The Dynamics of Healing

I want to speak about the subject of healing. I invite you to turn to the Gospel according to Saint Mark, chapter 8, verses 22 through 26—Mark 8:22–26. And I want to speak specifically about the dynamics of healing. What are the complexities? Since we are going to be ministering healing, this is a very practical teaching that can help us understand how to approach the mystery of the God who heals us, but who is also sovereign and sometimes does unexpected things.

And I have chosen this text precisely because of how complex it is and because it teaches us that the Lord sometimes chose unusual ways to minister to people, just as He does in our own lives as well. There are many teachings about healing in our time, many of them well-intentioned but not necessarily biblical, and so we often oversimplify the lordship of God; or we approach the subject of healing unprepared for the strange things, or even for things more complex and profound than we expect.

Sometimes we simply want God to heal us physically, but God wants to heal other parts of our being—our emotions, our spirit, our family history, and many other things. And we can understand all of this better when we approach texts like this one. In Mark 8:22, it says: “Then the Lord came to Bethsaida, and they brought a blind man to Him and begged Him to touch him. Then the Lord took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village.” We see an initial complexity there. For some mysterious reason, the Lord decides to take this man away so that it is just Him and the man. We do not know why; we are not sure, and no one could say why the Lord did it, but here we already see Him doing something He did not normally do.

The only other occasion that comes to mind is when He wanted to heal, I believe, Jairus’s daughter: He sent the people out and remained alone with a very select little group of His disciples. But the point is that, in this case, the Lord does something out of the ordinary and takes the man out to the village. And it says: “Spitting on his eyes”—another strange thing the Lord does at this moment; normally, the Lord did not work that way. One might wonder what was in the Lord’s mind when He spat on this man’s eyes.

Here is something interesting: when the Holy Spirit is moving, strange things can happen. I have learned not to reject manifestations of the Spirit of God because they are ugly, odd, or inelegant, just as I have learned not to reject people whom God uses in very powerful ways even though they may seem uneducated, may not dress well, or may even have an illness themselves; even though they may not have all their theology straight. Many times, the Lord simply chooses whomever He pleases.

And if you are going to reject the move of God because it is strange, you may miss out on the blessing. So, not necessarily just because something is strange. Now, I also want to say that the Kingdom of God has order; the Kingdom of God is also coherent, but sometimes God’s coherence is not the kind of coherence we want. The Bible says that the foolishness of God is often wiser than the wisdom of men, and I have learned that many times God even wants to humble our intellect, and sometimes His gifts come in unpromising packages.

People you may have thought could never do anything—God uses them to bless your life. He used two humble people to minister to the intellectual Apollos. Do you remember that passage where the Lord uses a married couple to take this man Apollos, an intellectual, a philosopher converted to the Gospel, but one who needed people experienced in the Gospel? They were not theologians; they were not rabbis, but they knew the power of God and were able to minister to this man. God also used a tanner to minister to Saul, the great Pharisee Saul, persecutor of the Church, when Saul was blind there in his house, humbled by the Lord and awaiting the new stage of his life. The Lord sent a simple man as well to minister the Holy Spirit to the proud Pharisee and prepare him for his new stage.

So I always say one thing: when God wants to do something in your life, He may use unusual methods. I have always said, “Lord, our church is always open to whatever You want to do, and we will never close the doors on You merely because something is strange.” Now, I can also say that just because something is strange does not mean that it is from the Lord, right?

But God uses whatever method He wants. In this case, the Lord Jesus Christ spits on this man, and I do not know what was in the Lord’s mind. The point is that it was something He wanted to do, and He left it there as a way of expanding our expectations, of saying, “Hey, do not reject anything simply because it is unconventional.”

“After spitting on his eyes, He laid His hands on him.” And there is something else interesting in this passage: it says that He asked him whether he saw anything. Again, one wonders: why does the Lord ask this man whether he can see anything? Was the Lord uncertain about what had happened? When the Lord performed a miracle, He simply did it, and that was that. But in this case, He asks him, “So, how did we do?”—whether he saw anything.

Then notice what is interesting about the passage: the man answers Him, and it says, “He looked up and said, ‘I see men like trees, but I see them walking.’” For some reason, it seems that the miracle did not happen perfectly. The man could see figures moving—much better than he could see before, since before he could see nothing—but he could not make out what was happening. He says, “I see people; I see shapes moving. They look like trees to me,” perhaps because of the limbs that were moving and perhaps because the image was blurry. But something had happened. Who can imagine what had happened at that moment? Was there something spiritual? Was there some spiritual obstruction? Was there something that had to be dealt with?

We do not know, but what captivates me is that the Son of God, the Almighty, encounters an obstacle, and then He has to minister to this man again so that he may be completely healed. Incidentally, remember this, brothers and sisters: anyone who wants to be simplistic about the mysteries of God will never be able to enter into their fullness. That is why the Lord says that unless we become like children, we will never be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

I was thinking about Daniel; it just came to me. The Bible says that Daniel devoted himself to prayer and fasting, seeking an answer from God concerning the future of his people. And he spent 21 days praying and fasting, and apparently nothing had happened, until an angel appeared to him in all his power, elegance, and majesty. When Daniel sees this mighty angel, he melts to the ground, and the angel has to minister to him and strengthen him. He tells him, “Daniel, from the day you began to cry out for your people, your prayer reached the Throne of God, and I was sent to give you the answer to what you were asking. But on the way,” he says, “the prince of Greece—or I believe it was Persia—confronted me,” referring to a demonic angel, an infernal power that appeared before him and obstructed the arrival of God’s answer.

Now again, think about that, brother. Daniel had the opportunity to know what had happened in the spiritual world, but many times we are praying, crying out, and asking the Lord to do something in our lives—bring revelation, counsel, healing, deliverance—but there are battles in the heavenly realms too; there are things going on, there are complexities. In Daniel’s case, it was a spiritual struggle. What could that titanic struggle between two angels—one from hell and one from heaven—have been like? The mere concept blows my mind a little; it blows my circuits.

Was it fought with swords? Was it fought with bolts of lightning? We do not know how that spiritual battle unfolded, but the point is that there was opposition that had to be overcome before the answer arrived. And many times in our lives, we also have to be aware that there are obstructions. I do not know why the miracle stalled a little and the Lord then had to intervene a second time, but what I want to point out to you is just how complex it is.

And while I discuss these things, I want you to be thinking, right, about our own lives, all the things we ask of the Lord, and miracles and the supernatural life. What I want this afternoon is for you to leave with one idea. That is why I am speaking about the dynamics of healing: healing is a very complex matter, and our understanding of it must rise to the occasion.

One more thing: please, I do not want you to leave here with the idea that healing is so complicated, so complex, that it is better not to heal, ask for healing, or pray for healing. Quite the opposite. I simply want us to be well prepared to approach something God tells us we must do because, brothers and sisters, the Bible makes it very clear that we have a God who heals and that God wants us to pray.

I believe that all these stories found in the Bible are designed to instill in us the idea that we have a God who ministers, a God who responds to the needs of His people. And we are a Pentecostal people; we believe in gifts of healing, signs, and wonders. In the Gospel according to Saint Mark, the Lord Jesus Christ said, “These signs will follow those who believe.” It says, “They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” And in the Book of Acts, where it is no longer Jesus ministering but His Church here on Earth, we continually see healings of different kinds and in different manifestations.

So let us understand that we do indeed have a God who heals, but also a God who, as we see in this case, sometimes moves in complex ways. Compare this with another passage in the same Gospel according to Saint Mark, in chapter 1, verses 29 through 31, where another miracle takes place, but in a very different way. Mark 1:29 says, “As soon as Jesus left the synagogue, they went with James and John to the home of Simon and Andrew.” The Lord takes a kind of entourage to the home of Simon and his brother Andrew.

And it says, “Simon’s mother-in-law was lying in bed with a fever,” and they immediately told the Lord about this sister. Notice something here: what I like in this case is how ordinary this healing by the Lord is. He is there, a member of the family is ill, and they ask Him to minister to her. It says that the Lord then went to her, took her by the hand, and raised her up; immediately the fever left her, and she began to serve them. The Lord does not speak; He does not begin to struggle. He simply goes to where the woman is, takes her hand, and raises her up. It does not say that He said anything, and the woman is instantly healed—healed so completely that she begins to serve. It was not as though she then needed a period of convalescence; no. Her vitality returns immediately, and she is able to minister to Jesus’s disciples and to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Sometimes the Lord heals instantaneously, decisively, without doubt or any ambiguity, but at other times He takes a more complex and symbolic path, with other purposes in mind. Brother, I believe that one of the Lord’s purposes in recording this complex miracle involving the blind man of Bethsaida was possibly precisely to leave us with a clearer understanding of healing, because I believe that the passages found in Scripture are designed to give us insight into the ways of the Lord.

Do you know that many times, amid your sufferings and your struggles, there is a great cloud of witnesses who are also watching what is happening to you? And sometimes the Lord extends the healing process for a time so that the miracle can fully develop, and when He intervenes, it is for the glory of the Lord—and it takes time. Just at the end of this morning’s service, a sister approached me. I do not know whether she was at the first service or is now at the second; in any case, it happened between the two services.

I did not recognize this lady at the time, though I knew that she was part of the church. But she said to me, “Pastor, do you remember me? Two years ago, I came because your niece told me to come see you, and I was suffering from terrible depression. It had completely paralyzed me. I had been diagnosed with cancer; they had told me that I had little time left to live, and I had even lost the ability to get out of bed. My thoughts were completely confused. And it took a long time, but thank God, the Lord recently did the work. Not long ago, they prayed for me here at the church, and two years of hell disappeared in an instant, and God cleared my mind. It has now been more than a month, and I am a new woman. I have gone back to being the woman I was before.”

And she says, “In an instant, that thing which was darkening my mind disappeared, and God has done the work in my life.” Now I ask myself, “Lord, why did You not do it the first day we prayed for her?” Who knows? Perhaps her faith needed to grow; perhaps there were other things—we do not know. The important thing is that we must pray, brothers and sisters. And if it did not work for you the first time, go at it a second time; and if not the second, then the third—but keep moving forward. The Bible says, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.” We must persevere.

Many times you do not know what is in the mind of God, and if you become discouraged the first time, perhaps you missed the opportunity God had for you on the second occasion. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ speaks about the parable of the widow who kept coming before the unjust judge many times: “Grant me justice against my adversary.” And this corrupt judge did not want to attend to her until one day he said, “You know what? So that this woman will stop wearing me out and trying my patience, I am going to attend to her,” and he granted her justice. The Lord used that.

Now, the contrast is that our Judge is a just Judge. What the Lord meant by that is this: the heavenly Father wants to act, but many times we have to persist, we have to continue, because many times we do not understand His complex ways.

So these passages remind us of the diversity of methods the Lord employed to heal. Sometimes the Lord healed verbally, with a word: “Be healed,” and the person was healed. Sometimes He touched people; He laid hands on them. Sometimes, as in the case of Peter’s mother-in-law, He performed a symbolic act and took her by the hand, as if saying, “Hey, there is no alternative; you are going to be healed whether you want to or not. No matter what, there is healing”—the authority of the Lord, right?

Sometimes the Lord healed from a distance, as in the case of the Syrophoenician woman. This woman came before the Lord and asked Him to heal her daughter, who was demon-possessed. The Lord did not even speak a word of healing. When the woman expressed her faith, after the Lord challenged her and gave her an apparent refusal, she said to Him, “Lord, even the little dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the table of the chosen ones.” So the Lord paused and said, “Wow, great is your faith, woman. Because of that word, your daughter is healed.”

Scripture says that at that very moment, when the woman returned home, she confirmed that her daughter had been healed. Glory to the Lord, because the Lord uses this person’s faith, this person’s declaration, and that is what heals the other person. And many times it is like that; we could speak of healings by proxy—I do not know how to say it in Spanish—an intermediary healing. Do you remember the men who lowered the paralytic through the roof of the house? And it says that when these men lowered this man, seeing their faith, He ministered to the paralytic. So many times there is a person whose faith may not be enough, but your faith can intervene.

The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God; it says that without faith a person should not think that he is going to receive anything. But many times God can even assert His own Lordship and heal a person who lacks faith out of love for others who are interceding for them. The Lord does whatever He pleases, brothers and sisters. I have often heard us say, “Oh, you are not healed because you have no faith.” Be careful, by the way, when you say that to someone, because we may be planting a sense of guilt in people. I do not see much benefit in telling people, “Look, you have no faith,” and striking them with even more blows than they are already suffering.

Of course we need faith, and we have to ask the Lord to increase our faith, and we have to seek foundations for faith in the Word, but the Lord is so faithful and so merciful. Do you remember the passage about the deaf-mute boy, when the Lord said to him, “Do you believe that I can heal your son?” and the man said, “I believe; help my unbelief”? And the Lord did not reject him. The man was saying, “Well, I think I believe, but there is also doubt in me.”

How many times have you prayed to the Lord and there is one part of you that believes, but another part is like, “Wow, could it be possible?” Trust in the Lord; do not psychoanalyze yourself more than necessary. We have a merciful and compassionate God. Of course, let us seek that place of faith in our lives, but ultimately let us trust in the Lord’s grace and mercy, because we have a complex God. He is a coherent and consistent God, but sometimes He decides to do whatever He pleases. Glory to God that He is that way.

So sometimes the Lord healed from a distance; sometimes He touched people; sometimes He forgave sins before healing a person. In the case of this paralytic whom they lowered through the roof, He said to him, “Your sins are forgiven.” What was there in this man’s life? Perhaps there were things that had to be dealt with first, and then afterward He ministered to him. Later on we are going to talk a little about spiritual situations that can interfere with our health and our healing, and it is also important for us to understand this within the whole complex ministry of healing.

Sometimes the Lord also rebuked a demon so that healing could take place. In those cases, the person’s illness was not actually the problem, but a symptom of the real illness, which was a demonic spirit behind it. Do you know, my brother or sister, that there are demons that manifest their power through a specific illness, a specific bondage, or a specific lifestyle? Such things exist—not always, understand me—but in Scripture we see the case of the woman who was bent over for 18 years, remember? She had been in the synagogue all that time.

And, by the way, whoever tells me that believers cannot be affected by demonic powers does not know what he is talking about. Anyone who tells me that a Christian cannot be affected by a demon knows nothing about deliverance, because in my 30 years of ministry I have known many people in my church—baptized and serving—who are affected by a demon, and at a given moment, under the power of God, that creature inside them manifests itself and they have to be delivered, even though they love the Lord. These are mysteries.

If the devil appears before the very Throne of God in the Book of Job, for example, I do not believe that is a fairy tale there, no. That was a reality. Who are we that it should not affect us, if he tempted Peter, if he tempted the Lord Jesus Christ Himself in the wilderness? That is why we live in and inhabit a complex universe. I believe the modern Church greatly sins through naïveté, and that is why we allow ourselves all kinds of liberties, because we do not understand the mysteries of God and the mysteries of the Spirit.

The point is that this woman, after 18 years in the synagogue, fearing God—the Lord calls her “this daughter of Abraham”—was completely hunched over, bent by a tormenting demon that delighted in keeping this daughter of God deformed, looking down at the ground when God made her to look toward glory. But in the Presence of the Son of God, that woman was healed and delivered, and the Word says she immediately straightened up, and she went straight home. And the Lord said, “This daughter of Abraham, whom the demon had kept bound for 18 years.” And that was not a metaphor.

There are cases in Scripture. The deaf-mute boy whom I mentioned a little while ago—the disciples tried to deliver this young man and could not, and the Lord Himself had to come and rebuke the demon. And then the boy, notice, was deaf and mute; he had two things: deafness and muteness. And the source of that illness was not a physical, physiological problem, but a demon whose manifestation was expressed through deafness and muteness. And the disciples were struggling there. Many times we pray, but we do not understand the cause; discernment from the Lord is needed.

One of the things we must always ask is, “Lord, give me wisdom; give me spiritual discernment so that I may know how to minister at any given moment.” And afterward, embarrassed, the disciples approached Jesus when they were off somewhere having lunch, and the Lord told them, “Hey, there are different kinds. That is the kind we faced.” Do you know that there are levels of opposition, levels of warfare, levels of demonization? There are also levels of spirits in the Kingdom.

There are very wise, very intelligent, very exalted spirits, and there are stupid spirits, which we have encountered. There are very strong spirits; there are spirits that create disciplines and doctrines and create artistic, political, and historical movements because they are so highly developed; and there are ordinary, little kitchen spirits. These are mysteries. The point is that the Lord told them, “Hey, that kind which we confronted comes out only through fasting and prayer.”

There are struggles in your life, there are bondages, there are persistent problems, there are traumas; there are things that bind you, and you are going to have to be like Jacob, grab hold of the angel, and say, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” And you are going to have to wage war for your healing; you are going to have to pay the price. You are going to have to show that you seriously believe in God, and God is going to glorify Himself through that.

You know that in those struggles we often grow; in those times of waiting, when we drink our tears because we do not know why the Lord does not answer us, that is where we mature, that is where we grow. And when healing comes, when deliverance comes, we are stronger than ever, and we have learned a great lesson.

If the Lord ministered to us immediately right there and gave us food all at once, bringing it right to our little mouths as if we were eaglets, we would never grow. God wants warriors; God wants people experienced in the mysteries of healing and deliverance, and that is why it sometimes takes time. Sometimes there are things behind it that must be resolved; we have to learn the lessons so that the Will of the Lord may be fulfilled.

So there are demonic spirits that also manifest themselves through illness. Sometimes the Lord Himself took the initiative, and the person did not even ask Him to heal him. Do you remember the paralytic at Bethesda, I believe it was? The paralytic was there beside the pool; no one could help him. The Bible says that there was an angel. Look how strange this is—speaking of strange things—if I did not know the Bible, I would think this was a fairy tale.

The Word says that there was an angel. Well, I believe it, brothers and sisters. I do not know about you, but if the Bible tells me something, even if it is strange, I am going to believe it. Scripture says that there was an angel who came from time to time, stirred the water in that specific place, and the first person who jumped in was healed. Again, whether you believe it or not, I believe it. When I get up there to heaven, I am going to ask Him, “Lord, what an inefficient way that was to minister,” and I am sure He is going to give me an answer that will leave me speechless, and I will laugh at how logical it was.

But the point is that the first person who jumped in was healed, and this poor man was there all that time with no one to help him. The Lord walks by and approaches him: “So, what is the matter with you?” “Lord, I have no one to help me.” “Hey, would you like to be healed?” “Hey, of course!” Then the Lord touched him—grace. The comparison between the arduous work of the law—jumping into the water and competing—and the grace of Christ, which heals freely and automatically. Lessons.

This man was healed immediately, but the Lord offered to heal him; he was not even asking to be healed. On other occasions, people had to cry out like Bartimaeus: “Lord, Son of David, heal me; have mercy on me!” And not only did the Lord wait for them to ask Him for healing, but He pretended not to notice and let quite a while pass, with Bartimaeus shouting himself hoarse, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” and the Lord waiting there for him to simmer slowly, also to teach us a lesson: that we must persist, we must overcome obstacles, as we also saw last Sunday, right? We have to be courageous and forceful for the Lord to perform His works in our lives.

And finally the Lord stops and ministers to him. Bartimaeus had to ask the Lord and insist, just as the Syrophoenician woman also had to, as it were, argue with the Lord, because sometimes the Lord wants to draw things out of us that are hidden there. We are very crude and very simplistic: “Lord, heal me,” and then I just go on my way. But the Lord says, “No, that is not how it is. I want to bless you; I want to do things in you. I want to go to the root of the evil, because what good does it do Me if I heal you and the next day you are doing the same shameful things that brought you to where you are now?”

So the Lord was ministering. God is not some sugar daddy who comes and gives you what you want and then lets you go on doing whatever you please. There are people who come to the House of the Lord so that God will heal them, give them a new car, or give them a girlfriend, and after He gives it to them, they never come back, because they want to manipulate the Lord. He says, “I am not some machine where you put in 25 cents and a Coca-Cola comes out. I require your life; I require your surrender; I require your heart. I want to perform transforming works in you; I want to give you much more than you expect.”

And we have to understand, brothers and sisters, that we cannot manipulate God. We have a God who, the more I analyze Him and the more I look at Him, the more astonished I am by the depth of His personality. Sometimes the Lord healed someone and ordered them to keep quiet and tell no one, as in the case of this blind man, whom He told, “Do not tell anyone that I healed you.” On other occasions, as in the case of the ten lepers, He told them, “Go and report to the high priest so that they can put in tomorrow’s New York Times that 10 lepers were healed, and confirm the healing,” right?

It says that in that case the Lord wanted it to be made public. And on another occasion, when the demon-possessed man from the region of the Gadarenes wanted to go with the Lord Jesus Christ, He told him, “No, look, it is better for you to go home now, to your relatives, and tell them the great things the Lord has done in your life.” Sometimes it is, “Well, Lord, should I keep quiet or speak? Tell me.” The Lord has a different way of doing things for each person.

We sin because we are simplistic; the Church of Jesus Christ needs wisdom and spiritual discernment because we have a tremendously complex God. What is more, speaking of diversity, there is a case in which the Lord healed someone unintentionally. Who can tell me who it was? (laughs) That’s right, the woman with the issue of blood. We have theologians here, people who know their Bible. The woman with the issue of blood.

The Bible says that the Lord was walking through the crowd, and this desperate woman, with an urgent need, had suffered for many years, had lost all her money, and had been failed by every doctor; and she was a woman on a mission. She came up behind Jesus, and in fact, I think that, superstitiously, the only thing this woman was able to reach was the very edge of the hem of the Lord’s garment, and she said, “There is enough energy here to light up an entire city; if I touch the hem of His garment, something is going to touch me.”

And when she touched it, it says that the flow of her blood stopped immediately, right then and there. And the Lord says that He felt the discharge of power that had gone out from Him. Notice that she did not ask the Lord’s permission; she did not have all her theology right. I do not think this woman knew that Jesus Christ was consubstantial with the Father, that He had been begotten and not created, and all these things that we sometimes—she simply knew that this rabbi had power, that He was from God, and she had faith: a crude faith, an unsophisticated faith, but faith at the end of the day.

She had paid the price, she had taken risks, and she had recognized that there was power in Christ. And when she touched the Lord, the Lord felt it, because the Lord is living grace; and when we draw near to Him, even though there may sometimes be unresolved things in our lives and our theology may not be completely clear, the Lord is pure grace. The Lord wants us to approach the Throne of God’s Grace with confidence so that we may receive timely help.

And then the Lord felt that power had been stolen from Him, and He said, “Who touched Me?” And once again the disciples said, “But Lord, You are surrounded by people. What do You mean, ‘Who touched Me?’ Everyone is touching You.” And the Lord said, “No, someone touched Me, because power went out from Me.” There was no special request there or anything else, but simply a naked faith, a living need that drove this woman, like an animal able to smell water beyond the desert, to go where she had to go to receive her healing.

So there are different ways, brothers and sisters, different ways in which God ministers to our lives. Give me just a little more time. This is quite an extensive teaching, and perhaps I will continue it next Sunday, but I want you to understand that God is sovereign. God heals whomever He wants, whenever He wants. And I think that it is precisely because of the breadth of His healing power that we should not hesitate to come and ask the Lord whenever we need Him to intervene. Our part—what you are called to do, what I am called to do—I learn this more every day, you know? The responsibility is not mine; the method belongs to the Lord. Your part is to ask, trust, and leave the rest to the Lord.

When you have to pray for someone, if you see a need, pray. Do not worry; your reputation is not on trial or at risk. It is the Lord’s reputation, and He does not care what people think. If He wants to heal, He will heal; if He wants to heal immediately, that is how He will do it; if He wants to heal ten years from now, that is how He will do it. But your part is to be a channel of the Word and the blessing of God and to leave the results to the Lord; do not be afraid to ask the Lord. If God does not heal you, glory to God; one day you are going to die, and then He will heal you definitively. Do you know what the greatest healing of all is? When we die and go into the Presence of God. There are no more headaches or anything else there; we are completely healed for all eternity.

We, the children of God, win no matter what. Haven’t we said that sometimes God heals immediately when we pray, instantaneously? I have learned, however, to deeply appreciate gradual healings; I have learned to appreciate God’s processes. Say it with me: process. Do you know that God is a God of processes? Science is based on God’s processes. The universe is a universe of processes. I love the God who reveals Himself through systems, sequences, and complex things.

We Pentecostals suffer because we believe that with God everything is quick action, and that’s it—let’s get down to business—while God likes to set up an entire stage, take His time, and display His glory. Look at all the time He took with Pharaoh. He wanted to display His glory before humanity and before His Hebrew children, so He went and hardened Pharaoh’s heart. And how many plagues did they have to go through? Seven plagues. And how long might each one have taken? Weeks; we do not know. But a plague would come, Pharaoh would repent and say, “Okay, take them away.” But then, when they were about to leave with their bags packed, he would say, “No, no, make them come back.” “Oh, all right, but I am going to send you another plague, and another one, another drama.”

The Lord likes dramas, you know? We like things fast, and if we like dramas at all, we like them in a single act; but He likes to create wonderful and complex things. Seven times, until He finally brought His intervention to a climax with the death of the Egyptians. And even after that, they are on their way toward the sea and Pharaoh is still coming after them for one final display of the Glory of God at the Red Sea, because God is a complex God and we have to rise to the occasion, asking God to open our understanding.

For that Almighty God who likes processes, as in the case of Abraham and Sarah. When Abraham was 75 years old, the Lord decided to tell him, “You are going to have a son.” Abraham and Sarah suffered from infertility. Sometimes we blame only the women; the women are the ones who are barren in the Bible. We do not know—who knows? Perhaps it was the man who was infertile, but let’s say I am going to believe what it says; I am not going to get myself into trouble over what I should say right now.

But the point is that they were both infertile, and when Abraham was 75 years old the Lord told him, “I am going to give you a son.” And when does He fulfill the promise? When Abraham is 100 years old. Twenty-five years later, He finally decides to heal Abraham and Sarah of their shame and gives them a son. And then He wants to take the son away from them and says, “Sacrifice him to Me now,” because God loves complex things, brothers and sisters. And that actually makes me fall more deeply in love with God and inspires me to believe. Although I cannot explain everything, I want to obey Him. Even when there are contradictions in science, in the events of my life, and in other things, I say to Him, “Lord, You are sovereign; You do whatever You want. In the long run, history ends up where You want to take it, and that is why our task is to obey the Lord.”

Even if you cannot explain all the mysteries, many people in the Church today are rejecting the Word of God because scientists are supposedly saying different things. I have always said, “Look, I am going to stake my life on what the Bible says. If there is something I cannot explain, the Lord will have to explain it to me later, when I get to heaven.” But we cannot contradict God’s promises and the ways in which God works because science has supposedly found either a difficult question or a more complete solution.

We are the people who believe what the Word says, because here we have the heart of God laid open before us. Here we have the workings of His mind; here we have the mysteries of His ways expressed. We human beings know only a small portion of the complex personality of the God we serve, and our goal is: “Lord, teach me Your ways; show us Your heart, and wherever You tell us to go, there we will go, and we will leave the rest to You, Lord.”

The Lord does whatever He wants. This morning we went in another direction, and despite the translation we covered more than we covered today, but I want you to have this teaching because I believe it is very important for us to understand all these mysteries, these complexities of the miraculous and powerful God we have. But this morning I want you to bow your head for a moment and give thanks to that God who loves you, to that God whom you will never put into a box, whom you will never be able to limit. He is a wonderfully generous and good God, a God who wants to perform His miracles but who says to you, “Son, daughter, give Me your heart. Become meek, become humble, bring your intellect into submission, let Me guide you, lower your guard, and do not try to put Me into a little box, because I do not fit inside it.”

“Surrender yourself to Me, accept My Lordship, embrace the complexity of what I want to do in your life, ask Me for wisdom to understand My mysteries, and search My Word. Ask Me and I will answer you.” The Word says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” I believe that one of the things the Church needs most in this time is wisdom, discernment from the Lord. And if there is something hidden in your life, we are going to ask the Lord to give you wisdom and understanding right now.

If something is obstructing the Grace of God, if something is preventing the blessing God wants to give you, let it be stopped right now. We declare that the Lord gives you understanding, gives you wisdom, and opens the windows of heaven.

Last night I had a dream. I cannot suppress this, and perhaps one day I will tell you about it, but it was fascinating. I had the dream, and at the time I did not understand it, but I do not know whether it was minutes or hours later; in any case, the Lord revealed something to me, and I believe that a very, very interesting miracle has taken place, and now I am asking the Lord for confirmation. But I can see how much of what I am speaking about now is interconnected and how one thing relates to another.

Brothers and sisters, God is mysterious; He is a bottomless abyss. And in this time the Lord wants to choose humble-hearted people who are willing to pay the price so that, as He did with Joseph and Daniel, He may give them wisdom beyond anything they could imagine. And if you dare to seek the Lord in the morning and at night, if you humble yourself like a child, God will bless you. God is saying to us, “Seek Me and you will find Me, but do not impose preconditions on Me and do not limit the extent of your surrender.”

“If you dare to believe Me and ask Me, I delight in giving revelation to the one who hungers and thirsts for it. But you have to pay the price: sanctify yourself, search My Word, pray and cry out, fast. Lay everything at My feet, and I will reveal great and hidden things that you do not know,” because the Lord loves to share His secrets with His children.

I declare over Your people a spirit of wisdom, a spirit of understanding in these times, Father, when there is so much deception in the world, when a spirit of unbelief has fallen upon the Earth, when the nations and even the Church are falling prey to doctrines of demons. We ask, Father, that Your Grace invade us, that You take the humble and give us knowledge so that we may know how to interpret the times and how to minister in the power of Your Holy Spirit. Give us understanding of Your Word, Father; seal our hearts and forgive our unbelief.

We love You. Spirit of God, prepare that time of prayer we are going to have on August 16; anoint it. And we declare, Lord, that the windows of heaven will open and Your blessing will rain down upon us who love You. Father, we, Your little ones, want to see Your Glory. Lord, lead us even where we do not want to go, Father, but do not leave us useless; do not leave us barren, Father. Bring us to life through Your Spirit. Thank You, Lord; thank You. We worship You. We receive, Lord, all the nourishment, Father; right now we receive it, Father. Thank You. Thank You, Lord, thank You, in the Name of Jesus, hallelujah. Amen. Glory to the Name of the Lord.