One day while I was praying, asking the Lord about things to come, both in my ministry and in the Church overall, I heard one word in my spirit just as plain as could be. Miracles. I meditated on that for a while, thinking primarily about healing miracles - when the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk and the maimed are made whole.
Then I decided to start studying what the Word has to say about miracles. What I discovered really jarred my thinking. And it gave me insight into not only how, but why God will cause miracles to be increasingly commonplace before Jesus returns.
Four Types of Miracles
Miracles, extraordinary events demonstrating divine intervention in human affairs, can be traced from Genesis to Revelation and divided into four main categories. There are physical miracles, such as the man at the gate called Beautiful, who went walking, leaping and praising God when Peter and John commanded him to be made whole. There are also provisional miracles, like when Jesus provided money for Peter to pay taxes.
Peter found the money in the mouth of the fish. Then, there are miracles of protection or deliverance - like when Peter was delivered out of prison by an angel, or when an angel appeared to Paul and told him all lives on board his sinking ship would be saved. Finally, there are signs and wonders that God performs - miracles that simply prove His power or existence, like when God caused the sun to move backward ten degrees for Hezekiah.
We find the account in 2 Kings 6 of when the Syrians had surrounded Samaria and cut off all its supplies, the people of the city were starving to death. In the midst of this crisis, Elisha said by the Spirit of God, "Tomorrow at this time, you can find anything you want." In a miraculous act of provision, God used four lepers to plunder the enemy's camp and take everything they needed - silver, gold, food and clothing. This was Elisha's last miracle.
Jesus also began and ended His ministry on the earth with provisional miracles. At the wedding feast in Cana, He turned water into wine. Multiplying the loaves and the fish was a provisional miracle. Jesus' last miracle before His ascension took place after He arose from the dead.
He was on the shore, watching Peter and some others fishing, when he called out to Peter, "Throw your net out the other side." When Peter did as he was told, his net caught 153 fish. Divine intervention prospered Peter's business tremendously, causing him to recognize the Lord immediately.
The Spirit of Elijah on the Church
When I began to study provisional miracles carefully, I discovered that God almost always performs provisional miracles first, before He performs the physical miracles.
Now, that really jarred my thinking because I had always thought a physical miracle, such as healing, took priority over other miracles. But the Lord drew my attention to the beginning of all things - the book of Genesis.
The very first miracle recorded in Genesis is provisional. God created the world and everything in it before He created man. God didn't physically create man first and then temporarily suspend him in space while He made provision for him. No.
God made provision for man first, then He created him. Once I caught the revelation of that order - first the provisional, then the physical miracle, I saw the significance of it throughout Scripture. Physical miracles always produce an increase. If no provision is made for that increase first, then the increase will be lost.
Do you see how that pertains to the harvest? In Acts 3:7, one man was healed. As a result, 5,000 people were added to the Church (Acts 4:4). Physical miracles produce increase. But what would happen if you had physical miracles without the proper provision to handle that increase?
As we come into the last days, the spirit of Elijah is going to fall upon the Church collectively, and not just on one individual singularly. The "spirit of Elijah" is the spirit of preparing for the coming of the Lord Jesus. As that anointing comes upon the Church we will experience the same flow of the miraculous that Elijah and Jesus experienced.
I find it interesting that when Elisha picked up Elijah's mantle, Elisha received a double portion of Elijah's anointing and operated in a continual flow of provisional miracles. Amazing things happened in his ministry. For instance, there was the widow woman who came to Elisha for help. Her husband had died, she couldn't pay her bills and her two sons were to be sold into slavery.
Her situation was serious. She needed provision, and asked the prophet what to do. I like his response: "What do you have?" What she had wasn't even a dime's worth of oil. But he sent her out to gather vessels to make provision for the increase she was about to receive.
God miraculously increased her oil and it didn't stop pouring until she no longer had vessels to contain it. Then Elisha told her to sell the oil, pay her bills, and she and her sons could live off the rest. Her miracle was in her own house. And so is yours. God will work a miracle with what you have, not with what you don't have. Just give Him what you have. He'll multiply it and keep it pouring as long as you have a place for Him to fill.
You may not have what you need, but you do have seed. The amount you have may not cover your bills, but you can sow something as seed for God to meet your need. You have what it takes to set your miracle in motion. The whole kingdom of God works on farming principles.
A farmer isn't going to run all over the community saying, "Would somebody please give me some corn." Of course not. He's going to take the corn he has, plow a field and plant his seed. And then the harvest will come. The harvest you desire in your own life will come the same way - by seeding, not by pleading.
Miraculous Provision for the Harvest
The Church is standing on the verge of the greatest move of God to reach and rescue the souls of men that the earth has ever seen. To reap that kind of harvest will require the miracle power of God.
But God isn't looking to pour out His power in places where the people will get stuck inside four walls because they can't afford to get out of town. What's the use in having a flow of physical miracles if you don't have the provision to take that power to people around the world? You can have power and you can have prayer, but if you don't have prosperity to propel you along, you won't get very far.
The religious community gets fighting mad when you preach prosperity. But they don't realize that GOD is the One preaching prosperity. The reason is simple: In these last days God is looking to pour out His power on people who can afford to get that power out to a world that needs it.
The purpose for prosperity is not to take care of the Church. God can give us water out of a rock and feed us with manna from heaven. But He has to provide prosperity for the Church to reach the world. The world doesn't accept "manna" to fly airlines to the nations. They want dollars. So, since it takes dollars, God will give us dollars. Provisional miracles.
We must have them for this hour. It's no wonder John said, "I pray, above all things that thou mayest prosper" (3 John 2). Religion will fight prosperity to the end. But before it's all over, the Body of Christ will experience a flood of miracles. And that flood will begin with a tidal wave of provisional miracles and great prosperity.
This Gospel Must Be Preached
It's no wonder the devil has fought prosperity for so many years, because more people need a financial miracle than a physical miracle. That's because for 2,000 years the Church didn't have the backbone to preach prosperity . But this message must be preached. We're not going to reach the nations for God preaching a poverty message.
If you didn't preach salvation, how many people would get saved? If you didn't preach healing, how many people would get healed? Well, if you don't preach prosperity, how many people are going to walk in it and receive their needs met?
You don't get the blessings of God without faith, you don't get faith without hearing, and you don't get hearing without preaching. And if somebody doesn't preach prosperity, people aren't going to have prosperity
Hanging around God and spending time with Him in the Word, in prayer and in fellowship with His Spirit will cause your spiritual capacity to increase. That's one reason why God is moving by His Spirit in this hour to get people filled and refilled with the Holy Ghost.
Because the more you become filled to all fullness with God Himself, the more you think and act like Him. And God thinks BIG! I started hanging around God so much that He stretched my vision and expectations further than I ever imagined possible. He's still stretching me. Today, we give as seed what we used to believe for as income.
I used to think if we preached from one end of the United States to the other, we'd really be doing something. Then when God dropped Europe in my heart - a continent of 750 million to a billion people.
I thought that would keep us busy until halfway through the millennium. But recently God told me, "Expand the plan. What works in Europe will work in Asia." God thinks big. He has big plans. And it's going to take big dollars for us to put those plans into action.
That's why it's so important to continually "be filled." The more full you become of God, the more you will think like Him. God is yanking the Church out of the confines of small, mediocre thinking because He has a big job for us to do.
You may have a limited paycheck, but you don't have to have a limited income. You can have whatever you dare to believe. Let God expand your vision until your paycheck looks like seed for what He has for you down the road.
A poverty message is not going to reach and win the centers of the world, where the greatest harvest lies waiting for the Church. The gospel has never been bad news. The gospel of Jesus is good news. And good news to a poor person is that you don't have to be poor anymore!
God is going to dramatically multiply seed sown into the gospel. He does it with every other seed, certainly He can do it with financial seed. In fact, He must do it for the sake of the harvest.
The nations of the world, the last great frontiers, are about to open up so the gospel can be preached to all the ends of the earth. God will see to it that we have whatever we need to reach out and bring in that wonderful harvest. Even if it takes a miracle.
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers