I have been receiving communications from around the United States and Europe that are all reporting the same thing—they are seeing healings and miracles on a level like they have never seen before. This is a time of a great visitation of God to His people. Even so, I remain convinced that what we are now experiencing is a birth pang, a spiritual contraction that is preparing us for the birth of an even greater move of God, which I expect to take place this September/October.
The indications we have received especially point to September 21 as being a significant date. Because we "see in part" and "prophesy in part" (see I Corinthians 13:9), I cannot say for sure what will happen on that day, except that it will be a significant day, especially in relation to revival in America.
In the last two months, faith in God for the miraculous has been growing dramatically, and the Lord responds to faith. Because of this, we are experiencing an upward spiral. More faith is enabling God to move more, which is increasing faith even more, resulting in Him doing even greater works. Let's keep it going!
As amazing as what we are now experiencing is, we still have a way to climb to what is just normal, biblical Christianity. It is our right as Christians, possessors of the New Covenant with God, to see everything that happened in the Scriptures happening in our own time. The Lord is the same today as He was then. His name is not "I was," or "I will be," but "I AM." The same Holy Spirit that was present with the church in the Book of Acts is present with us today. All Christians have the same Holy Spirit with them that the Apostle Paul had and can therefore see the same power released through them that Paul or anyone one else has.
We are told in II Corinthians 3 that as Christians we should be seeing more glory than what Moses saw, and he had to put a veil over his face because he had so much glory on him. We have been given "a better covenant" with more glory, and there are some arising now who are going to take this as their right to see and experience, which the Lord has been waiting on for a very long time. Because Jesus paid the price for us to walk in all of the benefits of the New Covenant, it would not be just for us to be able to walk in them. The justice of God applied to us is not what we deserve, but what He deserves, and He deserves to have His people enjoy all of the benefits of the New Covenant for which He paid such a price.
Miracles do encourage people. God is moving again, and many things are now being done among us that are beyond human ability—they can only be attributed to God. Truth is also encouraging, and the same Spirit who does these works among us is also the Spirit of Truth, and He is about to pour out a great love for truth on His people. This is going to begin with the truth of the New Covenant and all of the benefits that have already been paid so that we can receive them. The most basic justice of God is for His people to receive all of the benefits of their citizenship in heaven. Through this heaven is going to continue coming to earth through them.
A generation is about to take their place that has not believed the evil report, the report of the ten evil spies. They have aligned themselves with the faithful report of Joshua and Caleb, that the taking of the inheritance has nothing to do with how big the giants are or how small we are but on how great our God is. They are now lining up on the banks of the Jordan River, ready to cross over and take their inheritance.
It is still amazing for us to watch our high school students pray for the handicapped, blind, deaf, or those with fatal diseases, believing God will heal them, and often He does. A few nights ago, I saw a commotion in the back of the room and found out that a couple of our high school girls had prayed for a young man in a wheelchair, who immediately got up and walked. He had multiple sclerosis and had not walked in seven years. It was not long before he was back in the wheelchair, not because the affliction had come back, but because he was so worn out from not using those muscles for so long. As we talked to the girls who had prayed for him, they were excited, but not overly so, because they are now expecting the Lord to do this kind of thing when they pray. There really is a new generation rising up that the supernatural will be natural to them.
Wisdom is basically the proper combination of knowledge with experience. However, both the knowledge and the experience of the emerging generation are going to be different from past generations. Many in my generation believed that the Lord was still healing and doing miracles today, they just rarely saw them. Because of this they have grown more in subtle cynicism than faith. I have seen some of these try to temper the rising faith of the youth so that they will not be disappointed when things do not happen. If that is our tendency we need to repent, quickly.
The Lord completely removed the faithless generation so that they would not be a stumbling block to the ones called to take the land, and He will remove us also if we persist in this. We can still be "Joshuas" and "Calebs" by resolving not to be disturbed by how big the enemy is or by how weak we are, but on how great our God is, and He will prevail through us if we trust Him.
Disappointment is not nearly as bad as not believing. Start promoting faith, and start expecting miracles. The experience of the coming generation will not be the same as the last. It is always true wisdom to believe God. It takes faith to please Him, and true faith in Him will never fail. Living in a spirit that tries to avoid disappointment will always fail.
Four Trends to Consider
I have noticed several interesting trends in what is happening with us at Heritage that I think could be helpful to others who are now experiencing a breakthrough.
Trend #1
The first trend is that some of the greatest miracles have taken place after most of the people have left the meeting. This time is sometimes referred to as "the afterglow," when people are just milling about talking and reviewing the things which have just happened. Why does the Lord seem to move so powerfully during that time?
There is a difference between human energy, excitement, and faith that is sometimes hard to distinguish. True faith is often accompanied by excitement and always with expectation, but they are not always the same and are often confused. True faith can be quiet, even reserved. True excitement can also be very quiet and reserved. They can also be loud and vivacious because the Lord made us different.
When I first started ministering in Germany, Switzerland, and Scandinavia, I was disconcerted by the level of skepticism. Then I was told by the Lord that it was good skepticism and not bad. When I asked for understanding, I was shown that good skepticism wants to believe, but you had better have the goods because they will thoroughly check you out. This is the "faith of the Bereans" who resolved to listen with openness to the teachings of Paul, but checked out everything by the Scriptures. On the other hand, bad skepticism wants to doubt and will gladly accept a mole hill of evidence that confirms their doubts, while rejecting a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Those with good skepticism are worth working with. I noticed after many visits that those who seemed to be doubting my teaching were actually deeply pondering it, and years later they could not only tell me in great detail what I had taught, but after checking it out and confirming it, they were now living it. Contrary to this, I have had many people who seemed to be the most excited about my message in a meeting but were unable to tell me one thing that I said right after the meeting. Years later these people would be just as excited in meetings, but in their lives you could hardly tell any true spiritual maturity. What audience would you rather have? It may be more fun to preach to the excitable, but for lasting fruit I will always take the deeper ones. Of course, there are some who can be very demonstrative and still be deep and have great faith, which includes faithfulness. My point is to not judge one another after the flesh or externals but after the spirit.
In the Scriptures, we see that Jesus usually did His greatest miracles, such as walking on the water, when there were just a few present. After some of His greatest healing miracles, He told them not to tell anyone, but to go to the priests and offer thanks to God. Why wouldn't He want them to tell everyone so that more people would believe in Him?
Here is a unique truth—God healed few people so that they would believe in Him. In most cases, He only healed those who did believe in Him. If God wanted to do miracles so people would believe in Him, He could do better ones than healing the sick, even the crippled and blind. The Jews asked for that when they wanted a sign from heaven. They wanted Him to do something in the sky, stop the sun or something like Joshua did. The Lord could easily do such things as stopping the sun today or writing His name in the heavens with the stars so that no one could deny Him, but that is not what He is trying to do.
After the Lord did many of His great miracles, many had their hearts even more hardened, persecuting Him even more vehemently because of the works that He did. They were so hard-hearted that after He raised the dead, they even resolved to kill Him. Greater miracles and faith usually result in more persecution, not more people coming to faith in Jesus. We see this also happening with the apostles and with Stephen in the Book of Acts.
We can expect that the way the Lord is moving now will ultimately result in many coming to faith in Him, but not necessarily because of the miracles directly, but because of the preaching of the gospel by His people who are being emboldened. True evangelism is not dependent on miracles, but on the Holy Spirit to convict of sin and the desperate need we have for the atonement of the cross. Of course, there are exceptions to this, and we may all know someone who came to the Lord because of witnessing a miracle or were healed by Him, but I think we will find this to be a tiny percentage of those who now serve Him. Of the ten blind men who were healed, only one returned to thank Him. I think the Lord still wanted to heal them because He loved them, but even the greatest miracles do not necessarily lead one to follow Him.
God heals because He loves people, and He does not like for them to suffer. He does miracles because we need them. This is why compassion is so crucial for a true healing ministry. This is not human compassion, but God's compassion, which we also need to learn to distinguish between. Human compassion, or those trying to use miracles as a witness, would have probably tried to heal all of the people sitting around the pool of Siloam, but God's compassion led Jesus to heal only one. Jesus must have stepped over some pretty bad cases to get to that one, but He was not led by human compassion and only did what He saw the Father doing. The more obedient we become, the more power we can be trusted with.
Even so, having an atmosphere of faith is crucial for the Lord to do miracles. Even the Lord Jesus Himself could not do much when there was unbelief. For this reason it is often appropriate to have those who are healed give public testimonies, which can help others to believe for what they need. We must never forget the graciousness of the Lord and how He will do many things to help us in our weaknesses, even our unbelief. However, we do need to learn to discern between human excitement and true faith, which can be very quiet and seemingly reserved, like the shy woman who just reached out to touch the hem of the Lord's garments to be healed.
Do not dismiss the quiet, shy ones, who may feel presumptuous to even push forward for prayer. They may not even come forth until everything else has quieted down. We have had some major miracles happen to people who were too shy to go on the stage to testify about them. This did not mean that they were not thankful, and they obviously had great faith in God, but not in themselves to be able to speak to a large crowd. We personally do not want to embarrass or force anyone to testify who does not feel comfortable with it. We may ask them to email or write to us explaining what happened to them, but I think we will see more miracles if we keep our attention on people receiving what they need and not on just getting the testimonies.
Because of what I have learned about the good skeptics and the bad ones, we are not going too far out of our way to verify miracles. Some miracles we have experienced have been undeniable because they happened right in front of our eyes. However, some have doubted these, even when they saw them! Go figure. They are so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out of their darkness. To be overly concerned about convincing such people can be as deadly a trap as falling into their black hole with them. When it is convenient, we may take the verification of medical records and such, but we have resolved to keep our focus on pursuing the Lord and His work, letting the good skeptics check it out and prove them and the bad skeptics believe what they will.
Trend #2
The second trend I have observed is that many of the great miracles take place and no one, including the person who received the healing or miracle, knows who prayed for them. I love this because Jesus receives the glory and the people's faith grows in Jesus rather than in those praying for them. I have always appreciated that in ministries like Benny Hinn's. He just provides an atmosphere of faith and expectation, shares some words of knowledge, and people get healed all over the audience with no one personally praying for them. The churches that experience the most healings and miracles are likewise usually those that provide an atmosphere of faith and expectation, and the faith and expectation is directed to the Lord rather than the church or healing ministries. This could be summed up as learning to be a good host for the Holy Spirit.
Trend #3
A third trend I have noticed is that many are healed or experience a great miracle after going home. This can happen the next day or even days after they were prayed for. Every healing is from God, regardless of how long it takes or how it happens. Even if it happens by the mechanisms He put in us for fighting disease, it is still the Lord doing it. What we usually call "a healing" is more than that. It is basically a speeding up of the process and jumping over normal or natural processes to do it quicker. We have seen a number of broken bones healed either instantly or in just a couple of days when it should have taken weeks, but even the ones that take weeks we should still thank Him for.
Even so, as we are seeing many diseases on the horizon or upon us that are beyond human remedy and beyond our body's ability to fight, we must know Jesus as our Healer. We should be thankful for human medicine and remedies, which the Lord gave the wisdom and skills to develop. However, we should pursue having a healing ministry in the body of Christ that is so powerful and dependable that His people will not need hospitals or human remedies. The times that we are entering will require this. For now though, if we do not get healed miraculously, we should not feel rejected or condemned, but rather thankful for the doctor He has provided. However, when possible, we need to turn to Him first and always trust Him regardless of how He provides for us.
Trend #4
The fourth trend is that the smallest meetings have tended to be the most powerful, which have been so pronounced that we start getting more excited when we see that it is going to be a smaller crowd in a meeting. We have had meetings so packed that it was almost impossible for our teams to get to the people and individually pray for them. Because of the crowds, these have been great and encouraging meetings, and we are happy for them when there are that many people seeking God. Every time this happens, a few days later we will have some very small meetings, and it seems that the Lord moves with far greater power in these. Do not despise small meetings! Keep in mind that the Lord did His greatest miracles in small groups.
Special Note
Because of the prophetic indications we have received that September 21 will be a significant date, we shifted the dates for our Harvest Conference to September 18-20, and the Worship & Warfare Conference to September 22-24, sandwiching Sunday the 21st between them. These truly could be dates that make history for the church in America, and for America itself, so we want to be gathered together and worshiping the Lord at that time.
Presently, we have so many coming in just for "The Breakout Meetings" we could quickly run out of rooms at Heritage for these conferences, so if you are planning to come to the Harvest and/or the Worship & Warfare Conference, please register and book your rooms at Heritage ASAP. We have also negotiated special rates for those coming to these conferences at other hotels close by so you will be able to still come to the conference(s) even if you cannot get a room at Heritage. A special atmosphere is at Heritage where great things are happening all of the time. Once you have experienced them, you will not want to miss it again.
These are conferences where we especially promote interchange between churches, movements, denominations, etc. There will also be booths, as well as Christian artists, music producers, publishers, etc. at these conferences. If you are interested in having a booth, please contact us soon because space is limited, and these will sell out fast. We encourage you to promote your vision, materials, and sell them, but also to have special worship gatherings and ministry teams at your booth. Powerful things happen at these booths, and there is a bonding that happens that has and will greatly help to build the body of Christ.
You can register for these conferences, book rooms at H.I.M., and reserve a booth or booths easily by just calling our toll free number 1-800-542-0278. I hope to see you there!
