is his general contrast between God the Father and bad earthly fathers; no person is accused of anything — see packet.md.)
• "If I can cut this cord tonight, somebody's going to get a new preacher when they get on; if I can cut that cord tonight, some preacher is going to get a new preacher's wife. You see, that assault is the stigma of the supernatural."

The anointing, the bruised, and the snakebite

• "There is an anointing in this house that is here to heal the brokenhearted. Not just saints have broken hearts — preachers have broken hearts. And the Holy Ghost is going to blank in this place so strong until you're going to feel like it's just you and God, and you're not going to be ashamed to respond unto the word of the Lord. The anointing heals broken hearts; the anointing delivers captives; the anointing brings the recovering of sight; the anointing sets at liberty them that are bruised." That makes him believe that liberty must come to the bruised, "because past bruises become present bondage; pains of the past become prisons in the present — but the anointed word liberates."
• "When a man is in the woods, or should he be, and he's bitten by a poisonous serpent, he has one of two choices: he can either be so angry, and filled with revenge, that he runs through the woods, catches that serpent, and does whatever it takes to kill him in murderous revenge — and while he is doing so, he is killing himself, because the poison is racing through him. The best thing he can do is calmly, cooly, collectively make his way to a physician and get the bike taken care of. Don't dedicate your life to chasing snakes that have bitten you: you may catch him, and you may kill him, but you'll die too. Instead, lift your hands to the great Physician, and let him heal you."
• "Here's what's happening: you stepped out of line with your heritage, stepped out of line with your tradition, stepped out of line with the rest of your family — because you got a supernatural work of God in your life."

Zacharias's relatives, and the name John

• "Zacharias's relatives struggled with a miracle boy. They said, surely his name is going to be Zacharias, named after his father — let's keep the tradition here; let's stay with the family tradition." (The naming narrative is told without its book ever being named — see packet.md.) Some of you need to do more than nod at him: "every day you wake up, you have to push that tradition off of you to even get out of B" (the caption line ends on the single-letter fragment "B," a fact of the caption track — see packet.md).
• "They said, his name shall be called Zacharias, right after his father. The mother said, no, no, no, no — his name is not Zacharias; his name is John. Right? They said, wait a minute: none of thy kindred are called by that name. There's not a man named John in your family. There is now. You know what the name John means? The Lord is gracious. Don't apologize for the grace of God in your life; don't feel bad about the grace of God in your life."
• "Luke 16:16 — the law — and this verse has been burning in me, and I'm not even going to preach about it, just going to run over a little bit here; somebody needs to study this thing: 'The law and the prophets were until John, and since that time—' I don't know what John did that was so revolutionary, but after John came, it was never the same. And that's what God wants to do with you and your family, with you in your church, with you in your city — so that somebody will say, when did this miracle start? And they run it back, and they say: and since the time of John, it's been different."

Scriptures: Luke 16:16

Destined to make a difference

• "What I'm preaching is: you can make a difference." Stand up and turn around to somebody and say, "You're going to make a difference." "But hear me right now: it takes different men — it takes different men — to make a difference."
• "I hasten: and Jacob — Genesis 37:1 — 'And Jacob dwelt in the land wherein his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.' God has chosen you to go places that probably a lot of your family will never go. I'm preaching about your biological family, your genetic system, your cousins, your uncles and your aunts that are not in the kingdom of God. God has chosen you to go places, see things, have things, be a part of things, that some of your fathers were strangers to — and you're going to live there."
• "It is the day of the unusual; it is the hour of the unprecedented. We are not striving to repeat history; we are challenged to make history. And we struggle to be average; we fight to be normal; we grope to be comparable; we desire to be similar — part of the pack, par for the course. But God chose Mary, and said: Mary, I want you to step out of the dimension of the normal, out of the dimension of the equal, the average, and the usual — and Mary, I want you to share with me in something that has never happened before, and Mary, it will never happen again."
• It is easy to look at others a little ahead of you and say, "I believe I can have that"; easy to look behind you and say, "If he did it there, he can do it here." "But the challenge to the apostolic Pentecostals is in the person of Mary: can you believe me for what never has happened, and what never will be done again?"
• "Have we ever seen over 700 get the Holy Ghost at a general conference? Well, not everybody out there at once — it might hurt my ears. Has it ever happened before? You see, you're sitting there scared to death; you're afraid to say no. But God's going to look for some Mares (captioned 'Mares')." God is not challenging us to do what somebody else has done; he is not even challenging us to repeat the book of Acts: "he's challenging us to be a part of what never has happened, and what never will happen again."
• "An angel visited her, and I keynoted these words today in my further study, because Mary had to remember this: Mary, you're favored, and you're blessed."

Scriptures: Genesis 37:1

The stigma of Mary

• "Don't forget what I'm telling you, Mary: you're favored, and you're blessed — you're favored, and you're blessed. Mary, you're going to bring a son into this world; his name is going to be Jesus; he's going to be God manifested in the flesh. You're fixing to bring something into this world that's going to walk on water; you're fixing to unleash something on this world that's going to cause lepers to come home; you're fixing to admit into our world something that's going to turn water into wine, something that's going to stop funeral processions and cause a boy to go back home with his mother. You're favored, you're blessed."
• "And Mary said, I just got one question: 'How can this be, sin that I know not a man?' And I want to preach to some young preachers right now: you hear about miracle revival, you hear about supernatural work of God, and your answer and question to God is, 'How can this be, seeing I know not a man? I don't know anybody — I don't know anybody. My daddy's not the superintendent; my uncle's not the preser (captioned 'preser'); nobody's ever heard of my name. I don't have a family tree in Pentecost; I don't have a heritage. How can this be, seeing I know not a man?' The power of the highest shall overshadow — the power, the power, the power — something's going to come on you, Mary, like you've never felt before."
• "No man's going to have anything to do with this. This is not what man can do; this is what I can do. Organization is not producing this revival; platforms are not producing this revival; methods are not producing this revival: the power of the highest shall overshadow."
• "i'll quickly move to concl tion (the caption track itself splits the word across two lines — 'concl' / 'tion'; see packet.md). Mary, before you answer, think about it: because, Mary, you'll have no peer groups; Mary, you'll have no support groups; Mary, you'll have no one that can say, 'I know how you feel.' Are you ready to go? Mary, I know you want the supernatural, but Mary, there's a stigma that comes with this. Because when you try to explain it to Joseph — you'll never understand this: you're engaged, you're a virgin, and you're with child — explain that. That's all right: that's what God's got angels for. And God said, no man can handle that: go down there and tell him I said it's all right — go ahead and marry that miracle; I'll take care of it; don't be afraid of it; goad and marry it."
• "It is very difficult to be a first; it's very difficult to be unusual. There's a stigma that goes with it. Ask Joseph: he had dreams, and he had a coat; nobody had dreams, nobody had a coat, and nobody understood him. 'Joseph, the angel of the Lord appeared to me, and the Holy Ghost came on me — you understand that, Joseph?' 'Yes, I understand — because an angel missed me, too, now.'" (The captioned line runs "because an angel / missed me now"; the sense the summary carries is that an angel had visited Joseph as well — see packet.md.)

Don't hide the miracle

• "Mary, come on — I'm getting you out of here; I love you; I care for you. And Joseph, being a just man, thought to have put her away privately: 'I'll hide you till this is over.' You see, when the supernatural comes, there's a stigma that you got to accept with the supernatural — and it is not God's will to hide the miracle. Mary, in a little bit you're going to start showing; you're not going to be able to keep this quiet; ain't going to be long, you're going to have to get you a new wardrobe."
• "And Joseph said, I'll hide you; I believe it; I'll accept it; he talked to me, too — but they'll never believe it. And because I love you so much, I'm going to take you somewhere and put you away privately until all this is over. And God said: I'm sending an angel, and I don't want you to put her away. I want her to walk down the streets and let everybody know I did that. God said, I want everybody to see my miracle. Pentecostals: thank God for the supernatural — but don't hide the stigma."
• "When she said yes — 'let it be unto me according to thy word' — she exposed herself to unmatched harassment, misunderstanding, ridicule, jealousy. She became the object of scorn, disdain, gossip, snear (captioned 'snear'), jeers, rejection, isolation. But ask Mary about it: 'He that is mighty ha done unto me great things, and holy is his name'" (the wording is voiced in her voice without citation — see packet.md). "It is no time for this church to be ashamed of the stigma. We're one God, apostolic, Jesus-name pentecost us — and it's no time to be ashamed."

The pressure to be normal — and Mary at Cana

• "I'll quickly close. The pressure upon Mary, and the pressure upon us, is this: why not just be normal? I'm sure Joseph thought: of all the women in the world, why couldn't I marry a normal woman?" (The close lands on the congregation's laughter, as captioned.)
• "You know what our young people are struggling with, within the '90s? A pressure to be normal. They just want to go to school and just fit in and be normal; they want to go down to the park and places and just be normal. And the world screams at the apostolic church: why don't you just be normal — live normal lives, have normal church, preach normal sermons, live normal lives? But it's hard to be normal when you got a miracle in you. It's hard to be normal when you've got a miracle in you."
• "It is absolutely no mistake, coincidence, or just something that happened, that Mary pull the trigger that inaugurated the miracle ministry of Jesus — after 30 years of humiliation, 30 years of drawing water at the well and the other women whispering when she walked by, 30 years of cold-shoulder treatment, 30 years of hard, glaring looks, 30 years of her character being in suspect and question. She said, 'They have no why' (captioned 'they have no / why'). He said, 'Woman, what have I to do with thee? My hour is not yet come.' I believe she said it like this, tears streaming down her cheeks: 'You hear me, Jesus — it's over. You hear me, it's over. Servants: I know what that angel told me, and whatever he says to you, you do it.'" (The wedding at Cana is told, never cited — see packet.md.)
• "I say, it's miracle time. And I don't know if he was ready or not, but he did it; I don't even know if he wanted to or not, but he did it. He could not resist that revelation; he could not resist that stigma: you've been faithful to me; you've been laughed at; you've been ridiculed; you've been tormented — but you've been faithful."
• "That's why more people are getting the Holy Ghost tonight in the united pentecostal church ever: we have sustained the stigma of the supernatural. Don't be ashamed of it — don't be ashamed of it — don't be ashamed of it." The capture ends there, on the congregation's laughter as captioned, four seconds before the video's end.

Scripture index: Luke 16:16; Genesis 37:1.