By Pastor E. A. Adeboye
Text: Psalm 67:5-7
“Let the people praise thee oh God! Let all the people praise thee, then shall the earth yield her increase and God, even our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.”
I have told you before, that there are miracles and there are miracles. There are miracles that caused amazement: amazement to an individual, amazement to a congregation, amazement to a city, amazement to a nation, and even amazement to the world.
What do I do to provoke a miracle to amaze me as an individual? In Luke 5:1-9, a miracle happened in the life of Peter that caused him an amazement. The man who fished all night and caught nothing, threw one net and caught so many fishes that his boat was full, the boat of his partner was full and the two boats were beginning to sink. The Bible says he was amazed because he moved from total failure to total success in a very short period of time.
What was it that Peter did that provoked this miracle that amazed him?
1) He surrendered his boat to God; the most precious thing in his life, he surrendered it. So, if I want a miracle that will amaze me, I must surrender the most precious thing in my life to God. In Genesis 22:1-18, Abraham surrendered the most precious thing in his life, Isaac, to God. The result? The Almighty God swore; the only one who didn’t need to swear, swore; He said, “by myself have I sworn, because there is nobody greater than me to swear by.” He said, “I will bless you, I will multiply you.” The Almighty God said to Abraham, because Abraham gave Him the most precious thing in his life, my blessing for you and your family will never be reversed. That is an amazing miracle to Abraham. As you surrender the most precious thing in your life to God, get ready for an amazing miracle.
2) You must take God by His word. Peter said, “At thy word”. I know what you are saying doesn’t make sense but because your word says so, I’ll obey. That is all that matters to me. When I joined the Redeemed Christian Church of God, one of the things that my father in the Lord usually said was that it is the Bible we hold on to. As a mathematician, I know we have our textbooks, as a Christian, the Bible is our textbook and in all my journeys as a Christian, anytime the devil tried to tell me something that contradicts the Bible, I ignored him.
When my wife became pregnant, after three cesarean operations, by that time we had taken Jesus as our doctor and some of my doctor friends were telling me that if you don’t allow them to operate to bring out the baby, my wife was going to bleed to death. My answer was, “it is not written in the Bible”. What is written in the Bible is that God, who brings to conception, will bring to delivery. What is written in my Bible is that with God nothing shall be impossible. What is written in my Bible is Christ in me the hope of glory. Not the hope of shame. And that is why I am saying to somebody here today, it is written, your tomorrow will be alright. Take God at His word.
3) Just obey Him. Peter said you said so, I will do it. The word of God says in Isaiah 1:19 “if you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good of the land.” Whether the devil likes it or not, the good of this land of Nigeria belongs to us. If it is in the hand of wrong fellows, power will change hands.
What will I do so that I will get a miracle that will amaze my congregation? What do I do so that when I want to share my testimony the whole church will stand up and cheer? What do I do so that when I get my miracle and I begin to share my testimony, people will open their mouth and they won’t be able to close it?
In Acts 3:1-11, when the lame man at the Beautiful Gate suddenly got up, walking, leaping, praising God, the entire congregation in the church, the Bible says, were amazed. So what do I do, so that I will get a miracle that will amaze my congregation?
1) Look unto Him, the Almighty God, for help. The lame man looked unto Peter and John. But we have somebody who is greater than Peter and John to look unto. Psalm 121:1-2 says, “I will lift up my eyes unto the hill, from whence cometh my help? My help comes from the Lord.” Not my help comes from heaven, it comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Look unto Him, don’t look unto man; man will disappoint you but God will never.
2) Be addicted to praising God. When you read Acts 3:8-10, in just those three verses, it is recorded that the lame man was not just walking and leaping, he was praising God. And they repeated “praising God” two times. It means this lame man inside of him must have been crying silently to God, saying, “oh God, look at this people, they have legs, they can’t dance; they are free, they can’t praise you; they have food to eat, they don’t know how to say thank you. God, if only you will give me legs; God, if only you will set me free; God, if only you will put an end to my poverty, I will show this people how to praise you.”
When the day came and suddenly he found himself with his legs strong, knowing that he would never beg again, he leapt and praised God. Immediately they repeated, “he was praising God”. Look at us, we are free, we can go anywhere we want, we are not in prison, we are not in asylum, we are not in the hospital, yet, when we ask you to praise Him, it becomes very difficult.
Some people are already asking, what is this one we are doing again; asking us to dance forward to give our offering, can’t we just sit down and let the ushers bring forward the basket? Our God is not a beggar, He loves a cheerful giver.
This man by the Beautiful Gate became a testimony. As soon as he was able to walk, he could have gone home but instead, he went into the church and showed them; look at what God has done. The reason God has not given many of us major miracles is that those He has given us we have not testified. Many of us are too big to testify, thinking, let the small boys tell us what God has done for them; the little one, those who are not important. Testimony is not for the big men. What a pity! God looks for testifiers. You must be ready to testify, ready to witness.
The Lord says there is a minister of God here today, He said your anointing is leaking, He asked me to tell you, whoever you are, wherever you are, you must repent today.
Thank you Father. The Father says there is someone else here today, He asked me to tell you, don’t worry I am not angry with you.
In Mark 1:40-45, God healed a leper and told the leper, don’t tell anyone, keep your mouth shut. The leper bowed down and said, “yes, sir”. But as soon as he turned around, he began to tell everybody: He healed me, look at me! I used to live in the bush, come and see the man who healed me. No wonder he was healed. God saw that he would testify.
What do I do so that I’ll get a miracle that will amaze my town? That everybody in the town who will hear about it will be amazed. In the example of Mark 5:1-15, the Bible tells us the story of the mad man of Gadarenes, he got delivered and the whole town was amazed. So what did he do that caused him to get that miracle that amazed the whole town?
- He worshipped Jesus. If you want a miracle that will amaze your whole town, you must be addicted to worship.
- You must be willing to be free. There are some people that God wants to free, and they don’t want to be free. You may say that is not possible, but I know it is true. I have met people who are sick who say they don’t want to be healed.
I know of somebody, a very important person, who came to me and said, “I need prayer”. I said what for? He said he was going for an operation and he wanted me to pray that the operation will be successful. I said why don’t we pray that there will be no need for operation? He said, “you are a young boy, you don’t understand. Don’t worry, the money is there. Pray that God will guide the hands of the doctors.” I could almost say thank God for those who don’t have money for doctors. In the mighty name of Jesus Christ, every one of you who needs an operation, may the Almighty God do it Himself.
Some people don’t want to be free from poverty. I‘ve heard somebody say, “just ask God to provide so that I can get money for transportation.” Why don’t we pray that God will provide you with your own car? And he said, “there are all sorts of problem for those who have cars, they have to buy petrol, they have to take care of mechanics and then there are robbers”. If there is a spirit of poverty that is trying to hold you down, I rebuke it right now in Jesus name. You must be willing to be free.
- You must be willing to serve God, because when that mad man was set free, and he came to Jesus Christ and said “I will follow you everywhere”, Jesus said unto Him, “go and witness to your own people, become an evangelist for me.” Mark 5:18-20.
What do I do so that I’ll get a miracle that will amaze my nation? A miracle that the whole nation will hear about and they will be amazed. In 1 Kings 18:36-39 is the example of Elijah on Mount Carmel; he prayed and fire fell from heaven, and the whole nation fell on its face and they said your God is the Lord.
Now, what was it that Elijah did that got him an amazing miracle that amazed the whole nation? What must I do to get a miracle that will amaze my nation?
- You must repair the altar of your heart. You must repair that altar called your heart. Proverbs 15:8 says, the sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to God. If your heart is not pure, if there is bitterness against your fellow man in your heart, if there is unforgiveness in your heart, if your heart is full of evil thoughts, if your heart is full of immoral thoughts, repair that altar today.
- If you want the power of God to fall when you pray so that the whole nation will become amazed, make sure that the altar of God is never empty. I have told you before, in all the seven cases in the Bible when fire fell from heaven, it did not fall on an empty altar; there is always something on the altar of God for the fire of God to come down and consume, and of course, the best thing you can place on the altar of God is yourself as a living sacrifice.
- If you want a miracle that will amaze your nation, you must learn how to eulogize God continually. In 1 Kings 18:36, listen to what Elijah said, “God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob.” He was eulogizing God. Learn to do the same. Most of the time, we just keep on asking God for things. Don’t think that we are just doing it for doing it sake when you hear us saying to Him, “You are greater than the greatest”, we know what we mean by that. When we say, “You are higher than the highest”, we are telling Him, president may come, president may go, You remain the same. When we say “You are richer than the richest”, we are saying to Him that our prosperity does not depend on any man. When we say, “You are stronger than the strongest”, we are saying let all the forces of earth gather against us, as long as You are with us, we will be more than conquerors. When we say “You are wiser than the wisest”, we are saying to Him no matter what the enemy tries, we will always be a step above him. When we eulogize God, He feels like let me stand up and do something for this child.
Those of you who know me very well, you have heard me say how my mother always got my school fee from my father, even though my father was very poor. But because she kept on telling him, “you are the son of so and so; when your father went to war, he killed so many, he brought so many slaves; when your father threw a party, he fed the town, he fed the civilian, he fed the military; when your father…” my father’s head would begin to swell.
When you begin to eulogize the Almighty God, even the head of ordinary men listening to you will begin to swell because you are praising the Almighty God. How much more when you are eulogizing the King of kings Himself.
But where we are going is what will I do so that I will get a miracle that will amaze the whole world?
Do you know it is still possible for you that before long the whole world will hear about you? Do you know that when the world talked about certain people, I always wondered why some of us just pay attention to this people and we don’t look at ourselves? When Obama became the president of America years ago, some people believed that can never happen but, it has happened. He was born by a woman; his father is not an angel. When we talk about Bill Gates, one of the richest men in the world, this is a human being; he has a mother, a human mother and a human father. When we talk about Billy Graham, that great evangelist, he had a human mother, a human father and so on and so forth.
Now if God can do it for them, why can’t He do it for you? Some of you don’t believe that God can lift you up to such an extent that people will begin to say, “how can this be?” “Where does he come from?” “Who is his father?” “Who is his mother?”
I am here to prophecy to you. I thank God for what one of my sons said that there is power in prophecy, I am prophesying to you today, before you die, the world will hear about you.
I know some of you will say I wish I heard that some ten years ago, but now I am old; Moses was 80 years old when the Almighty God began His amazing miracle. As long as you are still breathing, it is not too late for you and I am saying it one more time, in that name that is above every other name, one day very soon, you will become an amazement to the whole world.
What do I do so that I can get a miracle that will turn me to an amazement to the world? That is the text we read in Psalm 67:5-7. It says, “let the whole earth praise you”, and I’m one of the whole earth. I can make up my mind that if nobody else will praise Him, I will praise Him. One of my children quoted Psalm 34:1, he said, “I will praise the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.” In other words, I don’t care what others do, my own is a settled matter. I will praise the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
We held a Minister’s Conference, somewhere about two weeks ago, ministers from all denominations. They asked me to speak, after I had finished speaking, it was question time and I said I will answer three questions. The first question was deeply theological, I answered to the best of my ability. The second one was even deeper and the third one, a great minister got up and said, Pastor Adeboye tell us, why is it that wherever you go, you go with a tambourine? I said, “thank you for asking. it is not a talisman, it is to say to God, anywhere I have the opportunity, I am ready to praise, I am ready to dance, I am ready to sing”. And I don’t care who knows. Let the devil know that here is somebody who will never become too big to praise God.
Second, as much as possible, get other people to praise Him with you – Psalm 34:3. David said, “magnify the Lord with me”. He had already said in verse 1, I will praise the Lord, then he said, “what are you looking at? Join me! Let’s do it together!” Because in the text we read, he said let the whole earth praise You, let all the people praise You. Tell your neighbour, please praise the Lord with me.
How many of you will join hands with me today to praise God in one accord? How many of you will just say let’s just praise Him. We have asked for so many things in the past from Him, why don’t we just praise Him for a change? How many of you will join me in praising Him today?
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