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Signs, Wonders and Miracles
To summarize so far, we have established the importance of dreams and visions, not based upon subjective feelings, but upon the revealed methods of God:
The LORD declared in the Old Testament that he would speak through dreams and visions, and he reiterated the promise in the New Testament. (Joel 2: 28 /Acts 2: 17) Additionally, God declared in the Old Testament, “. . . if there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.” (Numbers 12: 6) And in Hosea 12:10, God testifies concerning himself, “I have also spoken by the prophets, and I have multiplied visions, and used similitudes by the ministry of the prophets.” Furthermore, the Psalmist assures us that the Lord will counsel us in the nighttime: “I will bless the Lord who has counseled me; Indeed, my mind (inner man) instructs me in the night.” (Psalm 16:7) The realms of visions and dreams are open to the possibility of receiving not only guidance and revelation from God, but also gifts of the Spirit and healings. King Solomon received the gift of wisdom in a dream, while Abram, on the other hand, received an extremely important covenant during deep sleep: “And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram. . . In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram. . . .’ (Genesis 15: 12-18)
However, having established the Biblical validity of dreams and visions, we must continue to emphasize that the work of salvation—Jesus Christ saving the eternal soul of a person—is just as great a miracle or sign and wonder as an open vision or a leaping cripple. The transformation of the inner person is even more significant than any physical or supernatural sign.
Listed among the “power gifts” in 1 Corinthians 12 are the gifts (charismata) of healing as well as the working (energema=energy, operation) of miracles (dunamis=power). We tend to call healings “miracles” when most are just that—healings—whereas the working of miracles is a separate operation of the Spirit. The word for miracles is dunamis, (Strong’s 1411), meaning “miraculous power,” sometimes translated “mighty deeds.” St. Thomas Aquinas rightly claimed that to be a miracle, an event had to be beyond the natural power of any created thing to produce.
Dreams and visions should characterize the Spirit-filled life. This is the time of the Revival of exploits, of mighty works, characterized by acts similar to those accomplished by Biblical heroes. The Church desperately needs the supernatural, especially since Jesus Himself prophesied in Matthew 24:24 that in the Last Days false Christs and false prophets will demonstrate “great (emphasis mine) signs and wonders.” Satan will increasingly promote lying wonders, falsehoods. Therefore the discerning of spirits should be one of the most coveted gifts of the Spirit to expose Satan’s pseudo wonders, a special characteristic of the End Time. We should petition the Lord for greater discernment and for genuine miracles from God.
Our generation has witnessed not only the restoration of the healing gifts, but also the working of miracles, visions and dreams, particularly in the Holy Land. Even though God is the source of miracles, he still uses agents. Elderly Sarah birthed a baby; Moses’ rod worked miracles; Aaron’s rod flowered; Balaam’s donkey spoke; Elijah controlled the elements; Elisha’s bones resurrected the dead; Jesus fed 5,000 and raised Lazarus; Peter and Paul executed divine judgments, causing many to fear and reverence God; and Peter’s shadow healed the sick.
The Early Church fathers also looked upon miracles as signs. In The City of God, Augustine said the wonders of his day were publicized to convert or confound unbelievers and to strengthen the faith of the believers. Augustine also wrote a treatise on the importance of dreams. The Anglo-Saxon saint Cuthbert was compared to the Apostles because miracles confirmed his preaching (Acts 2: 43). St. Martin was linked with the miracles of Christ, particularly the ability to raise the dead. St. Gregory described St. Benedict as “a patriarch able, like Moses, to draw water out of a rock, to make iron float like Elisha, to receive obedience from ravens like Elijah.”
The 6th Century monk St. Maur was reputed to have walked on water like Jesus.
After his conversion to Christ through a vision, the Indian saint Sundar Singh was poisoned by his Hindu family, but he lived to their utter amazement with no ill effects.
Like the Biblical oil miracles, Corrie Ten Boom’s vitamin bottle did not run dry in a Nazi concentration camp.
The extraordinary is possible if we will expect to move in the miracle realm. Expectation is part of the process to trigger the working of miracles and to believe to hear messages from God in visions and to see “love letters” from the Lord in dreams. The saints of all ages have believed that miracles are authenticating signs from God to show his approval of Gospel preaching. After being soaked in winter flash floods during our Gospel outreach to the Palestinian village of Nablus, neither our clothes nor our shoes remained wet. This miracle of traveling through the wet weather dry-shod was a sign that God endorsed our plans and the distribution of many Gospels (Injils) to Muslims in the West Bank of Biblical Judea and Samaria.
Dreams and visions fall into the category of the miraculous when supernatural revelations are imparted. The prophet Ezekiel enjoyed a continuous miracle ministry in the revelatory realm. God is raising up an “Ezekiel company” in our time empowered with the gifts of faith and the working of miracles. Believers’ voices are often the trumpets that command the miraculous power of God. As we have traveled throughout the Holy Land and the Arab world with the Gospel, more than once we have been divinely led by drivers who testified with wonder and fear that they seemed to have been transported in a dream-like state to assist us.
Miracles of Transport
Transportation miracles are reminiscent of Philip the Evangelist in the New Testament. Philip was translated to Gaza by the Holy Spirit to meet an Ethiopian eunuch who was God-fearing, and who would subsequently spread the Gospel to Ethiopia. The Holy Spirit commanded Philip to join the Ethiopian’s chariot so that he could teach him the Gospel.
The miracles of transportation in our ministry have involved Muslim drivers who seem to have been dreaming—literally!
A driver unknown to me was waiting one morning outside of our ministry center in Jerusalem when I needed a taxi.
“I don’t know why I am here,” he told me, very perplexed and disoriented, as if he had just awakened from a dream. “I don’t work the day shift. All I can remember was that I was at home and in bed!”
“Well, where are you going now?” I asked.
“Home--to the Gihon Spring,” he answered, and instantly the Holy Spirit prompted me to alter my plans and to “join this chariot,” as Philip was commanded in Acts 8: 29.
The Lord intended to use this driver to take me to an important venue. The outcome of my detour to the Gihon Spring was the first open-air Gospel meeting at this Biblical site near the ancient City of David perhaps since Bible times. Through a divine appointment with the taxi driver’s friends, we discovered that the Jerusalem Municipality was constructing a new plaza at the Gihon Spring for Millennium pilgrims. Favor and permission were instantly granted that morning to organize an outdoor Gospel meeting in that plaza. Having laid that groundwork, two years later we pitched a “Tabernacle of David” celebration also at the Gihon Spring, the original location of David’s Tabernacle, with permission from the Orthodox Jewish community. It was a momentous prophetic occasion. One Orthodox Jew who attended commented, “Now that the Christians have restored the fallen tabernacle of David, it is a sure sign that the Jews should rebuild our Temple!”
Another Driver Awakens from a Transport Dream
In another transportation miracle, an Arab taxi driver whom I had used occasionally seemed to awaken in broad daylight at the Bethlehem checkpoint, where he recognized me. A colleague and I needed a taxi to take us to scout Biblical Anatoth (Anata in Arabic). But no driver we had asked up to this point knew where the town was located.
“Christine! Christine!” My dazed taxi friend shouted from his window to get my attention
. “I don’t know how I got here! I don’t remember driving here!” he said in a very bewildered manner, adding, “I feel like I have just awakened from a dream.”
“But do you know the way to Anatoth?” I asked excitedly.
Noor, the puzzled driver, muttered, “Yes!”
So I said, “Good! Don’t worry. God sent you to us!”
And that is how the Spirit of God led us to scout Jeremiah’s village of Anatoth, where we later experienced one of our greatest reconciliation Gospel outreaches among the Bedouin and Arab villagers there. The driver seemed to have awakened from a visionary realm. God even used Noor at one point to translate while our regular translator was involved in an important phone call.
Strange Sign and Wonder in Nazareth
In another dramatic instance, a Muslim driver named Naim attempted to take our team after a day’s holiday in Nazareth back to Jerusalem, but much to his consternation, our van repeatedly returned to the city limits “Nazareth” sign. This occurred five times over several hours. The disorientated driver was greatly shaken, because he well knew the route to Jerusalem. Yet he could not fathom why his van was being transported back to the “welcome to Nazareth” sign against his wishes.
Naim was extremely embarrassed and stopped the van by the side of the road to collect himself, shaking nervously. He covered his face with his hands, saying, “I seem to have lost control of this van. I don’t know what to do.”
We were also perplexed until it dawned on me that the Lord had previously spoken to a pastor to invite me to hold a Gospel outreach in Nazareth. So actually, it was the Lord’s call. And I had not yet responded to Jesus of Nazareth to preach in his hometown! That particular day, my team had also noticed that I was hard of hearing. My ears seemed to be stopped up, but I was not physically sick.
Now I realized that we would not escape “the loop” until I said “Yes” to Jesus to preach in Nazareth! My stopped-up ears were a sign that apparently I had not heard, or properly responded, to His call to the Galilee. Indeed the Lord often communicates in “dark speech.”
But when I threw up my arms in resignation and said “Yes” to the assignment, suddenly my ears popped open, and the driver was released from invisible reins. Immediately, he was able once again to find his bearings! When we arrived at midnight in Jerusalem, Naim fell against the steering wheel of the van and asked Jesus into his heart. He knew he had been moving in a supernatural realm. He began to drive our team regularly and often experienced comforting and edifying dreams from the Lord. Our eventual Gospel campaign, “Jesus of Nazareth Finds a Generation of Faith in Nazareth,” resulted in many salvations and healings. We advertised in the press and on the radio and our translator, an Anglican Arab pastor from the Galilee, was healed of a limp in his leg.
In their admirable prayer in Acts 4:30, the Apostles petitioned God for “signs and wonders.” In the Old Testament the words for signs and wonders are oth (sign, Strong’s 226), meaning a signal as a flag, a beacon, a mark or a portent; and mofaith, (wonder, Strong’s 4159) an event in the sense of being conspicuous.
In the New Testament, sign is semeion, (Strong’s 4592) used of miracles as signs of divine authority; “wonder,” teras, (Strong’s 5059), means “something strange,” causing the beholder to marvel. According to Vine’s Dictionary, a “sign” appeals to the understanding; a “wonder” appeals to the imagination; a “power” (dunamis) indicates the source is supernatural.
“Wonders” are mentioned as divine operations in 13 places in the New Testament, nine of which are found in the Book of Acts. But here’s an important cautionary note—three times “wonders” are ascribed to the work of Satan through human agents (the false Christs and false prophets of Matthew 24: 24 and Mark 13:22; and the Anti-Christ of 2 Thessalonians 2:9).
I believe we should claim “life verses” in the Bible with which we especially identify. One of my life verses is found in Isaiah 8: 18:
“Behold, I and the children whom the Lord has given me are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts . . . .”
The Hebrew word for wonder is sometimes rendered “portent.” Portents in the heavens are End Time signs according to Joel 2: 30 and Acts 2: 19, and we can experience these by faith. Here are some examples from our own ministry: In Jerusalem in 1995 at the time of our ninth spiritual warfare prayer meeting, which corresponded in a very specific prayer strategy to the ninth plague of dense darkness against the powers of darkness gripping the Mideast, there was a great portent over the region while we were engaged in corporate prayer. For eight months previously we had been holding a series of progressive spiritual warfare prayer meetings, at the direction of the Holy Spirit, which He had named after the 10 plagues of Egypt. The Lord indicated that each progressive prayer meeting would build in intensity and thus produce an accumulative effect in the heavenlies. Now that we had reached the ninth prayer meeting, corresponding to the plague of “dense darkness,” a lunar eclipse throughout the socalled 10/40 window on the world map coincided with our prayer service as a literal portent of actual darkness! The news media were full of the story.
It is, after all, not beyond the ability of the Creator to grant his children signs in the earth and in the sky. A well-known prophet in the United States delivered a word of warning to a church in California and said that there would be an earthquake on a certain date to underscore his word, and it happened just as he said. On numerous occasions the Lord has also graciously fixed a double rainbow in the sky as a portent-- almost like a heavenly exclamation point-- to punctuate his divine leadings in our ministry. He knows how to bestow miraculous signs to communicate individually to each one of us that we are in the right place at the right time and are moving at His behest. For a number of years, the Lord did not allow me to minister in Israel as my husband and I were called to Africa; but on the day that the Lord allowed me to minister again in the Holy Land, a double rainbow appeared in the sky at the time of the meeting. When He called me to set up a ministry house again in Jerusalem, while I was sharing this direction with my husband in a car in England, a double rainbow appeared in the sky. Recently while preaching “down under” in Australia, a double rainbow appeared during our ministry tour, and so on—the incidents are too numerous to recount here.
A portent can also be an indication or omen of something about to happen, especially something awesome or wonderful, and the dictionary also calls a portent a marvel, a sign, or a token.
But in addition to dreams, visions, signs, wonders and ministry gifts, love still remains the greatest gift! The 12th Century abbot, St. Aelred of Rievaulx, was compared to Moses: “His staff worked wonders and his face shone with a supernatural light,” testified his biographer, “but bad men can work miracles, even great miracles. I marvel at the charity of Aelred more than I should marvel if he had raised four men from the dead!”
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