When the Zarephath widow saw her dead son come back to life in 1 Kings 17:24, she said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God and that the word of the Lord from your mouth is the truth.” 

Notice she said, “the word of the Lord from your mouth”.  I interpret that to mean that there were likely many people who were preaching and teaching in the name of the Lord, but she did not trust them. 

Signs, miracles, and wonders have been used many times to validate a Lord’s prophet or servant, but today they cannot stand alone as a proof of God’s hand.  Even Satan, especially in these last days, has his Egyptian Magicians, and can easily perform signs, miracles, and wonders, to deceive even the elect if that is possible, so what then?  How can we know where God is at work and His voice can truly be heard? 

First, at the foundation of all spiritual discernment, we must first look at the quality of the gospel message consistently being preached.  If a minister is not consistently preaching the same cross carrying, self-denying, world-hating, narrow path Christianity that Jesus and the disciples preached, it does not matter what signs miracles or wonders we see!  You can know for certain that is a false teacher or prophet! 

However, when the Gospel is correct, we may also pay attention to, investigate, and ponder the wonders of our God, which He often uses to validate His true work.

“Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done.  The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare. – Psalm 40:5

The Wonder-doing God can surpass all our expectation! The Wonder-doing God . . . must be the God of our confidence. ANDREW MURRAY

The Impact of a Dark and Creepy Documentary

Recently I watched an investigative documentary that caught my attention because I spend so much time in the woods.  It was about the thousands of people who have vanished, many without a trace, in the National Forests all over America.

The remarkable documentary, done by a former police detective, leaves you deeply impacted, perplexed, and even fearful, wondering what really happened to all these people.  How did 1,200 people just vanish like that, many of them hunters who were heavily armed and very capable survivalists? 

While watching it, I tried to set aside my Christian Biblical world view of a Sovereign God who is in control of every person, spirit, and event, and instead I allowed myself as a human, to really enter the experiences of these people and their families.  By doing this, I was able to feel the darkness, the uncertainty, and the fearfulness of it all.  It leaves you standing on very dark and shaky ground. 

Then I thought about how this was only one subject out of thousands, which are out there on the internet causing fear, uncertainty, misinformation, confusion, deception, anxiety, DISTRACTION, etc.

Within minutes of finishing that documentary and really connecting with the fear I felt, I had the most amazing experience.  I took the perfect match between God’s arrangement of dates in my marriage to Persis in India, to Noah’s flood in Genesis 7 & 8, and I laid that directly over the quicksand I felt I was standing in, after watching that documentary.  It was like adding concrete to the sinking sand and I was instantaneously able to feel my feet back on solid ground!  The fearful uncertainty of that doco could not compete in any way with the solid concrete of God’s Sovereignty and powerful control in my own testimony.  The fear of uncertainty had no place left to stand.  God is truly in control!

When I think of the powerful lift I felt in my heart in that moment, Psalm 40:2 comes to mind.  “He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.”

That firm place to stand, is indeed God’s standard against the enemy who sometimes throws us into a slimy pit.

Some may say, “But Michael, how is this supposed to be a blessing to me when God is not orchestrating each event in my life into a precise Biblical time periods, like he is yours? 

Please consider this.  If you were standing with Moses next to the Red Sea, it was not you that God used to part it, but the parting was very much for you.  If you were standing next to Elijah on Mount Carmel, it was not you that God used to call down the fire from heaven, but that fire was very much for you.  If you were thinking properly, you wouldn’t be saying, “Well God didn’t part the sea through me, so clearly there’s no benefit to me…Well, God didn’t bring the fire down through me, so I guess this doesn’t apply to me!”  No, you would have been absolutely amazed at, and thankful for, the power of your God!  Do you get it? 

Think of something you’ve seen online that causes you great fear or uncertainty about what is ahead.

Now, pay attention to what happens to your uncertainty as you meditate on this astonishing wonder of God!

Take God’s first 777-day miracle in my life, in the divorce from my first wife Keri.  She filed for divorce on July 30, 2010.  Throughout the divorce I saw the number 777 and captured it, well over 100 times.  God then had me receive the final divorce decree, victorious in my favor, on September 15, 2012, where there was exactly 777 days in between those two dates.  Then the Lord led me to read page 777 of my 1984 NIV 10th Anniversary Edition Study Bible, where I read those marvelous words about God being the ultimate executor of justice on earth, when no earthly court can grant justice.

Please, do not just roll past this as something neat or even wonderful. Think of this.  God literally controlled, every single detail of thousands of people’s lives over 777 days to achieve this result, which He told of in advance, showing me all those 777’s as an indicator that my freedom and victory would come on day 777.

In order to hit that day 777 victory, God had to be aware of, and or control, every single day for 777 days, my ex-wife’s attorneys and their schedules, her finding a new attorney when she fired the first, the retirement of our original judge, the replacement of that judge, sick days, family emergencies, unexpected schedule changes, court hearing re-schedules, mediation outcomes, bad weather days, car accidents, mistakes in paperwork, re-scheduling of courtrooms in the court house, etc.

Please, try to get your head around this.  Think of the thousands and thousands of details that were needing to be controlled or planned for by God, in between those 777 days in which she first filed for divorce, and I receive the final divorce decree.  This is absolutely staggering and far more impressive and requiring far more power than simply bringing one person back from the dead.

This is a gorgeous picture of what Isaiah 59:19 says in the King James, “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” There again we have the word “standard” which can also mean “banner”.

We can see this way of God is another type of what He already did in Revelation 12:15.  “Then from his mouth the serpent spewed water like a river (here is the enemy coming in like a flood), to overtake the woman and sweep her away with the torrent.  Ah, but here comes the standard God raised up for her in v. 16.  “But the earth helped the woman by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that the dragon had spewed out of his mouth.”

I believe this is exactly what the Lord is doing with this wonder and sign of controlling all time in my testimony.  He is swallowing up anything that the enemy can throw at us by way of spiritual confusion, deception, fear, or uncertainty. 

I do not believe you can point to any video anywhere on the internet that is scarier than this testimony is strong.  But it is so strong that we cannot even understand how powerful it is with our human understanding.  Let me give you an example.   

We’ve all been impressed with the miracle of the feeding of the 4,000 and the 5,000.  But if we truly understood God’s power behind doing one miracle like that, we would be flabbergasted.  There are videos on the internet where physicists using Einstein’s theory of E=MC2 (Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared), have estimated that the amount of energy Jesus Christ needed to have control over, just to feed the 5,000 people from 5 loaves and two fish, was the equivalent of more than 2 million fat man nuclear bombs, like the one which was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan in 1945. 

That was one meal, one time, one miracle.  What kind of power has it taken for God to control every single person, spirit, animal, circumstance, event, and all of time in my life for the last 20 years?

I have seen from experience that this testimony of God’s power over all people, spirits, animals, circumstances, events, and time, can open up and swallow any river Satan throws at it, when you have truly understood, by your faith, the amount of power God is putting on display here.  The Lord is giving us something that will swallow up ANYTHING the enemy throws at us.  This is the Standard of God…let us stand in it, by our faith!

Think of any of the most fearful things you can possible think of having seen on the news or on the internet and then just watch what happens when you lay this providence in my life alone, on top it.  It will swallow anything you put against it.