Jul 7, '08 4:46 PM

Things -- miracles -- have been happening on such a constant basis, I figured I'd better share some of them before they get old.  We'll do the piece on Angelology next time.

Yeah, Yeah, Rose!  Folgers?  How can you stand that stuff?  Oooooohhhh!!  Folgers is acid city for me.  I got delivered from that canned coffee 40 years ago.

The rest of you can pour some real coffee (grin), and take a minute or two with me while I share some of the excitement that's going on around here.

You'll recall that I shared the experience Mom had with her earrings where she lost one when we were at a barbecue and the angel of the Lord retrieved it and put it in her jewelry case.  I also shared with you the angelic retrieval our son, Chris, had with the cashier's check that had been shredded.

Here's another one just like those.

We were in Milwaukee last August for the Believers' Convention, and Mary Ellen was with us.  The convention ran (as it usually does) from Monday thru Saturday.  We decided to wait to leave Milwaukee until Monday and take Sunday for a day of rest.  On Sunday afternoon, Della and Mary Ellen were wandering through some gift shops and Mary Ellen decided to buy a rather nice bracelet and matching earrings for herself.

She wore them throughout the rest of the day and decided she'd wear them on Monday as she flew home to Red Deer, Alberta.  So she put the bracelet and earrings on her nightstand next to the bed when she went to sleep that night.

Next morning, as she's getting ready to leave, she realizes that the jewelry is missing.  Mary Ellen calls the hotel housekeeping to see if perhaps the cleaning folks might have picked them up and moved them when they came in to make the bed.  Nope.

She and Della spent perhaps 30 - 45 minutes turning everything in the room inside out looking for the jewelry to no avail.  They emptied suitcases, handbags, purses -- everything!  To say the least, we were baffled by the disappearance and decided to do the only thing we knew to do: command angels to go and retrieve them and bring them back to Mary Ellen.

With Mom's experience with her earring and Chris's experience with the cashier's check as fresh reminders, Mary Ellen asked us to agree with her once again for the return of that jewelry.  A few days ago -- early last week, by my recollection -- Mary Ellen reached in her purse to get her car keys and instead pulled out the long-missing jewelry.  You should have heard the war-whoop!

Think the Lord doesn't care about the little things?  Think again!  It wasn't like this was a huge financial loss -- the jewelry was worth probably less than $200 -- but it was the principle of the thing.  It is exciting when you see this kind of activity as a direct result of activating the Word of God (Hebrews 1:14, in this case) in faith.

Right after I sent out Miracles 3, our grandson, Kyle, was sitting with us in our overflow room here at River Worship Center as we were watching the Lakeland Outpouring on the big screen.  As he was watching the miracles unfold in front of his eyes he asked, "Grandpa, do you think the Lord would heal my eyes?"

Kyle was injured in a fall at age two.  Apparently the fall caused an injury to his left optic nerve resulting in blurred vision and a constant pulling to the side similar to what we mostly refer to as "lazy eye."  At age six, he underwent a couple of surgeries to correct the damaged optic nerve, but the repairs were not really successful.

He has continually worn glasses with Coke-bottle lenses designed to correct the muscle weakness, but the glasses haven't been much help.  That said, Kyle was pointing to his left eye when he asked, "Grandpa, do you think the Lord would heal my eyes?"

Della and I both got out of our seats and laid hands on him.  I put both hands on his temples with my thumbs covering his eyes and began to declare his healing.  Immediately, my hands grew extremely hot.  Kyle's face turned as red as the shirt he was wearing as he likewise grew hot under the heat.

He opened his eyes and looked at me and said, "Grandpa, my eyes are healed!"  He turned to Della and said, "Grandma, look!  My eyes are straight."

Della asked him if his vision had also cleared, and he responded, "Not completely, but it is clearing and I can see better."  She counseled Kyle to wear his reading glasses until the complete manifestation of his healing was there and he could see without any blurriness.

When he got home that night -- and it was late -- he ran into his mother's bedroom shouting, "Mom, God healed my eyes!  Look!  They're straight!"  In the days since, he has told his friends -- and anyone else who would pay attention -- that his eyes are healed and that the Lord has done it.

It's the right confession on his part -- he's eleven years old -- and the blurriness is gradually clearing up.  He will have perfect vision!

That was on a Friday night a couple weeks ago.  The following Sunday evening, we received a phone call from Della's uncle, Jesse Evans, who lives in Yakima.  He said, "Just wanted you to know that your Aunt Nita was taken to the hospital, and she needs prayer.  She's having heart problems and the doctors are planning to put a stent in one of her major arteries tomorrow morning.  They're going to do surgery to correct an almost-closed blood vessel coming from the heart."

Della said to her uncle, "Should we call Nita and pray for her over the phone, or do we need to go to the hospital and lay hands on her?"

He responded, "I think I'll just give you the phone number to her hospital room and you can call her."

He gave Della the number, and she called.  "Nita, do you want us to pray for you over the phone?"

"NO!" she answered.  "I want you to come and lay hands on me and pray for me in person."  We laughed at her vehemence and told her that we would get there as soon as we could.

She was in good spirits when we arrived, but looking pretty pale and weak.  After we shared with her for awhile, telling her of all the miracles taking place, we said, "Are you ready for us to pray for you?"  She nodded her head.

Della took her hands, and I laid one hand on her side and one on her head.  Almost before I could get the words "In the name of Jesus" out of my mouth, my hands grew hot again just like they had with Kyle.  Nita began laughing.

"My whole side is getting hot," she exclaimed.  "I can feel the healing power of the Lord Jesus."

Our prayer was pretty straightforward and simple, and a few minutes later as we prepared to leave her hospital room, she said, "Boy, do I ever feel wonderful!  I believe that the Lord has healed me."

I said to her, "Nita, I believe that when the doctors take you into the operating room in the morning, they are going to realize that you don't need any surgery.  They are going to pronounce you well and send you home tomorrow.  I believe that."  She nodded her head and said, "I agree."

The next morning when she was wheeled into the operating room, the doctors did their pre-checks (or whatever it is they do prior to this kind of operation) and stopped.  "Mrs. Evans, whatever blockage existed yesterday is completely gone.  Your blood pressure is normal, and there is no evidence of any issue that would require a stent in any blood vessel."

By 2:00 PM, Nita Evans was released from the hospital and sent home.  She called us to confirm what we had shared the night before.  You can believe she was rejoicing over the healing.

Folks, I gotta tell you.  This is normal Christianity.  Stop and consider what Mark wrote in his Gospel.

"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.  He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.  And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.  And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following."  (Mark 16:15-20)

Lots of people read this passage and skim right over it without grasping the significance of what it says.

You preach the message of salvation.  The sign that follows that message is that folks get saved.  Preach healing, and people get healed.  Preach deliverance from evil spirits and you get demons fleeing -- sometimes with some very unusual displays.  Preach the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and you get folks whose language and speech changes.  They begin speaking in languages they've never heard or learned.  Preach miracles and that's what you get.

Thus Mark tells us that the Lord went with them and confirmed the word they preached with the accompanying signs that matched the Word.  That's the way it's supposed to be.  If we don't have the accompanying signs that match the Word we preach, we don't have the proofs of the Kingdom we say we're citizens of.  There'd better be signs that accompany the Word or something is desperately wrong!

Some people mistakenly think that when you lay hands on the sick, you should have instant miracles.  Gotta admit, I prefer the instant miracles.  But that's not what Jesus said would happen in each case.  Come to think of it, it's not what happened in every case with Him either.  (I'll share more on this in a later Coffee Break.)

His promise to the believer was, "they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."  The original Greek text uses a pair of words that get translated in our English "recover."  Those two words are: echo, (for: begin to amend) and kalos (which means: well, good, being full).  Any way you slice it, that describes a healing process -- not an instantaneous miracle.

We cannot allow ourselves to get caught in the trap of expecting miracles each and every time we lay hands on the sick, and then be disappointed because we didn't see the instantaneous.  Like I said, I prefer the instantaneous manifestation, but I've learned through sixty-plus years of walking with the Lord that more often than not, the healing manifestations come on a gradual and progressive basis.  The emphasis is on the fact that the healing does come!

I've got lots more to share on this, and more miracles to share, and we'll get there this next week.

Faith causes the intellect to see, the heart to hear, and the will to respond.  Faith is not a substitute: it is the very substance of that which we hope for and expect.  Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.

The Blessing of the Lord: it makes rich and He adds no painful toil and sorrow!  (Proverbs 10:22)  Be blessed!