Bill Johnson - Worship and Miracles - Part 1
You know, in Psalms 37, he talks about waiting on and that word, actually, for «Waiting», actually means to lie in wait. It gives the picture of setting up an ambush. It’s not this sitting-in-a-recliner waiting. It’s not inactivity. Waiting isn’t inactivity. It’s focused and directed activity. It’s refining all of our appetites down to the one thing. There are certain seasons in life you can have interests here and interests there. But, I think everybody’s had the experience where you’ve had a crisis or a difficulty or something. And, all of a sudden, nothing matters.
In fact, you don’t even feel, sometimes, like you even need to eat and forget to eat a meal or two or three or whatever. I mean, it’s just, it’s like things get so refined and focused. And there are just it’s vital that nothing else speaks to you but the one thing. There are seasons. There are periods of time where we have this invitation by the Lord. And we just cut everything back. You know, you may be involved in this league and in this activity and that activity. And they’re all good, they’re all great opportunities to interact with people and to impact community. But there are just times where things are going on so crazy you just trim everything back but just the one thing. And it’s wisdom to know when to do that. And the outcome of that is that you see so much more clearly. You see much more clearly.
You see more when you refine your focus. And the Lord gave a gift to every person in this room that’s been born again. It’s the gift of sight. It’s the gift of sight, seeing and unseeing the world. 'Cause he said: «Unless you’re born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God». The Kingdom of God is invisible. The effects are visible, but the kingdom itself is invisible. I think I mentioned last week, or week before, sometime, that, you know, if we stand out there in the lobby and look out the windows, we can’t tell if the wind is blowing by seeing the wind: we can only see the effects. We can see if the flag’s moving, the leaves on the trees, clothing, somebody’s hair, you can only see the effects.
And learning to recognize the effects of the kingdom, the present-tense reality of the kingdom, is part of what the Lord is teaching us. He’s teaching us how his world works, so that we know how to recognize when he shows up. I remember when we came here 20-plus years ago. There was a lot of excitement in the air because we had talked about revival. But when he came different than what everybody expected, that you know, after Jesus raised from the dead, he showed up to the guys on the road to Emmaus and they didn’t recognize him.
When he walked through the wall where the disciples were hiding for fear of the Jews, his own disciples that had spent day and night with him for three and a half years, they didn’t recognize him. And he has a habit of showing up different than he did the last time. And, what helps us to recognize him is the voice and the presence. When Mary Magdalene was in the garden weeping because of the death of Christ, and the body was missing, and she was so distraught because Jesus' body was gone, and, she’s weeping in the garden, and Jesus is standing behind her and asked, «Why are you weeping»? She was thinking he was the gardener. Said, «If you’ve taken him away, please tell me where you’ve taken him and I’ll take him». And then, he said, «Mary…»
It’s amazing, because, when he speaks, he speaks to the deep of us. It’s different. She never would have recognized him by form. She only recognized him by voice. And the Lord has a habit of showing up in ways that we’re not accustomed to. And, I probably as much, I think as much as anybody in here, I love reading about revival history. The only drawback is is we tend expect him to come the way he did some time in history. And he just doesn’t always do that. So, he comes, sometimes, he does things that just you know, gold dust in people’s hands. What’s that for? I don’t know: I didn’t do it. Ask him. If I was gonna ask for something, I’d think of something different. Like maybe gold nuggets.
Pastor friend of mine was here once. He actually had a gold nugget, not a huge nugget, but, like, maybe half the size of maybe a third of the size of, like, a little fingernail or something, about that size, just stuck on the side of his face. Just appeared there. Yeah. He took it to a gold, a sayer. Like, that’s what they call 'em. And it’s just the purest, purest quality gold. And it has an unidentifiable oil mixed in with it. So, we had some people that were moving here, and this feather just appeared. In their car. This isn’t sermon material, but I just feel mischievous tonight. Again. They had a friend, ornithologist. Actually, a Buddhist man. He’s a bird specialist. So, they took the feather to him. I never would have thought of that. The guy said, «Well, I haven’t done…» I don’t know what kind of testing, DNA testing or whatever.
«I haven’t done testing on it, but, from the way it appears, it looks like it’s the breast feather of a white dove». What’s it for? Just signs that make you wonder. It’s legal. I don’t worship them. I don’t ask for 'em, actually. To me, it’s kind of like angels. Angels are really cool. I don’t worship them, but I also don’t ignore them. And if Jesus does a sign, you you know, that’s what signs do. You know, forgive the old illustration, but when we leave tonight, none of us will crawl through the exit sign. We will all go through the exit that the sign points to. And miracles become boring when they become the end. But the miracle points to the person who never gets old. Every miracle displays another facet of his wonder, of his beauty. If there’s boredom, check the distance between you and the master. You know? Because he’s anything but boring. In fact, he scares me most of the time.
We’ve just had if it’s the night that I’m thinking of, it was the night that clubbed feet got healed of this little boy. Oh, goodness gracious. This little 3-year-old boy got clubfeet. He’s got scabs on his feet from walking on the tops of his feet. And some of our students prayed for him. And his feet are like this. And he’s just staring at the tops of his feet. And he would reach over and touch the scabs, 'cause they’re now on top. They were on the bottom. Now, they’re on the top. And he’s just and one of his little friends comes over to him and says, «Run, Chris, run».
So, he runs in this circle with, it was like a billion-dollar smile, you know? As he runs back. And, it was just, you know, it was just a meltdown moment. You don’t know if you should shout and dance or just fall on your face and cry, or try to do all at once, you know. It was just one of those moments. I mean, we had a gal out of a wheelchair. And, we had a blind eye opened, deaf ear. I remember nerve damage down the entire side of somebody’s body. It was healed. It was the only meeting in my life that I had lost total control, I lost control of the meeting, completely. I turned people loose for prayer. I never could get their attention again. And it’s not like I needed to, but I just kind of wanted to bring a nice close to the meeting and stuff.
I finally quit and got down in the Mosh pit and started praying myself, you know. It was like i, honestly, I never, we never did end that meeting. It could still be going, I don’t know. That was probably about 18 years ago or something. Long time. So, on the way back, we’re in Carl’s Jr. And we’re just, we’re buzzing from what just happened. And, over here in the booth is the man of the Gadarenes. He was the only one at his table, but he was not the only one there. And, there was all kinds of stuff going around in his booth. And it was just the twilight zone. That ages me. Anyway, so, we order and we sat and we’re eating there. And this joy thing hit our table. And this guy in the booth goes, «That is the joy of the Holy Ghost».
Several years ago, this family from Norway came to visit us. And they had a young boy who was dying. His body couldn’t absorb nutrients. And his muscles were just disappearing. He could hardly function at all. They had to feed him intravenously at night, while he slept. And they wanted to do one final family event. Because he’s dying. You can’t continue to live that way. He’s been deteriorating for quite a while. He’s in a motorized wheelchair and so, they thought, maybe, as one last event as a family, to come to Bethel. You almost can’t get here from Norway. I mean, it’s just a ways. And they packed up, I think, if I remember right, 350 kilos of medical equipment, supplies, and stuff, for that, if you can imagine that airplane ride. And they came, and they were right over here, for one of our conferences. And the child can’t eat anything at all. Nothing whatsoever. They made a movie in Norway about this miracle. I mean, it’s extraordinary.