Thursday, March 13, 2008

The Multiplication of Ministry – Part II

We’ve had a real breakthrough in the last couple of weeks. Deaf ears have been opening like popcorn! In one 14 day period in the last couple of weeks, we have seen 6 partially and totally deaf ears open! From older folks to little kids, it just doesn’t matter; there has been an unusual anointing to open deaf ears and blind eyes. Vision problems, from total blindness to simple things like near sightedness have been healed recently. I believe it’s because we’ve been thumping a spirit that has held the Western church captive for a long time, the spirit of stupor.


STUPOR
We first heard about the spirit of stupor several years ago from Bob Jones. He told us that we as a church and ministry had an anointing to break the spirit of stupor off of the American church. He gave us this scripture as the text:

“Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not; nor do they understand.” Matthew 13:13

The spirit of stupor in a nutshell allows the believer to hear, but not understand and to see, but not perceive. That’s why you can hear the same messages, read the same scriptures over and over and yet it never really takes hold and your life isn’t changed. We’ve been preaching the Lord’s Prayer over the last several years and it’s amazing; everyone has heard the Lord’s Prayer and most have memorized it, yet very few actually hear and understand what the Lord is saying to us in it! The spirit of stupor is DEFINITELY at work in the American church. We’ve been battling against it, many times rebuking it off of the people and I think the breakthrough that we’re seeing in the healing of blind eyes and deaf ears is directly tied to us coming against this spirit.


IN OKC
As I mentioned last week, we were just in Oklahoma City the week before last. We had been invited there by Brian Blount, a good friend of ours that we have known for many years. Brian has a vision for the churches to unite in Oklahoma City and take this Gospel of the Kingdom to their community. He gathered folks from several churches together and set up a weekend of equipping and ministry called Harvest Fest. We were excited to be there and 10 folks from our church were able to make it with us. 5 minutes into the city and I just knew that God would be doing great things. And He did.

Here are some of the testimonies from the weekend:


THE BLIND SEE, THE DEAF HEAR, THE LAME WALK!
On the first night that we arrived in the city, we were given the Thursday night service at a local church there. All in all, the service went well and before the night was done, someone who was deaf in one of their ears and wore a large hearing aid just to get by was hearing perfectly, from a distance! Also, one gentleman who had difficulty walking and was in severe pain and discomfort in his hip for some time was instantly healed, he could walk perfectly! One of the ladies that we prayed for received a miracle in her eyesight. Before, she needed glasses to read fine print and had generally bad eyesight at close range. After receiving prayer, when she put ON her glasses, it was blurry, when she took them OFF, she could see fine! We saw her the next day and she verified that she had received a miracle… I don’t know why we didn’t get her eyeglasses!

The following night (Friday) night, we had a WILD ministry time where many folks received some very strange, but powerful deliverances. There were multiple people that started literally vomiting as we prayed for the fire of God to come on them and they were delivered from all sorts of demonic garbage; addictions, bondages, etc.


SEE ONE, DO ONE
At that same meeting, there was a young lady, who was deaf in one ear that came forward for prayer. One of the young mommies on our team had gone last year to Mozambique and spent some time with Heidi Baker, who has an unusual rate of healing for the deaf and blind. The team in Mozambique was praying for a young girl that was deaf and not seeing immediate results. They called Heidi over and asked her to help them get the little girl healed. When Heidi found out it was about deafness, she said, “Oh, that’s easy! You do it like this!” She then licked her pinky fingers and then put them in the little girls’ ears. They prayed a short prayer and the little girl was instantly healed!

Back to the story in Oklahoma; so, they bring up this young woman with deafness and I tell them quickly to get Kathie (the young mom who went to Mozambique last year) because Heidi showed her how to get deaf people healed. Kathie walked right up, did what Heidi showed her and they prayed. Just a few minutes later, the young lady was hearing well! It must really be easy!

All in all there were dozens of miracles that we witnessed and quite a few folks met the Lord for the first time. Several hundred folks attended the meetings and several churches in the city were affected and there people were lit on fire! 70+ people were equipped and went out, preaching the Gospel with signs and wonders in their community and multiple communities were shaken with the power of God!

Come on Jesus!


2 comments:

Esther said...

Thanks for sharing! We went out this past Sunday, but I don't have any stories to share with you this time...

Unknown said...

Esther,

Yeah, not every time is crazy good, but as I tell our folks all the time, it's NEVER a bad time or a waste of time to preach this Gospel!

Keep it up. We will.

We just went out Wednesday night and found a place that I am sure will produce a harvest. Our first time in there and we got to preach to a handful of young men and a large family, prophesying and releasing the Kingdom over them.

It's a real rough area in Atlanta, known for it's drug and prostitution trade, as well as gang violence. It should be awesome!

Ryan