Randal Cutter-Part 3-Whatever You Bind on Earth A Historical Record of How God Warned About Hurricane Irene. Incontrovertible Evidence That God Still Speaks Today.
Randal Cutter
with us. I had written out what I believed God was showing us, and I shared how he had shown it to us (see Appendix 1). We had decided to send the invitation out by mail and facsimiles. We asked each church to join us for a special worship service and prayer meeting. Our purpose was to explain the threat, and to pray against it.
I invited churches from all sorts of denominations, from all spectrums of Christianity. Even if they did not respond, I hoped that there would be those in their midst who would respond by praying as individuals. I also, by clear example, wanted to inform these churches that God still loved and cared for his people, and was willing to communicate to protect us. I knew we had been called to take the area by storm, and I wanted to demonstrate God’s plan to as many of his people as I could.
Even though I had all these noble aspirations, I still paused before I sent the fax on that March day in 1999. I remember specifically thinking about my reputation. I realized I was sending this note out to people who knew me, and some of them even respected me. I wondered what this would do to my reputation. At that moment, the Lord nudged me in a way that made me laugh. He showed me that I really had not built much of a reputation. It is pretty difficult to damage something that you don’t really have. The logic and humor of that moment overcame any reticence. I pressed the key that sent all the facsimiles on their way.
Storming the Walls of Heaven
We had chosen to have the first joint prayer meeting at Good News Church in central Broward County. Good News Church had a much larger worship hall than we did, and
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because of its central location, it was far easier for most people to get to it. The pastor and leaders of Good News had graciously offered the use of their building. Their pastor at the time, Bob Sutton, had been in the pastors’ meeting in November, and had immediately recognized that the Lord was trying to help Broward County. His congregation eagerly stepped forward and became our prayer partners throughout 1999.
About a half dozen churches were represented at that March meeting. We were excited that they responded to our invitation. We knew the mountain of skepticism that we had to climb in order to convince anyone to come to a meeting like this. First, they had to scale the wall of unbelief in order to believe that God had actually communicated to us. Then, if that wasn’t difficult enough, they had to swallow the fact that a hurricane could hit by surprise.
For those of us who are familiar with the National Hurricane Center, and how well it forecasts storm tracks, this may have been one of the more difficult things to apprehend. The Hurricane Center posts watches and warnings over areas, depending on the variables in a hurricane’s track. I believed that the Lord was showing us that the National Hurricane Center would be so wrong about Irene’s track, that they would not post a hurricane warning for our area. That sort of thing just didn’t happen. The Hurricane Center is usually able to respond to changing circumstances, and post warnings quickly if things change. I knew that Irene would break that mold. It would hit by surprise. A surprising number of congregations and their leaders were able to get beyond this difficult claim in order to come together and pray.
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During that meeting, we recounted what the Lord had shown to us, explained the biblical basis for our response, and rallied the troops for an assault on this storm named Irene. After this, we prayed with faith and excitement over the invitation that God had given to us. We felt the presence of God, and his pleasure as we prayed. He had looked for someone to stand in the gap, and we had responded. It was a great night in South Florida.
We held several other joint prayer meetings throughout the rest of the year. Each one of them felt powerful and effective. Even then, most congregations did not limit their prayer to just those meetings. They prayed throughout that year. At New Dawn we prayed at virtually every meeting of our congregation. We didn’t pray for long period of time every time, but we prayed fervently.
Checking In Along The Way
By the time we started the hurricane season on June 1 of that year, we had begun to wonder if our prayers were having an impact. We wanted to know if we were reducing the storm’s strength. We wanted to know if we were still under the same threat that we had initially seen, or if the gap had been filled to some point. The Lord graciously responded to that desire by giving one of our members another dream.
In this dream, that member of our congregation was standing in a field next to a wooded area. An arrow flew by him so near, that he could hear the sound. Suddenly, a deer ran from the wooded area with an arrow in it. It ran into the field and stopped. A woman came running out of the wooded area after the deer. The woman was wearing hunting clothes and looked like Dawn. She had fitted another arrow to her
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bow, and took aim at the deer again. But just then, a group of people gathered around the deer and began helping it. Since the woman no longer had a shot, she put down the bow and walked away. There was one person in the group protecting the deer, whom the man recognized. His name was Adam.
When I received this dream, I understood its incredible message immediately. The deer in the field, of course, represented Deerfield Beach. I also knew that Dawn and her older sister, Irene, have a striking resemblance to one another. So I knew that the woman represented Hurricane Irene. I also knew that the group of people who had stopped the woman from shooting the deer represented those who were standing in the gap for our area against Irene. They were the sons and daughters of Adam who had taken the authority that Christ had extended to them.
As I pondered this dream, I realized that we were no longer facing a catastrophe. In retrospect, I believe that the one arrow that hit the deer probably represented a category one storm. But at that time, I did not understand it. I did understand that the dream was showing us that we had reduced the strength of the storm significantly.
This dream revitalized our prayers. The Lord has sent us an encouragement. We knew we were having an effect, and we pressed forward with renewed fervor.
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VICTORY OVER THE STORM
Faith Building
Two more things happened during the summer of 1999 that stoked the flames of our faith and increased our intensity. The first event was fairly mundane. The Deerfield family, the one that had made an appearance in the twelve-year-old girl’s dream about Hurricane Irene, painted their house yellow. You will recall that strange detail of the young lady’s dream. She didn’t understand why the house was yellow in her dream, since it wasn’t yellow in waking life. When she had asked her mother about it, her mother did not have an answer; neither did I. Then, nine months later, the family painted the house yellow.
You cannot imagine how this minor detail felt to us. Although we had met some level of skepticism about Irene as we had called people to pray, this type of detail encouraged us. The Lord used such minor details to show us that he was speaking clearly to us. This was just one more way he showed us the accuracy of the dreams. We were even more excited and amazed by what he was doing.
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The second encouraging event involved a movie. It was one of the more bizarre ways that the Lord encouraged us that summer. He used the The Addams Family movie. Even though the movie was released in 1991, the SyFy channel was running it periodically that summer. I believe it was toward the end of summer when several members of the congregation had come across a scene from The Addams Family that had amazed them. I had never watched the movie; I wasn’t really interested in macabre humor. Obviously, the Lord wasn’t as stuffy as me.
The scene from the movie involved Uncle Fester reaching for a particular book on his library shelf. The name of the book comes into sharp focus as he reaches for it. Its name was Hurricane Irene: Nightmare from Above. After Uncle Fester takes the book off the shelf, he opens the book and releases Hurricane Irene into the environment.
You just cannot make this stuff up. I have to admit that by this time we were so caught up in all of this, my sense of discernment about what other people could swallow wasn’t operating at a very high level. I actually shared this information in one of our prayer alerts. In retrospect, I’m sure that was a bad idea, even though at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. While it seems pretty funny now, I can’t even begin to imagine what some of the pastors who received our prayer alerts thought about this bit of information. I’m sure it stretched them. I’m also sure it wasn’t the wisest piece of information to include in a prayer alert.
Why was this such an important piece of information for us? In the dream about a deer wounded in a field, Adam was among the group of intercessors that protected the deer. We believed that it was a clear message that the second Adam’s
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family was protecting that deer. Not only did The Addam’s Family movie feature hurricane Irene, we also recognized a play on words that tied the movie to the dream. By itself, it wouldn’t have meant much, but together with everything else God was doing, it was an interesting and unusual bit of affirmation.
The Media Gets Involved
I had purposely chosen not to include the churches of Palm Beach County in our prayer alerts. Even though Palm Beach County begins just to the north of Deerfield Beach, I had not felt a need to include them. This choice may have been incorrect, but the Lord has a way of fixing our mistakes.
During the summer of 1999, a news reporter from an NBC affiliate in West Palm Beach got wind of what was happening in Broward County. I didn’t realize that we had stirred things up quite so much, but we had been loud enough that it caught his attention. The reporter, Jim Wicks,
contacted me during the summer, and began to pursue this story. He wanted to interview me as part of a news story on what we were doing, and then broadcast the story of Hurricane Irene. In retrospect, I believe this was the Lord’s way of sending a late invitation to the churches in Palm Beach County, even though I had not done so.
I finally granted the interview in September 1999. Jim did a wonderful job of interviewing me. He admitted later that he had approached the story with a great deal of skepticism, and initially had intended to portray us as more than a bit off the beam. But while he investigated the story, he became convinced that we were sincere, and that there was a good possibility that we were right. So when he did the interview,
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he crafted it in a way that invited people to join with me in prayer for our area. It was truly a remarkable moment as God used an NBC affiliate to get the information out to Palm Beach County.
That interview aired on October 1, 1999 to the Palm Beach County market. This was before Hurricane Irene formed. I was able to tape the broadcast on VHS tape, though the quality was hazy. Later, Jim gave me a copy of his footage so that I have a clear copy of that part of the broadcast. You can still see the interview at hurricaneirene.com, or on YouTube by doing a search for “Hurricane Irene God Does Speak.”
I am also aware of the other reason that the Lord wanted this broadcast on the NBC affiliate. It has become an indisputable witness to the veracity of the facts that I am presenting. I am not just saying these things happened. We not only have the testimony of the dozens of pastors in our area who were impacted in one way or another, we also have video evidence. God does speak to his people.
The Storm
Twelve days after our prediction aired on the news, on October 13, 1999, Tropical Storm Irene formed. The storm formed southwest of Florida in the Caribbean. From the very beginning, the National Hurricane Center believed the storm would turn northwestward and curve out into the Gulf of Mexico. This became the monotonous and repeated forecast track during every hurricane update. Of course, the National Hurricane Center was wrong.
From a point just south of Cuba, Tropical Storm Irene moved inexorably northeastward toward the southeast
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portion of Florida. It crossed Cuba and began to gain strength as it moved across the Florida Straits. It became Hurricane Irene at this point. When Irene made landfall, it had the coldest temperature at its top that had been recorded to that time. That indicates that the storm was trying to develop. I have since learned that if Irene had spent as little as a few more hours over open water, in other words, if it had slowed down at all between Cuba and Florida, it would have become a major hurricane. As it was, because it moved so quickly over the water, it didn’t have time to develop. I am absolutely certain that the prayers of God’s people pushed that storm more quickly across that open water so that it could not become a monster.
I remember watching Irene’s progress all day on October 15, 1999. Some friends telephoned me during the day to ask what I thought was going to happen. Several of them had not believed the Hurricane Irene word. My answer was always the same, “We are about to get hit by Irene.” I had no doubt we were about to get hit, no matter what the forecasters said, and no matter what their computer models predicted, I knew they were about to be surprised. But I also knew that it would not be as bad as it could have been.
In the end, our area never did come under a hurricane warning. We were under a hurricane watch and a tropical storm warning, but people, businesses, and local governments do not respond to hurricane watches or tropical storm warnings in South Florida. A hurricane warning is needed to activate all of our varied hurricane readiness plans. Without a hurricane warning, business and government hurricane contingency plans were not implemented. Businesses and
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schools stayed open, and life went on as usual in Broward County.2
When the hurricane hit our area by surprise at about 4:00 PM, people were just getting out of work. Some people actually died without ever knowing that they were in a hurricane. Visibility was so bad as workers attempted to drive home from work, that several drove into canals and drowned. You can still read news reports about Hurricane Irene at hurricaneirene.com, the website we maintain for this historical purpose.
At the end of the day, the National Hurricane Center determined that Irene was barely a category one hurricane when it hit our area. The very worst part of the hurricane hit the northeast corner of Broward County, Deerfield Beach, and the southeast corner of Palm Beach County, Boca Raton. Eight people died in the hurricane. The South Florida
2 One letter to the editor in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel captured the chaos of that day: On Friday, the Bette Midler concert was scheduled to be held at the National Car Rental Center. All calls to the center were answered with a recorded message saying, "The Bette Midler concert will be held. Should a hurricane warning be issued, this could change." So. . . like hundreds of others, we drove along Panther Parkway trying to enter the arena parking areas . . . all the entrances were blocked . . . Finally, spying an official vehicle, . . . I was then informed that the concert had "just now" been canceled. As a result, the Sawgrass Expressway (as well as Florida's Turnpike and Interstate 95) -- with trees down in one lane and visibility near zero -- was filled with tense people wondering why our lives had been risked in the first place.
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counties sustained hundreds of millions of dollars in storm damage. But because of the prayers of God’s people, the catastrophic vision that the Lord gave to a twelve-year-old girl never happened. God was there in the midst of the storm.
The following headline and story in the October 17, 1999 edition of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel captured the surprise:
Storm Caught Us, Forecasters Well Off Guard
She surprised us.
Although they knew Irene was in the
neighborhood, officials posted no hurricane
warnings for South Florida. No one put up
shutters. The usual stampede for supplies did
not materialize.
Despite satellite imagery, sophisticated
radar and surveillance planes, forecasters
expected Hurricane Irene to pelt the west
coast, not mess up our back yard so badly.
So, how did such a major storm sneak up
on us?
Specialists at the National Hurricane
Center say because the system lacked strong
steering currents and had an undefined
center, the blob-like Irene swerved off its
forecast track and caught them off guard.
"Early on, none of the computer models
that we use for our forecast showed the
hurricane approaching South Florida," said
Colin McAdie, the center's research
meteorologist.
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"In addition to that, the system had not
been well-defined from the beginning. The
center reformed several times when it was
still south of Cuba. That made it a difficult
forecast," he said.
As late as Friday afternoon, forecasters
and residents alike thought the storm would
parallel the west coast of Florida and
possibly hit the Tampa area.
As a result, there were no long lines at
grocery, hardware or home improvement
stores Thursday night or Friday morning.
Few, if any, people put up shutters or
boarded windows.
Despite warnings of heavy rains, people
went about their business for the most part.
Then the winds kicked up Friday afternoon
and the storm's wrath struck in time to clog
up rush hour.
Though they were carefully monitoring
the storm, emergency managers in Miami
Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties
ordered no evacuations because no hurricane
warnings were issued.
Irene was such a surprise, that ten years after the storm, the Sun-Sentinel published this remembrance on October 15, 2009:
Many are sure to remember that Friday.
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Hurricane Irene came barging into town
with torrential downpours, gusty winds and
an element of surprise.
That was on Oct. 15, 1999 - 10 years ago
today.
The storm produced 10 to 20 inches of
rain and caused severe widespread flooding.
More than 700,000 homes and businesses
lost power.
And eight people were killed. Five were
electrocuted and three drove vehicles into
canals. Additionally, tornadoes injured three
people in Broward County.
Irene surprised many because they
weren't expecting a hurricane, even though
they knew a storm was approaching.
At the time, some criticized the National
Hurricane Center for that.
But forecasters noted they had issued a
tropical storm warning and that most of
South Florida experienced just that, a
tropical storm, not a hurricane.
While it is natural that the National Hurricane Center would defend itself in such a way, the truth is that without divine intervention, a category four-monster storm would have slammed into South Florida during rush hour traffic. It would have leveled an unprepared community, not only because almost no one had put shutters up, but also because category four storms have a propensity to do just that.
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When I sent my final fax and letter to Broward’s churches, I ended with this note:
I wanted to add a message of thanks for your
part in the Hurricane Irene drama. We first
publicized the dreams outside of our
congregation back in early March of this
year. I asked people to read the dreams, and
to take up the call to prayer if they believed
God was speaking. I thank you for not only
receiving the dreams, but for praying along
with us.
Our first official prayer meeting was
March 21. The next was September 12. The
last was October 14. Irene hit on October
15. Each of the meetings was powerful and
accomplished a part of the purpose that we
had set. That purpose was to intercede so
that there would be no hurricane, and if
there was, that it would not be devastating. I
believe that the Lord answered our prayers.
God gave us an opportunity to "stand in the
gap" for our communities. God is sovereign,
but he has chosen to give us authority in
prayer. As we prayed we took the
opportunity he lovingly gave us.
I am personally saddened by the seven
lives (so far reported) that were lost because
of this hurricane. We knew that unity and
prayer could defeat the plan of the enemy to
release a lot of death. We achieved a level of
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unity and prayer that severely diminished the
tragedy. The toll could have been much
higher with even a slightly more powerful
storm. But, of course every life is precious,
so I am still saddened. If there is a next time
for something like this, I will pray even more
persistently that lives be spared. I know
many of you will do the same. We can
celebrate this victory while at the same time
mourning with those who mourn. God is
love. He has demonstrated it yet again.
Thanks for picking up the call to prayer.
New Dawn Community Church, and a broad coalition of churches in Broward County, had accomplished God’s purposes. We had bound on earth what he had bound in heaven.
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AN IRREVOCABLE CALLING
In the aftermath of our call to prayer, things returned to normal. We certainly had a heightened appreciation for God’s intervention in the affairs of men. But other than a rather awkward moment of recognition at the same clergy group that I had first briefed about Irene a year earlier, we slipped back into the relative obscurity of normal congregational life. God had used us to accomplish his purposes, and for the moment, we were ready to step away from the spotlight.
However, I was not willing to relinquish the intercessory authority that God had given to us. I believed the Apostle Paul when he told us, “God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable” (Romans 11:29). I knew that God didn’t give gifts and callings just so that he could take them away again. When he gives you a victory, he gives you something to build on, not something to walk away from. I knew he had given us something that we needed to develop.
I didn’t realize it at the time, but there were people who did not like the fact that God had used us in such an obvious way. There were even some in our congregation who did not believe God would use us again. I remember one instance
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when a man attempted to correct me over my belief. He believed that we could have no assurance that God would use us again. I began to realize that this is a common belief about how God works. It may be common, but it is wrong. Those who truly believe this will always walk with little faith and little power in their lives.
I believe God builds on our experiences. There are two key truths in scripture that have given me this conviction. I have already mentioned the first. I believe what Paul taught: The gifts and call of God are irrevocable. I believe that the Bible makes this clear in many different ways. I especially appreciate how Elijah’s life demonstrates this truth.
Elijah’s Irrevocable Calling
Elijah was an amazing man living during an incredibly difficult time in Israel’s history. He courageously stood up to the evil authorities of his day, and achieved great victories for the Lord. Who can forget Elijah’s encounter with the prophets of Baal and Asherah on Mount Carmel (see 1 Kings 18:18-40)? Who can forget how fire fell from heaven and consumed Elijah’s sacrifice? His is a story of calling and power.
And yet his story does not end there. As the Apostle James reminded us, Elijah was a man just like us, and subject to the vagaries of our human condition. When Jezebel threatened, he ran. He was so discouraged that he fled to Mount Horeb and turned in his resignation. The Apostle Paul tells us that when Elijah was at Horeb, he “appealed against Israel” (Romans 11:2). He turned from prophetic intercessor to prophetic accuser. As a result, God accepted his
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resignation and instructed Elijah how to prepare Israel for his departure.
If anyone could forfeit his call and gifts, it should have been Elijah. He had been called to stand in the gap for Israel. Like Moses before him, he was supposed to reflect God’s heart to Israel. But where Moses had stood in the gap and asked God not to condemn Israel, Elijah complained that he was the only one left. The Apostle Paul understood what Elijah was doing. He was interceding against Israel. He was a witness for the prosecution, calling down the wrath of God on Israel. No wonder the Lord accepted his resignation; Elijah had lost his heart for the job.
As the book of 2 Kings opens, we encounter Elijah once again. Elijah has been working at preparing Israel for his departure, but he still confronted kings. In this instance, the king of Israel, Ahaziah, had injured himself and sought insight about his injury from a pagan god. Elijah intercepted the king’s messenger and sent the message that the king would die. When the king realized that the man was Elijah, he sent a captain and his fifty men to arrest Elijah. The captain and his fifty men confronted Elijah. Let’s pick up the story here:
The captain went up to Elijah, who was
sitting on the top of a hill, and said to
him, “Man of God, the king says, ‘Come
down!’”
Elijah answered the captain, “If I am
a man of God, may fire come down from
heaven and consume you and your fifty
men!” Then fire fell from heaven and
consumed the captain and his men.
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At this the king sent to Elijah another
captain with his fifty men. The captain
said to him, “Man of God, this is what
the king says, ‘Come down at once!’”
“If I am a man of God,” Elijah
replied, “may fire come down from
heaven and consume you and your fifty
men!” Then the fire of God fell from
heaven and consumed him and his fifty
men.
So the king sent a third captain with
his fifty men. This third captain went up
and fell on his knees before Elijah. “Man
of God,” he begged, “please have respect
for my life and the lives of these fifty
men, your servants! See, fire has fallen
from heaven and consumed the first two
captains and all their men. But now have
respect for my life!”
The angel of the LORD said to Elijah,
“Go down with him; do not be afraid of
him.” So Elijah got up and went down
with him to the king. (2 Kings 1:10-15)
I don’t believe you can find a clearer example of the fact that the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable than in this story of Elijah. When he had called fire down on Mount Carmel, he had gained authority before God. That authority became so much a part of Elijah’s gifts and callings, that he could use that gift at need.
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Here is what I see in this story: When the Lord gives authority to us, he releases that authority to us. It becomes ours. Elijah’s use of heavenly fire demonstrates this point. In the same way, I know that God has given us authority over the storm, and that authority is now irrevocably ours.
The Various Sizes of Faith
The second key truth that bolstered my conviction that God had granted us continuing authority over storms, is found in the very definitions of faith and how faith works practically in our lives. Jesus clearly taught that there are various sizes of faith. By its very nature, faith must continue in any manifestation of the supernatural that it experiences. To do less constitutes little faith.
Little Faith
Jesus revealed a great deal about faith when he chided those who had little of it. On six different occasions Jesus told people they had little faith. In every instance he was speaking to a people who had a special covenant with God: Israel. These people had history with God, and yet still had little faith. When we look more closely at several of these instances, we learn just what constitutes little faith.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus revealed how inappropriate it is for God’s people to worry about food or clothing. After pointing to the beauty of the flowers around them, Jesus asked, “If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (Matthew 6:30).
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His point is clear. Every one of the people around Jesus had observed God’s care of birds and flowers. Their experience taught them that God takes good care of such relatively minor things. Thus, it is not rational to conclude that he would treat his chosen people with less care. When the people of Jesus’ day worried about food and clothing, they did not live up to their experience of God’s care, and they were not being rational. Jesus summed it up by saying they had little faith.
When Jesus calmed the storm we see these same themes. A severe storm on the sea of Galilee was testing the mettle of Jesus’ disciples. As the storm began to overwhelm them, the disciples cried out to the sleeping Jesus to save them. As Jesus woke up he said to them, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” (Matthew 8:26). Then, with a word, he calmed the storm.
From a non-faith perspective, it is quite apparent why the disciples were afraid. Huge waves were swamping their boat. The experienced fishermen among them understood the gravity of the situation. Over the years, they had seen friends and neighbors in their fishing community disappear in tempests such as this one. Because of their experience on the water, they were convinced they were all about to drown. From a purely natural perspective, they were behaving rationally. But the disciples had been living the supernatural with Jesus for quite some time. They had history with Jesus— lots of it. Yet they allowed their previous life experience to trump that supernatural experience with Jesus. Because they had experienced his great love and his great power, it was irrational for them to believe that he would allow them to
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drown. They were not living up to their supernatural experience with Jesus. They had little faith.
This problem plagued the disciples. The most obvious example of this is recorded in Matthew 16. Jesus had just finished feeding five thousand men, in addition to the women and children, with five loaves of bread and a few fish. He had followed that miracle up with the feeding of the four thousand under similar conditions. Yet when the disciples forgot to bring bread for a journey, they concluded that this would leave them bereft of lunch. Jesus quite explicitly leads them down the road of logic to show them the type of faith they were demonstrating.
. . . Jesus asked, “You of little faith, why
are you talking among yourselves about
having no bread? Do you still not
understand? Don’t you remember the
five loaves for the five thousand, and how
many basketfuls you gathered? Or the
seven loaves for the four thousand, and
how many basketfuls you gathered?
(Matthew 16:8-10)
Jesus could have added the miraculous catch of fish, and the many other supernatural wonders that had been demonstrated to these disciples, but he focused only on the most applicable miracles. Jesus had fed tens of thousands of people with less than a grocery bag of food. It is only logical to conclude, that in a pinch, he could handle lunch for a dozen. More than that, their experience of his generous care of all these people made it impossible to assume that he would callously ignore the
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plight of his closest disciples. The littleness of their faith was staggering. But often, so is ours.
Jesus once said, “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). While faith may be at a premium when he returns, I don’t believe he will have any problem finding little faith. We can easily find that all around us. It occurs whenever we, like Jesus’ disciples, do not live up to our experience of God’s love and his power. I have seen many examples of indisputable miraculous healing. I have seen my own family touched in amazing ways, and I have felt his healing hand personally. Yet there are times when I am assaulted with concerns about my own or my family’s health that I am tempted to step into worry. Since I have experienced God’s love and his power in this area, if I do step into worry, I am demonstrating little faith. It is rational to believe that God is faithful and consistent in these areas. It is irrational to believe that God is capricious or fickle. For this reason, we can build our faith for the future upon our experiences of his love and power in the past. If we do not do this, we are demonstrating little faith.
This applies to every area of our life. If the Lord has provided a miraculous financial deliverance for us, we can rationally expect that he will be faithful in this area again. That is faith. If the Lord has provided physical healing, we can rationally expect the Healer to be faithful in this area again. That is faith. When we experience the Lord’s faithfulness in an area, it is only faith to expect that the Lord will repeat that kindness.
This truth is exactly the reason that Jesus told Peter he had little faith right after he walked on water. From our perspective, Peter demonstrated incredible faith when he
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stepped out of the boat onto a stormy sea. Yet, when Jesus stooped down to pull the sinking Peter back to the surface of the waves, he said to him, “You of little faith” (Matthew 14:31). There is little doubt that when Peter stepped out of the boat he was demonstrating faith, perhaps even great faith. His quick demotion to little faith was found in his irrational doubt. In the midst of miraculously breaking several laws of physics, he began to believe those laws were more powerful than this miracle. He didn’t live up to the level of his miraculous experience, even while he was experiencing it. That is little faith.
Great Faith
If little faith is irrationally living below your experience of God, then, conversely, great faith is rationally living above your level of experience. Jesus clearly demonstrates this when he responded to two gentiles who walked in great faith.
It is not coincidence that Jesus only applies the great faith label to gentiles. The gentiles of Jesus’ day had little experience of the true God. The Roman centurion (see Matthew 8:5-10) and the Syrophoenician woman (see Matthew 15:21-28) grew up in nations with demonic understandings of deity. Their national gods were demanding, erratic, and vicious. These pagan cultures bribed and placated their gods, rather than loving or trusting them. Their understanding of God’s goodness and grace was limited. Yet both these individuals stepped beyond their experience. Still, they did not do this irrationally; they gave solid reasons for their steps of faith,
When Jesus encountered the centurion, his servant was sick. Jesus acted according to Jewish custom and agreed to go
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to the servant’s side. In Jewish culture, it was normal for those who prayed for healing to make a personal appearance (see Matthew 9:18). Jesus usually followed this custom in order to remove unnecessary barriers to faith. He did what he could to encourage the faith of true seekers.
When the centurion, who had not grown up in covenant relationship with God, sought Jesus’ help, he was demonstrating faith. Jesus responded to this faith in his normal fashion. However, the centurion soon demonstrated greatness in his faith.
The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not
deserve to have you come under my roof.
But just say the word, and my servant
will be healed.” (Matthew 8:8)
With these words the centurion demonstrated great faith. With his first request, the centurion demonstrated that he had moved beyond his own cultural experience and now believed in the goodness of God. With his second request, he demonstrated that he had moved beyond even the Jewish cultural understanding of how God worked. Whereas Jewish theology expected some form of contact to initiate a miracle, this centurion believed a word spoken at a distance would do.
To those who traveled with Jesus, this may have seemed like presumption. How dare this centurion presume to tell Jesus how to operate his ministry? But this wasn’t presumption. Presumption is irrational in its character. Presumption moves beyond our experience of God in irrational ways. The centurion did not do this. Instead, he offered a rational explanation for his belief.
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For I myself am a man under authority,
with soldiers under me. I tell this one,
‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’
and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do
this,’ and he does it.” (Matthew 8:9)
The centurion recognized the nature of authority. If the centurion, with only a word, could affect outcomes at a distance, then Jesus should be able to do the same thing. The centurion stepped ahead of his experience of God as he applied his understanding of authority to God’s Kingdom in a logical way. That is great faith.
The Syrophoenician woman demonstrated this same logical application of truth. When Jesus had insulted her by comparing her to a dog, she said,
“Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the
dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their
masters’ table.” (Matthew 15:27)
When Jesus purposely baited her, she refused to choke on the bait. Instead she demonstrated faith. She recognized that it would only take supernatural crumbs for an almighty God to heal her daughter. Then she demonstrated great faith. She inferred some things about God’s Kingdom based upon Jesus’ own words. If a dog’s master allows him to eat the crumbs that fall below the table, how much more would a righteous and merciful God provide the crumbs of his supernatural grace to people in need? Rather than turning away insulted and sad, she lived beyond her experience of
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God and received her answer. She also demonstrated great faith.
In essence, great faith stands on the foundation of our experience of God, builds a reasonable case for things we have not yet experienced, and takes action based upon that belief. But while Jesus applauded great faith and was pleased by it, he does not demand great faith from us. It only takes faith to please God.
Faith
John the apostle penned the words that speak of our experience of God. He wrote, “We love because he first loved us” (see 1 John 4:19). Faith responds to the grace that God has given. It experiences something of God, and then responds to it. We became Christians through this process. We experienced the promise of God’s forgiveness and love, and faith lived up to this experience by receiving Jesus into our hearts. We now live by faith because Christianity is experiential in nature. He continually invades our world with his love; in faith we respond to that love. If we respond commensurate to our level of experience, we have faith. If we respond above our level of experience, we have great faith. If we respond below our level of experience, we have little faith.
The writer to the Hebrews tells us, “Without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). This is more than an axiom to inspire a more committed faith life; it is the foundation of our Christian walk. Christians live by faith from start to finish (see Romans 1:17). Jude wrote, “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith” (Jude 1:20). I believe that when we better understand the process of faith, we can better build our faith. It is apparent
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that greatness or littleness of faith is not found in the size of the supernatural events in which we are involved, but rather in how well we are living up to our experience of God and his faithfulness.
The people of New Dawn Community Church had an experience with God. They had seen him protect them through a storm. They had received his authority to deal with the storm. When we believe that God will continue to deal with us in this fashion, it is only faith. It believes that the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable.
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CONCLUSIONS
I am writing these words as we approach the fifteenth anniversary of Hurricane Irene’s visit to our area. Our history since 1999 has been filled with wonderful victories and not so-fun learning experiences. We have grown even more firmly in our conviction that the Lord has given us a job to do, and we are doing it to the best of our ability.
This short book covers, in very brief form, the first four years in the development of New Dawn Community Church. I could write about many more storms and other supernatural events, and more than likely I will in the future. However, this particular book is written for a particular purpose. It reveals a calling, and it invites you to join with us in that calling.
At the time that I am writing this chapter in 2014, weather forecasters are openly speculating that we have entered into a shift in the hurricane pattern for the Atlantic basin. This year has been spectacularly slow, as far as hurricane seasons go. Last year was even slower. Forecasters do not understand the shift. I do understand the shift. God’s people are learning to use their authority.
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