Dr. D. K. Olukoya

 This week, we are considering a message entitled, “I need a miracle.”

 2 Chronicles 16:9: “For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to shew himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him...” 

  Every day, God watches out for an opportunity to do a great thing for you when your heart is perfect towards him. Anyone who claims that he does not need a miracle must be somebody without goals in life. We are all in need of miracles and thank God, we have the God of miracles.

 WHAT IS A MIRACLE?

 It is an event beyond the power of any human being; an event beyond any physical law. it is a supernatural occurrence or a wonderful thing brought about by the power of God. Sometimes the Bible refers to it as mighty works or marvelous things. When God does it, He does it to His own glory.  Anywhere you see human beings, miracles are needed. Paul the apostle had been inside a ship for a long time and the people with him in the ship refused to listen to the voice of God. Rather, they listened to the devil and started to reap the result. Sailing became dangerous and they spent a long time on the sea in anguish. Most of them stopped eating. They threw their luggage into the sea and it was dark for many days. They had given up hope on living.  To worsen the situation, the ship in which they were traveling, hit a rock and was shattered to pieces.  But one way or the other, they all got to the shore on splinters of wood. When they got to the shore, Apostle Paul, the man of God sat down to warm himself by the fire and a viper jumped out of the woods and fastened to his hand, wanting to disgrace him. All other prisoners and the sailors were there. It did not go for them. I do not know which serpent has fastened itself to your own hand but one thing I know is that God can shake it into the fire. That was what happened to Paul.  As the people there were waiting for him to fall down and die, thinking he was evil, he shook the snake into the fire and did not fall down neither did he die. When they found that he did not die, they changed their mind and gathered around him as he continued to demonstrate the power of God in their midst. So the disgrace that the enemy planned for him was converted into a revival. God is still in that businesses of having His children throw serpents into the fire. Paul threw the snake away and its poison had no effect on him. That was a miracle.

If miracles work contrary to human logic then you expect the unusual or the unexpected to happen whenever you are praying for a miracle. If you were going to be looking at what your biology or sciences say, you would be far from miracles. When you come to God, know that what you considered to be logical would be illogical to Him. What you think is completely illogical may be the right thing to God. The Bible makes us to understand that God still works miracles. Unfortunately, these days, many people do not agree that the human brain has its own limit. Anything such people cannot understand with their brain, they just conclude it cannot happen. What a shallow way of looking at things.

Once the brain perceives certain things as impossible, the human mind accepts it quickly and sometimes, when we accept it like that, our faith would not go beyond what we have accepted. Then, we end up insulting God.  It is an insult to limit God. God often looks at us when we limit Him and He would be saying: “This people cannot realise that I created these things and I can readjust and rearranged them.” When God is in operation, He specializes on things that people say is impossible. Those who are close to God, obedient to Him, and have faith in Him will always experience His miracle working power. This is why we need to cry unto Him saying: “Lord, I need a miracle.” If you cry unto Him like that and He sees your heart, He will respond.

God works His miracle for several reasons and He does not have to consult anybody before doing it. He may do it just to teach a lesson, to enable men to declare the gospel properly, to silence false prophets, to reveal the devil as a destroyer, or to reveal His goodness or to reveal Jesus, the resurrection and life.

WHO NEEDS A MIRACLE?

  Perhaps familiar faces are troubling you in your dreams, you need a miracle. Perhaps you notice that your life has been converted to a material for testing new satanic weapons, you need a miracle. Perhaps you have been sitting for satanic examinations in your dream, which has turned you to a student in the school of tribulation, you need a miracle. Perhaps your spiritual life is stagnant, you have been struggling on your own and trying your best, but you find that you are not making progress, perhaps there are hidden and clever devourers working against you, just sucking your money and resources away, you need a miracle.

 Perhaps you have what we call weak breakthroughs. By the time you have a breakthrough, there would be sufficient debts on ground to swallow it. Although there is a breakthrough but the breakthrough is not sufficient to carry the load that you have. You need a miracle. Perhaps you notice that your life is following an evil family pattern; everybody in your family is heading towards one wrong direction, for example, you notice that in your family, nobody has a good job, nobody has good health, people die young or people are not getting married, you need a miracle.

 Perhaps you know that your names are placed on evil altars somewhere and someone you don’t even know chants incantations on them, you need a miracle to destroy the satanic priest at the altar and to set the altar on fire. Perhaps you have been suffering from prayer paralysis. You find that you can only pray for a short time or else you develop migraine or become afraid, it would seem as if some forces want to overshadow you, you need a miracle. There are many people who have benefits abroad which foreign demons have captured. Such people need a miracle to release those things. There are many people who have been duped even by white men, they need a miracle. There are many people as well who have been cursed by satanic prophets for no just cause, some have the mark of hatred on them, those who liked them suddenly began to hate them passionately, some are suffering from leaking pockets, money comes in and goes out, they cannot retain it, they need a miracle.

 I was talking to one man about the gospel and he was saying all kinds of blasphemy against the Lord Jesus Christ. I said, “O Lord, give me a word for this man, that he would know that you are the Lord.” And the Lord said, “Ask him whether or not he sees himself roaming about in the market place anytime he gets his salary and he would feel as something is passing down through his pocket.” I threw the question directly at him as the Lord had said it. He was surprised and asked: “Who told you that?” I said, “The same Jesus that you called a bastard  now.” Anyone whose pocket leaks in the spirit cannot retain money physically.  He would not be able to give account of how he spends his money. Perhaps you have medical problems that defy medicine, you need a miracle. Perhaps all roads to progress seem blocked. Anywhere you go, it would seem as if someone had already gotten there before you and put a stumbling block on your way, you need a miracle. Perhaps you notice that any time you have a particular dream, a particular problem would start, you need a miracle. Perhaps you have no good job or business, you need a miracle.

 Perhaps your family is under attack and they are being bombarded everyday by the arrows of the enemy or you have a building you cannot finish  because witches have urinated on it, you need a miracle to remove your building from their grip. Perhaps you have answered to demonic calls, you need a miracle to cancel the evil call. Perhaps you are being tormented by very intelligent wicked network and you don’t really know who your friends are or who your enemies are, you need a miracle. Perhaps you never really enjoy divine benefits. You just hear God blesses people but the only blessing you receive is that you are alive and breathing,  you need a miracle. Perhaps you have open, unrepentant and stubborn household wickedness, you need a miracle. Perhaps you are suffering from intensive marital attacks, you need a miracle. A sister whose husband had abandoned for a long time, was ministered to in Kaduna. After the ministration, she took some prayer points home  and prayed. After the prayers, her husband came back.  He could no longer recognise his own children because they were very young when he ran away. But the sister started to complain that she did not know if it was even right for the man to come back again because the same Ankara dress that he was wearing when he left was still the same one he was wearing when he came back after many years. His lot had not improved. Perhaps your case is like that, you need a miracle. Perhaps you are one of the so many people who are born again but cannot even locate the enemy. They just know that there are enemies but cannot locate them and cannot fire their bullets properly, you need a miracle. Perhaps you are a student but you always fail your examinations, or the enemy has converted you into a foot mat;  all the inferior people are promoted above you but you taught them the job, you need a miracle.  Perhaps life has become like a prison and you wish to die, you need a miracle. Perhaps you are suffering from intensive financial embarrassment, you need a miracle. When some people in this fellowship started coming here, people used to give them transport money to come and to go but now such people give tithes of N50,000. What happened to them? They received their miracle.

 Perhaps you find that you are spiritually cold, or all those who want to assist you suddenly become unwilling to help, you need a miracle. Perhaps you have good ideas but there is no capital for you to work with, you need the God that turned the fish into a bank. Perhaps as one problem is going another one is coming or you are the kind of person who always fights and struggles before you can get anything done, you need a miracle.

 Perhaps you have children that have traveled abroad and are doing well, but they have completely forgotten you here. And you are wallowing in poverty. Perhaps you are occupying the wrong position in your dream, you see yourself in three-piece suit, dressing well, inside a very fine car but in the physical you cannot afford a bicycle. You need a miracle. Perhaps your promotion is being denied or delayed. You need a miracle. Perhaps your marriage is the type they can call the cat and mouse marriages. You need a miracle.

 Perhaps the enemy has converted your business to a desert, you need a miracle. I cannot understand how a person would take food down to the market place for sale and bring it back home without selling one grain. Such a person needs a miracle. The devil has turned the lives of so many Christians upside down so much that what is supposed to be normal, they see it as unusual. Perhaps your account is dead, you need a miracle. Don’t limit God. He does not use your arithmetic to operate.  He operates in a way that is beyond your imagination. Perhaps you have accumulated debts and you don’t know where to run, or your situation is so bad that you have closed your door to visitors and have given your children strict instruction that the only person they can open the door for is your pastor, you need a miracle. Perhaps you notice that your virtue has been transferred, you are supposed to be the first born but your younger ones are doing better than you, you need a miracle.  Perhaps you know you are being bewitched. When you get money your hands and body would be shaking and you put it in the wrong place, do the wrong business, and buy the wrong things, you need a miracle. Perhaps you have a dead organ in your body, you need a miracle. Perhaps you are being pursued by the spirit of death or the arrow of poverty, you need a miracle. Perhaps you are a spiritual spectator; you are just observing everything. When they say, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost,” your spirit is as cold as ice block. Your own child is prophesying but you as daddy or mummy cannot see beyond your nose, you need a miracle.

 Perhaps you have been feeding your enemies to fight you harder, you need a miracle. Perhaps you have long standing infirmity or you have a vagabond anointing. You cannot settle down on something, you are fishing in the ocean of life but catching nothing, you need a miracle.

 Perhaps you have what we call verbal trap. The devil has recorded many messages from your mouth, and have used it to cage you because you are the one saying them, you need a miracle. Perhaps your business is suffering from what we call profit starvation, you need a miracle.

GOD’S MIRACLE AGENT

Genesis 1: 1 – 3: “In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moves upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”

 The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. It was after that that God spoke and things began to happen. In the Bible, we can see that God did a lot of miracles through Moses. Moses was so close to God that the anointing upon him was so tremendous. At a stage, God took part of the Spirit that was upon him and divided it amongst seventy people. What was the secret of the miracle working power upon Moses? It was the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God’s miracle agent. Do you know the secret of Joseph’s success in Egypt. Why was he so much in tune with God.? It was because the Spirit of God was in him. Bezaleel the son of Uri was the first spiritual artist in the Bible. He constructed the furniture in the tabernacle. How did he do it? He did it by the Holy Spirit.

 David was a successful king and warrior because he had the Holy Spirit. He said, “Take not thy Holy Spirit away from me.” Elijah operated in the miraculous and worked wonders for the Lord. The Bible talks about the spirit and the power of  Elijah. Elisha received the double portion of that spirit because he recognized that no miracle would happen without the Spirit of God. He waited for the anointing and it came upon him and that wonderful passage in

  Isaiah 10:27: “...And the yoke shall be destroyed because of the anointing.” The miraculous birth of Jesus was done through the power of the Holy Spirit. The angels told Mary that the Spirit of the Most high God shall overshadow her.

 Luke 5:17: “And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee; and Judea, and Jerusalem, and the power of the Lord was present to heal them.”

 The power of God has to be present for healing to take place. A lot of people don’t like the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries because it is ‘a do it yourself’ ministry. This place demystifies priesthood and removes the veil of pastors.  We make people to understand that they too can walk in the supernatural. It is not for pastors alone.

 A certain white man received a touch of fire and one day, his wife woke up and found him praying on their cooker, that the cooker should work, in Jesus’ name. She tapped him and said, “John, what kind of madness is this? If the cooker is not working any longer, buy another one.” He said, “No. I cannot waste my money. It must work.” And behold, it started working. Meaning that the miraculous can work with animate and inanimate things.

 The power of the Holy Spirit is God’s miracle working power. The Bible says that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and power and He went about doing good, healing those that were oppressed, for God was with Him. Jesus moved under the anointing. The apostles too moved by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Any meeting where the Holy Spirit does not come down and flow freely, there will be no miracle. The Holy Spirit will not come down or move freely if He is grieved or quenched.  Once you rebel against Him, He will move away quietly  and nothing happens. The Holy Spirit can be resisted. What does it mean to resist the Holy Spirit? It means to rebel against His conviction.

 When people refuse to surrender all to Jesus, they experience only small miracles.  Those who do not believe that nothing much can happen would  only expect minor miracles. Once you come to God with the expectation that He has all the powers and can do all things, you will  receive miracles. But when you come to the house of God, and before the prayers start, your spirit is already low and down, the Holy Spirit will pass you by.  The same thing applies to those who come to service and do not concentrate. Miracles will not happen in such lives. Some people come to the church meditating on their problems.  During prayers, such people just shake their heads and say nothing and so nothing happens. God wants us to come to Him with high expectation. You do not come to a meeting and say, “Well I am going again, I hope God will hear me today.” You don’t come to God like that. You should come to God with high expectation.

 THE GREATEST MIRACLE

 We must know that the greatest miracle we can have is our salvation. When that is taken care of, other things would follow.  So if you are not saved better get saved now.  We thank God for His mercies. Salvation is offered free of charge. Some people say, “I just want a miracle, I don’t want to be born again.”  We must know that a person may get a miracle and still go to hell fire.  All those who say, “I don’t want to be saved. I don’t want those restrictions. They don’t allow you to have a mind of your own.” If that is your own opinion about it, I counsel you to change your mind. And if you say you won’t change your mind or surrender completely to Jesus, a time will come when you will leave this earth and you will knock at His gate and He too will look at you and say, “Who is that rebel, clear out of that place.” Even if you stand and begin to say, “But I was born in Italian Catholic church. My father was the chief usher of the Kerosene and paraffin church and my Mother was the most senior mother in Israel in our church or I was born in Elijah Apostolic church and was brought up in supernatural Anglican and now you say I should not enter,” He will not open for you.

 A lot of people fail examinations because they did not prepare very well. You only get what you are ready and prepared to receive. The sower went out to sow. Nothing was wrong with the sower and nothing was wrong with the seed. It was the soil that had some problems. You have to make yourself available to God. Drop worry and anxiety and make yourself available to Him. Doctors do not go about the streets asking people if they are sick. Clothes sellers do not go about the street saying to people, “You are wearing rags, buy new clothes.” Likewise barbers do not drag people from the street into their shops, saying, “Your hair is bushy, come and cut it.” Soap sellers do not force people to buy soap even if they are smelling. Be prepared. Before Jacob’s name could be changed, he got alone with God. He became spiritually aggressive in prayer. There was a preparation. Before the wall of Jericho fell down, the Israelites marched round it for seven days. There was a preparation. Before the widow of Zarephath could receive abundance, she gave up everything she had to the prophet. In spite of the fact that she knew there was nothing else to fall back on. Before Naaman could be healed, he dropped his pride, obeyed the prophet and took a bathe in the dirty water. There was a preparation.

 Before that woman could receive abundance of oil, the man of God told her to go and get more vessels. God began to fill the vessels and the miracle continued for as long as there were vessels to be filled.

 Identify what you need now. There is no point for a person to come before the living God, the limitless God with unbelief in his heart or without the faith that a lot of things could happen. You ought to offer a holy cry to the Lord that: “Lord, I need a miracle!”

 Before we go into the prayer session, I counsel you to give your life to Christ in case you are not yet born again because I want you to experience the miracle power of God and the deliverance power of the Almighty. I want you to see the impossible happen. If you are ready to do so, make the following confession: “Lord Jesus, I am a sinner. I want to get born again. Come into my life. Forgive me my sins and cleanse me with your blood. I say bye to the devil. I enter into the kingdom of heaven. Thank you Jesus, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

 We have to take steps to arrest every evil progress. No evil progress must continue. It is important we take this step. Perhaps you have been suffering for a long time, it is time to deliver yourself from the bondage of the enemy. The first thing to do is to break the stumbling blocks and clear the blockages away before we begin to cry to the Lord for a miracle. Remember blind Bartimeaus threw away his garment that was disturbing him so that he might reach the Saviour.  We must also fling away every evil garment now so that we can touch the Saviour. Raise your voice like thunder as you take the following prayer points:

PRAYER POINTS

1.       I receive spiritual violence to confuse my enemies, in the name of Jesus.

2.       Every satanic angels blocking my breakthroughs, be bound, in the name of Jesus.

3.       O God that answereth by fire, answer my prayer now by fire, in the name of Jesus.

4.       Every power making my miracle to slip out of my hands, fall down and die, in the name of Jesus.

5.       (Focus on one thing at a time. If you have any sickness on your body, lay your hands on the place and pray like this): O Lord, on this issue I need a miracle, in the name of Jesus.

6.       (Focus your attention on another thing and pray aggressively like this): O Lord, on this issue I need a miracle, in the name of Jesus.

7.       Let my poverty disappear; let my prosperity appear, in the name of Jesus.

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