Enforcing Total Restoration by Apostle Johnson Suleman: MP3 Download & Sermon Notes

Scripture Foundation

2 Kings 8:6: Gehazi said, "My lord, O king, this is the woman, and this is her son, whom Elisha restored to life." And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed unto her a certain officer, saying, "Restore all that was hers, and all the fruits of the field since the day that she left the land, even until now."

Enforcing total restoration. Divine intervention is the greatest need of man, and the greatest desire of heaven is to intervene in the affairs of mortals. God is more interested in the welfare and advancement of a man than the man himself often is.

Recognizing the Gift of God

In 2 Kings 4, the Shunammite woman perceived that Elisha was a man of God — not merely a stranger who walked past her house every day. She saw beyond the surface.

Jesus met a Samaritan woman at a well. Jews of that era regarded Samaritans, people of mixed heritage, as lower class, and the woman carried all the weight of that cultural baggage. Yet Jesus said to her in John 4:10, "If thou knewest the gift of God." As you travel through life you will meet all kinds of people — the wisdom is to identify the gift of God in them regardless of the packaging.

Whatever is obtained by prayer is maintained through prayer. Getting a miracle from God and then disappearing from His presence opens the door to loss. Divine intelligence protects what divine intervention provides — those who stay close to God are not caught by surprise.

Satan Has No Target — Only Opportunity

1 Peter 5:8: "Be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour" — not whom he will devour, but whom he may. Satan does not single out one man for attack; anyone who makes themselves available, who creates conditions conducive to satanic operation, becomes vulnerable. Where the atmosphere around a life is spiritually supercharged, the enemy has no entry point.

Staying Teachable

A minister who preached that the ego "flies the farthest and stands the highest" like a certain bird was later corrected in a message by a much younger listener, who pointed out the actual bird referenced in that saying was the griffon vulture, not the one originally named. A check confirmed the correction was right. The person with the latest, most accurate information is the one worth listening to, regardless of age or title. Ministers, especially, cannot afford to preach outdated ideas as though they were unquestionable, and must stay humble enough to learn from anyone.

Real spiritual authority today requires more than moral instruction — culture and law already impose morality on society. What the world needs is divine intelligence: discernment that can pick up what no natural radar, market analysis, or human calculation can detect, the way Joseph discerned seven years of famine before it began.

God Is Always Ahead of the Devil

The solution is older than the problem. When Jesus was crucified, His enemies sealed the tomb and posted a guard, reasoning that His disciples might steal the body and claim He had risen — but stealing a body could never make it rise. Their precaution made no logical sense against what God had already ordained. Satan does not give up easily, and the oppressed often have to be stubbornly, aggressively persistent to break free — the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.

Divine Prompting Preserves

After a funeral service, two young men were being driven home in a car when a strong, unexplained prompting led to insisting they turn back rather than continue the journey. They survived — with only bruises — a night that could otherwise have ended in tragedy, because a prompting from God was heeded rather than dismissed. Divine direction is a trigger for preservation. God does not always speak audibly; He often speaks through impressions, pictures, and promptings, and the sensitivity to notice them protects a destiny.

Proximity and Discernment

Proximity with the anointed produces intimacy with the anointing. The Shunammite woman's nearness to the prophet was part of what positioned her for restoration.

A testimony: nearly two decades ago, while ministering in the UK, a family offered an auditorium, three cars, and a house, insisting it was a word from God to give it all away. Every natural sense affirmed accepting it — but a clear inner check said, "Reject it." Despite discomfort and disappointment, the gift was declined. A year later, it became known that the giver could not actually pay the mortgage on the property and was on the verge of losing the cars altogether. Due diligence matters even in matters that sound spiritual — verbal promises without documentation can collapse, much as a later Egyptian king who never knew Joseph could deny the standing his family once had, since it had never been formally secured.

Building Faith in the Family

Prayer, consistent conduct, and intentional love matter more than confrontation when it comes to family members who have drifted from God. A spouse who prays much, even repeating what has already been prayed, is a treasure often undervalued by those closest to them. Pray that every family member encounters God directly, through dreams, revelation, or whatever means He chooses.

Direction Requires Action

Elisha told the Shunammite woman to move, and she moved. Divine direction without corresponding action is charismatic affliction. Repeatedly asking for confirmation after God has already spoken clearly can cause heaven to go silent — obedience, even when imperfect, matters more than endless verification.

On relationships: sometimes the character you desire is not present in the person you are attracted to — it is a quality you must help cultivate, not demand be handed to you unearned. A family of parents and several siblings may spend decades trying and failing to transform one dishonest member; a newer relationship should not assume it can succeed where an entire family could not. Certain matters, once resolved, do not need to be reopened and relitigated repeatedly in a marriage.

Discovering Your Assignment

Early in ministry, a season of prayer produced a scattered series of letters and numbers in a dream: C, T, S, 1, 0, 3, 8 — which, on waking, resolved into Acts 10:38: "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil." That verse became a defining outline for a calling built around healing, doing good, and meeting practical needs — including a feeding ministry now reaching thousands of people weekly, with plans to expand it further. Helping the poor, in that context, is not philanthropy but calling. Find what God has wired you for, and stay in that place.

Waiting Has an End

The Shunammite woman was away from her land for seven years before Elisha's word brought total restoration. A man lay by the pool of Bethesda for thirty-eight years before his own waiting ended. Your waiting time is not a wasted time. Whatever has been promised will surely come — help, expansion, advancement, lifting — because the expectation of the righteous shall not be cut off.

Appreciate what and who you already have rather than admiring everyone else's. The very things that seem like a spouse's weaknesses are often simply what closeness reveals — every person has both strengths and flaws, and those flaws are usually visible only to the people closest to them.

Ordered Steps

As the Shunammite woman walked toward the king to plead for her land, the matter was already being discussed on her behalf before she even arrived. That is what ordered steps look like — walking into a place to find that God has already gone ahead and prepared the way.

• Lord, from today I walk in divine intelligence — nothing will take me unaware.
• Lord, I receive total restoration — all that was stolen, all that was taken, is restored by the active force of grace.