3. What are the signs & wonders that substantiate a God-given apostle?

Because of God's infinite diversity, His substantiating signs and wonders can come in any number of forms. Like the differences in snow flakes or fingerprints or iris scans or DNA, every one will be uniquely designed by God for each individual circumstance. Consequently, there is no exact criteria that can be given as to what the forms of signs or wonders from God will take.

I can only give you my own testimonies of the signs and wonders that I believe that God has sent to me and / or to others. Remember however, a Christian's major attention should always be on the Lord and His Word, not on the signs and wonders that He sends forth thru and for His believing children. They are only meant to be substantiations from God, not things to be sought after.

So here are my testimonies of some of the events that have occurred in my life that I believe are signs and wonders truly sent from God to substantiate my own apostolic ministry from Him and to speak to and / or guide me or others whom I know...


Proof from Jesus to me of my own appointment by Him as His Apostle!

One warm fall afternoon, while I was first struggling with what I felt might be the Lord's call within my spirit to become a modern day apostle, I was sitting at a bandstand in a park near my home. I was meditating upon the beginning verses in James Chapter 1 that are about the testing of our faith. Because of my mental discomfort from these thoughts that kept plaguing me about this huge matter and because of the severe trials then in my personal life, I felt that I was being so tested.

Well, there I sat struggling with whether the thoughts in my mind about apostleship were truly coming from God or from myself to self-exalt me or from some demon who was trying to tempt me to exalt myself. I wanted to step forward and embrace this office if it was truly God's will for me to do so yet I didn't want to be in any way presumptuous if it wasn't. Fully engrossed in this decision making, I didn't notice some people from a band that were active in the core of the park's bandstand, setting up for the evening's entertainment.

Isaiah 8:11 - ...the LORD spoke to me with mighty power...

All of a sudden one of the band setup guys loudly hollers into a microphone, "James! Testing! Testing 1 - 2! James! Testing! Testing 1 - 2!" Well, the band's huge speakers must have been set at their highest volume so that booming voice shouting out from them, using that name (which is also my first name) and declaring a testing with those numbers (which coincided exactly with the Scriptures from James upon which I was meditating) sounded to me just like the voice of Almighty God!

Deuteronomy 4:11 -12 - You came near and stood at the foot of the mountain (this high calling of God to become an apostle)

and the mountain burned with fire (severe, painful testings) to the very heart of the heavens (symbolizing the topmost church office of apostleship);

darkness, cloud and thick gloom (my certainty of much loss in this pursuit and my uncertainty on how to proceed in it and where it would all lead).

Then the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sound of words, but you saw no form - only a voice!

I literally jumped out of my seat in fear at the immensity of the sound of that voice and in the huge coincidence of the setup guy's use of those words. As a result of that booming voice and what it said, I immediately perceived that this was a substantiating sign to me from God that He was the one who was actually bringing these thoughts to me, not myself alone or some clever Satanic tempter. I felt right then and there that these thoughts were truly a test from God of my faith about the validity of apostleship for today and at the same time they were a specific test of my willingness to become one.

Deuteronomy 4:36 - Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you...

After I heard that fearsome, booming voice I felt that this was God's way of telling me that He was testing me to see if I would believe in and move on into apostleship. So if it was, I did want to proceed into the gift and please God. But the thought of so doing was also fearsome and that created a temptation to disbelieve in the voice and shrink away from the whole idea!

Hebrews 3:7 -8 - ...just as the Holy Spirit says, "TODAY, IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, do not harden your hearts...(and) provoke Me!

So just to be sure that this sign was truly from God, I prayed and asked Him to further substantiate my apostolic ministry by sending me some other Christians who would also believe that my apostleship was truly His calling and not some Satanic deception.

II Cor 13:1b - ...every fact is to be confirmed by the testimony of two or three witnesses.

Within a week I had met and begun to fellowship with 10 new people (one or two every day) besides the couple of brothers with whom I had been confiding all along. This was a dozen people seeking to disciple with Christ with me! And it wasn't very long after that that just as I had felt would happen, I suffered the loss of all of the worldly things that had been the mainstays my worldly life.

Philippians 3:8b - 9 - ...I (the apostle) have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ and may be found in Him...having...the the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith!

But while those losses of mine were unfolding, these newly found brethren all agreed to meet with me one evening and our discussion turned to the subject of baptism.

For myself, I had recently come to believe that baptism should be performed immediately upon believing in the Lord Jesus Christ as one's Savior. So I explained to all of them about how, in the book of Acts, all of the baptisms described were done immediately and in the name of Jesus and also how, at the end of the book of Matthew we are told to do them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So, since I had just been baptized myself in this manner, I proposed that they all might want to do the same.

We discussed this for a while and then reached agreement that technically Biblically, immediate baptism both in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ as well as the name of the Father and the Holy Spirit is what should be done. None of these Christians had yet been so baptized, therefore they then agreed to all do so together and quickly.

However, the cool fall weather prevented us from going right down to a nearby river to do it. The Lord used that cold weather to instead lead us into another setting that He had prepared for the baptisms. He guided us there by having us soon discover that we could rent a small beginner's swimming pool at the YMCA in town for only $25 per hour (1980's pricing).

We felt that this would be a fine place to do the baptisms in warmth (our faith was not yet strong enough for cold water baptisms!). So we all pitched in a few bucks and rented the pool for one hour which would be plenty of time in which to do them all (of course not realizing that God had a surprise waiting for us there).

So, when we paid the pool rental fee, the YMCA manager insisted that they provide us with a lifeguard. We accepted this, thinking that a lifeguard was not really necessary for what we would be doing in the pool and not realizing this was the Lord's doing. So, the next night while the lifeguard was watching, I performed each baptism under this young man's gaze. I felt the Lord leading me to preach a strong fire and brimstone gospel message as a part of the baptisms in hopes that the lifeguard might be touched by the message.

Sure enough he was and when we were done baptizing the last person he asked excitedly, "Hey, before you go, can I get baptized too? I don't want to go to hell!" So we told him to repent of his sins to God and truly believe in the Lord Jesus Christ in his heart for his salvation. When he said that he just did that, I then baptized him also, to the glory of God. This was God's surprise first fruit of our small apostolic church fellowship!

To me all of these events were signs from the Lord that He had truly selected me to function as a modern day apostle and that He was the One bringing everyone together as He built this small church fellowship.

The following is a testimony of how God shortly thereafter supported my apostolic appointment during a major testing.

I was staying with a lovely married couple and their three children at their invitation in a suburban town near Chicago. This couple had great gospel musical abilities and they were becoming known in some Christian circles in the area. They had joined up with our fellowship and offered us their home as a place in which for our group to meet. They looked to me as an apostle sent to them by God to help them to grow in the Lord. Together, we had many Holy Spirit led sessions of Bible teachings with many, many signs and wonders occurring.

Mark 16:20 - ...the Lord worked with them and confirmed the Word by the signs that followed.

One day the leader of a larger, more established home fellowship in the town came to visit with them when I was not there and in the course of their discussion suggested that they join his group. They sensed that he craved to use their music ministry to expand his own fellowship. So they balked at that idea and told him that they believed that I was a God-given apostle sent to them to help them and they felt that they should stay with me and our small group. So disappointed, he left and said that he'd come back when I was there so that he could meet with me, which he soon did.

Meanwhile, when I heard of his visit and what he proposed, I began praying for guidance to see whether or not The Lord was leading us to merge our group in with his. When he arrived, we all sat down and engaged in some small talk for a while. But the conversation soon became stilted, and he left.

Later he called the man of the house and told him that he had met many apostles in his day and that he was certain that I was not an apostle!

Luke 22:53 - ...this is your hour, and your delegated authority and the power of the darkness...

He then counseled my friend to send me away and join up with him and bring the rest of the fellowship along too. This rattled the man of the house and he responded that he would take this recommendation into advisement and pray about it.

Luke 22:31 - Satan, by asking, obtained you...for himself...that he may shake you in a sieve, as grain is sifted, by an inward agitation, trying your faith to the verge of overthrow! (Kenneth Wuest's expanded translation of the New Testament)

So he prayed for God to reveal to him just what he should do because he was quite upset about the matter. This established minister's denouncement of my apostleship was severely shaking his faith, making him become quite uncertain about it.

A couple of days later this minister came by to inform him that the person who was providing him and his large family with a big, free house there in town had just unexpectedly notified him that he needed him to move out immediately. His landlord told the minister that he needed the house back right away for his own use. This minister then mentioned that the donations in his fellowship had been down and because of this he was now reduced in income and the only place that he could think of to move his large family into on such short notice was 800 miles away, as a guest of his family in a home on their farm.

Then this minister confided to him that he had never before in his life felt so powerless from God for this kind of a situation and he couldn't understand why the Lord was letting this happen to him. He went on to say that even though he did not want to do so, this event was forcing him to send his church fellowship to another minister and move away immediately.

Proverbs 26:27 - Whoso diggeth a pit (for another) shall fall therein.

A phone call from him a few days later, telling us that he was safely there, was the last any of us heard or saw of him. So in this manner the Lord settled with finality the matter that I had been praying about of whether or not to merge the 2 fellowships.

God went on to use this event to also restore firm faith within the man of the house in my apostolic ministry to him and his family. He soon told me that he viewed this minister's removal from the area as an answer from God to his prayer about my true apostleship.

Luke 22:32 - But as for myself, I made petition for you that your faith should not be totally eclipsed. And as for you, when you have returned to your original position with respect to your faith, stabilize your brethren. (Kenneth Wuest's expanded translation of the New Testament)

He soon shared this whole testimony with all of our church brethren and that also helped to stabilize their faith in my ministry.

Luke 23:34 - ..."Father, forgive them, they know not what they do"

I was still new at apostleship then so unfortunately I didn't pray whole heartedly for this misguided minister's well-being as I should have. This was because his opposition and ankle-bitting hurt me personally and deep down I felt that he got what he deserved from God. But today I'm more experienced and confident in my ordained position as an apostle and I'm more loving towards my enemies, so whenever he now comes to mind, I pray for God's best for him and his family.

As I said in my first entry in this blog, the devil loves to stir up strife by using misguided Christians to attack other Christians who are on a good track. But God forgives the ones at fault and works to correct them and He can be counted upon to eventually help any Christian who is truly seeking Him and His wisdom to find the truth for any matter.

Hebrews 11:6b - ...He rewards those who seek Him.

God will show them how to get past any devilish assaults that are being perpetrated by Satan upon them thru erroneous brethren.

Ephesians 6:12 - For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Manifestation Prophecy

I Corinthians 9:1b - ...have I not seen Jesus our Lord?

I had been praying for years for guidance from God about finding the truth of His will in so many issues that were pertinent to my life. Yet I believed that Jesus couldn't come to visit me to instruct me because His next appearance on earth is reserved for His 2nd coming. But, because of the many doctrinal errors that I felt that I was perceiving in every Bible teacher's teachings which I had been encountering, I felt all alone and up against all of them. So I just wished that somehow He would come and instruct me Himself. I wanted to really know the truth of His Word about the many doctrines around today that seemed to me to be contradicting it. Well, did God have a surprise for me!

Matthew 19:26b - with God all things are possible

One beautiful spring morning He did an entirely unexpected and totally thrilling thing for me that had never entered my mind as being possible. He led me to drive out to a local park in my van with one of the young sisters in our fellowship. Here we were going to pray for a while. I was in the driver's seat and she was sitting on the couch in the back when we each started to pray silently to the Lord.

All of a sudden I heard her call my name! But her voice was different? It was somehow very commanding! So I opened my eyes and turned to look at her. Well, there she was sitting in the center of the couch and she had an extremely noble quality to her posture! So, unsure of what was happening, I asked her, "Did you call me?" to which she responded, "Jim, I the Lord Jesus Christ who came in the flesh, have called the two of you to come out here this morning so that I could talk with you and answer your questions!"

I John 4:2 - This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God...

Instantly I knew that this was not her speaking but that it was the Lord Jesus Christ Himself somehow possessing her and speaking thru her mouth! Her voice had somehow become the most regal voice imaginable and her demeanor was utterly majestic.

John 7:46 - ...No man speaks as this man speaks!

This was definitely not her voice or manner! So tears began flying from my eyes like machine gun bullets! I knew that somehow thru her, right there in my van in that park, I was being addressed by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself! For Him to converse with me is what I had hoped to happen for so long but it was being done in a fashion of which I had never heard or read anywhere.

So thru my tears I timidly asked, "Is that you Lord?" to which He responded, "Yes it is I. I've been sent here today in response to your many prayers to My Father asking for Me to help you find the truths for which you are longing." Well at this statement I was struck speechless because she didn't know anything about this desire of mine! So, in awe, I just kept looking at Him (in her) but He kept her eyes shut while He patiently sat there, waiting for me to recover from my initial shock over all of this.

It took a while but eventually I stopped crying enough to lamely ask Him where she was? He then explained that He had her spirit in a pleasant place while both she and I were experiencing this gift from God which He called Manifestation Prophecy. He explained that this is a supernatural gift wherein His Holy Spirit possesses a willing person and uses that person as a vessel to converse in human form with the brethren.

He then said that He came in this manner to me because He knew that I had enough faith to believe that it was really Him so doing. He said that when we were done conversing, I was to go back to my brethren in the fellowship and help them to also believe in it. He said that I was to tell them that if they could have the faith for it, He would come thru her again that evening to converse with them also!

Needless to say I was thrilled beyond belief at His appearance but there was of course a tiny doubt within me about the genuineness of such a manifestation since I had never heard nor read about such a thing. Could she be faking it for some reason or could Satan be possessing her and tricking me? After all, the Scriptures say that the devil can come as an angel of light! So I proceeded to ask Him in her a few questions that I felt that she, in her newly embraced but still uneducated faith, could not possibly know herself.

One question I asked was about the greatness of His original disciples / apostles compared to other Christians. He surprised me by telling me how those men saw Him and walked with Him and experienced all that He had to say and all of His miracles for years and they still had trouble really believing in Him. Yet thereafter, all Christians have just read a book of words or heard preaching and testimonies of Him and thru that alone they have been able to firmly believe in Him. So why would God consider the original apostles any greater than those who never saw Him and yet still believed?

J0hn 20:29 - ... Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

This answer and this verse have been food for thought for me ever since it was given to me, especially because I believe that I also am now one of those whom He refers to as having seen Him. But technically, the truth is that I didn't really see Him in His own flesh. My encounter with Him manifesting in her is still a matter of my own personal faith that it was truly from God.

Hebrews 11:6 - Without faith it is impossible to please God for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him!

That is the brilliance of God in rewarding me with this Manifestation Prophecy gift because it is an encounter with God that must still be accepted by faith, even after testing it (but not God) with pointed questions (which I made of the Spirit within the person)!

Another question which I asked of Him manifesting in her was where the original autographs of the Scriptures are now? She could not have possibly known the answer to this question since she probably never even heard of the term Biblical autographs. So I felt that it was a good test of the validity of the Manifestation. He in her blew me away and proved that she was not the one giving me the answer by saying very matter of factly, "In Heaven."

Well, of course they're in heaven! But when I asked that question I never even considered that fact because my evil heart was masking some evil intentions of which I was not consciously aware. I was only conscious of the fact that this question was merely a test of the girl and of the Manifestation. That's why I was referring to the original earthly parchments. I consciously felt that I was merely testing the Manifestation Spirit, but not the Lord Himself and He knew it.

I John 4:1 - ...do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

However, in giving me this answer, He revealed to me another evil motive stuck deep down in my deceitful heart for asking this question. That motive was that had He answered me with an earthly place in which to find them I would have become exceedingly proud! After all, would not finding the original autographs of the Scriptures be the greatest discovery ever for mankind! And where would little old phony me have been when I exposed the secret earthly location of these original autographs? Wicked me would have been right in the center of that discovery, grabbing for glory while feigning humility!

Jeremiah 17:10 - I the Lord search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

His 2 word matter of fact answer, "In Heaven." cut me to the quick causing my heart to burn. So I knew that this could be no other Spirit in her than that of Jesus Christ Himself! Satan encourages this kind of deceitful evil in a man's heart, but Jesus does not!

Luke 24:32a (the brethren) said to one another, "Were not our hearts burning within us while He (Jesus) was speaking...?"

Knowing the pain in me from this conviction of my deceitful heart's deep seated proud motive, He then encouraged me to be at peace. He repeatedly exhorted me to be at peace during His manifestation because every question I posed to Him would bring an answer that I did not expect and that would force me to face my own deceitful heart's reasons for asking it! So pretty soon, in reverent fear, I ran out of questions to ask Him.

Ecclesiastes 5:2 - Do not be hasty in word or impulsive in thought to bring up a matter in the presence of God...therefore let your words be few!

But I was so thrilled and excited at this wonderful, supernatural gift of Jesus Christ actually appearing to me to converse with me, that I didn't absorb all of the really deep stuff that was occurring at the time. Most of it came to me much later. That morning I was just out of my mind with joy at this amazing gift from God of the Lord's appearance! I was more excited than I've ever been before in my entire life!

John 15:11 - These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your may be made full.

Yet after a little less than an hour, the Lord in her suggested that we stop and He would leave her, but only until that evening when He promised to manifest back within her, if the brethren wanted Him to so appear to them. He also suggested that we all write out our questions so that when He appeared, we wouldn't be nervous and forget them.

He then instructed me that the girl would need to be told all that had happened thru her because she was not aware of it. So I thanked Him profusely for visiting me, we said our goodbyes and He left her. Immediately, she blinked her eyes a couple of times and asked me what had happened?

So I told her everything about the Lord's use of her to speak with me and she rejoiced exceedingly along with me about His visitation. Even though she was not there for it, she was greatly thankful that He chose her as His vessel thru whom to appear.

Luke 1:35 -38 - "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the Holy One within you shall be called the Son of God....For nothing will be impossible with God."

And she said, "Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word."

Then we drove back to the fellowship house and burst in excitedly to share our testimony of this wondrous event with all of the brethren. Of course they were skeptical at first, but so were Jesus original disciples when Mary Magdalene announced that Jesus had risen and conversed with her. After we all calmed down and could more quietly discuss the event, they all came around and agreed that they too wanted to talk directly with Jesus in this manner, just as I had.

So we all gathered together that evening and when we prayed for Him to come, He reappeared within her and we all were given answers to our many questions by Him for the next couple of hours. Then, when He left, we dissected everything that was discussed and came to the conclusion that this Manifestation was truly the Lord Jesus Christ! Consequently, many times thereafter we prayed for Him to come back again and He always did.

According to the Lord (speaking thru this girl), the Manifestation Prophecy gift was given to us only after we had done all that we could do in all of our own Bible studies to find the correct answers to our questions. Now, after many times getting such manifestation appearances from Him, we no longer ask for Him to come back in that manner any more because He eventually resolved all of our questions.

He gave most of His answers to our questions by first starting with a question of His own, "What does your faith tell you?" We'd then respond by telling Him where our thinking on that particular issue was and then He would discuss our position with us. But He never redirected us thru the Manifestation to some new position. He'd only encourage us to go on in our present faith and Bible studies while watching and waiting for God to send us new teachings or events or other prophecies by which to redirect us.

Romans 14:22 - The faith which you have (currently), have as your own conviction before God.

Well, after a while we all began to understand that we should just sit, stand and walk in our current faith positions, whatever they were. As long as those positions were the best we could come up with, whether they were ultimately right or wrong, God would be pleased with us. Then, if they were right, God would be faithful to strengthen us in that particular faith position but if they were wrong anfd He wanted to correct us about it, He would somehow send us a correction.

Also, He would also always manifest in her with the greeting , "Peace be with you. Yes, Jesus Christ has come in the flesh." and He would always depart with similar words.

Collosians 3:15 - And let the peace (soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually) in your hearts [deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state] - The Amplified Bible

But when He led one of us to find this version of Col 3:15, we knew that we no longer needed for Him to manifest Himself in this manner amongst us anymore to answer our questions, because His peace in us is what proves to us that we already have the answer to that particular question that God wants us to have faith for, at that time.

Matthew 5:8 - Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

The gift of manifestation prophecy was given to us initially to answer our questions because God had no earthly teacher with pure enough doctrines that God could send to us to take us further along in our faith. But now that we knew how to interpret God's peace within us as being the umpire and the final decider of all of our doctrinal issues, this gift is only an occasionally manifested, just for those times when we feel the need to rest and comfort ourselves in Jesus Christ's sweet, loving presence!

These are some of the signs and wonders that I believe that the Lord Jesus Christ has given to confirm my own appointment as one of His modern day apostles.

Thank you for allowing me to testify to you about them. I hope that you will now view my teaching ministry here as God given for your edification.