I've experienced the Power of God all my life; I was baptised in the Holy Spirit when I was 13, now 77 years later, the Power of the Holy Spirit is stronger in me now than it was back then.
In 1972, I was arrested for taking Bibles behind the Iron Curtain and put in a communist prison: the sentence for bringing Bibles was five years, and because I was preaching the Gospel in the prison, that was another five years. I could have been there ten years! I did not want to spend ten years of my life in prison, in a foreign country! I desperately wanted to learn how to pray, because I wanted to see a miracle happen; I did not want to stay in the prison; I wanted to be free, to do the work of God.
After I’d been tried and found guilty (I would have been ashamed if I had done nothing the communists could find me guilty of as a Christian!), God gave me a vision and a dream three days after my trial, and He showed me the exact day I would come out of the prison!
The dream was that I was out of the prison and speaking to thousands at an Easter Rally that the Elim Churches (to which I belonged) held every year in the Royal Albert Hall, London. But it was not easy to hold on to that kind of faith in those conditions. It was only when eventually, after another five months, I managed to smuggle my own Bible into my cell, (that was in itself a miracle), God confirmed the dream in writing, in His Word. When I got my Bible, desperate to know where to start reading, I chose to read from David’s experiences in the Psalms, since like me, he knew what suffering was. I came to Psalm 35:18 where David himself says, “I will give God thanks in the great congregation, I will praise Him among much people.” I leapt in the air – this is it, the great congregation must be the thousands in the Royal Albert Hall on Easter Monday! So my confirmation of the dream I was holding onto was in the Scriptures! It was in writing! But a few days later, as I was thinking, I realised that my birthday in 1973 would come just three days before Easter! So I began to ask again, “Lord if You can work such a miracle for Easter, why not send me home three days earlier for my birthday?!” Some are surprised why, when God had given me one promise, should I not be content, why dare ask for another miracle?! But my faith was growing. So yes, I did ask, and this is what I prayed, “Lord if you can work one miracle, I want another, send me home for my birthday. But I want confirmation. If You will grant me this extra request, then show me a place in the Psalms where you speak of releasing a prisoner from his chains.” What a challenge… Was there even such a verse? I didn’t know… I picked up my Bible (remember, to have it in my cell was already illegal), I read on… and on, past all my favourite passages until eventually I came to Psalm 68:6, where it says, ‘God sets the solitary in families, He brings out those who are bound with chains!’ What can I say… My joy was unbounded, God had spoken, just as I had asked – I would go home for my birthday, April 17th!
However, in the months which followed, such pressure had built up (you need to have been in a communist prison to understand) – that I failed! My faith failed! I had a heart attack. The prison doctors gave me an ECG; a German doctor who was in prison in my cell went with me and interpreted the results for me. What had happened was that the stress of the prison, and the stress of waiting for the deliverance, had brought me to a minor heart attack…
When I went back to my work bench (I was in a slave labour camp), I cried out to God, I wept before Him, “O God, I’ve let go, my faith has failed, I’m not going to get out now…” I knew in my spirit that if I failed, if I wavered, I wouldn’t get out! That’s what I’m trying to tell you, that’s what the Bible is saying…
I cried out to God! And the Lord reassured me, because He does understand, and I got the peace that, yes, I had confessed and wept before Him over my failure, and He understood me. And yes, I was released on the EXACT day God had promised, on my birthday and to make the miracle even bigger, it was British Prime Minister Harold Wilson who secured my release! Then on Easter Monday I was invited to share my experiences in the Royal Albert Hall. Total fulfilment of what God had said! You see that healings are only part of the miracu‐ lous! God does not, no, He cannot fail, even to the minutest detail, plus He does the unexpected beyond all that you can ask or imagine! I speak from very real experience, from fact not fiction!
But if we don’t have that faith, the very work that we do is in vain! James goes on to say in 2:21, “Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered up Isaac his son on the altar?” Works! Come on! His faith was tested, proved, and he was justified by the fact that, though God had promised that it was through Isaac that He would make Abraham the father of a great nation – now here he was with his one and only son, the promised son, putting him on the altar, prepared to kill him – in faith that God would still do what He said!
Because verse 23 says, “Abraham BELIEVED God, and it was imputed unto him as righteousness…” Abraham was saved, in anticipation of the death and resur‐ rection of Christ, by that act of faith, of laying his only son on the altar, believing God, that He would do what He said – in the extreme.
Did you take note of that bit in verse 23? “Faith was imputed to him as right‐ eousness.” His faith gave him something extra from God… In fact his faith became his salvation – and the only way God could fulfil His future purpose. I am convinced that God so often needs to use our faith to fulfil His purposes – not just ours!
Somehow we have to understand and accept THIS challenge in the day in which we live NOW! Whether it’s going through Covid, or through the persecu‐ tion that will come, or through whatever is happening in your life, whether for the Jews it was through the Holocaust, or for the Russians through the prison camps – through it all we have to realise that holding onto God by faith is the way into the Kingdom!
God has given you this same power to work miracles! Acts 3.1 says, ‘Peter and John went up to the Temple… and a man, born lame, was carried who was laid daily at the Beautiful Gate of the Temple to ask money from those who entered… He saw Peter and John about to go into the Temple and asked money from them. Peter said, ‘Look at us.’ He expected to receive something from them but Peter said, ‘I’ve no silver, no gold but what I have I give you. In the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk,’ and he took him by the right hand, lifted him up and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength, and leaping up, stood and walked, and entered with them into the Temple walking and leaping and praising God.’ In verse 12, Peter says, 'Why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus... By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see (v16, NIV).'
How will you see miracles in your life and ministry? By faith in the name of Jesus. It is through power of the name of Jesus and the faith which comes through and from Him, that will work miracles.