SIGNS AND WONDERS CRUSADES – A POEM/ESSAY
“Step right up, one and all. Step right up, just enter in, be pushed over and fall. Get your ticket for the latest show, Signs and Wonders, don’t you know? They say God is here, don’t you feel it too? Your miracle is right this way I just need twenty eight dollars as a love gift from you. Sign and Wonders yes indeed, look over there, my how they have increased. These Signs and Wonders are just for you, believe, receive, step right up who cares if it isn’t really true. We’ll knock you down, sing songs and pray for you. We’ll anoint you will oil, speak in tongues, dance, kick, and push until you believe in what we say we do. So step right up for the Signs and Wonders crusade, even though these Signs and Wonders are strictly man made!”
Luke 11:29
As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.
So what is a wicked generation, what have they done so terribly wrong? Is it more than believing the lies of the world just to fit in and belong? I mean really, how many of us have asked God for a sign? If I were to say I haven’t in the past than I too would be lying.
The wicked are those who do not believe, and yes some persecute, some lie, cheat and decieve. In scripture they are always pictured, when it comes to God’s truth, as people who don’t percieve. They are also called God’s sword, you see God uses all things to bring us closer to his Word. But I pray today, that I will keep God’s ways, and show all of you why we should stay away from these so-called signs and wonders crusades.
Psalm 18:21
For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
Today people come out in droves for the “Signs” they promise to show. Scores of people looking for “Signs and Wonders” but they will never find any proof and have nothing Godly or substantial to show. We hear these “Sign” stories in all divisions of Christianity and other Religions and faiths today, I must say. Religious leaders promising great things, sight to the blind, hearing to deaf, legs to the lame, it’s always the same.
They preach with arms reached, “Ask for a sign, expect the miraculous, and force God to give it to you.” Even though these religious leaders words aren’t at all true.
We hear about big name evangelists rising people from the grave, months go by and then we hear how they truly behave. Drugs, prostitution, adultery, and more, then after a couple of months the blind congregations come together and demand that they be restored. For people said God healed through them without ever seeing proof, but all they really cared for was the rumors, big talk, and theatrics, all dressed up in a fancy suit.
At these crusades many respected reporters have done exposes and turned up nothing, nada, zilch! I have met many of these so-called prophets and healers and I have to tell you most of them are pills. They have pushed on my belly to “cure” my Crohn’s disease, never once thinking that perhaps my Crohn’s was God given, to heal me SPIRITUALLY!
They feed the multitude lie upon lie. So much so, it should make all of us cry. For you’ll find no physical or financial healing at a crusade, but in the back room you’ll find the thousands of your hard earned dollars being counted at a table they made, selling lies is their trade.
However, we can’t fault these Profits and Dealers for doing so. After all, God did send the spirit of lies in the mouths many of these profits, this many of us don’t know.
19And the LORD said, Who shall entice Ahab king of Israel…20Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the LORD, and said, I will entice him…. 21 He said, I will go out, and be a LYING SPIRIT in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou shalt also prevail: go out, and do even so.
When Elijah cried Lord, Lord, they have torn down your altars and now all they preach are lies. This is how God replies, “I have reserved seven thousand that have not bowed down to Baal.” – These seven thousand are a symbol for a complete remnant freshly released from this carnal jail. God’s truth no longer held captive by fear in their mouth. This is the time to release the WISDOM that enticed the Queen of the South… Let me be a herald of sorts, in poem I’ll speak of how we shouldn’t believe these lies in their mouths.
Today I see the crowd increased to get their “healing, their kids off drugs, to find some peace.” But Jesus said, a Wicked generation asks for a sign. But what, and who, are the wicked, but those when it comes to God’s truth is ignorantly blind.
Proverbs 4:19
The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.
This is why the WICKED stamp their feet and come together in hundreds and thousands to meet. They come from miles around, because they heard the Miracle healer gave the deaf man his first sound. But many of these so called religious men and women never have doctrine, never truth, only private jets, million dollar mansions, and thousand dollar suits, and yet people keep going to them placing their bets.
Then you have the others, who aren’t quiet as big or well known. So they shout from the rooftops they too heal so they make bold claims and try to get their name out like a telemarketer pestering you at home.
Matthew 12:39 But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
Adultery is a symbol of mankind leaving God’s truth for Man’s carnal thinking and ways. Yes many have gone astray. What we see in the physical is a wonderful symbol of mankind and how he worships God today. This is why adultery is used in such an allegorical way. For as a Wife cheats on a Husband, or Husband cheats on a wife. This is what adultery means when we follow after man’s carnal teachings and leave the Truth for an ignorant life.
Jeremiah 23:14
I have seen also in the prophets of Jerusalem an horrible thing: they commit adultery, and walk in lies:
So, why do people believe in these Signs and Wonders crusades. In the Gospel’s it is plain as the big nose on my face. “NO SIGN SHALL BE GIVEN” and those that promote such should be ashamed.
So, one must ask, why buy a ticket to such a show. When it is the TRUTH of God, which is CHRIST WITHIN, it is WISDOM we should ONLY want to know. And this TRUTH cannot be sold. It is within, so pray for faith and grab hold. Because these signs and wonders are getting old.
Many come for jibber jabber, or some gold dust outpouring. But for me, their preaching is sour, lacking and completely boring. Others come to get drunk in the spirit, they slur their words, can’t you hear it? They come to get prayed for, to get the sign of a miracle healing. Whether it is someone walking on water or a painting crying tears of blood from its eyes on the ceiling. Whether statues dripping with oil, or hundreds “SLAIN IN THE SPIRIT” in all the aisles… Regardless remember, God has clearly said, to this IGNORANT GENERATION to you I will give ONLY ONE SIGN!
THE SIGN OF JONAH, is what I am hear to show you. Not that God will have us swallowed by a great fish. It is the SYMBOLISM of this I don’t want any of you to miss.
Now did this literally happen? Was it an allegory, could it be both? You see, none of this matters to me if some reluctant prophet is literally swallowed by a fish after being thrown from a boat… What matters is the story hidden between the lines, what matters is the revelation of Jonah’s story to those that have become God blind.
We shouldn’t put our faith in that which is seen. The world around you is an illusion, it will turn to dust is what I mean. We are to have faith and hope in the infinite and the unseen, not to put our hope in Signs and Wonders crusades, which is simply putting your faith in carnal temporal things and carnals ways.
2 Corinthians 4:18
While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
You see the LITERAL doesn’t matter at all, this is perhaps the reason for Mankinds fall. In fact, believing the Letter will kill you dead, that is at least what the Apostle Paul said. For if we hope in things we hear, smell, touch, taste, or see, there truly is no hope for you and me… And if, Christ is the HOPE OF GLORY as well it should and must be. Let’s not get hung up on if Jonah’s story is literal or allegory.
Luke 11: 30 For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.
So this is ONLY SIGN to come, now let’s break down the book of Jonah and have some good old fashion, mother goose type of fun.
Matthew 12:40
For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the great fish’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the HEART OF THE EARTH.
For those who want me to sum it up quick, I’ll do my best to interpret it. I’ll then go on to explain the parable of the reluctant prophet his journey into belly Hell and what it all means.
So here are the CLIFF NOTES Folks… Let’s start with how long he was in that Fish, for being so terribly wrong. God said go to Ninevah and tell them to repent, I can hear Jonah’s voice screaming in my head.
“Jacob, don’t do it, they’ll kill you, they call you a false prophet, a liar, and do everything to publically embarrass you. Those Ninevites are EVIL they’ll even hate you for your name, because let’s face Jacob, you’re Christian you’re not even a jew!”
Yes, like Jonah, I too feel like God has said “go and tell the world to repent”. But before today, I was always scared of what they’d say, and besides my job has to pay the rent. But now even this reluctant prophet (although I will never claim this to be) will spread the word of how bogus these people are who sell their “signs and Wonders” crusades.
Back to Jonah and his three days… Isn’t something how the number three is mentioned in such a way. The reason is simple, and yes like everything else its a symbol, and a great picture of how long it takes to give birth. You see, every pregnant woman suffers a tri-mester and the closer her delivery the more it hurts.
These 3 days and nights we hear about are a symbol of a spiritual birth that takes place WITHIN not WITHOUT. Jonah is a picture of CHRIST, the Truth that has been cast away by men and swallowed up in carnality and sin. For we are the GREAT FISH, this Fish is mankind, the belly Christ is trapped in is our carnality and all the lusts within it you find.
This is the story of how CHRIST is delivered from the pit, or you can call it our ignorant soul, hell, and yes even the belly of the fish. It is the story of how after we suffer the pangs of birth and deliver things finally get better not worse.
We learn to turn away from the lies that cause our hearts and souls to burn. But THREE days and nights, is not the only symbolic number for birth in this long poem you’ll learn.
Forty less one lashes before the cross. Forty days and Forty nights. a time of testing, trials, a time to be lost. But after these FORTY DAYS, WEEKS, MONTHS, OR YEARS, our promise land we enter, which is God’s truth finally made clear. Yes these are all symbols of Christ’s Birth within us I want you all to hear.
For forty weeks a child grows in the womb, the SIGN OF JONAH is Christ being birth after the symbolic 3 days and 3 night in our ignorant soulish tomb.
Tis the season when man gives birth to Jesus again. But let’s remember the parable of how his birth was not allowed in the INN. For that is a SYMBOL of prideful men and women. In those that are FULL, and believe they know it all, Christ will not be allowed to resurrect until they stumble and fall. And why is the INN so full you may ask, it is because the whole world is following after “Sign and Wonders” like a carrot dangled in front of a dumb ass.
Matthew 12:39
But he answered and said unto them, An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given to it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas:
I will end tonight with something that may cause some of you to receive TRUE SIGHT, and for others perhaps anger and fright. When Jesus healed, the blind, deaf, dumb and diseased, these were all allegorical pictures of the spiritual sickness keeping us from knowing his peace.
It is understanding, wisdom and revelation God wants known, he doesn’t care if the literal blind man can literally find his literal way home.
These are the only healings God wants us to get. I hope soon more can “see” which means to (percieve or understand) all of that.
The Flesh profits nothing, the outward man perishes day by day, but it is the inward man that is infinite and here to stay. So for now, I will leave you with this true thought. Soon, I will finish my study on Jonah, the one I pray the Holy Spirit taught.
There is NO SIGN GIVEN but that of JONAH. This is what I want to show you. There is only ONE SIGN we are going to get and the story of Jonah is a symbol of our journey and how within us, CHRIST RESURRECTS!
— More to come. Peace Jacob.