Scripture reference: 3 John 1:1-4 (AMPC); Deuteronomy 28:1-14 (AMPC); John 11:1-44 (AMPC)
How are you? I am blessed, thank you. Pastor Christi is ahead of the curve here because she is asking the question before I asked the question. She’s alert this morning. Hallelujah. Welcome to a holiday weekend day; nice beautiful weather outside and what a wonderful day to hear the Word. Isn’t it? Praise the Lord.
So there is all kinds of people from the church in all kinds of places at this time of the year. They go to many different places, far and wide around the country and so it is wonderful that you made it this morning. How many of you enjoyed the praise and worship yesterday? It was awesome, hey? Wow. I believe it is a foretaste of things to come. Glory to God. Well, praise Jesus.
This Word that the Lord has given Brother Jerry is very strongly on my heart. Obviously, if Brother Jerry brings a message that he received from the Lord, specifically then, you know, that’s something that we need to take seriously. Believe in the prophets and therefore we prosper. Amen. Hallelujah. There is a very humbling thing about that, you know. It’s very humbling to think that God can use anybody, any human being as a messenger. It’s a very humbling thing that in the human, in the natural realm that you can be used by God as a messenger. At the same time, it is a very humbling thing to receive a Word from God from a human messenger.
If an angel appeared to you, then it would be very simple and very easy to say, well an angel appeared to me and wow, all of that glory and all of that light and the thunder of his voice and wada, wada, wada… I mean, that would require very little faith to get that. You know what I mean? It’s like woah. But when God uses a human messenger, it requires faith to say; I will receive it from God through the human vessel. It requires faith in God that He will make that Word alive to you personally because it’s applied differently in everybody’s life. Amen. Hallelujah.
So, you ready for the Word this morning? I believe that it would be a good thing for us to just pray in the Spirit a little bit, just so that we prepare our hearts in faith to receive the message and the Word of God. For those that are watching by link, those people that are away that asked us for a live streaming link, if you are there you can just begin to pray in the Spirit too. So let’s pray together, just pray in your heavenly language. (Everybody prays in the Spirit.) We activate our faith right now, Father, to receive the Word of God in fullness. Impartation and revelation to each one of us personally and individually, Lord. Hallelujah. Praise You, Jesus, praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Lord, hallelujah.
Whenever you go, well certainly it’s become my habit and my practice that whenever I go on a bicycle ride or I do a run, I will spend ten to fifteen minutes stretching. I do. I stretch and I tend to stretch the bigger muscle groups in my body because there’s a reason that I want to stretch before I run. Part of the reason you would stretch is; as you are doing some stretching you preparing your muscles to receive an extra amount of blood flowing to the muscle. And of course, when you are stretching it, you’re taking the lethargy, you’re sending oxygen, you’re sending blood, you’re sending stuff into the muscle group so that when you start to run or cycle or do any other exercise that your muscles are prepared to do what you’re going to put them through.
It’s the same when you start to activate your faith. If you want to prepare yourself to be ready to receive the Word of God in any given day, a really good exercise is to come to church, come to a service or even when you are reading the Bible; you can pray in the Spirit because what you are doing is; you’re stretching. You’re just providing oxygen and blood to your faith, so to speak. Because even to pray in the Spirit requires an activation of your faith because if you are just praying in the Spirit without faith, then it’s just words, it’s just noises, but if you pray in the Spirit with faith, you’re activating your faith and I want to call it; you’re stretching your faith muscles to get ready to go and do some faith exercise. Amen, hallelujah.
The title of my message this morning is A New Door and Supernatural Increase. The message that Brother Jerry gave us, which is on the screen behind me; 2020 year for supernatural increase, God will open a new door and bring supernatural increase as never before. Praise the Lord.
Brother Jerry was asked a question about as never before and so he brought some clarity about the question as never before. He said it is not as though there has never been anybody on the earth before that has experienced what we are about to experience. He said, as never before applies to you have never experienced this kind of supernatural before. So, as never before means whatever you’ve experienced up till now, God’s going to supersede as never before, whatever you’ve had as increase till now. Amen.
So God will open a new door. If God opens a new door, it’s not something that you must open. If God opens a new door; so let me explain to you what God does when He opens a door and what you do, when you open a door. I used to be very much a person that; it’s just in my persona, I suppose. I don’t let grass grow under my feet. If I’m going to make something, if I’m going to be involved in something, then I’m going to be involved in it and I’m going to be actively participating in it and I will, so to speak, grab it by the horns and go for it. I’d make it happen, you know. So for example, if Pastor Sharon and I were talking about going on a holiday and I’ll use a prime example of when we celebrated; I believe it was… Was it 35 years of? I don’t know, 33 or 35 years of marriage, I can’t remember. We went to stay in an apartment in Nice and we went to Monaco, we just did some stuff in France to celebrate our anniversary.
What do you think, when we started talking about it, what did you think I did? I started to get on the website; I started to look for places to stay. I started to investigate what air tickets will cost; I started to get into that stuff. I want you to understand that this is not God opening a door for me, this is me opening the door for me. What I did was, I said, “Alright, Lord, I’m going to plan all this stuff.” And when we planned all this stuff; Sharon and I sat down and we took all this information and we begin to pray about it. We said, “Lord this is what we want to do. We want to celebrate our anniversary, but so it was significant in the 35 years, but we place this in Your hands. If this is what You allow us to celebrate, then we will.” You understand, I opened the door and I checked with God that it was okay. That wasn’t God opening the door for me because even though all the plans worked out so smoothly, even though everything flowed like wah, wah, wah, wah and it was a blessed trip; it wasn’t God opening the door for me. It was me opening the door for me.
Let me give you another example of God opening a door for me as opposed to me opening a door for me. The Lord put a desire in my heart to go and spend time with Brother Jerry. Let’s take the first five weeks that I went there. Now, let me explain to you that in the first five weeks that I went there, the first time I’m preparing to go there, my soul is at conflict with what I’m hearing God wants me to do. So there’s a desire in me to do something, but my mind and my soul and my logic is saying to me, “Who does that?” How’s Brother Jerry going to receive that? I’m not actually; there’s no expectation on me that he will have anything to do with me. There is nothing that I even know that he’s going to let me be with him on anything, any place, any time, anywhere. I’m just letting him know this is what I want to do.
The first thing is, “Brother Jerry can I come?” “Yes.” “Can I come and stay in the flat?” “Yes.” I have no other expectations other than staying in the ministry apartment and be there, “Is that okay?” “You may come.” “I would like to come and do the California tour.” That was the year that I had my first motorbike ride in California. He said, “I think that sounds that that will be good.” On the one hand, things started to fall into place, everything happened and you all know that there was a guy in California, one of the pastors there hurt his leg, he was going to be on the tour, but couldn’t ride his bike. He was going to ride in a car, so he said, “John, use my Harley, don’t worry, no expectations, nothing. Just ride my Harley.” So I rode his Harley for free and I mean it all just worked. Brother Jerry allowed me to fly on his personal aircraft, you know, his jet. I mean, many things happened that were beyond my expectation. Before I went there everything was, in my logic was; this is not God. This is just your soul. It doesn’t matter that everything seems to be falling into place organizationally; I was at war with myself. Hello?
God opened the door, but myself was at war with what God wanted because myself was being moved out of a comfort zone. I’m trying to give you an indication, on one side I opened the door, on the other hand, God opened the door for me, but it didn’t feel like He was opening a door for me because my soul had never done something like that for me before, it was extremely uncomfortable. Hello?
On the second time, I went for seven weeks, Pastor Sharon and I when we were there last, this last trip and we did the prayer conference, then we stayed behind and attended the ministers’ conference. We both stayed in the apartment together, we stayed there for a week and I had the opportunity to share with her some of the experiences that I had. I said to her, because Jerry Savelle Ministries, they work from seven o’clock in the morning till five o’clock in the evening four days a week. That enables them to close for the Friday and so their staff has a long weekend every, that’s the way they run the ministry. That’s the way they do it.
So I just, so we got to the weekend and I said, and I began to explain to her and I said, “Babes, I want you to understand why I called you after three and a half weeks and I sowed my seed for striking the ground.” And I said, “I’m coming home.” I said, “Because here I am, Thursday afternoon, everybody leaves the offices. There is no one on the premises until Monday morning. There’s nothing for me to do, no place to go, no one to talk to. Brother Joe’s not there, no one’s there, there’s nothing going on. It’s far out of town, it’s just me in the apartment and I’m just there waiting for Brother Jerry.”
So I wanted her to have experienced it and say, you know. You understand how my faith was engaged to be in this place constantly and how my soul was at war to rather come back to you, and to you all. So clearly God had something in mind that He wanted me to do. He opened all the doors, He made it all easy, He made it all flow, all the arrangements. But there was also significant emotion going on in me and there was conflict with my emotions, my logic, my everything said to me, “How can this be? How does this work?” And yet in the end it turned out to be so marvellous and special on both occasions and ordained by God.
So what I’m trying to say to you is; if you, if you are a person that naturally can open doors. In early years, Pastor Sharon and I would use to take, and I used to have this approach; Is there a door in my way? Just watch me kick it open. I don’t accept that there’s a door in my way, I kick doors open. Cause I wanted to live life to the fullest, I wanted to live it in God, I wanted to live it for God and if there was a barrier stopping me, it was not going to stop me. I was going to kick it open.
But I later began to learn that not all doors need to be kicked open. Some doors need to be remained closed because they’re not God opening doors for you. Even though it looks so favourable, even though it looks like this is it. One of the biggest questions I’ve had, and the biggest things that used to come to my, come to me in the church that I was a leader in, and I was head of the businesspeople fellowship. Of a very large church, thousands of people and obviously a very big business community.
And oftentimes people will come to me and they would say, “I’ve sowed seed, I’m a tither, I’m believing God for an opportunity.” And they would get through explaining this opportunity to me about how amazing this opportunity is because it’s, it’s the right people, it’s the right deal, it’s the right this, it’s the right that. And so, I’m believing God for it so it must be of God. Because it just seemed like everything was right.
No, circumstances don’t dictate whether God is in it or not. It’s the peace of God, it’s the witness of the spirit of those that are around you. There are many factors that God would begin to give you a witness as to the door that is open. The opportunity that comes your way. Hallelujah. And oftentimes you have to, even when God has opened a door, you have to proceed with caution. Because, when the season of opening doors is upon you, the enemy of course is not going to be still, he’s going to try and have other doors open for you. So you can go into other doors that are open. Because if he can get you to go into one door that you shouldn’t be going through, by default it excludes you from the door that God’s opening for you. Hallelujah.
I’m preaching good already. So I want to, I want to begin to minister this morning, and so it’s not a subject that I can get through in one morning, but it’s strong in my heart to minister this to you. I wanted you to have something to meditate on as you go into Christmas and in the new year, but this is something that I will continue to minister in preparation for when Brother Jerry comes. Because Brother Jerry is going to come and bring his gift, he’s going to bring his revelation on the supernatural increase and the new door. Amen.
Everything I’ve heard from Brother Jerry so far, he’s focusing more on the supernatural increase than the new door, till now. But this is an ever-increasing revelation that is going to be spoken. So, just so that we understand, I’m focusing on what Brother Jerry has given us as the prophetic word, it’s not me who brought this word, and it’s not me who is interpreting this word, it’s the Holy Spirit that is exhorting me to minister to you in this way. Amen. So I wanted to just show you, and over time I’m going to give you more of these things. There is two parts to having supernatural increase. So, I’ve been speaking a little bit about the new door, and we’ll speak more about that.
But, living in the supernatural, to have supernatural increase there are two parts. One is living in supernatural increase, and the other is ceasing a moment of supernatural increase. So, Brother Jerry asked this question many years ago, “What’s better? Is it better to have healing in your body or is it better to walk in divine health?” So obviously it is better to walk in divine health. Because if you need a supernatural miracle of divine healing, that means your body has got to a position where, where it’s busy deteriorating from sickness and disease and you need a supernatural God intervention. But if you’re living in divine health, then sickness and disease doesn’t come upon your body, it’s two different things.
So, if you’re living in divine health, it doesn’t mean to say that sickness will never come upon you or try and come upon you. And if somehow it does come upon you, you always have the miracle of God of divine healing that can come to your body. So there’s two parts to healing and I prefer to live in the one rather than the other. So as a natural course, I would prefer, and I believe God wants this for us and I will show you the scriptures later. God wants this for us, He wants us to live a life of supernatural increase. That means every day, every week, every month, every year you live in supernatural increase.
But then there is a moment that God will bring about supernatural increase. It seems to me that God has determined that in this season, He’s going to give us more and more moments of supernatural increase. So we must, so if you connect, there’s a new door that God, that’s open and there is a moment for supernatural increase that these two are together. So this is not your normal journey of living in supernatural increase; this is a journey that you’ve got to go through a new door, to experience this level of supernatural increase. A moment of supernatural increase. Amen.
So I used this scripture in 3 John chapter 1 verse 2, 2Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in every way… So if you’re going to talk about increase, then you’re going to talk about prosper. You’re going to talk about prosperity and prospering… I pray that you may prosper in every way… So that’s not just one way, that’s not just money, that’s not just health, that’s every way… And that your body may keep well, even as [I know] your soul keeps well and prospers (3 John 1:2 AMPC). In other words He’s making a direct connection here. Your body prospers, because your soul prospers, because your spirit man is prospering. So I pray that you will prosper in every way.
I’m going to keep reading, 3In fact, I greatly rejoiced when [some of] the brethren from time to time arrived and spoke [so highly] of the sincerity and fidelity of your life, as indeed you do live in the Truth [the whole Gospel presents] (3 John 1:3 AMPC). So it’s, it’s important to connect the prosperity, the increase to living in truth. There are people that have measures of prosperity as defined by the world system, which might say that, your prosperity is measured by how much money you have or how many assists you have, or what you can do at any given moment because of a financial capability. That is not God’s way of measuring prosperity. God’s way of measuring prosperity is that you live in truth. Because then everything else that you do will have prosperity. Amen.
4I have no greater joy than this, to hear that my [spiritual] children are living their lives in the Truth (3 John 1:4 AMPC). So there’s a key for us, that whatever we’re going to experience this year in 2020, whatever we’re going to experience, it’s going to be that we must live in the Truth. Because the Truth is what causes us to prosper. Amen. Hallelujah. So I just want to, let me see if I can get this definition for myself here, I sent it to myself via email. Here it is. So, one of the things that, that I have received in a way that, that I want to minister this to you by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is that whatever the new door is that’s going to open to us, there’s a threshold that has to be crossed.
So if you are not prepared to cross a threshold, then you will never know if you’re going to step into a new door. So if I can reverse engineer this statement, I would say to you; no new thresholds, no new doors. So whenever you cross a threshold it means there is something new that you are doing that you haven’t done before. There’s a new space, new place, a new method, a new way, a new something that you are going to face. So, if I look up in the dictionary of threshold, the way they define it is; the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction. That’s one way that they express it.
On a very basic level, they would, they would use threshold in this way; a strip of wood or stone forming the bottom of a doorway and crossed in entering a house or room. So a threshold is just a point, a barrier. Normally a strip of wood, or a tile or a piece of concrete that, that threshold is what the door rests upon. So when you cross a threshold, it means that the door is no longer closed, it’s open. So the beginning of the threshold is, means there’s normally an indication, a strip of wood, a seam, something that you will cross that threshold, determining that you have moved from one space into the next space. So if you’re not crossing a threshold, then you can be assured that you’re not yet in a new space.
There are a number of factors that, I want to read the second one to you that I read first; the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, a phenomenon, result, or condition to occur or be manifested. So, can I read that to you again? The magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, for a certain phenomenon, for a certain result, or condition to occur or be manifested.
So it’s the magnitude and intensity that must be exceeded. In other words, in this particular instance, you might say a threshold would be… so to use a personal example; the very, very, very first bicycle ride I ever took I rode for ten kilometres, ten kilometres and after ten kilometres I had to stop. I threw my bike on the side of the road, through my body on the ground on my back head facing the sky and declared that I was unable to go any further and I must rest because I am finished. Ten kilometres. I lay in my prostate condition on the grass looking up at the sky, drinking some water for quite some minutes before I was able to speak. Breathing as hard as I was, unable to really feel like I was alive at that point in time. Really feeling very poorly and sorry for myself, that I’d even allowed myself to be talked into this kind of condition which condition I myself talked myself into never mind anybody else talked me into it. But I was in a very, very bad way after ten kilometres and the horrible thing about it was most of it was downhill or flat. It was very little up ….. significant uphill.
So you know, after some five or ten minutes of lying on my backside I managed to get myself upright and managed to get my bicycle upright and then managed to kind of moan and grumble and whisper all kinds of nonsense under my breath until I was okay. You mean I have to ride this thing back, you don’t want to go get the car and come and fetch me. And my companion said to me, “No, no, no you have to ride this bike back.” I declared myself incapable, would give it a try though anyway. I got on the bicycle and I rode back at which point I couldn’t put my bike back in my car. I was too tired so my friend put it back in the car for me. I barely managed to drive my car home and shower and then proceeded to collapse on my bed and sleep, because I was so finished.
So a number of years later, like last year I did a ride from Johannesburg to Cape Town in eight days with an average distance of over two hundred kilometres per day every day. I guess one could say that the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain result had been achieved. Where I couldn’t do twenty kilometres in one day and had to rest for five before I could even get on the bike again. Now I was doing in excess of two hundred kilometres per day after day, after day, after day, after day. So that’s a measure of intensity that you can begin to experience given enough time and conditioning.
So, I sharing this with you because I believe that as we go through the new door and we begin to experience what God’s got for us with supernatural increase you understand that at the beginning of that there must be a level of intensity that must increase. There must be a level of intensity that must be increased, there must be a reaction, there must be something that’s got to happen otherwise what’s different. So for sure, there are a number of things that will happen. Firstly you will find yourself drawn to pray more, you will find yourself drawn to the Word more, you will find yourself drawn to be more active in the gifts that God has called you to more. I don’t know about you, but if the prophet of God has said this year ahead is a new door that is opening and it’s going to be cause for supernatural increase as we have never experienced before, then everything that I’m about to do to prepare for that I’m not going to prepare for anything else, because if I allow myself to be distracted by anything else then I’m likely to be so distracted by other things going on that this thing that is the new door I might miss it. Praise the Lord.
So I think the question remains and needs to be asked is, to what magnitude do you want to increase the intensity? To what magnitude do you want to have a new result? To what magnitude do you want to have supernatural increase? Praise the Lord.
So I’m going to read to you what a living in supernatural increase looks like as a child of God. Bearing in mind I’m laying a foundation for the revelations God has given me and again this is my gift. Pastor Sharon is going to bring her gift to you and she’s going to give you what God is showing her, and then when Brother Jerry comes in the new year he’s going to come and bring his gift to you. Amen. On this subject.
So if you go to Deuteronomy 28, you all know this but I must read this Scripture through to you so you can understand what a life of supernatural increase looks like. 1If you will listen diligently to the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His commandments which I command you this day, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. So, in other words, you are God’s people and He wants you to have a prominence. This is what living in supernatural increase looks like. 2And all these blessings shall come upon you as you take prominence in all of the nations all of the peoples. … 2And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you if you heed the voice of the Lord your God (Deuteronomy 28:1-2 AMPC). In other words, you’ve got to listen to what God’s saying, you can’t be listening to what others are saying. Amen.
This is both positive and negative. Brother Hagin said one day, he’s like a dead dog when it comes to people praising him or having anything to say about his ministry or his life. And the reason the dead dog analogy was so good is because if you praise a dog that’s dead, normally if you give a dog attention that’s alive, “Hello” you know. “Hello, hondjie. Hello, doggy. Hey, doggy. Here doggy, doggy.” I mean, next minute that dog can just hear it in your voice and his tail’s wagging and he’s like running around you and he like, yes I’ve got attention, you know. And then if you pat the dog and you – I mean, you get the response, you know. So the way Kenneth Hagin was saying is, I’m a dead dog when it comes to praise. You praise me and you praise my ministry and you praise what’s happening around me, I don’t respond with a wagging tail, because otherwise then the other part of it is also true. You shout at a dead dog. If you shout at a living dog, let’s use that first. I don’t mean to sound that – I mean, this is the correct use of the word, “voertsek jy”. It is right? I mean, you speak to a dog like that and you say, “Voertsek.” I’m not getting myself into trouble now, am I?
I would like to know what the proper Afrikaans word for voertsek is. Huh, voort sê ek. Voort sê ek, voort sê ek. You know, if you shout at a dog, I mean certainly for me if you’re riding a bicycle and a dog runs out of the road or if you’re running and the dog runs out of the yard, but if you’re on a bicycle, it’s more dangerous because you don’t know if he’s going to stop and if you’re going to hit him with a bike and then all fall down and hurt the dog and hurt yourself you know. And so you got to shout at the dog sometimes for them to understand that you see them and they’ve got to stay away from you. And sometimes all you can do is just shout, “Hey, hey,” you know. So they respond to the noise and they turn around and run, you know.
So what Brother Hagin is saying is actually if you criticize my ministry I’m a dead dog, I don’t turn with my tail between my legs just because you have some shouting or criticism level towards me, but neither do I also wag my tail when you tell me I’m really wonderful. Cause neither of those things have any, any impact on my future. Neither of those things are relevant to my future, all that really matters is what God thinks, it’s not what man says or what man. So it doesn’t matter if people say the economy’s bad, it has no impact on my future neither does it matter if people say the economy is good right now is a good time to do stuff. It has no impact on my future. Why? Because if I’m in God then all that happens is my word, my faith, my seed, my sowing the God in me impacts my future. The rest is irrelevant.
You know, some people say this is a good time to invest in property, or this is a good time to invest in gold shares, or this is a time to invest in some kind of offshore currency purchases and whatever you know. Move some money offshore. Those might be good ideas but if God says, “Not now.” Then rather listen to God then what man says, cause you might just say, “Oh, everybody thinks this is good.” I can tell you now that probably twenty years ago, around twenty years ago people said, “In the next twelve months the rand dollar exchange rate is going to go to fourteen, fifteen to one.” It did get there but it took like fifteen years. So if you responded to what they said then, I mean it wouldn’t have been a bad decision but you might have put your money there and had lost opportunity cost of not having the money available. Particularly if God said, “Give it away so that I can give you a hundredfold return.” Then that’s not anything that man can ever tell you to do. Hallelujah.
3Blessed shall you be in the city and blessed shall you be in the field. 4Blessed shall be the fruit of your body and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle and the young of your flock (Deuteronomium 28:3-4 AMPC). In other words, I want to put it this way. You’re going to be so blessed wherever you actually live and whatever you do that whatever business you do your business will spawn new business and those little businesses that are spawned from the bigger business will be blessed. And it will happen naturally, it won’t even have to require anything because you have nothing to do with a male goat and a female goat reproducing a kid goat. You have nothing to do with it, it just happens organically. In other words, it doesn’t matter whether you live in the city or whether you live in the field whatever you touch is going to be blessed to the next generation of productivity.
5Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading trough. In other words, even what you’re making for yourself will be blessed. 6Blessed shall you be when you come in and blessed shall you be when you go out. 7The Lord shall cause your enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways (Deuteronomy 28:5-7 AMPC). Just take note of this Scripture for a minute. If your enemy is going to run from you seven ways then there’s at least seven of them. You know, sometimes people think; if I just beat one enemy then shoosh, I made it through that one! No. The more you fight, the better you get at it. It’s not a question of, “Please, don’t let me have another fight in the spirit.” No, no. I fight the good fight of faith and then God defeats my enemies right before my face. I just get better at standing in faith so that my faith can overcome the world. Aai ja jaai.
8The Lord shall command the blessing upon you in your storehouse and in all that you undertake. And He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God gives you. 9The Lord will establish you as a people holy to Himself, as He has sworn to you, if you keep the commandments of the Lord your God and walk in His ways. 10And all the people of the earth shall see that you are called by the name [and in the presence of] the Lord, and they shall be afraid of you (Deuteronomy 28:8-10 AMPC). I’ll tell you what, you watch a person that knows how to live by faith, people don’t understand you and because they don’t understand you, they actually are afraid of you. Because when you’re a person who lives by faith, you can get things done that no politicking can do. You can get promotions and you can do things in companies and business that they can’t get a handle on how you doing it because it defies logic.
11And the Lord shall make you have a surplus of prosperity, through the fruit of your body, of your livestock, and of your ground, in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to give you. 12The Lord shall open to you His good treasury, the heavens, to give the rain of your land in its season and to bless all the work of your hands; and you shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. 13And the Lord shall make you the head, and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you this day and are watchful to do them. 14And you shall not turn aside from any of the words which I command you this day, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them (Deuteronomy 28:11-14 AMPC).
So in other words, all of this is going to happen to you, there are a few conditions though. The first condition is; you’ve got to listen to what the Word of the Lord is, you’ve got to hear the command of God and you’ve got to do it. You got to not go to the left of it or to the right of it, you got to stay centre focused on the Word of God and the next thing is just as important; you must not allow other gods to come and actually distract you from your God. So, this is not something I want to touch on too much today but there are a lot of other gods that are wanting your attention. There’s a lot of gods that are wanting your attention.
There is a god that constantly knocks on my door that wants to try and get a hold of me, it’s called the god of marketing brand new motor cars; expensive, new, luxury motorcars. “So, how can you say that Pastor John?” Well, you know, if you find yourself in having a desire to purchase a new car and you’ve got to spend a lot of money all the time to get it, then you have to measure your desire against what God wants you to do with your money rather than what you want to do with your money. It’s a very subtle thing this, you know. I can afford to buy it but that doesn’t mean to say I must. Why? Because maybe God has got everything that He wants you to do with the money to prove and to show in your heart that He is the God above everything else in your life. And then? Then He can give it to you without sorrow.
I mean you know, it just is a fact, if you borrow money, so I’m going to talk about the ministry; everything that we have done in this ministry, everything that we have done in this ministry since I have been here, next year we are celebrating twenty years. Since I’ve been here everything we’ve done in this ministry has been cash. Amen. And so, if I’ve been in a place where I constantly been looking for finances and using finances more and more to actually do what we did, there is a cost to having finances. So, let’s assume you have a million rand that you are financing and the million rand that you’re financing is going to come at a very favourable interest rate. Let’s say your credit rating is so good, they will give you a very favourable impression, it’ll be below prime. It doesn’t matter if it’s below prime, you’re still paying interest. You understand what I’m saying? If you take that compounded interest over ten years, your million becomes 1.5 million. So what you’ve decided to do, is you’ve just decided to say that it’s more expedient for me to actually have this right now and I’m prepared to pay an extra half a million to have this right now. And so what that means is that because by paying that money monthly, that money monthly has to be allocated to that recourse every month and so what that means is, that money cannot be used by God ever. Because God is always going to tell you to honour your debt. So you have to make, so what you actually do when you do that is that you make a decision that this money is untouchable by God. Come on.
So, what Brother Copeland, when he started to run, to preach a message that says, “Don’t use debt.” I want to say this, to get into debt is not a sin because if you read in the Old Testament, God clearly told His people what to do if you do borrow money and how to pay it back and how to measure interest and many things. So, if He did that for His people, then it would have been, He would be going against Himself and it would’ve been a sin. So, it’s not a sin to borrow money. It is better though to be able to do it without borrowing money. Because if you borrow money, you have to pay it back and whatever your decision is to do what you’re going to do with your money, that money becomes out of bounds for God. So, when you listen to the god of marketing for new cars and you buy a new car and you have that money that you’ve got to spend on the new car. Well, effectively you are bound to that new car. That means the money that you’ve now earned or that you are earning before you start anything, that money, you got to allocate that money to pay the debt. You understand what I’m saying? So, you know it is just the way it is sometimes in order for people to get a start in life and sometimes your faith is not at that level and you’re not at that place, you borrow money to get yourself going. I mean, it’s understandable. Doesn’t make it say, it doesn’t change the principle. It doesn’t change the principle. It still means that money is out of bounds because you got to pay it back.
In the meantime, you sign a contract and very few banks will do this anymore, but you can sign a contract to say, “Okay, I’m going to fix the amount of money that I’m going to pay back every month.” So if you have a fixed payment plan, it’s always going to be higher than a flexible payment plan. You’re going to pay back more interest every month. So, you can fix the amount but if you don’t, which most people don’t go for a fixed payment plan, then interest rates increase, then your amount that you’ve got to keep paying also increases. So, more and more of your money is now not available to you or to God. Amen.
So, if you’ve been around me for any length of time, you will know that I have preached this for a long time, it’s not a sin to borrow money, it is better if you don’t have to. Amen. And if you are and if you do have debt that you are in, it is a good thing to pay it off quicker than you can. Just naturally you save interest and once you’ve paid off that debt, you make your money available to God and say, “Well okay, now Lord I don’t have to pay anybody else back. What can I do with this money?“ and the minute you say to Him, “Here’s my money” and you say, “What can I do to serve You with my money?“ Then you are in a position where you no longer looking to kick doors open for yourself, you’re waiting for Him to show you what door to walk through. So that He can supernaturally increase it. Hallelujah.
So, I am strongly led by the Lord to not make this whole teaching about money; although I think and part of the reason why I don’t want to make all of my teaching about money, is because I think Brother Jerry is going to have a strong focus on financial increase, supernatural increase, and the man has lived his life in the order of God and is in authority and a general in the body of Christ. I really want him to share stuff with you on this matter you know.
So, I want to read to you John chapter 11 verse 1. I want to point out a few things to you. So, you understand that what I just read to you, the blessings of God that will be upon us as a people. It’s living the supernatural increased life. That means, wherever you go, you’re blessed. You shouldn’t be surprised that you increase. You shouldn’t be surprised and it should be happening constantly that there’s always increase coming your way, increase is coming your way. There are good things happening to you all the time, you keep on bumping into good things. So, all I have to say about that is, the one thing that God says; you’ve got to stick with the Word, the other thing is; watch for the other gods that come to you. It’s the other gods that can distract you from what God wants you to do. So, those things you have to be cautious of. And let’s be clear, that other gods that will come to you are not going to come and present themselves in such a way that this is obvious that this is another god that’s looking for your worship. On the contrary, the way that other gods are going to come and tempt you to make themselves look legitimately in line with the blessing of God.
Because all the other nations that were around Israel they had their own prosperity gods, they had their own gods that they worshipped for healing and for you know harvest time and for … they all had prosperity gods and they had all kinds of gods for all kinds of things. And so you know they don’t sound different in the language to the language that we use to serve the Almighty God. They also ask their gods for blessing. They also ask their gods for fertility, they also ask their gods for harvest productivity. And they even give their gods a tithe of sorts, an offering of sorts so that their gods will bless the rest of their harvest.
So don’t think that a god that is going to come to you is going to put on a father christmas suit. You know and say, “Look I’m another kind of god.” They are going to come to you that looks with something that looks very much like the God that is the real God. That’s why the body of Christ becomes so important that we must speak the truth to each other in love because it’s only the truth between us that actually stands the test of whether there’s other gods coming. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
So, 1Now a certain man named Lazarus was ill. He was of Bethany, the village where Mary and her sister Martha lived. 2This Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped His feet with her hair. It was her brother Lazarus who was [now] sick. 3So the sisters sent to Him. So, do you understand, I’m making this point right now because you understand that there is a hidden truth here that we don’t focus on too much? That this Lazarus was not just Mary’s brother, he was also Martha’s brother because Mary and Martha were sisters. Therefore, Lazarus was the brother to the two sisters. There is quite a lot of conversation and a lot of teaching and preaching that has gone on about what Mary chose and what Martha chose, but I want to show you some things in the scripture very quickly this morning. I want to show it to you; 3So the sisters sent to Him, saying, Lord, he whom You love [so well] is sick. (John 11:1-3 AMPC)
It’s clear that Jesus loved Mary, He loved Lazarus and He loved Martha. It’s clear this whole family was dedicated and totally committed to following Jesus as disciples. So, when they sent a message to say; the one that you love, Lazarus, that’s part of this family that God has used mightily in Your ministry, can I use those words? That one is sick. Very, very sick. In other words, they’re appealing to an emotion.
4When Jesus received the message, He said, very important, He said, This sickness is not to end in death; but [on the contrary] it is to honor God and to promote His glory, that the Son of God may be glorified through (by) it. (John 11:4 AMPC) Can I say it this way; when a circumstance is about to come your way, you may have words that say, “This retrenchment is not unto my financial death. This retrenchment is merely so that God may be glorified in my life.” And you can say, “This sickness is not unto death in my life. It is merely so that the healing power of God can reveal God’s glory.” You can use that scripture for many things because Jesus spoke what He saw the end result was, not what the circumstance was telling everybody else. So, it’s time for us not to talk according to our circumstances. It’s time for us to talk; we are ready to walk through a new door and experience a supernatural increase as we have never seen before and God is the One who’s going to open that new door – I’m not going to kick it open. What is it about a new door that is new that God opens, if I’ve got to kick it open?
Well, I suppose we have an example of what God did for us in this ministry in this year when a prominent television network came to our door and said, “We want you to be on TV and we’ll give you favourable rates and we’ll give you everything you need and we’ll help you because your ministry needs to be on TV.” I’d say I had nothing to do with that. It arrived. I didn’t have to go looking for it, I didn’t have to kick any doors open, I didn’t have to have any hard negotiations, I didn’t have to do… just float. I had to have the courage and the boldness to step through that door. Right? That’s what a new door looks like.
5Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. [They were His dear friends, and He held them in loving esteem.] (John 11:5 AMPC) Hold on a minute. I have to pause for a moment. Is this the same Jesus that when John came to Him and said, “Your mother wants to speak to You,” He said, “Who is My mother? Who is My father? Who is My brother? Who is My sister? But him who does the will of the Father.” Same Jesus. So, if the scripture highlights and it says that Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus and the Amplified correctly, you know, amplifies it and says that they were His dear friends and He held them in loving esteem. Why would that be? Because they were about following Him to do the will of the Father. They were not there, and He was not looking at them because of their human, natural affection. He already established in His ministry that; I don’t see relationships the way people see relationships. For Me it’s all about if you’re ready to do the will of the Father – then we’ve got common ground. Amen.
There have been times when both my sons have been in a place in their life where they haven’t been following after God. As much as I love them and as much as I am affectionate towards them and as much as they were something, they were really wonderful in my life, they will tell you that the amount and the quality and the value of our fellowship was greatly diminished because I was determined to keep following the life of God and the light of God in my life and so as they were living in a space of darkness, there was no way that we could connect light to dark in fellowship. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t come around to the house and hang out with us for an afternoon or hang out with us for a little bit, but after hanging out for a little bit, there was very little for us to talk about. Why? Because in his heart, in his mind and in his world he had filled himself with many things that were not in my world. My world was part of God’s stuff. And so, in his world, he wanted to talk about all that other stuff and I wanted to talk about God. So, pretty soon, “Well, I can go have lunch, dinner, you know, maybe mom’s got something there for me to do…” you know. And then he’s off again. Why? Because just the fellowship is not there. It’s a sobering thing that actually you can have far better fellowship with Christians that speak the same language than your blood brother and sister or your blood family. And I would go so far as to say; if your blood family takes priority to your spiritual family… Huh. I wonder if that’s in the Bible? On the contrary. Jesus says that once you get Him into your heart, the real people that are your real brothers are those that understand the Blood of Jesus, that understand the will of the Father.
So, I’m wanting you to understand that when Jesus is talking about Lazarus and Mary and Martha, He’s talking about a relationship with the people that are not emotionally engaged even though they’re making an emotional pull on Him right now. It was because their faith was diminishing by the moment as Lazarus was getting sicker. That’s not an uncommon thing to find yourself in; that as your circumstances get more desperate, your faith gets under more attack and you tend to start to become emotional in your conversation with God rather than faith-filled conversation. This is what happened to Martha and Mary. They became more about, “The one that You love. We – the ones that love You. The one that You love… Get Yourself here.” An emotional thing.
6Therefore [even] when He heard that Lazarus was sick, He still stayed two days longer in the same place where He was (John 11:6 AMPC). Why? Why did He stay two days longer in the same place? Because He was in that place doing the will of God in that place. You may be tempted to think, and you would not be incorrect in thinking this, that God purposely kept Him away from Lazarus so that He could go and raise him from the dead. But God would not just keep Him away from Lazarus and keep Him unproductive so that He could go and raise him from the dead. It meant that where He was, He was doing something very productive that God the Father wanted Him to do in that place. He didn’t just get Him treading water for two days until Lazarus died. Hello? God will never be that unproductive for anything in your life. Just hang out here for two days while I get something else done so that you can go… while you’re here I’m going to bless you here. I’m going to get you to be a blessing here. I’m going to get you to manifest My name, My glory and all of Who I am here, and while this other thing is developing, it’s all going to be to My glory, don’t worry. So, if it feels like you’re treading water in some place and other things where you get to seem to be far more significant than where you’ve just come from, hmm don’t do it. Don’t look at it that way. God’s got you in the perfect place in both situations when He needs you to be there.
Can you understand why I needed to get this out before people go on holiday? So you’ve got some things to meditate on. 7Then after that interval He said to His disciples, Let us go back again to Judea. 8The disciples said to Him, Rabbi, the Jews only recently were intending and trying to stone You, and are You [thinking of] going back there again? (John 11:7-8 AMPC) Ha! I love it. I love it. Jesus is saying, “I’m going back to the place where the devil whipped up people to try and slow Me, but I’m so in the protection of God that I understand that was so much about the devil, that if I’ve got to back there in the will of the Father, that won’t be there again. Or if it is there, I’ll be protected from it. There is nothing they can do to harm Me if I’m in the will of the Father.” Hallelujah.
I’ll tell you what, if an open door, if the new door that God is opening for you seems to bring you to a place of more danger, that doesn’t mean to say it’s not the will of God because He may just want to be performing the greatest miracle of your life even though it may seem that it might be one of the most dangerous things you’ve ever done in your life.
So, 9Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours in the day? Anyone who walks about in the daytime does not stumble, because he sees [by] the light of this world. 10But if anyone walks about in the night, he does stumble, because there is no light in him [the light is lacking to him] (John 11:9-10 AMPC). In other words, I can’t help it that you can’t see what I see. So, I can’t respond to your words that say it doesn’t make common sense to go back there because they were trying to kill you – that’s darkness speaking. I’m walking in a light that you can’t see. Aai ja jaai. That’s good news because, like I said, if you are a people who’ve got the Word of God centre to your life if you are a people that are obeying God in everything and you are not following after other gods, then you are going to see things other people can’t see.
11He said these things, and then added, Our friend Lazarus is at rest and sleeping; but I am going there that I may awaken him out of his sleep. 12The disciples answered, Lord, if he is sleeping, he will recover. 13However, Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that He referred to falling into a refreshing and natural sleep. 14 So then Jesus told them plainly, Lazarus is dead (John 11:11-14 AMPC). So, first of all, He speaks the spiritual truth, then He faces the honesty of the natural circumstances. But if you face the honesty of natural circumstances before you speak the spiritual truth, then the honesty of your natural circumstances will take preeminence over spiritual truth. It’s much harder to go back that way.
15And for your sake, I’m glad that I was not there it will help you to believe on me. However let us go to him. 16Then Thomas who has called the Twin said to his fellow disciples, let us go too, that we may die [be killed] along with Him (John 11:15-16 AMPC). This is how strongly they felt about going back to Judea because they were nearly going stone Jesus and they thought going back there they were surely going to die along with Jesus. So, what do you think what level of honesty were they living in? Isn’t it true then that Jesus said if you’re stumbling around in the darkness I can’t help it? I can see things you can’t see.
17So, when Jesus arrived He found that he [Lazarus] had already been in the tomb four days. I’m gonna go to verse 20, 20When Martha heard that Jesus was coming she went to meet Him while Mary remained sitting in the house. 21Martha then said to Jesus, Master, if You had been her my brother would not have died. 22And even now I know whatever You ask from God, He will grant it to You (John 11:17&20-22 AMPC). This is the reason why Jesus loved them affectionately, it’s because she was already saying, “I know who You are and I know that even now that he is dead You can raise him from the dead if the Father wants it.” This is the same Martha that everybody says chose the bad part of life, by serving and she was worried about many things, same Martha. Hey, we put too much on Martha, because Martha was the one who confronted the situation before Mary did. She spoke words of life before Mary did.
So, she has a conversation with Jesus that is supernatural and spiritually of the highest order just listen. 23Jesus said to her, Your brother shall rise again. 24Martha replied, I know that he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day (John 11:23-24 AMPC). I mean, she is having a deep spiritual engagement. I’m experiencing I’m showing my whole faith in God the Father, God the Son, You, and God the Holy Spirit that there will come a time of resurrection of all those that believe in God, yes, we will all rise together in that day. She was speaking in a level of faith of the highest order. I don’t know even if His disciples had conversations with Jesus like this.
25Jesus said to her, I am [Myself] the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in Me, although he may die, yet he shall live. 26And whoever continues to live and believes in (has faith in cleaves to, and relies on) Me shall never actually die at all. Do you believe this Martha? (John 11:25-27 AMPC) Wow! I mean, He is speaking about His death, His resurrection and eternal life in one sentence, He is saying, “Martha, do you believe this?” This is serious disciple conversation.
27She said to Him, Yes, Lord I have believed.” The Amplified says, [I do believe] that You are the Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) the Son of God, [even He] Who was to come to the world. [It is for Your coming that the world has waited.] (John 11:27 AMPC) I mean Martha she standing in front of Jesus and she’s just speaking truth, that’s why Jesus says, Mary, Martha, Lazarus, He loved them. I wonder if He is resurrecting Lazarus from the dead had anything to do with the levels of conversations that they could have?
28After she said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, privately whispering to her, The Teacher is close at hand and He is asking for you. 29When she heard this, she sprang up quickly and went to Him. 30Now Jesus not yet entered the village, but was still at the same spot where Martha had met Him. 31When the Jews who were sitting with her in the house and consoling her hastily Mary had risen and gone out there followed her supposing that she was going to the tomb to pour out her grief there (John 11:28-31 AMPC). Isn’t it amazing that people are always very quick to go and pour out themselves to join you in the human emotions and human reason and human productivity and human everything? But they had no idea that God was ready to have an encounter with all of the people in that region that would stand forever.
I don’t know about you but I want to be used by God in my lifetime so that the productivity that God has used through this vessel will stand for eternity. I’ll tell you if Martha had nothing more to do, cause there is not a lot spoken about Martha and almost everybody that preaches about Martha always refers to Martha as the one who serve God and serve Jesus and Jesus has a conversation with her that she’s worried about many things and that Mary chose the better part, you know? Everybody tends to talk about Martha in that context. But on this day Martha is having a conversation with Jesus that is such high-level of discipleship conversation that this conversation she has with Jesus, not what she served Him with, but this conversation is recorded for eternity because this conversation directs every disciple of Jesus to a resurrection that will come eventually because Jesus is the Truth, the Life, He is the Messiah that was always talked about the One to come and He was the Messiah that was going to lead all people’s back to God. Martha declared it, she believed it. I don’t know about you, but I’ll really want to be known in the heavenlies and after I left the earth, I want people to remember me for making declarations about God that are so awesome that people remember that after I’ve left.
Do you want people to remember you for your wealth? Do you want people to remember you for your education? It is, you know significant to me and please don’t get me wrong when I say this that around the globe there are statues, statues there are memorial items, graveyards cemeteries, there are ceremonies that happen every year in honour of dead soldiers that paid the ultimate price of giving up their lives that we might live in the life that we live now. Yes? And yet I tell you if they died without Jesus the only thanks and the only memorial they have is what the humans decide is important for them to remember eternally. But there are those that live on the earth that Bible writes about in Hebrews 11, and in Hebrews 11 the Bible says, “There are those that stood by faith that did not see the end of their faith and they was so persecuted that they even died for their faith and they did not see the end result of their faith until we all get born again and go to heaven and will see the result of their faith and they died without seeing the end results of their faith, but they live in faith.” And God says the world is not worthy of these people. Hebrews 11.
So, we want to focus our faith on the next new car, on the next new wardrobe when actually God is just saying, “You can have those things and I’ll just give them to you as part of what you are as a believer, I just give you all of those things, it’s not what I’m looking for is to determine your faith by having its stuff you get. I want the stuff to overtake you in such abundance but your faith is not about what you can get. Let’s make your faith about what you can’t be in Christ.” That becomes supernatural increase where God just keeps giving and giving and giving and just giving and giving because you show Him where your heart is.
32When Mary came to the place where Jesus was and saw Him she dropped down at His feet saying to Him, Lord if You been here my brother would not have died. Come on now. Just measure this conversation to the one that Martha just had. 33When Jesus saw her sobbing and Jews who come with her [also] sobbing, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. 34And He said where have you laid him? They said to Him, Lord, come and see. 35Jesus wept. And I want to skip over that. 39And Jesus said, verse 39, 39Jesus said, Take away the stone. Martha, the sister of the dead man, exclaimed but Lord, by this time he [is decaying and] throws off an offensive odour for has been dead for four days! (John 11:32-39 AMPC)
Watch this now, He is not talking to Mary. He is talking to Martha because He’s had a conversation about resurrection life with Martha. And He says to Martha, 40Jesus said to her, Did I not tell you and promise you that if you would believe and rely on Me, you would see the glory of God? (John 11:40 AMPC) He is not talking about the result, He is talking about the glory of God, the result is just so that you can see the glory of God. Your financial well-being and prosperity, it’s not about money, it’s not about cars, it’s not about aeroplanes. It’s about the glory of God that comes with God giving it to you.
41So, they took away the stone (John 11:41 AMPC). So, who do you think issued the command? Who was he talking to? Martha. What was Mary’s response? Emotional, sobbing crying. What was Martha? Martha said, “I know Who You are, I know resurrection as a part of You. I know there is an eternity in You. I know You are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. I know You can do whatever God says You can do, and if God says You can raise him from the dead, I know You can do that right now.” He says, “Martha, then I promised you would see the glory of God.” He says. So what did she do next? She says, “Open that door. Open that door.”
41So, they took the stone away. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and He said to the Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. In other words, He’s already had a previous conversation with the Father about this, how to do this with Lazarus. This is not the first time He is talking to God about it in public. Hello? 42Yes I know You always hear and listen to Me, but I have said this on account of and for the benefit of the people standing around, so that they may believe that You sent Me. 43When He had said this, He shouted with a loud voice, Lazarus, come out! 44And out walked the man who had been dead, his hands and feet wrapped in burial clothes and with a [burial] napkin bound around his face. (John 11:41-44 AMPC). I preached on this many, many years ago, many, many, many years ago but can you imagine the supernatural power of God that come upon this decaying body, to instantly restore it to perfection, to the point that he would have all his burial clothes wrapped around him, his muscles returned to such strength, his ability to return to such normal, that even with grave clothes surrounding he could get his muscles working to get himself up and begin to walk out of the grave? He couldn’t help himself. The very power of God came upon him and lifted him up and started to propel out through that door. You’re getting the picture? Lazarus walked through a new door that had been open to him, he was dead and now he’s alive.
I want to tell you and I’m going to close with this, I want to tell you this; that the new door that God has got open for you it might be others that will open that door. It might be that others provide the energy to make it happen, but God will supernaturally come upon you for you to know and for you to have the strength and for you to be able to see and for you to be able to get up from your old self and get through your, into a new place. You don’t ever have to worry about whether it’s going to be God or not it’s going to be like, I’m with You God, I’m with You God, I’m with You God, I’m with You God, I’m with You Father, I’m with You Father, I’m with You Father. Open door, here’s a new door and I’ll tell you what as you go through that new door old things that have been upon you for many years, old things that have kept you captive are going to fall off you. It’s just going to come loose off you, it’s just going to come loose because you’re not even going to be the one who takes it off. The Holy Spirit is going to send those that are around you they’re just going to unwrap you.
And what’s your part you going to just say, “What I say I was dead and now I am alive.” Where were you Lazarus? I can’t speak of such things but I’m going to go and sit with Jesus at the table now and I’m going to feed this natural body even though spiritually I encountered things that I cannot even speak of even now I’m just going to go and sit and eat with Jesus and you will read in that story that he had nothing to say at the table. How do you say anything to God who opened the new door for you? A place where very few people were ever privileged to be to or to come back from. Hallelujah.
I am determined to minister to you about a new door and supernatural increase that it’s not just about money, it’s about anything that you have been in an old place, in an old space in an old way, in a way that is comfortable for you to live in that God wants to take you across a threshold. You have to cross the threshold, you have to have an increasing in your intensity, you have to have an ability to go with it. You got to cross the threshold, you cannot stay and go if you cannot say that you’ve gone into a new room when you’ve haven’t crossed the threshold. There was no way as Lazarus could have ever come out of the grave unless he walked out of it. Yet across the threshold from life from death to life. He had to cross the threshold of where the dead lie to where the living live. So that the glory of God could be seen. Hallelujah, glory to Jesus, glory to Jesus, glory to Jesus, glory to Jesus, glory to Jesus, glory to Jesus.
I’ll tell you, people, I want to speak to you right now; there are people in this service, there are people in this ministry, there are people that are watching by live stream, there are people that the Lord wants to minister to. And I want to tell you this, that there are habits that have been plaguing you for your life those habits are about to unravel around you, there are circumstances that have been holding you captive they are going to let you go because God says, “There’s a new door that is open and supernatural increases coming upon you as you go through that new door.” Hallelujah. There are some of you that are listening where you think that you know what your purpose in life is, God’s about to come upon you and you’re going to find out that His will for you, there are new things that He has got for you. New doors that He wants you to walk through, old things that have been plaguing you, just old habits and routines that you just routinely go about life, God’s about to call you out of that and say; “Come it’s a new place, you got to walk in here.” Hallelujah.
There are some of you who have been uncertain about your purpose, uncertain about the place that you’re in and the Lord is going to begin to show and shine His light upon you and it might seem like actually where you’re going to there’s lots of people or circumstances or things that can crush you with stones. That could crush you but be assured if you’re following Jesus, His supernatural protection and the propulsion of His glory is about to wait for you there. Hallelujah. This is a prophetic word for those that God wants to speak to you today. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus.
You have to cross the threshold though, you cannot stand this behind and look back and look at that opened door that is there and say there’s a new door and it’s open and I’m just going to try and figure out every logical thing about it before I go through it. You can’t work that way you got to get up even if you’ve got grave-clothes on and those grave clothes might be thinking let me put it this way stinking thinking, it might be stinking habits it might be stinking all kinds of behaviour patterns. You can’t sit there and analyze the door you got to say by faith I walk through this threshold and going to a new thing. Hallelujah. I feel necessary to say that, that Brother Jerry remains an example for me Brother Copeland all these great men of faith remain living examples for me that I have that I can look to that I walk into a walk of faith. Similarly, I want to say that right here in this ministry there are examples of how God has led us even in these last twelve months how God has led us to walk by faith and go to new doors and go through new things that we even our logic should not have been able to go through.
Come on, Sunday morning you saw people ministering with their music talents here that God said to me, “Call them.” In my natural reason I could look at it and I could try and figure it out and I could have maybe you know asked a few questions and gone around it about this way or about this way and they wouldn’t have been here because I would have approached them with logical uncertainty. Do you understand what I’m saying? Logical uncertainty but when there’s a spirit of faith inside of you, you can’t call those things that you need and they come out and they meet you. Supernatural increase. Hallelujah.
When I spoke to one of them and I said, “Please come and be with us.” He said, “Well, Pastor John you’ve just given my gift a purpose.” He said, “There are many people in my industry that have got lots of talent and they use it for many things.” He says, “But you have just given my gift purpose and I can tell you there are many around me that are looking for their gifts to have a purpose.” Hallelujah. It’s all to the glory of God, it’s all to the glory of God, to the glory of God, it’s the glory of God, hallelujah. (Pastor John prays in tongues)
Just begin to pray in the Holy Spirit. Praise Jesus, praise You Jesus. So, I’m going to make this declaration to you and this declaration that I’m making to you is that for me as for me Pastor John as far as it is dependent on me and the leadership and the spiritual leaders of this ministry, we will go through the new doors that God opens for us and we will experience and have the supernatural increase come upon us. Hallelujah. I have a, I have a very strong sense about this. I’m telling you now there are going to be some of you that God is going to displace you from your natural location and He’s going to replace you in a spiritual place that God has called you to; natural geographic locations. There are some of you that God is going to make a call on your assets and it will not come from me because I will never go and ask anybody for any money for anything but God is, some of you God is going to say, “I require your assets.” I want to make this clear that it is only God that’s going to do this not me. So, you must understand this is not so that He can diminish you, this is so that He can unwrap you for His glory because dead grave clothes will not get you anything but when you come walking out of your grave there’s much glory that God will get. There are some of you that God is going to cause to be used very powerfully with relationships, with senior significant people and with other people that you’re connected to and if you will work, walk with God and walk through into the new door with God it will be to His glory and there will be many great things that come from it. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.
Yeah, I knew, I knew from some time ago I knew that all this ministry that we are going to be doing on this that God is going to move on this so powerfully. I’ve got to tell you that I sense the anointing of God on this so powerfully that, that in 2014 when God said, “Demonstrations visitations and manifestations of the Spirit of God.” And then the word of the Lord came to me and said when we get to 2017 you won’t even be able to recognize us. Do you remember that? We would have a complete identity change and the Lord gave me that and I’ll tell you I feel the same about this message. This is not just ordinary, this is new doors take you into new places, new spaces, new increases, new everything. I don’t know about you, but I like new. I like new, it might require a bit of uncomfortable but let’s go and get the new. So, I have an opportunity that has opened to me, it requires me to leave you and Pastor Sharon is going to minister to you. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
Talk to me, my precious. I suggest we have a ten-minute break, fifteen-minute break. Sound good? I must go and maximize my opportunity, I do. I have a new door that has opened for me, it’s very personal to me. So, I must leave. And I’ve got to see you guys, I need to see you now. Is that okay? When we have this break. Hallelujah. Let’s have a fifteen-minute break. The Lord has given Pastor Sharon some revelation about this new door that has really ministered very powerfully to me and I want to tell you that some of what I’m ministering is a result of my communing with her about her revelation of the new door that God has shown her. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Fifteen minutes.
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