God’s answer to our crises | Jan. 11, 2026 | Pr Raph

God’s answer to our crises

Video Intro:

Multiplication is God’s answer to all of our crises. When Jesus faced a hungry multitude, the disciples focused on the small supply, but Jesus lifted His eyes to heaven and multiplied what was in His hands. He did not reduce the crowd, send people away, or minimize the need—He multiplied the provision. God does not remove the battle; He releases provision that overwhelms it. This is how heaven works—God answers impossible problems not by shrinking them, but by increasing His supply.

Sin created a massive crisis, yet God did not lower His standard; He released a greater supply. “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.

Grace did not merely forgive—it overpowered sin and broke its dominion. From generation to generation, God has always answered a curse with a far greater blessing, proving that His heart is not one of scarcity but of overflow.

God begins not with what we lack, but with what we have. God does not just give back what was taken—He gives what should have been produced. That is multiplication. God answers loss with increase, famine with harvest, and lack with overflow, because He solves every crisis not by making it smaller, but by making His provision greater.

Intro:

Multiplication is not God’s reward for those who have no problems. 

Multiplication is God’s solution for those who have big, impossible problems.

If that is you, get ready for God’s multiplication.

Lift up your eyes.

When Jesus faced a hungry multitude, the disciples measured the size of the multitude, focused on the size of the supply, and lost sight of the one Who was ready to multiply the provision.

John 6:9-11 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. 

11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted.

When Jesus fed the multitudes, He did not reduce the crowd. He did not send people away. He did not shrink the need. He multiplied the supply.

How? Jesus lifted His eyes to heaven.

Matthew 14:19 19 Then he ordered the crowds to sit down on the grass, and taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven and said a blessing. Then he broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds.

He did not reduce the problem—He increased the supply. God never asks us to minimize the need; He answers it by multiplying provision.

He does not tell us to deny reality. Instead, He introduces a greater reality: His provision. 

God’s answers do not come by shrinking the crisis, but by releasing something from heaven that overwhelms it.

In the wilderness, Israel was attacked by poisonous snakes. The camp was infested. People were dying. God did not remove the snakes. He did not give Moses a strategy for extermination, relocation, or defense. He gave something far more powerful: a supernatural source of healing that overruled the venom.

Numbers 21:8-9 8 And the LORD said to Moses, “Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live.” 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.

The problem remained.

The snakes were still there. But the supply exceeded the threat. Healing was stronger than poison. Life overruled death.

Jesus explained later that the bronze serpent was a symbol of what He would be in reality.

John 3:14-15 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

God did not change the environment; He changed the outcome. 

This is how multiplication works: it does not remove the battle—it ensures victory in the middle of it.

Multiplied grace for an overcoming life.

This is also how grace works in the New Covenant. Sin created a massive problem. 

To understand that the best is to see the comparison of how long God took to create the universe. 7 Days.

But to resolve the problem of sin, it was about 4 thousand years in the “Finished work” of Christ on the cross.

God did not lessen the standard. He did not excuse the fall. He released a greater supply.

Romans 5:20 20 Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more,

Sin increased. Grace multiplied.

Grace did not merely match the problem—it exceeded it.

Religious people always try to take this declaration and distort it, affirming that we are preaching licentiousness and debauchery.

But the multiplication of God’s provision of grace means that He gave us abundant grace to make us victorious over vices, addictions, districtive habits. 

Under grace multiplied grace, the Holy Spirit in us makes sin no longer a problem. The Holy Spirit takes residence in the believer, and sin is no longer our master. Grace does not give us permission to fail—it gives us power to live free. Paul makes this unmistakably clear.

Romans 6:1-2 1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?”

Grace is not an excuse to stay in bondage; it is the divine force that breaks that prison. 

The same grace that forgives also transforms.

When grace multiplied, a new life was released inside us.

Romans 6:14 14 For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. 

This is the power of multiplied grace: sin no longer rules, addictions no longer define, destructive patterns no longer control. 

Grace does not coexist with slavery—it replaces it with freedom.

Where sin once had dominion, grace now reigns.

Romans 5:21 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Grace reigns. Not struggles. Not guilt. Not addiction. Not shame.

Grace is now in charge. 

Where sin once increased destruction, grace now multiplies life, holiness, healing, and victory.

Even in the Old Testament, God showed us that paradigm of curses and blessings.

2nd commandment.

Exodus 20:5-6 5 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

This is the heart of God. He does not reduce our circumstances according to scarcity. He answers it with overflow. Whether it is poison in the camp, hunger in the crowd, sin in the world, or lack in your life, God’s solution is never reduction—it is multiplication.

The snakes stayed. The healing was greater.

The crowd stayed. The food multiplied.

The sin remained. Grace overflowed.

That is how God resolves problems: not by making them smaller, but by making His provision bigger.

God will use what we have in our hands.

Scarcity looks at what is missing. Faith looks at who is present.

The story of the multiplication of the bread and fish illustrates a principle of God's multiplication. For the disciples, that provision seemed insignificant, but in God's hands, it was enough to feed over 5000 people.

God always uses what is already in our hands. Scarcity looks at what is missing, but faith looks at who is present. That is the difference between human reasoning and divine multiplication. The miracle of the loaves and fish was not about how small the supply was—it was about who was holding it. In God’s hands, what looks insignificant becomes more than enough.

That same principle appears powerfully in the stories of the widows and the prophets in Kings.

The first is the widow of Zarephath, who had only a handful of flour and a little oil. She was preparing what she believed would be her last meal before she and her son died. God did not send food from heaven. He used what she already had.

1 Kings 17:12-14 12 And she said, “As the LORD your God lives, I have nothing baked, only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. And now I am gathering a couple of sticks that I may go in and prepare it for myself and my son, that we may eat it and die.” 

13 And Elijah said to her, “Do not fear; go and do as you have said. But first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterward make something for yourself and your son. 14 For thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘The jar of flour shall not be spent, and the jug of oil shall not be empty, until the day that the LORD sends rain upon the earth.’”

God did not remove the famine. He multiplied her supply inside it. Her miracle was not an instant warehouse—it was a daily multiplication. Each day she reached into the jar, there was still enough. Scarcity remained in the land, but provision ruled in her house.

The same principle appears again with another widow in Elisha’s time. She had nothing except a small jar of oil, and her sons were about to be taken as slaves to pay a debt. Once again, God did not cancel the problem—He multiplied what was in her hand.

2 Kings 4:2 2 And Elisha said to her, “What shall I do for you? Tell me; what have you in the house?” And she said, “Your servant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”

God did not give her money. He gave her multiplication. The oil kept flowing as long as there were empty vessels. 

2 Kings 4:6-7 6 When the vessels were full, she said to her son, “Bring me another vessel.” And he said to her, “There is not another.” Then the oil stopped flowing. 7 She came and told the man of God, and he said, “Go, sell the oil and pay your debts, and you and your sons can live on the rest.”

The size of her miracle was determined by her capacity to receive.

Multiplication can resolve many of your problems. So expect that this year.

Both stories reveal the same truth: God does not begin with what we lack. He begins with what we have.

Scarcity says, “This is not enough.”

Faith says, “God is here.”

Providentially Restituted and Multiplied

The Shunammite woman first appears in 2 Kings 4:8–37 as a covenant woman who opened her home to Elisha. She did not host him to receive something—she honored the presence of God.

2 Kings 4:13 13 And he said to him, “Say now to her, ‘See, you have taken all this trouble for us; what is to be done for you? Would you have a word spoken on your behalf to the king or to the commander of the army?’” She answered, “I dwell among my own people.”

In response, God gave her a miracle son, and when that son died, Elisha raised him back to life. Her life was already marked by supernatural intervention before loss ever came.

Later, Elisha warned her that a famine was coming and told her to leave Israel for a season (2 Kings 8:1). She obeyed and lived among the Philistines for 7 years. During that time, Israel entered chaos. 2 Kings 6–7 describes the horrific siege of Samaria—starvation, collapse, and economic devastation. While the nation was being stripped, the Shunammite woman was being preserved.

God often preserves His people by temporarily moving them outside their normal place so that He can later bring them back with greater blessing. Abraham went to Egypt during famine (Genesis 12:10). Isaac went to Philistia (Genesis 26:1). Jacob went to Egypt (Genesis 46).

Psalm 23:6 “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

Deuteronomy 28:6 “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.”

When the famine ended, she returned to Israel, only to discover her land and house had been taken. But God had already arranged her restoration. At the exact moment she came before the king, Gehazi was testifying about her miracle son.

Think about providence.

2 Kings 8:5-6 5 And while he was telling the king how Elisha had restored the dead to life, behold, the woman whose son he had restored to life appealed to the king for her house and her land. And Gehazi said, “My lord, O king, here is the woman, and here is her son whom Elisha restored to life.” 6 And when the king asked the woman, she told him. So the king appointed an official for her, saying, “Restore all that was hers, together with all the produce of the fields from the day that she left the land until now.”

The king not only restored her land, but ordered that all 7 years of income be returned to her.

God will not give back what you lost—He will give you what your land should have produced while you were gone.

That is not only restitution. That is multiplication.

God answers loss with increase.

He answers famine with harvest.

He answers lack with overflow.

Multiplication does not just fix what was broken—it releases what was missing. God does not solve problems by shrinking them; He solves them by enlarging what you have.