Scripture reference: Isaiah 14:12-17 (NKJV), Isaiah 14:12-13 (MSG), Genesis 2:8-9 (NKJV), Genesis 2:15-17 (NKJV), Genesis 3:1-5 (NKJV), Ezekiel 28:11-19 (NKJV), Isaiah 8:11-21 (NKJV), Isaiah 9:1-7 (NKJV).
Morning. How are you all doing? Are you blessed? That’s good, I’m glad you’re blessed. Me too. Hallelujah. Thank you. So, I really just wanted to start off today by thanking everybody in the Joburg church. I’ve done a recording for the Witbank church. But I really wanted to thank everybody in the Joburg church. See, there’s still some people coming in. Come inside, come in. Mister Banks, what did you do? Oh my word. I wanted to just say thank you for the wonderful response and the amazing love that was shown to me for my birthday by y’all. It was really something exceptional in that Pastor Sharon had it in her heart. I didn’t know that she had done that but apparently she had communicated to you guys – if you want to do, just put in writing words that you would have for me wishing me happy birthday and just blessing me. It wasn’t about financial or gifts that you wanted to give although I understand that she made that available too. But it was very much more about the expression of your love towards me.
I found myself sitting quietly at my study desk, actually a cable chair that sits right next to my desk. And I sat there and started opening envelopes. Now it didn’t take me very long and I had to stop because I became very emotional about it and so I’ve been opening envelopes since Wednesday and I finished opening envelopes and reading letters and things like that last night. So this is my box [Pastor John holds a box containing the letters.], full of all of the letters and all of the cards that everybody wrote to me. And I have yet to decide how I’m going to manage this going forward. But, for sure, I have agreed with Pastor Sharon – we have already prayed over it. Although this was a birthday, still there was many wonderful, beautiful words that were given to me.
Well, I can just say I’ll probably hang onto those things and read them from time to time. It did a lot more for me than I had expected. I didn’t expect people to write anything to me, you know. Normally when people give you a birthday card or something – Happy birthday. Blessings for the next year. Another sixty to come. Or whatever the thing – you know what I’m saying. It is like, you know. But in many, many cases – I’d say in the majority of cases, people chose to write actual letters to me and chose to express from their heart things about their relationship with the Lord and their relationship with the church and their relationship with me and Pastor Sharon in many cases. It was really amazing and overwhelming and emotional and it really touched me very deeply because, you know, even yesterday I was saying to Pastor Sharon, saying, “You know, this is really how I feel, is that if this is an indication of what God has done in people’s hearts to my commitment to Jesus, then actually what’s going to happen.” And this is a revelation that I actually saw yesterday, took me some days to get there but I got there eventually.
But actually what I saw was the Apostle Paul writing letters; that his letters that he wrote were actually not just words on paper – they were letters that were written on the hearts of people. And in the end, when he went before Jesus, his letters were observed. Before the people died on the earth, his letters were observed on the hearts of the people that were still living on the earth when he went home. And everybody that came into heaven at some point, brought those letters that were written on their hearts into heaven with them and they became the great cloud of witnesses. And so I said to Sharon, the impact on me was, you know, as you live your life, you come across people and they’ll say something to you and maybe it doesn’t happen for days or maybe weeks. But when you have a connection with people they will speak their love and you will speak to each other and you will speak appreciation and you will speak honour and you will speak those things to each other – but it happens irregularly. And it happens normally sort of quite spaced out, you know.
So, but when you sit for three days reading letters, and all of those letters or cards or however much people chose to speak or not speak, you know, I feel very, very blessed, very blessed that that is what is in your heart. Really. So all I can say is, thank you. Thank you. And if I have one dream that I wish to dream before the Lord now, is that in the next ten years there will be double those amount of letters – without losing one, you know.
Many people have become disciples; people have become integrated into the family of this wonderful, amazing family. Amen. Hallelujah. So, I really did, and I feel like I’ve been on my birthday for three days because I had to read each letter, you know, and it was quite amazing. I found some very interesting things; people have children and so they write these beautiful words, put it in an envelope and the outside of the envelope is all scribbled on. And you can see that actually that what they were writing, the kid they wanted to be part of it but couldn’t so just scribbled on the envelope, you know. It was really amazing.
Well, you’ve got to know where your authority lies when this happens and I trust my God more than I trust medicine. I do. I trust God more than I trust the doctors, than I trust anybody – I trust Jesus more. I trust the Word of God more. Hallelujah. So Simon and Tarryn and Megan have gone to the hospital. They are going to have him tested for covid. Some of the symptoms he displayed right now were severe symptoms of what that might look like. So they’re just going to do a check-up on him and make sure that he’s okay. And obviously Tarryn will have the same test and so we want to just make sure that they’re okay. Amen.
I wish to just tell you and share with you in this moment – I want to just share some things with you that happened. I might have, and I’m sure I’ve told you the story before but I was at home and I got a phone call from my sister who told me that my brother-in-law, Russel, was in an ambulance. He had come off his bike and he had hit his head, he had come off the bike and hit his head on the pavement and he was in very bad shape. That was the beginning of a number of days of journey in the intensive care unit and operations, significant operations on his brain and on the head and things like that to relieve the pressure. It was really, it was a touch-and-go moment there where he was seriously in danger of losing his life.
In that moment when she called me, I said to her; the first thing I said to her, I said, “Stella, I need you to agree with me, because I’m not there, I need you to agree with me right now that Russel will live and not die and that everything is going to be fine. I speak the blood of Jesus over him; I speak the healing power of God over him and I need you to agree with me and speak nothing else but that.” And so then, she agreed with me on the phone and then they went into the hospital and the next 24-48 hours was very, very touch-and-go. He was in and out of the operating theatre because of where it affected him on the brain. In the back here there was seepage from brain fluid out of this cracked skull. And so, obviously people were rushing to his bedside. And at the time I said to her, is said, “Stella, I’m not coming to see Russel. I’m staying at home and I’m going to be praying because I’m much more use to him praying for him than becoming emotionally engaged with you.”
And that’s what I did, I stayed at home and I prayed in the Spirit for three hours until I had the release that he was going to be fine. So, he’s still in a place where he has some paralysis on his cheek, his cheekbone, the whole side of his face. But he functions normally in life. All of his cognitive skills are there, everything else functions normally except he has paralysis on the left side of his face because there is some nerve damage.
I want to tell you because I’m wanting you to agree with me now in praise and in thanksgiving that we took authority over every sickness and disease that has affected Simon’s body this morning and that he will live and not die and everything is going to be well with him. In Jesus’ Name.
When the time was right I went to go and visit him in hospital. But I knew in my spirit that actually, spiritual authority is much greater, is the most powerful thing that we have at our disposal. And so, that’s why, that’s why you have to know who you are in Christ. This is not just a game that we play, this is real church with real authority and with real spiritual activity. I’ve been saying to you for a while already, since covid happened, that this is a real attack of the enemy against the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, but against humanity. Because the enemy has come to steal, kill and to destroy lives. He doesn’t care who you are; what you are and what happens to you. He wants to take humanity out. I’m going to preach about that this morning. Hallelujah. Won’t you all stand with me. We’re not going to do praise and worship. We’re just going to give thanks and praise to God that all is well with Simon and with Tarryn. And he will return to normal and will be 100% normal. In Jesus’ Name.
Thank You. Lord, thank You, Lord, right now Your healing power comes upon Simon and upon Tarryn and Your peace comes upon them. We thank You, Lord, that no weapon formed against them prospers, in the Name of Jesus. We trust in Your Word, we trust in the blood of Jesus, we trust in the spoken Word and the authority that You’ve given us against all sickness, against all disease, and against any form of attack the enemy might bring again in our lives. We thank You for it, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Jesus. Praise You, Lord. Praise You. Praise You, Jesus. We praise You, Lord. And we thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Lord. Thank You. Thank You.
And now, if you can and it is something that you can do, let us just pray in the Spirit just for a while. Thank You Lord, these prayers go out for Simon and Tarryn right now. [Congregation prays in tongues.]
Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Jesus. Thank You, Jesus. Praise You, Lord. Praise You, Lord. Praise You, Jesus. Thank You, thank You.
So, for the rest of the day, as you have it on your heart, and as you to, just keep thanking God for his health. Hallelujah. Keep thanking God for his health. Thank You, Lord. Hallelujah. You may be seated.
I guess I have to say, “I couldn’t have had a better introduction to my message than what happened this morning.” Because if Christians think that church is just about feeling good, and if Christians think that church is just about a façade or a bit of ceremonies and rituals and things like that, then you couldn’t be more wrong.
The church of the Lord Jesus Christ is exactly that. It is the light, it is the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have within us, spiritual power and authority to overcome darkness and all the things that the enemy wants to bring into the earth. There is no other solution on the earth than the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. I’m telling you. Economists do not have an economic solution for what is happening in the earth. Medicine does not have a solution. I know that we have to live with people who are gifted to make money, we have to live with people that are gifted to bring as much healing as they can to the human body but the real answer lies in Jesus. It doesn’t lie in those gifts. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah.
What happened to Simon today reminded me of what happened to me when I, for some reason, know I know why this was going on in me, the last couple of days. I was watching some wildlife on Youtube, you know, and I was reminded of going to Namibia and going hunting, and riding on the back of a bakkie and the farmer was driving us out through the fields and we were sitting in the back of the bakkie and we went into a, either a porcupine whole or a big whole in the ground and the car got stuck there and he put his trigger to go out of the, and I got ejected from the back of the bakkie. I literally flew off the back of the bakkie and I hit the ground so hard there was such pain in my back and when I got my breath back, I was lying there, people wanted to pick me up and they wanted to get a hold on me and I said, “Just leave me”. All I did was I laid on the ground and I just spoke the Word.
I just began to speak and I said, “I thank You, Jesus that Your healing power rests upon me now. Whatever comes into my body, has happened to my body, I thank You that I am completely healed. That by Your stripes I am healed. That You died for me so that even in the event of an accident, Your healing power is my portion”. And I laid on the ground and it was getting dark in the winter in the Namibian desert and you know, temperatures drop quickly. I was lying on the ground and I was getting cold but I wasn’t prepared to get up off the ground until I was satisfied in my spirit that the job had been done.
Then I said, “Okay, now you can help me up” and I asked them to help me up and I said, “Now I’m going to walk. I’m going to walk for the next 100m”. I was in severe pain still but I said, “I am going to walk by faith” and I started to walk and then I got into the, and they seated me at the back of the bakkie. It was the end of the trip because, actually, I couldn’t walk after that. They put me in a microbus and ended up driving me back to Jo’burg. All the while, I was praying in the spirit and I was just declaring the Word of God over my life, over my body.
Many, many years later, I had another injury and they had to do a scan on my body and the doctor said, “You had anything that was ever broken in your back?” I said, “I never had any”. He said, “There was clearly, a break on your back, the bottom section of your back here. Your back was broken”. He can see. He showed me the X-rays, how your body was healed. It healed itself. And so I said, “Well, I know what happened. I know what happened. That fall broke my back but it was the Word of God. The healing power of God came instantly and began to heal me.” Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus.
So Simon is going to be good. He’s going to be well. He’s going to be fine. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah.
The title of my message today is, God is Answering. God is answering. If we think that, as a church, that when you are born into this life, that you were just born as a human being. You were born into an ancient confrontation. The ancient confrontation, and I use those words on purpose because it’s an eternal ancient confrontation between God and a very superior being that God created. And so it is interesting that as I was preparing for this meeting and I started to share with Pastor Sharon about this and she said, “You know, John, I was led by the Holy Spirit to read this scripture to the Witbank church” not this last Sunday because she was here with you, but the Sunday before, “I read this same scripture that you are reading for your message”.
So, I said, “Obviously, the Lord is wanting to speak about this”. This is the story of Lucifer. How, it is Isaiah 14:12 from the New King James Version. 12 How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations!
I would say that the nations have been weakened by this disease, would you not agree? 13 For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. Let me tell you every time you have an expression of self will in your life you make a choice to exalt yourself, your throne above the stars of God.
13 I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest side of the north, 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high, 15 Yet you shall be brought down Sheol, or the place that is a permanent separation from Heaven, to the lowest depths of the Pit. 16 Those who see you will gaze at you and consider you saying, “Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, 17 …and destroyed it’s cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners?” (Isaiah 14:12-17 NKJV)
I am just going to read verse one or two ah, or maybe three messages from the message translation. I don’t want to read the whole part but, It says in the message 12 What a comedown this, O Babylon! Daystar! Son of Dawn! So anytime you talk about Babylon or ah there is reference to tire different ah places in the Bible it refers to a system that is being created by the enemy, 12 …Flat on your face in the underworld mud you, famous for flattening nations! 13 You said to yourself, “I’ll climb to Heaven. I’ll set my throne over the stars of God. I’ll run the assembly of angels that meets on the sacred mountain of Zafon.” (Isaiah 14:12-17 MSG)
So his intent was not to say look how great I am, His intent was to be so equal to God that he was going to run God’s Kingdom, he was going to run the angels of God, He was going to run everything that was the intent, the motive of his heart.
I am going to read a few more things in a minute but I just want to say this. God has given us a will, He has given us His ways, He has placed within us a desire to worship, He has given us the capacity to wonder as in wonderful, to wonder at the marvellous splendour and glory of God. He’s placed that in you and me and He has given us the capacity to work. In Him your will is your platform and your worship is your power, so this works both positive and negative. Your will is your platform and your worship is your power, so in same as in the same as Lucifer his will that he created to stand against the will of God became his platform and his platform was to go and tell all the angels that he is equal to God and that he is going to run them and he convinced a third of the angels to agree with him. He did, these angels that had been in the presence of God eternity before that God created, he convinced a third of them that he was equal to God.
That’s quite something, hey. The anti-will and order he wants you to wander not as in wonderful but as in wander he wants you to wander as a confused person through your whole life. He wants you to be asking; Who is really in charge and who can I worship and who is really doing the thing here? He wants you to ask why do I do anything, why should anything be happening and why does anything happen. If you are in a position of wandering, if you are asking the question who, why and when is it going to happen and what is the purpose or for does it happen, come on now, then you are in the process of exercising your will as the platform for you, you are exercising the platform, your will as a platform and the minute you go from what you willing in your platform to what you’re doing as a result of your will, that becomes your worship.
I take you back to the beginning. The Lord God planted a garden of Eden and there he put the man who he had formed out of the ground, the Lord God made a tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, verse fifteen of Genesis 2:15, 15 Then the Lord God took [d]the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; including the Tree of Life, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (Genesis 2:15-17 NKJV) Why does He make this choice of will? Well, because without the choice of will, you cannot have a platform, without the choice of will you cannot be in a place where your power is executed without having a choice. So God said, “I want you to have a platform for your will and I am wanting you to have the power of your will as long as it’s obeying mine.” The minute you go and say, “I have my will and I am going to exercise it.” Your platform becomes useful for you to exercise your willpower for your own self.
Genesis 3, 1 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”. So, here is the questions; the why, the who, the what for, the when. 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” So that’s not what God said. He didn’t say you mustn’t touch it, He just said you mustn’t eat anything. And that’s the whole thing is people trying to interpret what God has said rather than what God really said, you already putting yourself in a place where your will is coming out in words that God didn’t say. 4Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1-5 NKJV).
So, that is, I preached on this many, many times I’m not going to preach on it like on it now, but the exercise of your will makes you like God that is why it becomes a platform for the exercise of your will, so that when you exercise your will your will has power, has power. There are many, many things that are happening on the earth right now which is the will of men and they execute power, exercise power on the earth because they will it not because God declared it is just because they will it.
11 Moreover the word of the Lord came to me saying son of man take up, so this I am going to Ezekiel, this is what happened when the devil was created, 11 Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, 12 “Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre, and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD: This is how you know that he is not talking about a king of a city he is talking about the enemy of God that is the king of the system. Watch what he says; “You were the seal of perfection, 13 You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The sardius, topaz, and diamond, Beryl, onyx, and jasper, Sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes; worship was found in him, was in him, he was capable of delivering worship because the instruments were created in him by God. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. 14 “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. 15 You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you. It could be said this way; until iniquity was created by you by the exercising of your will because I gave you a platform. So, the will of God gave him a will to create, the will gave him the platform and the excising of his will became his worship which was no longer directed at God it was directed towards himself. 16 “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; Therefore I cast you as a profane thing Out of the mountain of God; And I destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the fiery stones. (Ezekiel 28:11-16 NKJV)
This is a, there is no way that everybody could speak about something and someone that was in the beginning in the garden of Eden, there is no one that could speak about that unless God supernaturally spoke it out or gave them the ability to write it out by revelation. Hallelujah! Because who else was there in the beginning, certainly not anybody else human, not in the form of humans as we know it so just as a side note I do believe there is a place that is not written of in the Word this is things that I have studied in the Word that indicate my meaning like I am not making a doctrine of it but I believe there is a place where science and God can come together because certainly if you read in Genesis there was a creation that existed if you read this passage there was creatures that were created that existed before this earth was created and so when they go and science says this was so many million years they may not be wrong, Hello! They have just chosen to interpret what they find as an evolutionarily, evolution philosophy as opposed to believing in God. Hallelujah! Anyway, that is just by the way.
16 “By the abundance of your trading You became filled with violence within, And you sinned; (Ezekiel 28:16 NKJV). What was he trading? He was trading the praises of the beings on the earth, he was trading on praises of what happened was as he will come backwards and forwards as we read in Isaiah, as he will come backwards and forwards and he was active in the very, on the very mountain of God in the very presence of God because he was created with such splendor very anointing the very glory the very light and the wonder of God would fill him and in his filling with the presence and the glory and the anointing of God he would express the glory of God in worship, in music, in sound, he would express the glory of God, he would express the glory of God through all of the beautiful things he was made of, it would shine radiate out of him and he was this he was the he was like the dawn of the morning. He was that beautiful, filled with light so what was his trading, his trading was I take the praises of beings that are meant for God and I bring them into the holy place and then I take the glory of God and I take what shines in me and through me to those beings that they may praise God through the light that is in me. Amen.
We still find ourselves in that space that we have to contend with our own self will every day of our lives because your self-will is all about doing stuff that pleases you and that will create an opportunity for you to have people speak to you and have you live your life about you. It creates a platform for your will. Then your actions become about worship and you worship what you will. You don’t worship necessarily God; I am speaking generically to the rhetorical you – or the third person you.
17 “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendour; I cast you to the ground, I laid you before kings, That they might gaze at you. 18 “You defiled your sanctuaries By the multitude of your iniquities, By the iniquity of your trading; which means he then took the praise for himself. … by the iniquity of your trading; Therefore I brought fire from your midst; It devoured you, And I turned you to ashes upon the earth In the sight of all who saw you. 19 All who knew you among the peoples are astonished at you; You have become a horror, And you shall be no more forever.” (Ezekiel 28:17 – 19 NKJV). Hallelujah.
Now, I am touching on this because you and me, we are born to an ancient confrontation and that ancient confrontation is not a big event that happens from time to time. The ancient confrontation happens with every person, every day everywhere. It happens in you, it happens in your mind, it happens in your heart, it happens in everything that you speak. Come on now. The biggest thing that the enemy has got going for him that he was able to exercise with Adam and Eve, was he always questions what the will of God is. He always uses deceit and manipulation to get what he wants, by getting you to give up your right so that he can manipulate your power of your worship for his good. Can you see? And I am using this as an example – you see people that go to sports events and they’re involved in the sports events and the team that they’re shouting for scores a goal, scores a try – has a big impact. I mean, they are up out of their seats, they’re like “come on, come on, yah!” Right?
What is it that they’re busing doing? They’re busy celebrating a performance and their presence is actually giving adulation. It is giving praise to a performance. It’s given a platform for worship. Let me tell you – whatever the enemy has meant for harm, God is going to turn to the good. It has become clear that on the earth, man’s worship has no power when it comes to a spiritual force that’s unleashed on the earth. And just like that, one little virus that floats on the air, one little virus has shut down all sports around the world. Everybody that was on that platform, praising and giving adulation and it’s all about performance and we praise and we pay and we praise and we pay for performance – all of that, God showed in a second it has nothing, no value, nothing if He doesn’t permit it.
Economies in the world, all these powerful people that think they know what is going to happen next, they are speechless, they have no answers. They’re printing trillions of dollars. They’re just printing money to actually spend their way out of this problem. God has shown that they don’t have an answer for what’s got to come onto the earth. Just like that, people that have worshipped their careers, worshipped their capability, their capacity, their intellect, their education, just like that – He says, you want to put yourself first, I’ll show you. God didn’t cause this virus, but He has opened people’s eyes that want to see and will hear. I’ve stood in this pulpit for years and years and years and I have said, “If Steve Jobs could have spent his way, he would have given up all his Apple shares and all of his billions if he could have had a proper liver given back to him and he didn’t die from liver failure.” Liver or pancreas failure – I can’t remember or maybe both. But Steve Jobs who created Apple, this powerful being, this very creative person who had wealth at his disposal, billions upon billions. He had the wellbeing and the goodwill of people and doctors and medicine at his disposal and just like that, God said, “Without My Life, without My power you have no authority, you’ve got nothing.” Let me tell you something church, just when you think your will has got you into the right place, in a moment it can be snapped away from you like that. Like this, like this. [Pastor John clicks his fingers]. And so, of course, the enemy doesn’t want to allow you to see your life with such drama. He doesn’t want you to see your life in context of such extremes. He just wants to boil you like a frog in water. He wants to boil you little bit, by little bit. Put the frog in cold water and start turning up the heat and he doesn’t actually know that he has been boiled alive. Right? But you try and throw him into boiling water he will jump out there as quick as his little webbed feet can take him. Come on.
I’m not calling you webbed feet wonders. But take it as you wish. He just wants you to give up your rights and give up your power, give up your platform, give up the power of worship for the most high God, he wants you to give it up little bit by little bit, by little bit, by this decision, by that decision, I will go here, I will do this, I will buy that, I will not but that, I will do this, I will not go, I will just do my thing all the time and I won’t consult God on any of it.
Well, I’m happy to say that the most intelligent person that ever lived on the earth, His name was Jesus. Now some people might say but He was not as intelligent as Einstein or one of these other guys. No, He is much more intelligent. Why was He so intelligent? Because He actually chose to say only what the Father said, He chose to do only what the Father did and He chose to live His whole life with the platform of His will given up so He could worship. And so He had all power because of His worship, because the platform of His will was completely submitted to God. So He became the most intelligent person on the earth because there was not anything that God could not reveal to him from science to anything else that he did not need to have when he needed to have it at the time that he needed because God would give it to him, because he used his will as a platform for worship. You can tell me I am preaching good today. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
I’m going to just read this passage of scripture and then I’m going to finish, I am not finished, but I will finish. Isaiah chapter 8, again there is a prophecy coming out of here 11 For the LORD spoke thus to me with a strong hand, so when you read a strong hand, you also read, the power of God. It actually literally is translated; power. Or mighty power – strong hand. …and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people, saying: so don’t walk in the way of this people that he was connected to, that he was living amongst, 12 “Do not say, ‘A conspiracy,’ Concerning all that this people call a conspiracy, in other words they do not have any answers in life so they have to have all these ideologies and philosophies about life and so everything is conspiring and everything is a conspiracy theory, against God, about God, who God is, about all kinds of things. Nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. 13 The LORD of hosts, Him you shall hallow; Him you shall worship, Him you shall praise, Let Him be your fear, And let Him be your dread. This fear is not the fear where you wake up in the middle of the night because someone might be in your house, this fear is a fear of God, it’s about what happens to you when you do not have the knowledge and the understanding to worship the most high God as everything in your life. 14 He, God, will be as a sanctuary, but a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, as a trap and a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. 15 And many among them shall stumble; they shall fall and be broken, be snared and taken.” 16 Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. 17 And I will wait on the LORD, Who hides His face from the house of Jacob; And I will hope in Him. I need to just keep reading, just hear what the Word says. 18 Here am I and the children whom the LORD has given me! We are for signs and wonders in Israel From the LORD of hosts, Who dwells in Mount Zion. 19 And when they say to you, “Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” (Isaiah 8:11-19 NKJV) In other words go and seek those people that seem to have an answer to things, but they are not from God they are not called by God, they are not the true prophets and the people that are called by God, but go and seek those people that seem to have answers about life, seem to have all kinds of knowledge and wisdom and they are whisperers and they have mutterings and they have sayings that we can follow, even to the point where they will find out from the dead that are gone where those dead have things that they can say to us.
Why would you go and find out what dead people have got to say to you, why? As if they, in their death and in their separation of God, that they would be in a place that they’ve got answers for the living. But somehow there is this aura of people that whisper. And they mutter and they take the so-called teaching and the ways of men and God, what they think is God and they have all kinds of things that they have to say. You want to go and council with them? Let me tell you, what happened with Simon this morning, you have to know your authority in Jesus Christ when things begin to happen around you and God needs your authority to execute His will in someone’s life. You can’t be standing around there saying, “I’ve been giving my life to whisperings and mutterings” you can’t, you have got to know who Jesus is in your life. You got to know that you have a right to stand in that authority regardless of what anybody else may say, you have the right. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Glory to God. Praise Jesus. All will be well with him and I’m going to keep saying that every time I think about him he’s going to be well, all will be well, all is well with him, all is well with him. In Jesus’ name and with Tarryn all is well, the peace of God is upon them in Jesus’ name. This being that I’m talking about here that was in the beginning of time that was in the garden of Eden, this being he has so little authority other than the authority you choose to give him. He has so little authority that just one word in the name of Jesus reverses all of his stuff.
I had somebody write to me in one of the letters to me on my birthday that they said, you know Pastor John, we know when you’re preaching seriously when you put your hands on your hips and you make a statement with your hand like this, you know, I said, they know me way too well already, you know.
Isaiah 8:19, 19 …“Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter,” should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living? 20 To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (Isaiah 8:19-20 NKJV)
Let me tell you, you may speak words that sound like God but if there’s no light in you, you will be found out and you will be brought down like ashes. It’s inevitable, you can’t do anything against the truth. The condition of the heart is open to everybody. It’s not the condition of the book that you read, it’s the content of the book that you read. You know they say that you can’t judge a book by its covers, that’s because you’re supposed to judge a book by what’s in it, not by how good it looks. God fortunately is One that looks past what you look like and He sees what’s in your heart.
The enemy doesn’t know what you look like in your heart because your heart is turned to God. If you’re a born again Christian, you are a born again Christian and he can’t see but the light that is in you. The only time that he can see what is in your heart is when it comes out of your mouth and when it comes out of your actions. Hallelujah.
21 They will pass through it hard-pressed and hungry; and it shall happen, when they are hungry, that they will be enraged and curse their king and their God, and look upward. 22 Then they will look to the earth, and see trouble and darkness, gloom of anguish; and they will be driven into darkness. (Isaiah 8: 21-22 NKJV)
Isaiah 9, 1 Nevertheless the gloom will not be upon her who is distressed, As when at first He lightly esteemed The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, And afterward more heavily oppressed her, By the way of the sea, beyond the Jordan, In Galilee of the Gentiles. 2 The people who walked in darkness Have seen a great light; Those who dwelt in the land of the shadow of death, Upon them a light has shined. 3 You have multiplied the nation And increased its joy; They rejoice before You According to the joy of harvest, As men rejoice when they divide the spoil. 4 For You have broken the yoke of his burden And the staff of his shoulder, The rod of his oppressor, As in the day of Midian. 5 For every warrior’s sandal from the noisy battle, And garments rolled in blood, Will be used for burning and fuel of fire. 6 For unto us a Child is born, Unto us a Son is given; And the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. 7 Of the increase of His government and peace There will be no end, Upon the throne of David and over His kingdom, To order it and establish it with judgment and justice From that time forward, even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. (Isaiah 9:1-7 NKJV)
I needed to finish off by reading that scripture because I had to get to the end of it because I wanted you to understand that this thing that we are facing today, where there are kingdoms of men that have established themselves as the authority and the power of the earth. I don’t want to get into politics and I’m not making a political statement when I say this, I’m making a biblical statement when I say this.
China is not about the sum total of its one point three billion people. China is about a group of people that have decided that they would have an ideology and a philosophy about government and they have a hundred year plan, a thousand year plan that they will dominate the earth. Can I tell you that there have been other kingdoms like that in the Bible. There has been the kingdom of Babylon that raised itself up to dominate the earth. There was the Roman Empire where Caesar commanded everybody to bow to him because he called himself, “god.” Because he ruled the known earth at that time. This is what is happening on the earth right now.
If you think that’s what is happening between Donald J Trump and Xi Jinping, whatever his name is, that is the premier of the communist party in China, is just a few tit for tat close your embassy, I’ll close my embassy and a few things about spying. There is a confrontation that is happening between light and dark and it’s after the souls of human beings across the whole earth. It’s after the lives of people, this is a light and darkness thing that is going on right here, people, and it’s come so far that it’s comes to the very church itself in South Africa where churches can’t meet unless it fits certain criteria.
People are being shut off from people and God has designed us to worship together because the power of corporate praise gets things done beyond more than anything and the devil has come with a virus that is trying to separate even marriages and people, that in a certain time of shutdown and lockdown, and all that kind of stuff, marriages have fallen apart, kids have been abused and oppressed. If you think this is just “sommer” a virus and we’ve got to defeat this virus- it’s not just a virus! This is a whole confrontation of eternal ancient things that have happened before that are at play in front of our very eyes.
If you think the devil hasn’t tried to destroy humanity before, just then go not further than all the wars that have happened on the earth. The Second World War where six million Jews were executed just because they were covenant children of the most high God. In the name of a special race of people. Go further back to the First World War where a man decided; I want my kingdoms to be all the kingdoms of the earth. I can keep going with a history lesson. The Mongols, etc, etc.
Those same spirits that have been in the earth all of those years, those same spirits are on the earth right now and they are confronting the church of the Lord Jesus Christ to silence the light, to silence the voice to bring the light down because if this is happening on the earth right now you’ve got to know that there is something happening in the heavenly realm that God is about to bring to the earth because he wants to shut the church down. Hallelujah.
You don’t hear me preaching about end times because everybody that’s every preached about end times and prophecies in the Bible have all been wrong, because we’re still here. But I do want to say this, that there is going to come a time when time will come to an end. It’s going to happen and people are going to be living on the earth as it was in the day of Noah it will be in the day when Jesus is about to come again. It will happen, it’s got to happen. There’s got to come a time when Jesus is going to come to the earth and there’s going to be the Bible is clear about this there will be a new heaven and a new earth.
I’m not going to get into Bible prophecy about that, because like I say, everybody’s always been wrong and it doesn’t matter how authentic their arguments are. I’ve never heard it to be right yet, and I even talk about my own camp of people that I live with. Amen.
But I am aware of something and I can see the signs that there is a kingdom confrontation happening, it is the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. It is the will of man that wants to use the platform of the will of man to worship himself and in so doing bringing worship to the dark side. And there is a confrontation between that worship and the worship of the Most High God where He wants to bring authority, power, and He wants to bring things into humankind that sets them free and destroys the yoke of bondage and oppression that is on mankind. The Church has the answer. We must be silenced but we will not be. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
I urge you to read Ephesians chapter 2 because actually He has created us beforehand and has prepared us for a work that we are supposed to do on the earth. In your life you were not born – this is so clear to me.
So my A-team gave me a beautiful lunch on Wednesday in the church building, set up a beautiful lunch for me, and I did not eat Kito on Wednesday, and I also ate without constraint because at that day it was appropriate, but you know when you’re used to eating in a certain way then there is only so much you can actually eat anyway before you feel sick so I stopped just short of that. Anyway, it was a surprise, I mean I know something was happening but I didn’t know what, but it was really magnificent, it was really beautiful and it was really special. I spent a bit of time sitting around – they put a lounge sweet there for us because they wanted to give me letters, and they wanted to give me some presents and things like that and we had a beautiful time. I just began to share this with them, it is so real to me, it’s so real to me that God – and I close with this, that God knew me, John my name was maybe not John, but maybe He even knew that my parents would call me John, but just bear with me. He knew me when He created the foundations of the earth I already existed in Him. You want a scripture for that?
You can find it in Romans chapter 8. It says, those who He foreknew He also predestined to become sons of God. I’m not going to get into that, but He knew me before I was even created. I was in Him as a person, I was in Him as a spirit being. He held me inside of Him until the appropriate time in the course of the cycle of men. He waited with me in Him until two parents came together and He said, “Their union will be the right opportunity to bring this spirit being into the world.” When I was born to Willa and Ridge Bendixen that was not an accident, that wasn’t just because of something He said, “I’ve been waiting for these people to have a union that I could speak John into the earth and I’m going to give John certain personality traits, I’m going to – because John is one that I want in the earth at that time. If he will have his will submitted to My will then I can use his will as a platform for worship, that I can do things through that person on the earth at that time because that’s what I’ve created him to be.
So when I was born into the earth I was born on assignment, I was born with gifts, I was born with callings, I was born with things that I must accomplish. I wasn’t just born to perpetuate the human cycle. I was born on assignment, I was born with gifts, callings, I was born with mantles and things to accomplish for God. He chose the moment, the right moment for me to be birthed in the earth. In the scope of eternity my breath sojourn on the earth, be it a hundred years whatever it is is just like the Bible calls me vapor. That’s just there and then it’s not in the context of eternity. But somehow my vapor actually is supposed to count for something while I’m here. Now, if I don’t believe that then I’m to be pitied because my belief is misplaced, then I might as well actually trust in my own will to do what I want to do and trust in my own intelligence and my own thinking that I am something but then if I am something then God is about to show me that I am nothing, because actually He is the creator of everything. If I think that I’m not here for His assignment then what am I to believe next, what am I to believe next? That means; I must fulfill my assignment. I must, God’s counting on me to do it. Right?
So that being that was so beautiful, that was created in a time before men were created, that was so beautiful, that had worship found in him and he created iniquity – that being – God has cast him out of heaven. When He sends His disciples on a mission and He says, “Go heal the sick, go and take this message of the good news to the poor. Go and minister what God has come to do and they all came back to Him and they said, “Master, Lord – even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” He says, “Hey, don’t even rejoice about that,” but He first said, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” In other words, what they were doing is the same thing God did in the beginning of eternity, when he came up and He said, ‘I’m the most powerful in the universe.” God said, “No, you’re not, let me just show you,” and so when He gave authority to His disciples and says, “Go and be like me,” and they began to speak His Word, they were not even born again yet because Jesus hadn’t died and been resurrected yet; but because He gave them the authority to do that, they used the authority and the devil was misplaced out of his realm of order and brought down.
So let’s do the same – you and me, day by day. We just say, “We live on assignment, we live with authority, we live with gifts and callings, we live with a mission by God to do what God wants us to do.” It doesn’t matter if you’re in this moment in time and you’re uncertain what that looks like, if you begin to say, “I live with mission, I live with purpose, I live with assignment, I live with gifts, I live with callings, I live for The Most High God and my world will create a platform of worship for Him. I will not create my world that creates a platform for my own stuff.” Then I’ll tell you what, you’re well on your way for your heart to be turned and for God to put desires in you, that when you ask them, He gives them because now you are not asking what you desire, you’re asking the desire that He has placed in you. Then everything in your life becomes meaningful, everything in your life becomes full of the confrontation between light and dark. Hallelujah, praise Jesus, praise Jesus. Hallelujah, glory to God, Glory to God. Praise Jesus. Please stand with me. Praise Jesus.
Well, we were disrupted this morning but I was going to deliver what God told me to deliver in this message. Hallelujah. I want to just…, I feel led by the Spirit to just share this with you as we’re closing. Simon is a strength in this ministry. Is he not? He is a strength to his mom and dad. He is a strength to me. He is a strength in what he stands for in this ministry. Is he not? So this is exactly how the devil works: he will target the weak and feeble among you but he will also come to the strong and try take your strength so he can weaken you, so that he can try and upset you and cause you to have words come out of your mouth that are ‘anti God’ words; ‘anti the order of God’ words.
I want to just say, you understand what you have to trust in God. What happened this morning, you understand that when Jerry Savelle had a baby and his baby was in the baby’s room and that rocking horse cut his little daughter’s finger off and there was blood everywhere and they called him out and they wrapped the tip of the finger in a piece of cloth and Brother Jerry came into the auditorium. Brother Copeland was preaching in Faith and he came with his baby in his arms and Brother Copeland said, “Jerry, you got to stand strong now,” and they began, and he just preached and Brother Jerry sat there with his daughter, listening to Faith. Then Brother Copeland said, “Now Jerry, take her to the hospital and you just, let the doctors, but she is going to be okay.” Now Brother Jerry got strength from the Word and used that faith and now whenever he gets attacked by the devil, he says to… (you’ve heard this story) “Terry, let me borrow your hand because when the doctor said it was impossible and you would lose the edge of your fingers and be a woman that walks her whole life without those edge of…God supernaturally, miraculously healed her fingers. It happened in the middle of a service like it happened to Simon today – in the middle of a service. Brother Jerry said this, at that time. He said, “That became the moment when I was going to see what Brother Copeland was made of, whether he lived what he preached.”
Let me tell you, what you live that’s in your heart, will be tested, will be tested. Hallelujah. Fortunately or unfortunately, I can tell you, this is not my first rodeo. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
From way back, when I didn’t even understand faith, and I was in the military, I was working there, faith was in my heart to stand as an intercessor between the men that were with me in the military and between the enemies that were coming against us. I had to use my faith with all those men. Many of those men got saved and born again because faith was made evident to them. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
I’m just not letting you go today unless I’m sure that you understand that there is a confrontation happening and God is answering. God is answering every moment, every day – God is answering. He has not gone to sleep. The Holy Spirit is not quiet. He hasn’t drifted into some mediocre space somewhere and is kind of taking a holiday. The Word of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit is with us in everything we face, every moment, every day, every time, everywhere He is with us. Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord. Praise You, Jesus.
Put your hand on your heart and let’s close with this. Thank You Jesus that I am a son of God. I thank You Lord that You have given me life. I trust Your life, more than I trust anything. And where I falter, I thank You Lord, you’ve given me the Holy Spirit, to help me, in Jesus’ name. Hallelujah. Amen. Amen.
I just pray that your week will be blessed. No weapon formed against you will prosper. (Isaiah 54:17). I say this, every week, I mean it every week. The power of the Blood of Jesus surrounds you, His Word protects you, there is no stronger thing that you have in your life than this prayer that you can pray for yourself and that you can agree with me on today, that the Word of God stands true. The Word of God is the ultimate, ultimate power on the earth. There is nothing else but the Word of God. Hallelujah. Does it sound like I believe it? Because I do believe it. Hallelujah. I’ve lived my whole life with it. It’s too late to try to persuade me of something else. Glory to Jesus. Okay, bye you all before I keep you for another preach.
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