And God wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul (Acts 19:11). In this nineteenth chapter of Acts, God is making a distinction in miracles. The Lord certainly had performed many miracles through the life of Paul, but the word “special” set some miracles apart from others. As we go into the greatness of God, more and more we, too, will see special miracles. God is going to perform miracles in abundance and special miracles in this final hour.

What were some of the special miracles in the Bible? In the fourteenth chapter of Acts we read about a man crippled all his life. Paul, perceiving that he had faith to be healed, Said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked (Acts 14:9,10). This is a special miracle: for not only was he healed, but immediately he leaped and walked. How he had received that kind of faith, we do not know; we just know that he had the faith to be healed and more. There are miracles in which a person who has never walked is healed; and then that one must learn to balance and walk, training muscles that have never before been used. This man did not need to go through that process; he received something extra.

When the Lord delivers a person who is dumb or mute, it is a miracle; however, the person must still learn sound and to say words just as a baby must learn to talk. But when God gives the gift of speech instantly, it is a special miracle.

You who are seeking more of God, who are accumulating and growing in faith, trust God for complete deliverance. Perhaps there is a deformity in your body that requires a miracle of re-creation; look to God for it. This is the hour that those born with birth defects can be delivered by the miracle power of the Lord. It makes no difference what condition you are in. In this hour of special miracles you can have anything that you need. Eyes can be re-created; limbs can become as melted wax to be straightened through the power of God.

From the time the great outpouring of God’s Spirit upon the Early Church came to an end until now, the gift of miracles has not been operating in its fullness. It takes a greater anointing than we have had in the past for that gift to be realized in its fullness, greater Spirit and greater power among the Lord’s people.

The Lord is performing many special miracles in this last and final hour as He uses men and women to evangelize the whole world just before the end. God is giving a special anointing to believe for the special miracles. There will be some of God’s people who won’t be ready to receive from God because they have neglected to spend the time with Him required to receive His anointing. You who are not really praying and seeking God will miss out on the blessings of God, fighting doubt and unbelief. No matter what God does now or in the future, you will have trouble accepting it.

God’s ways are not man’s ways the Bible tells us. In order for God to do His best for you through your life, you must put man’s theories that interfere with the Word of God out of the way. Be willing to allow God to change your thinking with His Word. Seek the mind of Christ daily. Through preconceived ideas about God and how He works, ideas that are in conflict with the Word of God, the devil seeks to limit you. Whenever you insist upon seeing things through man’s logic instead of through the faith of the Word of God, there will be a wall between you and your God. Although God will try to break through that wall, the stubbornness of self can keep it intact and God will not be able to reach you. If it is your will to have that wall remain, to view God through human eyes and to keep Him on the outside, God will allow it. He gives you the right to free will. Only if you do not want that wall between you and your God can He tear it down, but if you want to close yourself in with incorrect theories, God will let you.

Years ago I was carried away in the Spirit in a divine visitation from the Lord. For days I walked and talked with the Lord. In those hours He would show me things to come: in particular, the gift of miracles in operation. As the Spirit of the Lord moved, I saw people with faces eaten with cancer or some foul disease. Then the Spirit of the Lord would speak, and before my very eyes the part of the face that had been eaten away would be re-created. As the Spirit of the Lord moved, an empty eye socket would have an eyeball. It was a fantastic thing I saw in the Spirit—it thrilled me for days; it thrills me now.

The Lord said the latter days would be a pouring out time of His Spirit, that He would shake kingdoms with His Spirit and His power. The glory and the power of the Lord are evident today. A few years ago people could not imagine witnessing blinded eyes being opened, deaf ears made to hear and the crippled able to walk; but through the power of God we are seeing those things take place now—and more.

As I look back on my life, there was a time when not a gift of the Spirit was in my life. Sometime during a long fast, however, I went to bed for the last time without the gifts. I awoke with the gifts of healing moving in my life. I knew they were there just as surely as I knew I was alive. In my services as I began to touch the people, they were healed, healed by the Spirit of the Lord. The sick spirits had to obey the authority in the name of Jesus.

Then the time came for the other gifts, and finally the gift of discerning of spirits. One night I went to bed unaware that it marked the end of my not being able to see demon power or to discern demon spirits, not knowing that something would happen to my vision, that I would be able to see demons as Jesus saw demons when He was here on Earth.

I did not have to know as much about the Spirit of God when He dealt with me concerning the gifts of healing as I did when He took me into the gift of discerning of spirits. When it came to the gift of discerning, the Lord told me that I must know every move of His Spirit in my services. He told me that anything I did not understand He would explain. That which was of Him and that which was not, He would reveal to me, separating the power of God from the power of Satan.

In the services the Holy Spirit would number the demons; I would know the devil-possessed. As I walked onto the platform, the Spirit of the Lord, even before I started into the message, would show me where the demon-possessed were sitting—fantastic, but nevertheless it happened. Just as those things happened to me as the Lord took me step by step, all that God has promised will take place. When God promises something, it will be done. God cannot lie.

Thinking they have an unction or a vision from the Lord, that God is going to do something special, people are confused when it becomes apparent that their “revelation” was just a delusion, that the devil had led them astray. A vision given by God becomes a future reality exactly as God gave it. If one thing is out of place when that fulfillment comes, it is not of God. Everything is exact with God; His visions are true, but the devil gives visions, too. In this final hour you must know the way you take; you must be able to separate the Spirit of God from the spirit of man and the spirit of the devil.

The closer you get to God, the greater God can move upon you and use you. For this hour of special miracles you must draw ever closer to God. You will need a desire to know more about God than the average person knows, to become dissatisfied with being just an ordinary Christian. Decide that you will go beyond the ordinary to fast, pray and live in the Word of God. Making that kind of commitment to God is difficult for some. But if you would see the special miracles in your life, it is necessary. Do you want the Lord to reveal Himself to you, or are you satisfied with the way you are going? The decision is yours; God will not force you to pray.

The Lord is preparing a people for something great and mighty; the Spirit of the Lord is dealing; the Spirit of God is moving, saith the Spirit of the Lord. The power of the Lord is dealing with people all over the world, moving upon people to pray, to seek Him, to spend more time in His presence. From different countries mail is coming in, telling that many are finding the reality of the Lord. They are feeling a hunger to be closer to God. Seek Him for that hunger, for His reality.

This is just the beginning. The Lord will call on you for more time; you will have an appetite for it. Some of you are praying all hours of the day and night as the Spirit of the Lord is moving upon you. But some are like a person with no appetite, saith the Spirit of the Lord. You won’t taste and see that the Lord is good. You are afraid; you won’t spend time at the Lord’s table; you won’t let God move on you as He is seeking to. He will not always seek but will let you go if you refuse to respond. “Let that one sleep on,” He directs the Holy Spirit; “deal with others. Give those a chance who have never had a chance before.”

The time has come when God is giving people a chance to serve Him. If they reject Him, He is subject not to continue dealing with them but to leave them to their own devices. If you do not respond to the Lord when He draws you, you may never feel His Spirit again. The Spirit of the Lord is moving to shake you, to wake you out of spiritual stupor.

God wants to show forth His power. He is seeking to heal more than a simple headache; He wants to make people completely whole. Praise God for the small miracles that He performs; but also look for the big ones, the ones that are beyond the human mind. Telling others that you once were healed of a headache is fine; however, don’t limit your faith by thinking that that is all the Lord will do for you. God is seeking to perform things man cannot do. Man transplants hearts, but God re-creates hearts. He speaks and the thing is done. All that God asks is that you have faith in Him, pray and read the Word of God.

In this hour of the latter rain of the Spirit, we can expect greater things than any people have ever expected or received, for the Bible teaches that the latter part of the rain will be greater than the early rain that fell on the Early Church. Jesus told His followers they would do greater things. Look for the greater things, the special miracles. Miracles of re-creation and creation are taking place now in the midst of God’s people. Through surgery, organs have been removed; but after prayer the doctors have found healthy organs where the diseased organs had been.

A re-creation of her son’s kidney brought our choir directress and her family into Grace Cathedral; X-rays proved the drastic change. Another woman had cancer of the womb; the mouth of the womb was destroyed by cancer—completely gone. After a miracle of re-creation, she went back to her physician. Without telling him what had taken place, she asked him to examine her. The examination completed, the doctor declared the womb to be perfect, nothing wrong; the mouth of the womb was normal. It was an incredible thing to her; she knew she had been healed, but had not expected the womb to be re-created. She went back to the doctor and asked him to check her again. He examined her and gave the same verdict. She could not believe it, and so she went back the third time. It took three examinations by the doctor before she accepted the fact that when God had healed her He also had re-created the destroyed part. She thought God had stopped with the miracle of healing, but God went on to give her a special miracle of re-creation.

For some who are not under God’s anointing enough to use that kind of faith, miracles are difficult to believe. In the closet of consecration and prayer the Lord can bring you to the place where you will believe Him for the greater things. Many have said they believed in God’s healing, but in their hearts they doubted; at times they believed and at times they did not. When they were around unbelievers they could not release their faith. You must come to the place that your faith can be released at all times. In James we read that he who wavereth need not expect to receive from the Lord. Having faith alone is not enough. All Christians have faith in order to come into salvation. But if they go no deeper in God, their lives will be full of unclaimed miracles and blessings.

I had faith that Jesus Christ was Lord even before I received salvation; but that faith did me no good until I was ready to use it, to accept my born-again experience. Unused faith accomplishes nothing. I had faith to know that if I confessed my sins, the Lord would forgive me; but until I confessed them I remained unsaved. If you are a child of God, you have faith in His works; but in order for that faith to go into action you must have the anointing of the Holy Spirit so that you can use it, release it. Faith in your heart will not operate without the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The greater your anointing becomes, the more faith you can release. The only part of your faith that gets things done is that part which is working. Faith that is not working is simply idle faith; it’s useless to you.

Gideon believed in miracles—he just didn’t know for sure that the Lord would perform them. If the Lord be with us…where be all his miracles? he asked (Judges 6:13). The Lord said to Gideon, thou shalt save Israel from the hand of the Midianites (verse 14). Many misgivings troubled Gideon. But when the Spirit, the anointing of the Lord, fell on him, he went forth to do as the Lord said; and a great victory was won through the efforts of an army of only three hundred men because they put their trust in the Lord rather than in their own strength. Only when you know that deliverance comes from God and not from your own efforts do you free God’s hands by releasing your faith. God works through faith in Him; God does not work through faith in self. When you do not feel the need for more anointing, you fail to reach out for it.

Some people get into tight places. They need God, and so they go on fasts. Faith for the miracle was theirs all along, but they fasted for the anointing to release that faith so that God could work and perform His miracle. The anointing tells you that God not only CAN do things but that He WILL do them. You may know that God CAN heal your body, but do you know that He WILL do it? The anointing of the Lord releases the faith that says, God WILL do it now.

For Gideon and the Israelites, God was not going to perform just a miracle, but a special miracle; and there had to be preparation for that special miracle. Special miracles require a greater anointing.

Gideon had enough of the anointing of God for the miracle he thought was going to take place—conquering the enemy with a large Israelite army—but not enough faith in God was released for him to believe that only three hundred could win. Gideon was acting like a human who had faith in God. He was obedient; fear had not taken him over to the extent that he turned and ran—God cannot help you if you are running. In order to anoint Gideon further the Lord told him to go down to the enemies’ tents by night and hear what they said. The enemy were in the valley like grasshoppers in multitude; and their camels were without number, the Bible tells us. Gideon slipped in and overheard one of the enemy telling another about a dream of defeat. It gave Gideon that extra boost, that anointing to believe. When you are going into those special miracles, into the deepness of God, you cannot let your imagination run away with you and you cannot go by inspiration. You must know the steps that you take; you must know that definite leading from God. The Bible tells us to be still and know that He is God, and to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord. Wait on God, and He will make it clear.

Gideon prepared himself: received the anointing of the Lord, heard the promises of God and saw the signs of God. He knew that God was God and His promises were true, and the anointing of the Spirit came upon him then. Gideon arose with the anointing of the Lord, and the special miracle took place. Three hundred men through the hand of the Lord defeated a huge multitude. Gideon is an inspiration.

The disciples performed miracles through the power of the Holy Spirit; but they were not able to deliver a boy possessed by a spirit that would throw him on the ground where he lay, the Bible tells us, wallowing and foaming. After the disciples had failed, the father brought his son to Jesus for healing. The demon in him was the strongest demon that can take the body; today we would call it epilepsy. The epileptic spirit has so much control of the body (it is not a spirit of the soul) that only a strong anointing can cast it out. The disciples had the anointing for other miracles, but this was a special miracle that required a preparation they had not undergone. What was the preparation in this case? Fasting. This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting (Mark 9:29).

Christ’s disciples were not to fast until Jesus went away, and so they simply had not yet received the extra anointing that comes from fasting. When they tried to cast out the spirit, they could not.

The father took his son on to Jesus; he did not stop just because someone had prayed and the miracle did not take place. If a million people have prayed over you and nothing happened, do not stop; God still has deliverance for you.

As Jesus delivered the boy from the epileptic spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit came down in such a great way that the boy fell like he was dead. But Jesus took him by the hand and he arose, made completely whole. Many people cannot remain standing when the power of God comes upon them.

Contend for the faith that was once delivered to the saints of God. Simon Peter, James, John and the others did not have faith for special miracles at the very beginning. Later, after they went to the Upper Room to receive power from on High, the baptism of the Holy Ghost, the apostles received power to perform miracles and to cast out devils. They believed what the Master said; they got ready and became equipped for special miracles. Peter, James, John and the others learned what was meant when Jesus said, greater works than these shall he do (John 14:12).

David’s slingshot has helped my faith again and again. What was going to happen as he faced the giant, just he and his slingshot?—a special miracle. Everything about it was special; never had there been a miracle like it. If you need a miracle, don’t look to see if God has ever performed one like it before; it matters not. Yours could be the first. The Lord wants to perform the special miracles to show forth His greatness in this final hour.

It was a crucial hour as David stood before Goliath. The Israelites needed something that would turn their hearts toward God. Today people still need something that will turn their hearts toward God. Many honest hearted people are stuck in dead churches just waiting and longing for a reality of the Lord they have not yet experienced. They need God’s quickening anointing to begin flowing in their lives. Never have they heard anyone pray through the anointing of the Spirit, nor have they received answers to prayer or seen miracles and healings take place. They think the baptism of the Holy Spirit is just something that happened to the Early Church and do not realize that it is meant for them today also. The Lord can help only the honest hearted, the ones who will accept Him after the truth about Him is revealed. Those who have not had a chance to receive His fullness, His salvation and the baptism of the Holy Spirit will be given a chance.

Although there were honest-hearted among the Israelites, their leader had gone away from God. For the sake of those honest-hearted, God brought deliverance through the hand of David. An evil spirit was able to take King Saul over because he had disobeyed God. He knew that God could bring the deliverance; but he also knew that he had sinned against God, putting the glory of Israel to shame. Chosen by God to be the first king of Israel, Saul had failed to live up to God’s expectations; knowingly he had failed. Had his failure been in ignorance, God may have overlooked it; but he deliberately went against God’s will. Now Saul was afraid of Goliath.

God had not wanted Israel to have a king because He knew what would happen: the Israelites would go as the leader went. Today a congregation as a whole does not rise above its minister. If there is a dead man in the pulpit, there will be dead people in the pews. Those that receive more faith and anointing than their minister, priest or rabbi do not stay around. The Israelites looked at Saul and they, too, were afraid, defeated. They did not know that God was going to use David for a special miracle.

Armed with the slingshot and the anointing of the Lord, David went off to meet Goliath. The Holy Spirit would tell him just when to release the stones, for in the name of the Lord David went after Goliath. When you come for your special miracle, know that God will perform it; and do not try to imagine how it is going to happen. Give God freedom to move as He sees fit. God proved Himself for David with just a slingshot. It mattered not to David how the Lord would bring about the victory; it was enough for him that he went in the name of the Lord.

We must come to that same place. We have been given the name of Jesus; the force and power in the name of Jesus will conquer any giants that you may meet. It matters not how destructive the devil is; there is power in the name of Jesus to conquer. God likes to work when man says this thing cannot be. Our God can do anything, for with the Lord all things are possible. Wonderful are the ways of God and sweet is the presence of Him.

David knew that with God in control, nothing was out of order. He did not look at the smallness of his size; he felt like a giant himself under the anointing of God. Because he was anointed, the slingshot was power in his hand; and he began to twirl it above his head. Imagine what the Spirit of God could do with his faith as he wound up! God’s Spirit began to take that arm around and around. Now everything hinged on young David. He had to turn loose the missile at the bidding of the Holy Spirit for the special miracle. Come to the place you, too, can let go when the Lord wants you to. Not using your own wisdom, you use the wisdom of God. Other times David had judged the distance, but this time he relied solely on God as he let loose the stone. Down crashed the giant. Who would have believed he would fall before such a youth? David believed; one person and God are a majority.

With the giant’s own sword, David cut off Goliath’s head; and as he did the spirit of jealousy took Saul over. Saul soon became obsessed with trying to kill David. Had Saul kept the anointing that God had given him at the start, the Lord could have performed a special miracle through him; but he let the anointing slip away, and it brought him to disaster.

Religious leaders today who fight the healing ministry are in the spirit of error, the spirit of jealousy. God would use them if they would consecrate themselves and pay the price; but by wanting things their way and not God’s way, they have shut out much of the Spirit of God. What does the Bible say about miracles? These signs shall follow believers. Power to heal the sick, power to cast out demons in the name of Jesus was in the Early Church. God intends the same thing for His Church today, but many churches perish because of lack of this vision.

The miracle power of God will not work with you unless you remain clean and holy before God. Walk closer to God than you have ever walked in the past, knowing that the time is short, the day far spent. We do not have long to work, and we must hurry to get the work done. Lay aside every weight that hinders. If you are doing something that raises a question in your mind, check it out with the Word of God. If it does not fit in, stop doing it. As we walk into the all-out miracle power that has been reserved in the gift of miracles for this hour, we can be sure that the time until the Rapture will be very, very short. One more time the Lord will shake the earth. Throughout the Bible we find that whenever God worked in a fantastic way, it was for just a very short period, although the preparation was long.

Noah worked over one hundred years on the ark before the miracle power of the Lord brought in the animals and shut the door. By working for the Lord, Noah got ready for those special miracles; and today by working for the Lord, we must get ready for the special miracles building up to that last great miracle, the catching away of the Bride of Christ.

An angel of the Lord appeared one day to a barren woman, saying that she would conceive and bear a son who would be a Nazarite unto God from the womb, one who would begin to deliver Israel out of the hand of the Philistines. (Nazarites were people who, the Bible tells us, separated themselves unto the Lord. They drank no strong drink, did not cut their hair.) Samson was an unusual miracle, even in his mother’s womb. If he lived in our day, many would not recognize that his special abilities and strength came from the Lord; they would say he was an amazing athlete and probably would want to know what kind of vitamins he was taking. The Bible lets us know that his unusualness was a miracle of God, and with that miracle power God wrought special miracles. A thousand of the enemy Samson killed with a jawbone of an animal, and then the Lord performed another special miracle as Samson cried unto the Lord of his great thirst. God clave an hollow place that was in the jaw, and there came water thereout; and when he had drunk, his spirit came again (Judges 15:19). Miracle power brings life out of a dead bone; God is seeking to anoint our faith to accept this in our hearts as well as in our minds.

The Lord brought Israel forth from Egypt; and there was not a weak one among them, the Bible tells us. Josephus in his historical writings declared that many of those working in the slime pits to make bricks had worn their fingers down to the bone, down to nubs. However, the Lord made every Israelite whole; we have no record of anyone coming out of Egypt disfigured or ill. It was one great mass miracle for what has been estimated to have been over three million people.

In taking the Israelites to the land of plenty and restoring them to health, God has shown the kind of miracle power He has for this hour in which we live. No case is too hard for God’s miracle power. In this hour miracles of creation or re-creation will be poured out upon those who will believe. Be it according to your faith, the Master said. Before the Israelites left Egyptian bondage they received special miracles; and as we are being made ready to leave this Earth’s bondage in the Rapture, that same miracle power is available to us. The Lord is coming after a Bride blessed with all the benefits of His miraculous power. It is not the will of the Lord for His people to go through life disfigured and handicapped: the gift of miracles performs the divine will of God—wholeness for mind, soul and body. All the power of the Godhead is found in the gift of miracles. Nothing can stand before the force of that power as it moves anything in its path either to the right or to the left.

The perfect will of God is done through the gift of miracles. Search the pages of God’s Holy Bible When the miracle power went into operation, the perfect will of God took place. No matter how great the need or how impossible deliverance seemed, so long as man used the faith God gave him, the impossible was accomplished.

God’s miracle power separated the waters of the Red Sea. Miracle power shielded Daniel in the lions’ den. There are times God uses miracle power to bring complete deliverance as He did for Daniel, and there are times He helps people bear the ordeals they are going through. The martyrs of the Early Church were so covered with the miracle power of God they were able to sing and praise God while they were being thrown to the lions or burned at the stake. That power elevated them into the realm of the miraculous until they were not really conscious of their physical conditions much of the time.

The greatness of the miracle power brings with it an atmosphere that man has been able to exist in for only short periods. Samson was elevated for a time as the Spirit of God came upon him for special miracles. He was a channel for the miracle power; but when that channel became clogged, the miracle power could no longer flow out to deliver God’s people from the enemies of God. Samson couldn’t even deliver himself, and so he was blinded and taken into slavery. Realizing how helpless he was without the miracle power of God, a repentant Samson began to cry out to his God. Samson did not pray to have his sight restored; but that the miracle power would return, and he would die avenged with the enemies of God. Freeing the Israelites from the hand of the enemy, after all, was the purpose for which God raised him up. The miracle power came upon him one last time as Samson gave his life, taking with him three thousand of the Philistines.

The early and the latter part of the Church is typified by Samson. Once again the Church is getting her power back—those who will pray, fast and live in the Word of God. Unless you spend much, much time in the presence of God, however, the miracle power of the Lord cannot work for you. You might behold it, but you will not be a channel which God can use. You must pray times other than when you’re in trouble; pray because it is a delight to stay in the presence of the Lord. The Psalmist demonstrated his insight into this when he wrote, As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God (Psalm 42:1,2). It was a great thirst.

The more you thirst, the more God will give you to drink of Him. He will not move into a heart filled with other things but into one that has made room for Him, one that thinks upon Him and delights in Him. Be as hungry for the Lord as you are for physical food, hungry to hide away with Him, thinking upon Him and His Holy Word. Get into the habit of feasting upon God. There will be times you will have to make self pray and study His Word, but do not give up. You may not always have an appetite; but in order to keep up your spiritual strength, you must eat daily of the Word of God. The appetite will return; your anointing will grow. You cannot come overnight into the deepness of God; but by devoting your life day in and day out to His pursuit, you will arrive there. Spending time with the Lord should be a pleasure, not a chore. He loves you more than you could know, and He wants you to feel that love.

Yea, saith the Spirit of the Lord, I will pour out my Spirit upon the face of the earth and it will be greater and mightier than the waters upon the earth. I will show forth my glory; my Spirit shall be among men, and those that are downcast will be lifted up, and those that are honest hearted will see my glory. Yea, they will rise up and they will believe and they will receive, making themselves ready for the coming of the Lord, saith the Spirit of God.

O my people that are called by my name, know ye not that it is late? The hour is coming, saith the Spirit of the Lord, that you will need more of my Spirit and more of my power. The hour is coming that you will need more of the miracle presence with you that you might be able to overcome, saith the Spirit of the Lord. Know ye not that the spirit of doubt of the Antichrist will try to take the face of the earth over in this final battle before the coming of my Son?

But arise, my people, and clothe yourselves in the faith of God and look for special miracles that you will be rooted and grounded in my truth, and then you shall see the glory, saith the Lord.

Look for the special miracles. The commandments Jesus gave His followers were not for the disciples alone but for all His followers, for us today. What were His instructions to the twelve as He sent them forth? And as ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give (Matthew 10:7,8).

From this we see that Christ EXPECTS us to have faith enough to believe for these special miracles, and He would not expect us to have faith for something impossible to obtain. Faith comes by hearing and accepting the Word of God. Faith knows that God is God, and He will do exactly as He says. Faith doesn’t need to know HOW God will perform the impossible, just that He WILL honor His promises. Accept the Word of God in all the fullness of its power, and reach out and take the anointing of faith that God is giving to believe for the special miracles in this last and final hour.