Bill Johnson - Increase in Times of Blessing
The greatest expression of breakthrough came after the church entered a place of peace. Increase can come through persecution, yes, of course, but persecution is Plan B. I saw a sign this week that I liked; it had a picture of the universe and a picture of Earth, and the caption read, «Miss Universe contest, 62 winners from Earth, none from the rest of the universe.» That’s my attempt at a sense of humor, getting beyond the third-grade level up to the fifth grade. Now, back to the third-grade level: a local priest and pastor were fishing on the side of the road. They thoughtfully made a sign saying, «The end is near. Turn yourself around now before it’s too late.» They showed it to each passing car. One driver drove by, didn’t appreciate the sign, and shouted at them, «Leave us alone, you religious nuts!» All of a sudden, they heard a big splash. They looked at each other, and the priest said to the pastor, «Do you think we should have just put up a sign that says 'Bridge out' instead?» Oh well, back to the third-grade level.
I’m back. Just Paul, why don’t you come up here and give us a report? We just had a great—yeah, bless Paul! It’s so good to have you back in town, thank you! We just had a medical healing conference, our fourth one here in Redding. We’ve had a couple elsewhere, and to be honest, for me, it really began when I stood here 10 years ago and said surgery is not a second-class healing. That’s actually where the concept of this began. A doctor contacted me after that and said it was probably the most significant advice that he’d ever received in his medical training because he felt second class as a doctor to the supernatural. And so that’s really where it began. One day, Bill was telling one of my favorite teachings, where he said that you know, in the wilderness, everything was supernatural, and that was just to sustain them. But in the promised land, it was the natural and the supernatural married together, and that was to advance them. I said to Bill when he shared that, «Bill, would you share that at a medical healing conference if we put one on?» So we did, and we’ve now had four. It’s just wonderful!
Anyone here from medical healing still here? A few of you—wonderful! Beautiful! It’s wonderful to have you here. It’s a really safe place to be sick today; there are a lot of doctors around, and it’s very encouraging as well. Because I think one of the things that’s happened with the medical healing conference is that we’ve attracted medical personnel to come and move to this region, and we need help. We need another 50 doctors in the next two or three years. I think one of the things that’s happened is that a church that demonstrates it values the natural and the supernatural actually attracts doctors and healthcare professionals to come to a place where they know they’ll be loved and valued.
We just had two days; it’s a mixture of teaching and training, but the favorite session for me will forever be when doctors share miracle testimonies. There’s nothing like it! The rest of us are a bunch of amateurs trying to remember the part of the body that may or may not have been healed. They shared some incredible ones. I’ll just give you a few: one was a young woman who was infertile; she had none of the normal female hormones in her body. On examination, it was discovered she also didn’t have the normal female organs, particularly had no uterus at all. They actually started her on some hormone treatment just so that she could have a more normal experience of life and have the right hormones in her body. Now, hormones don’t make organs grow; they don’t do that. So the OB-GYN and the PA, of course, prayed. They write fascinating things in the record like «insight given,» which actually means «word of knowledge was given,» but you have to find a way of saying it in their world. The result was that that young woman, who had no cervix and no uterus and had no normal hormones, is now a completely normal, healthy, fertile woman! That doesn’t happen by drugs alone. There’s a uterus! They’ve got pictures—the whole deal! Incredible!
Is that amazing? Amazing! Did you hear what he just said? There wasn’t one, and now there is one! Praise God! I can tell you if I were a woman, she’d be my doctor, that’s all I’m telling you! If I were a woman living in Redding, for sure she’d be my doctor. I mean, she’s amazing! Another case, actually presented by the same doctor, involved a lady who had miscarried. The baby had died in utero and met all the parameters that indicated the baby had died—all of them. They were getting ready for a miscarriage and whatever might need to be done. Two weeks later, that baby was fully alive, and that baby has now just celebrated their one-year birthday! Amazing, amazing! What’s so great is, you know, we all love people getting healed, but when this is happening in the doctor’s office, they’re figuring out, «Is this a patient I can openly pray for? Is this a patient I can quietly pray for?» They’re doing everything right, but they have an interesting problem that we don’t have in the healing rooms. They have to fill in the forms for coding the healing to send to the insurance company, so they’ve had to develop new language like «spontaneous reversal event» for expected miscarriage and things like that, you know—it’s absolutely brilliant!
We had reports of malaria—cerebral malaria—being healed from a doctor who was a missionary and a physical therapist. He was caring for a patient who had a knee that they couldn’t do anything with and ended up praying for the patient’s knee. What happened in the process was the patient’s knee was healed, their blood pressure was healed, their heart problem was healed, and after a sequence of kind of interrogation, really, by this physical therapist with the patient, she ended up being delivered because she’d had a curse put on her by a neighbor who was feeding her but was also feeding her some demonic stuff in the process. We watched this patient do what Chris taught last year, which is fascinating because Chris taught last year about the tri-fold healing of «walking, leaping, and praising God.» This physical therapist got to come back and say, «I’ve seen what he preached! I’ve seen that happen in my office.»
One quick final story: a couple came three years ago, and I think one of the hardest things, actually, is hard for pastors, but it’s really hard for doctors and healthcare professionals if a relative is sick. This couple’s daughter was dying of a heroin overdose in the hospital when they came to the healing conference around two or three years ago. We gave a call at that conference for prodigals to return, and they stood by faith. A year later, a friend of the mom said, «Look, when you had your daughter, you didn’t have a prophetic baby shower.» Apparently, this community throws prophetic baby showers, which I guess you’re going to start now because that’s Bethel. So they gave this mom a prophetic baby shower for their now 19- or 20-year-old daughter. A year later, the daughter, who wasn’t walking with the Lord and had been near death from a heroin overdose, got married to the son of a pastor and is completely, fully restored and walking with the Lord! That’s encouraging! So wonderful! It’s a wonderful time—one of my favorite things to be a part of. Thank you for letting me share, Bill. Wonderful! Let’s go!
Okay, good! So good! I love it! Love it so much! That is so cool! Anyone who has a terminal disease, or you have an immediate family member with a terminal disease, please stand. We welcome our Bethel TV family and community to join with us on this as well. We want to ensure that you receive ministry, too. Anyone who has a child or an immediate family member who is not walking with the Lord, why don’t you stand as well? We are going to pray for these two things together before we move on in the meeting. Amen! It’s just time to see more and more and more restored. It’s extraordinary to see what Jesus does in healing and broken homes, broken lives.
Church family, you know what to do! If you’ve got somebody standing by you, go to them and find out if it’s a child or a disease. Find out what it is and minister to them. If you’re standing for prayer and nobody is praying for you, put a hand up, and we’ll get somebody to you, okay? Look around, church! Look around! We’ve got hands up all over the place! As soon as somebody puts their hand on you, put your hand down. Back over here to my left, over here—tons of people! Okay, you’ve got quite a few to my left here, between me and the camera. We’ve got several, so I need some of you to get in there. Beautiful! Thank you, Lord! There are still three or four more to my left. If I can get some of our team back in here, crawl down the rows, do whatever you need to do. Right over here—beautiful! Thanks! Excellent!
Now we declare that healing word, that healing word over people in Jesus' wonderful name! Restoration of homes, family members—I want you to call for that spiritual breakthrough to come upon that individual. Breakthroughs for the glory of God—we declare and pray for a breakthrough right now, in Jesus' mighty name! All right, you did really good! Bless them, hug them, do something nice, and go ahead and take your seats! Thank you, Lord!
I want you to open your Bibles, if you would, please, to Acts chapter 9. We have a rather brief period of time to talk today, but it’s really all I need; it’s all that’s in my heart. Acts chapter 9—let me give you context. I think it was about three months or so ago; I was going through the book of Acts, and I ran across this verse that I realized is one of the rarest verses in the Bible. The reason is that it describes an increase in the church—increase by conversions, people being born again—in a season of blessing. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with church history or how many are familiar with Bible history, but it’s just the rarest thing in the world. When blessing comes, people relax their values often; it’s not required, but it often happens.
Years ago, I remember someone telling us that the safest place to be in a war is on the front lines of battle. The reason is because, on the front lines of battle, you only care about certain things: you only care about having enough ammunition, keeping your head down, and knowing where your friends are. At the back end of the battle, you care about what is being served for dinner, what movie is showing in the mess hall tent. Your values change. What’s important to you is radically different, and that radical difference in values is what makes people vulnerable to weakness in spiritual matters. Learning how to maintain priority and focus in a season of blessing is one of the rarest things in church history.
When I saw this verse, it leapt out at me for that reason. By the time you get to Acts chapter 9, it’s somewhere between five and ten years after the day of Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2. There was immediate resistance to what was happening. There was an increase of the church on the day of Pentecost, as 3,000 people were born again, but opposition came immediately. What happened through the early church, especially, is they learned how to navigate opposition so that it brought an increase. Sometimes you’ll read in history where opposition came, and people became cowardly, or they withdrew. We certainly saw that with the disciples in the Gospel of John. After Jesus was crucified, the 11 remaining disciples met in a home, and they hid out of fear. They withdrew; they were not in a place of advancement or increase.
Throughout church history, there have been times where the church has increased and times where it’s retreated. But throughout the first many years of the church, since the outpouring of the Spirit in Acts 2, for many years following that, every wave of opposition that came was met with greater resolve, a greater sense of devotion, pure and greater demonstration of power. It’s a remarkable thing because to navigate loss well means you can be trusted with gain; to navigate disappointment well means you can be trusted with fulfillment; to navigate criticism well means you can be trusted with praise; to navigate betrayal well means you can be trusted with loyal friends. The Lord is always testing—not for the sake of failure to mock, but to see what measure of glory can I carry? What measure can I live with? Because when that glory rests on a sanctified life, it establishes it, but that glory, the same as your glory on an unsanctified life, crushes it, breaks it.
The Lord is very careful with what he releases to people in the way of blessing. I don’t have enough time to clean up my mess, so I’m just going to make one, and you’ll have to deal with it. It’s my gift to you today. It’s quite possible that your biggest problem that you face in life is connected to your biggest prayer. Come on, wow! I heard recently that our biggest problem in life is sometimes connected to our biggest prayer—the biggest thing that we’ve been contending for and praying for. There is a connection between being able to navigate the difficulties in life that prepare us for increase. I can look through the last 40 years of my life; I can track it, I can track it. I didn’t like it, but it is true that when you navigate well, when you navigate loss, betrayal, disappointment, you navigate those things well, the Lord then honors the measure of breakthrough that you’ve cried out for.
I’ll tell you one thing that is so absolutely true: oftentimes the measure of presence and breakthrough that we enjoy in life is directly connected to what we’ve become. Thank you! I’ve already told you I’m going to make a mess, so you just have to deal with it. Sometimes you have to try to understand how big a mess you want to make! Laughs. Chris, stop! Don’t throw me a slow pitch, Chris! Don’t. It’s too tempting! The Lord asks, «Why does the Lord answer promise?» Well, first of all, because He’s truthful and He loves us; He cares for us. But there’s another factor in the answering of promise that we don’t always consider: He answers promise to display the greatness of His name. It’s not just about us having a fulfilled life; it’s about his purposes being accomplished in the Earth by finding people that believe and come into agreement.
These wonderful stories that we just heard earlier about a uterus being created—I just ran into a guy born with three kidneys. He was in a meeting with some sort of terminal disease. He was born with three kidneys; two of them were bad, so they removed two, and he was left with one good one. At this conference, he received prayer and was healed of this terminal disease. When they checked him out, they found out he had a brand new kidney, so he now has two well-working kidneys! Excuse me! I have friends in that part of the world that don’t know—excuse me! All right, now it’s off. I don’t have near the attention span to endure a buzzing phone rattling on the podium! Alright, let’s get to it!
So we’ve got chapter two; we have opposition that comes, we have increase. It says that daily people were added to the church. In chapter 4, they are released. Peter and John are released from prison; they pray for greater boldness, and it was boldness that got them arrested, which is a completely different way of thinking in a comfort-centered western culture. We pray for relief from pressure and problems. Peter prayed for an increase, and increase came to the church. In chapter 5, we have Ananias and Sapphira die because they lied to the Holy Spirit. That’s an interesting altar call! The scripture says that none would dare join them carelessly. It was like they just didn’t have a lot of visitors the next week. It just thinned out the tasters of what God was doing.
So this kind of opposition comes again, and then increase. In chapter 6, the same thing happens again. By the time you get to verse 7 of chapter 6, the disciples are multiplied. So we’ve seen addition. How many of you have seen addition? How many of you have seen division? Unfortunately, yes; addition and division!
By the time you get to verse 7 in chapter 6, the same thing! In chapter 7, what happens? Stephen is martyred, and while Stephen is being murdered—being stoned to death—Saul of Tarsus, the religious leaders, was off to the side watching the garments of those who were killing Stephen. As Stephen was being stoned to death, he prays and says, «God, don’t hold this against them.» What he did is use his opportunity that he could have used to call down judgment and, instead, released forgiveness. As a result, the man who carried that spirit, if you will, of opposition to the church—the most zealous opponent of the church, Saul of Tarsus—was converted as a result of Stephen’s prayer: «God, don’t hold this against them.»
See, the greatest conflict you face where there are other people involved—the willingness and the passion to release forgiveness—is actually the very thing that releases that presence and anointing for revival, for breakthrough. It’s not using the opportunity for personal gain or to vent, but it’s using the opportunity to release the forgiveness of God. So Saul is converted.
We’ve got opposition, increase—opposition, increase—opposition, increase—until we get to chapter 9, until finally it stops for a season. There was no opposition. Verse 31 is our verse for this morning. I’ve got a few minutes left, so let’s see what we can do with this verse.
31: «And the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified.» That was a whole new experience! Imagine wondering if you’re going to be carted off to prison every day of your life, and then the guy who leads that military movement gets radically saved, and for the first time in your life in Christ, there’s peace! That’s what happened here.
«Then the churches throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and were edified. They were built up and walking in the fear of the Lord.» I like how this translation puts it: «walking in the fear of the Lord» and «the comfort of the Holy Spirit.» They were multiplied! The church came into a place of peace and edification, walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit; they were multiplied!
Who’s they? It’s the churches! We’re disciples added—disciples added! Disciples multiplied! Now we have churches multiplying! The greatest expression of breakthrough came after the church came into a place of peace. We don’t have time to study this; we have done it in the past, but let me make reference because I want to put this in context.
In 1 Timothy chapter 2, Paul gives instruction to Timothy and all the elders—all the leaders that are helping to lead this church at Ephesus. He’s an apostolic leader at Ephesus, and he gives him this instruction: «First of all, top your list,» he says, «I want you to pray for those leaders, those who are in authority, and do this praying with thankfulness.» Paul is giving a word about giving thanks for leaders when he lived at a time when Nero would later burn Christians at the stake in his garden, and he’s giving instruction: «Pray for them and give thanks.»
Then he goes on in this instruction, and he says, «Pray for them with thankfulness because I want you to have a peaceful life.» So what he’s saying is that when you pray for your leaders, which is illustrated with Stephen’s prayer for Saul, when you pray for leaders, something happens to their life, regardless of their value system. Something potentially happens in leaders' lives where they begin to make decisions that create an atmosphere, if you will, for the church to thrive in, for people to thrive in, for citizens to thrive in.
So he says this: «Pray for the leaders with thankfulness because you’re to live a peaceful life.» Then he takes it a step farther and says, «Because God wants all men to be saved!» So work through the logic with me: «Pray! I want you to live in peace, and I want revival to come to all the people!» Can increase come through persecution? Yes, of course! But persecution is Plan B. Plan A is a life where you actually get to thrive—as families thrive, in business thrive, in all these ways. But it’s so hard in history to actually succeed at thriving in all these things and maintaining a sense of focus, maintaining a sense of values.
It’s the people that are on the front lines of battle that just have their priorities sorted. So learning to maintain that sense of priority and focus in a season of blessing is like the rarest thing in church history. But we’ve got it right here! We’ve got it right here!
He says, «The churches in Samaria, Judea, all these places were edified.» Why? Because this guy named Saul got saved. How did that happen? Stephen interceded for him. I personally think—I don’t know that I can prove it, but I personally think that there are demonic powers—this is where you would believe there are demonic powers that oftentimes influence regions of the world, but they have a resonance or a root system in the life of an individual. That’s why the man of the Gerasenes, when Jesus set him free, the demons cried out and said, «Don’t send us out of the region.» Then he cast them out; they went into pigs. Pigs went and drowned because the scripture says demons search for waterless places.
You’ve got to understand humor from God’s perspective! Demons look for waterless places; Jesus puts the demons into pigs, and they go and kill themselves in the sea and drown. I just think that’s hilarious! God says, «You want a waterless place? Try the pig!» I don’t know, it’ll probably be funnier when you get the videotape, and you get to replay it, but—foreign. So when that man was set free, the man of the Gerasenes, when he was set free, the next time Jesus went into the area, every person in the region came to hear him speak! But when Jesus first came, when that man was set free, everybody opposed Jesus and drove him out of town. What happened? The power that was rooted in an individual that controlled the atmosphere of a region was broken! I don’t know that it would be proper to say, but we certainly see a zeal against the work of Christ in the earth in Saul. When that thing was broken, peace was released.
But here’s the two things I want you to see: in Acts 2, the scripture gives us four insights as to what kept the church pure and strong. I think it’s in verse 42: «They continued in the apostles' doctrine, to the breaking of bread, to fellowship, and to prayers.» So four things: apostles' doctrine—there’s not a list of doctrines there, so I think it’s what the Lord is saying in a particular season; He’s emphasizing apostles' doctrine, the breaking of bread, sharing of meals together. Let’s explain more deeply later. Fellowship is the exchange of life, one member to another; and prayers—plural—that’s what kept them strong in the middle of adversity.
But what kept them strong in a place of peace? I’m glad you asked that question! It’s the second half of verse 31: «And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.» The churches multiplied! The fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit—those two issues were the two gauges on the dashboard that they had to make sure were in the right place. If they were healthy that way, they could make sure they could maintain, in a season of increase and blessing, the same focus and bring about an even greater harvest of souls to the church.
How did they do it? Fear of God and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. The comfort of the Holy Spirit is that walking with the abiding presence where you are aware of what He’s wanting not only to lead you in but to bring peace and comfort. He comforts because not everything works the way we think it should the first time we try. Otherwise, we wouldn’t need that! Otherwise, He doesn’t need to comfort! All things work together for good! That great scripture in Romans 8—we don’t even need that verse if everything works the way we think it should the first time we pray. We need that because we’ve been called to navigate a journey!
So here we’ve got this insight: fear of God and the comfort of the Holy Spirit. Let me mention the fear of God. I know I’ve shared this with you several times in the last couple of years, but there’s some teaching going around that says there’s no fear of God in the New Testament, which I think is hilarious because it’s all through the New Testament! But anyway, anyone who lacks the fear of God, just read your Bible; it’ll help, believe me! A lot of stupid things get created theologically by people who don’t read their Bible; it’s just careless imagination away from scripture.
If you read something that you disagree with, adjust, because He’s right! Just don’t be stupid! Don’t be stupid! Well, Paul didn’t understand the words of Jesus! Oh, shut up, shut up! Slap yourself! She’s so good! Don’t get me started! People say there are errors in the Bible. There are not as many errors in there as there are in you! So I will hold to this standard before I hold to yours! I will not let the lesser reinterpret the greatest! That’s not gonna happen!
Now, I feel better! Now let me explain the fear of God. People say there’s no fear of God in the New Testament; well, if you don’t read your Bible, you could believe that, but it’s in there! They get it from 1 John, where it says, «There’s no fear in love,» and the conclusion is that if you have a love relationship with God, you can’t fear Him because you can’t fear the one you love. And whoever made that up is obviously not married! That person’s gonna be single a long time! My wife and I celebrated our 45th wedding anniversary yesterday! Thanks! We’re good! Forty-five years! I love her, and she scares me! We’ll leave it right there!
The fear of God, the fear of God—and the comfort, the abiding, leading presence of the Spirit of God—are what enabled people that succeeded to succeed more! That’s it! That’s it! It wasn’t the list of four things this time: apostles' doctrine, fellowship, breaking of bread, prayers—it was two things: fear of God and the abiding presence, comfort. Do those two things, keep those two gauges dialed up, and God can trust you with increase because you’ll know where it came from and you’ll know the purpose.
My prayer is that God would enable each of us to navigate the seasons that we’re in well. I’ve talked about this from one angle or another for the last quite few years because it’s always on my mind. I see breakthrough come, then I see Him wanting to bring greater increase, greater miracles, greater conversions. Then He wants to bring more! So I’m always curious about the condition of the people of God that would— I don’t know if «free God» or «enable God,» or whatever—trust even more, to entrust to us more; that’s my big question.
So I pray that the Lord would release a grace over each one of us—a grace for the fear of God in ways we’ve never known before! I’m actually writing a book right now about raising kids. It’s called «Raising Giant Killers.» We’re just going to go for the jugular vein—raising giant killers! Come on! One of the premier lessons we teach children is that they will give an account of their life to God. It’s not to be more— but it’s not to be gruesome; it’s not to be manipulative, but it is true: we give an account of our lives to God!
So I pray, «Lord, that you would help us to walk in the beauty of the fear of God.» And the beauty of the fear of God—you know, when our kids were small, whenever discipline was needed; if discipline is done right, that child would want to sit on my lap the rest of the evening. Because the fear of God actually endears us to Him; it doesn’t drive us from Him!
So, Lord, I pray for that! I pray for that kind of grace on us as a people and an increased awareness of your presence. Now, the greatest miracle that could possibly happen today would be for anyone in this room who would say, «Bill, I don’t know what it is to be born again. I don’t know what it is to be forgiven of sin. I don’t know what it is to be a part of the family of God. I’ve never been a disciple, a follower of Jesus, but I want to be. I don’t want to leave the building until I know I am at peace with God, until I know that I’ve been forgiven, until I know that I’ve turned from my life to follow Him.»
If there’s anyone in the room—we had four people in the first service this morning—if there’s anyone in the room that would just say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave until I know I’m right with God,» if that’s you, just put a hand up right where you are. We’re just going to make agreement with you right here. Anyone else, put your hand up real quick. So beautiful! It’s the greatest thing ever! The greatest thing ever! Anyone else, real quick! I want to make sure I don’t miss anyone!
All right, that’s so, so cool! Let’s stand together! If I missed anyone, I want to invite you to come up here to my left, on your right, is a banner! We’ve got a team down here! I want them to be able to pray with you! It’s not about membership at Bethel and all those things; it’s simply about a relationship with Jesus! So I want the one right here—just come on up here, and they will talk with you and pray with you. If you have a friend with you, they can walk with you, but have them come on up together.
I want the Ministry team to come on up! If you can hold your places for a moment, that will help us, and Tom will just give us directions.