By Bishop Dave Chikosi
Church critics often make the mistake of thinking that the current wave of miracles, signs and wonders is a new phenomenon. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Pentecostalism in particular has always had its miracle workers and healing evangelists in the likes of John G. Lake, Smith Wigglesworth, Kathryn Kuhlman (Europe and America), Nicholas Bhengu (Africa) etc etc.
In Rhodesia, the likes of Baba Ezekiel Guti were healing the sick and entertaining angels when some of us were still running around in diapers or napkins.
My own late biological father was casting out devils and delivering oppressed souls in the late fifties. And he wasn’t even Pentecostal. He was United Methodist.
(As a youngster growing up under such a ministry, you don’t quickly forget these things. They are eternally etched in your spirit and inevitably help form the matrix of your own subconscious belief system).
But the difference between then and now is the media. Back then they did not have a 24 hour news cycle or various social media to stream healing and deliverance services live like we have today.
Everything, then, unlike now, happened under the radar, so to speak.
Part of the warp and woof of the Gospel
But miracles, signs and wonders have always been part of the warp and woof of the Gospel right from the very inception of the Church.
Jesus Christ, the Rock upon which the church is built, was Himself a signs and wonders Man. St Luke writes about “all the things that Jesus began to do and to teach” (Acts 1:1).
Note the order: do and teach. The doing (of miracles) came before the teaching. Experience first. Exposition after.
The great St Paul goes so far as to suggest that a Gospel message shorn or devoid of the miraculous is, in reality, really not the real deal. It is only a partial Gospel:
“Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have FULLY preached the gospel of Christ” (Rom 15:19).
In other words, the Gospel is not fully preached until the message is presented with or accompanied by miracles, signs and wonders.
The preacher who has no “demonstration of the Spirit and of power” (1 Cor 2:4) is in reality shortchanging his audience.
The purpose of signs and wonders
Signs and wonders are God’s dinner bell, summoning and beckoning the spiritually hungry to the Master’s Table to feast on the milk, meat and bread of the Word of God.
There are indeed many unbelievers who will not be seen anywhere near the door of a regular church, but will gladly hightail it to a religious service where signs and wonders are in manifestation.
The devil knows that.
He knows that one genuine miracle performed on some public or well-known figure in Harare or London or New York, will create more salvation opportunities for the masses in that city than any slick preaching or advertising will ever do.
And so to stop the masses from coming to Jesus to make Him Savior and Lord of their lives, the enemy ridicules or seeks to discredit genuine miracles and miracle workers. This is one major way that he hopes will check the national and global advance of the Gospel.
But it’s never worked in the past, It won’t work now. Nor will it ever work.
The curse of a dead orthodoxy
Sadly there is a part of the Body of Christ that has been used, and is being used, as a tool by the devil to fight and oppose the supernatural.
When a church clings to a dead orthodoxy and thinks that getting all its doctrinal ducks in a row is all that matters in the Kingdom, then that church is in the service of the devil, wittingly or unwittingly.
When a church values concept over experience, creed over charismata and doctrine over demonstrations of the Spirit, then that church is deceived.
“For the kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power” (1 Cor 4:20).
There are Christians who have become so afraid of the fake that they are missing the real. In their fear they become busy feverishly defending their narrow version of the Truth, when what they should really be busy doing is propagating the Gospel.
These Christians spend what little spiritual capital they have attacking false teachers and false prophets instead of spending it on winning souls. They are heresy-hunters who obsess with correcting everybody while forgetting that their main purpose is the same as that of Jesus i.e. to seek and save the lost.
Now, are there fake teachers and fake prophets? Absolutely. There are and will always be false teachers and false prophets. But should that be our main focus? I don’t think so.
People need not worry too much about fake miracles.
“For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open” (Luke 8:17).
All spiritual fakery will eventually collapse under its own weight. It’s unsustainable over time and the perpetrators thereof shall one day suffer the shame and embarrassment that comes with the exposure of their cleverly-manufactured manifestations.
As Moses told the Israelites, “be sure your sin will find you out” (Numbers 32:23).
But in the meantime, stop trying to dissuade the rest of us from the supernatural path that our very Master pursued while here on earth.
Not only are we to follow the same path, but Jesus expected us to take His own miracles to the next level. He said this:
“I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father” (John 14:12).
Jesus fully expected us to go nuclear on the devil and destroy his works with an assortment of spiritual gifts and manifestations. He told us:
“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give” (Matt 10:8).
So forward ever with miracles. Backwards never. In His mighty and majestic Name. Amen.
[Bishop Dave Chikosi can be reached by email at [email protected]. You can watch his YouTube videos at https://www.youtube.com/user/faithcoach4u. He also blogs at http://davechikosi.blogspot.com]
