Has it been uttered in man's hearing. And when he says this, a woman in the congregation cries out and she said, blessed is the woman that nursed you. I'm talking about demon powers who have no place in you. And your response is, your mother must be proud of you. That's equal to what she's saying. Your mother is so blessed to have a son like you missed the whole point and pulled the attention of the hearers over to a natural flow. Think of it. That's how Satan works. It sounded like a mother's warm affection, but the devil's using it to diminish what Jesus just said, draw the attention away and say, oh, your mother must be so proud of you. What a mother, what a son. Took it natural, heard it and took it natural. Jesus flipped it back with his response to her. He did not rebuke her. He was not unkind. He didn't go. Fire didn't shoot out. He said, rather, it's not. It's the hearer that's blessed. Blessed are those who hear what I say and do it. So he flipped it back to the flow of the. It's hearing what I'm saying because she didn't hear it. An undisciplined thought life. She was just sitting under the word with affection flowing instead of faith flowing, human affection flowing. And he said, blessed are those who hear and do. So basically he's saying, you're magnifying the woman who gave birth to me. But he's saying, it's not the woman who. It's not just the woman who gave birth to me that's blessed. It's the one who hears and does hearing and doing the word blessed than Mary who gave birth to this son. Yes. Thank you, Pastor. It's a more privileged position to hear and do, to hear and do, to hear and do. He said, you're more blessed than the woman who gave birth to him. To hear and do. Hear and do, hear and do. So Jesus said, so be it done unto you according to your faith. What is faith? Hearing and doing, hearing and doing, hearing and doing, hearing and doing, acting. Keep it that simple. Receiving Your miracle is simply hearing and doing. Acting on the word. Acting on the word. Treating it like it's true. I love the story because it shows how we can get off into mental rabbit trails and complicate things. And Paul talked about that. As you be drawn away from the simplicity of the gospel, it's simple. Your miracle is simple. Your healing is simple. Your answer is simple. The plan of God for your life is simple. Just hear and do. Just hear and do. That's it. Act on the word. Act on the word. Act on the word. Just act on what he says. Apart from feelings, apart from what you've suffered, apart from what's been said. Just act on the word. And it is our privilege to keep it simple. You know, that's where Naaman almost missed it. Naaman, the leper. He was not a Jew. He was not a man with a covenant. But he had in his service a little Jewish gal. And he was a man of renown. He was a man. He was, if I could say this, a John Wayne of his generation. You know what I mean by that? He was a man's man. He was a man of war. He was a leader. He was a man with honorable acts. And he served, but he was a leper. And this little Jewish gal young said, oh, that you were where the prophet is, because if you were where the prophet is, you'd receive your healing. So that sparks his interest. And so to make a long story short, he ends up traveling to where this prophet that this little Jewish gal talked about is because healing is linked to the prophet's office. Yeah. And so he gets to where the prophet is because he needs healing, and he goes there. And because he's a man of renown, a man of repute, he's a position high up. And he goes to the prophet's house. And the prophet does not even he knows he's coming. He does not even go to the door to acknowledge him, greet him, say anything to him. He sends his servant, sends his servant. So like here the servant comes and, you know, cleaning chicken guts off his hand or something, you know, he's serving. He's a worker in his household. He goes to the door and there's this man of renown, this man of dignity, this man of respect, a man's man, he's a warrior man. And the servant wiping his hands on his apron, or you know what I'm saying, he's serving. He's not there eating grapes along with his master, he's serving. And he answers the door and says he Said, go dip seven times in the River Jordan, shut the door, go back to cutting chickens. It did not look very impressive. It didn't look very dignified. There was no pomp and circumstance. There was chicken feathers and guts. You know, you do know I'm building that in. But I'm trying to show you a servant, just how a servant could just hear what was said, carry it to the person of need, shut the door and go on about their business. That's how simple. Naaman is put off by the simplicity. That's what tripped him up, was the simplicity. He was not treated with any kind of pomp or circumstance. That's too simple. I didn't get the pomp and circumstance. I didn't get recognition. Because it's not recognition he needs, it's healing he needs. Forget about what you're used to and go after what you need. And so he just is put off because he, he was, he wasn't expecting it to be that way. If we're not careful, we paint our, the playing out of our miracle in our imagination. And then we start expecting God to honor that imagination, who he's going to use, how he's going to work it, how it's going to show up, how dramatic, and we start adding our interpretation to it. And then when it happens, as simply as just when you drove up in your car and hit the parking lot, something happened. You go, wait a minute, wait a minute. Now remind me where I was there on Naaman. There was a precious pastor friend of ours and I did not know the story. A couple of years ago, I was at his church and we went back to his home to eat dinner after the service. And he told me a story I didn't know anything about. And I don't think Ed knew anything about it. But. So he just told me maybe three or four years ago, this story for the first time. Ed has been gone for 10 years. He said, Pastor Nancy, he said, before I was a pastor, he served, you know, in his local church. He served under his pastor, but he was also a truck driver of these big rigs. And he said, I was in a storm once and I could, the visibility was so low. And he said, I hit head on with another 18 wheeler. We hit head on. And he talked about the severity of his back. He came out of that a cripple and he had all kinds of pain. He came out a cripple. The recovery process was long. And he ended up on the, on the, on the crutches, the ones where they can put it around the forearm, you know, and it's attached to you. It wasn't one under the arms, but they're attached. And he had to have those move. He came to our. And I'm not sure I believe he had started pastoring in the interim, but he came to one of our conferences there in Murrieta, California, and attended the conference. And one day, Ed had invited. This is when we were at the Hawthorne house. You would have remembered that you were probably there. And he was invited all the pastors up to the home for. For lunch one day. And he said, I was so thrilled I was going to Ed Dufresne's house. You know, it's an honor to get to be in settings like that, right? And I'm not just talking about us. I'm just talking about as a whole. If you were here to hear Brother Joel talking about the honor of being around dad Hagin, he'd go mute around him, you know, because there is an honor to it. You understand that? And he had never been there, you know, and he didn't know many of the ministers, so he was just so excited he got invited. And so our house, there was a hill going up to the house, and so the driveway was full with cars. And so people were parking along the sides of the road. And it was a little bit of a climb if you were walking it. I mean, it wasn't a slight incline. It was a more dramatic incline. So he had to park down the road a little bit. So he's going up the street on. And back then, it was a dirt road because it was on acreage. It was two and a half acres that the home was on. So it was a dirt road. So he's going up there on his crutches. And then when our driveway started, that was paved, and Ed had planted some shrubs by the entrance. And he spelled out Ed Nancy in the shrubs. Like Disneyland. Like Disneyland. I love Disneyland. So in the shrubs on either side was Ed Nancy spelled out in the shrubs, yeah. And so this man comes up the road and his crutches, he reaches the paved drive. And the moment his crutches hit the paved drive, the power of God hits him and he's healed. And he said, I didn't know if you ever found them, but I threw the crutches in the bushes that say Ed Nancy. I said, I never heard about it, but I guess the gardener probably thought somebody just throwing. Dumping trash along the road. And I never knew it. He said, I. I was so excited. He said. I said, did you Come in and tell us. He says, I never went in the house. He said, I was so excited, I ran back down, got in my car and drove home to tell my wife I'm healed. And he never came in the house. Does proximity matter? Oh, yes. He never expected. In his head, he was in the services, maybe healing there, and no healing manifesting for him in the service. But he's just going about doing his daily life. Miracles show up in the ordinary. Quit thinking there's going to be a platform and a spotlight and a choir and an orchestra. God will do the most outstanding, amazing things for you just while you're living your ordinary life. Diapering the babies, cleaning up the house. The supernatural is not limited to a dramatic setting because the flow of God is simple, simply powerful. Simply powerful. So you can be sitting in your chair. Don't think it has to take. Now, I'm not diminishing where it may take place in a predicted setting, but don't limit God to the predicted setting. And this is where Naaman almost missed his miracle, because he decided what his miracle manifestation would look like. So he gets miffed, offended, and he's. Forget this. He's taken great effort to get. I don't know how far he's traveled, but he's taken effort to get there. And he is. They're waiting for him, those accompanying him, to follow the instruction. He says, I'm not doing that. I'm not dipping seven times. First of all, you know he would have liked his own waters, not the waters of a foreign land. Dirty Jordan. Yeah. And there's always a reason why your flesh could step back from the obedience of the instruction. Yes, there's always a reason. I don't have time, I don't have the money to do what God just said. I've got other things going. I can't get to that meeting. There's always a reason. And the devil will always supply you with something, something to rob from you. So you know the story. He wasn't going to do it. And one of the servants so simply said, master, he said, if he would have asked something hard of you, you would have done it. Why? Because as a military man fighting for his country, there were hard decisions to be made, hard, hard steps to be taken. There were things that were difficult and weighty with responsibility in his position. So he assumed dealing with God would be the same way. And it's not. Why? Because it's his ability, not ours. As a military man, he had to bring his own ability to his victory. But in God's kingdom, it, God's ability we spend, not our ability. This is called grace, God's ability at work. I love something dad Hagin said because this is really such a great picture of what it is. Dad Hagin said before I would go. He says, now see, we had such a respect and a reverence for our spiritual father. Dad Hagin was that and it was an honor to get to be in services. He says I would walk out into his camp meeting when it would fill a convention center, 12,000 people, and he'd go, I'd walk out and go, well, what are all these people here for? What that shows is how simple he kept his part. He did not. He wore his responsibility lightly. He didn't, he didn't walk around under the weight of that thing. Jesus said, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. If something is heavy, we're doing it wrong, we're doing it wrong, we're doing it wrong. And so dad Hagin said there were times, you know, you look out and he said, I would say, father, there's nothing in Kenneth Hagin to help these people. But there's everything in the God in Kenneth Hagin to help these people. In other words, so I'm turning towards you, that's turning toward the grace that's in you. It's not about what you can do, it's about what you give his power permission to do in you and through you. Right? So Naaman is used to doing hard life threatening challenges. Acts as a military man with men's, his decisions, men's lives are in the balance of his decisions. There's weight with that. And he comes and he's dealing with something that is so huge in his life. It's a life and death situation. And God just took it down to simplicity. Dipped seven times in water. There's nothing noble, there's nothing heroic in that. He's used to doing the heroic. Why God doesn't give us the heroic to do. Why? Because he's the hero, not us. He's the hero. And so this servant who deals with the simple things of everyday life around him said, ah, they recognize his mindset is so elevated because of his position that he can't even grasp the simple things of life anymore. Not that he's doing it wrong, it's just you understand when you're dealing with heroic type decisions, heroic type actions, things that are very demanding, you're going to approach everything that way. And he's saying, bring it back down. This is what the servant did because the servants deal with the simple, basic things every day. Clean the clothes, clean the house, get the food, go harvest, plant the fruit. They're dealing with the basic simplicity every day. This is what happens many times, because we see the need, we elevate the need that it is big because it looks so big to us. We put it way up here, bring it back down, bring it back down to the simplicity of obedience, the simplicity of just acting on the word. God does not need your heroic behavior, your heroic skipping of sleep to pray for hours. I'm not saying that's bad. But many times people are connecting their miracle with their doing something heroic rather than the doing of the simplicity of the gospel. I'm so grateful that God's telling us this tonight because I don't have note one on any of this. What's this mean? God is catering it to us in the room. This is our prescription for tonight. And so this servant who's used to dealing with the simple, basic daily duties of life, says if he would have asked something hard of you, you would have done it. Just because he's a man of vision, he's a man on the front. The front lines. And so because of that, he expected that he had to measure up to God. And you don't. He's in you. You don't have to prove yourself worthy of a miracle. That's what I'm saying. You don't have to do some noble act to pay some great price that wrenches something out of you. Just keep it simple. What is the simplicity of it? Just act on the word, do what the word says. You say, well, what part of the word? The part that the Holy Ghost spotlights for you. Because the Holy Ghost will tell one person, do this, another person do that. So when the servant reminded Naaman, you would have done something honorable and hard if he would have said it. But he gave you something simple. But you won't even do what's simple. And he got it because he's been in this elevated flow of responsibility that now God is the doer of it and all he needs is your simple obedience. And he went and dipped seven times. Nothing happened after one dip. Nothing happened after two dip. Nothing happened after three dip. You know, he's more than a double dipper. He's a seven dipper. And he comes out. And how simple, how simple? He comes out and his flesh is clean. How did that happen? I don't know. But all I had to do was get in the flow. All I had to do was get in the Water. All I had to do was just do what he said. I just do what he said. But he almost missed his miracle because he was stumbling over the simplicity of what was to be obeyed. I'm just telling you your miracle's not hard. I don't care how complicated your situation may look. Because listen, on this side of heaven, in earth side, situations can look so complicated. They can look so involved and tangled. But your answer is not complicated. You know what I'm talking about. Let's just talk about finances. Anybody ever had to go through seasons where you're juggling financially? You just juggle. You do this, you pay, and then you put it over here and then you say, okay, I'll pay this back. And you do that and you do that for years. And after time it just gets tanked. It just. And you know that for God to meet that need and unravel all that, there's going to be, have to be a lot into it. And he just says, sow a seed to your pastor. Okay, now I'm going to flip over to Pastor Amy's experience. Fredonia, New York. I don't know how many years ago we're having. I'm doing. It's a morning service, wasn't it? Was it? You taught in the morning. Okay, so did it happen? The night service? Okay, shoot. Did I do good? Okay. Okay. So Ed and I were there doing the services. I always did the mornings and Ed did the night. But we're having the praise and worship port portion of the service while we're doing that. God said, God said to her, run, run. Is that simple? That's simple, yeah. So she takes off and she. And it's, in a way, it's not distracting. It's not, you know, drawing the attention to her. Everybody else is worshiping, everybody standing. So she runs. I don't, I don't. I didn't see you run. I don't know if others noticed that you ran and she ran. She just ran, I guess. Ran. Did you run around the whole building or just one section? It was a small building. That's true. Because you know, it's a small building. When the pastor says at the first of the service, if we run, we run this way because if people start going this way, we've got train wrecks that. So he would give directives on if you're going to flow and move, you have to move to the left. Yeah, it is a one way street in there. And so she did that. And when she, all she did just, she didn't quiver. She didn't, you know, do flips or just comes back to her seat. And when she got back to her seat, God said, you just ran your new house in. I don't know what all would have had to transpire for that to happen financially, for favor, for getting. I don't know if they got loans, I don't know if it's on my. I don't know all the process of that. But her side was run simple doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to make sense. That's why I said, when we say act on the Word, act the word. He will give one person a scripture to act on. He'll give another person a scripture to act on. One may just be a praise type scripture. Another one may be go home and adjust something. One may be correct. That relationship with your marriage, whatever he says to you, your miracle is connected to the simplicity of doing what he says. And the devil wants to make it look hard and lofty because he wants to make it outside your reach in your thinking. Amen. Praise the Lord. Faith is simply believing that what God says is true and acting like that. So dad Hagin talked about that they were having a board meeting and they, that local church, I guess, had run into financially tight times. And it wasn't just the pastor who had the final say, it was an entire board in the way that church was set up. And dad Hagin didn't set his ministry up like that later. But that's what he stepped into. That system was already in place. It's not something he implemented, but the board, he said one would say, I don't know what we're going to do. Another I don't know what we're going to do. And you know, once one says it and another says it, you've just got a big momentum growing of failure. And so they came around and they had all put in their two cents and none of them arrived at, none of them arrived at an answer that would help. And then they looked, they went around the table and they all said their two cents. That ended up at Brother Hagin said, Brother Hagin, what are we going to do? And he said, well, men, we're just going to act like the word is true. And he said, you could feel the whole thing just relax and unravel right there. When we're just going to act like the word is true. What's that mean? We're taking away all our gymnastics, our mental gymnastics, our earnings. We're just going to act like the word is True.
