Scripture References: Luke 17:19 (KJV)
Pastor John
Praise the Lord. Well, we are blessed this afternoon. And in Texas-time, it’s morning in Texas-time. We are grateful to have Brother Joe first; he’s going to minister to us. He is standing in the studio and he’s been waiting for us. And so, glad that you guys could make it into the auditorium. Hello, Brother Joe. How are you?
Brother Joe
I’m doing good, John.
Pastor John
Brother Joe, we’re excited to have you. I know there’s about a five second delay so I’m just going to say thank you for coming to minister to us. And when I walk off the platform, you’ll see everybody and we’re going to wave at you. But please go ahead and minister when I go and sit down. So everybody, Brother Joe McCroskey.
Brother Joe
Hello, South African family. Good evening. I just want to minister to you today. Last time I came to see you.
Last year, when I came to you, we came to one of the meetings, and it was an awesome meeting. And I talked about how the devil had attacked my body. And I had the Delta varies of COVID. I thought I was dying in the first two days. But that’s not what I want to talk to you about today. Today, I want to tell you, I’m 100% back, I have no effects of the COVID Delta at all in my body, because of the Word of God. I had a choice to make, you have a choice to make. And I want to talk to you about what I did after I got out from the hospital, and I came home. Delta virus was over, but the effects was still in my body. I had trouble sleeping. I had trouble motivating eating. Few things like that. I did the same thing I did when I was laying in the hospital. I quoted the Word, and I welcomed the King of Glory to come in here, right here. (Br. Joe touching his chest) You know, it says if we will open up, He gates. the King of glory will come in.
I still did what I was doing in the hospital. I quoted the scriptures; I reminded the devil of what God’s promises to me were. And I saw little by little every effect of COVID Delta leave my body because I let the King of Glory come in. The King of Glory is over the devil anytime and anywhere. The devil has no place where the King of Glory is concerned. I used those scriptures. And then I used scriptures about effects.
I want to talk to you about the effects because let’s not just talk about the Delta COVID disease. Let’s talk about all of life, your life story, because God wants you successful in everything you do. And every time an attack comes, did you get over not all the attack but the effects of it. And I want to share some things about the effects right now.
I hunt in Montana, I have for years and years. I go up every year. I Elk hunt, deer hunt. Sometimes I miss a year depending on what our schedules are. But when I go up there, I walk through the forest, and I can see the effects of a fire that happened 20 years ago.
There’ll be snow all over the ground, but underneath that snow is logs and underneath that is burnt wood and you could trip all over it. And when the snow’s all gone, you can see all the effects of the fire, but the fire is out. But the effect was not until they clear the land. And then I go into another meadow, and they’ve cleared all that, the green grass starts coming back and you see life again.
What I want to minister to you, today is, are you over the effects of any of the attacks the devil has done for you, spirit, soul, and body? You know, when God came to the woman with the issue of blood, and when she came up and she touched His garment, she was exercising her faith and He looked at her and He said, “Daughter, your faith has made you whole.” Whole does not have effects in it. It takes care of the effects. So when He said daughter, “You’ve been made whole.” The effects of that blood disease, her spending her money, her being in agony and pain is over and there were no effects. I truly believe she recovered all the finances she spent with that evil disease that the devil had put on her. She didn’t no longer had the blood disease. She was made whole.
We can say okay, the lady with the issue of blood, the blood disease, when she touched His garment, she was healed. But she was also made whole or had no effects of it. Everything God wants you to have, is wholeness. He wants you to have unlimited favor, unlimited blessings, unlimited wholeness. Therefore, if you’ve had a financial attack, that attack might be over, but are the effects of it over. Mine and Brother Jerry’s grandfathers went through the Great Depression. The Great Depression ended, but it never got out of my grandfather, and Brother Jerry’s grandfather. It never got out of them, they still felt the effects of it, even though there was a way out. But now since then, Brother Jerry and myself, that curse has been broke. And we don’t walk under the effects of the Great Depression. Amen.
It doesn’t matter what’s going on in America today, South Africa, all over the world. Jesus said, “I will bless you and make you whole.” Whole in your pocketbook, hole in your walk, whole in your spirit. Spirit, soul, and body will be made whole.
If you take a look at the issue of blood, with the illustration of the lady with the issue of blood. All she had to do was put her trust in Jesus Christ. You can’t have your trust in any economicals, you can’t have your trust in anything to do with a world system, although some of it might be okay. You’ve got to have your trust in God, His Word and listening to the Holy Spirit daily. Not just once. Daily. I fully believe if you hear the Holy Spirit daily, He will keep you whole and He will keep you from going through things that will try to steal from you because He knows all things.
Let’s look at a little bit more that has to do with the effects. Not long ago, I had a person called me. And they had gone through a financial thing, they had lost everything, and it was because of COVID. Everything closed down. It totally took all their wealth. They spent all of it on the year of living and everything. They had nothing. But I told him, I said, that that truly happened, but that’s not where the story ends. If you will continue to bless God with your giving, and you’ll continue to share the Word and you’ll continue to listen to the Word you will come back. And that was a year ago. Right now, he had the best financial reports that he had to pay income tax. In other words, it went from one side to the other. But what the thing was, is he made the choice to go God’s way and not what you’re hearing in the world. Don’t go by what you’re hearing, South African family. Don’t go by that at all. You go but what God’s Word says, and He says, “You are blessed and highly favored in everything you do.” Everywhere you go, if you go in, you go out if you come back, it doesn’t matter. You are blessed and that’s what the effects you’re going to have. All you have to do is believe it and act upon it.
Now as I was looking at the lady with the issue of blood, there was two things she did. She had to engage her faith. And we know faith comes by hearing the Word. You know, it doesn’t say in the story how much words she heard about Jesus. She just heard He was a healer and she grabbed hold of it and when she did, then she knew if I could just touch His garment that would activate my faith. She didn’t know what it would do on Jesus’ side. But when He seen it, He stopped and He looked around and said, “Who touched Me?” Out of all the people, everyone that was coming in and touching Him and bumping Him and everything. There was something that touched Him and it was called faith speaking. When she touched Him, faith spoke, and faith touched Him and said, “This is somebody that’s exercising My faith, and I real reward her.” And He did and He gave her not only healing of her blood disease, but He gave her no effects of any kind and I’m gonna tell you what, I think probably that lady went to preach.
You know, it didn’t tell us the whole story. But I’m gonna tell you, when God does something like that, for me, I will tell somebody about it.
Then I got to look at its different illustrations, because I was talking about effects. I got to look at illustrations. I found an illustration in Luke 17 verse 12 through 19. It’s talking about lepers. And it was talking about how they lifted up their voice, and “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” Well, you know, anytime you ask Jesus, you’re going to Jesus, then He’s going to give you what He has. And that is the Mercy, the grace, and the healing. And so, He healed their bodies. And in a loud voice, one of them, he took, and he glorified the Lord. And the Lord said, “Arise, go thy way, thy faith is made the whole.” I believe that leper, he was one of the only ones that came back, but I believe when he praises God and gives God the glory. And the Lord told him, 19 …Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole. (Luke 17:19 KJV). I believe whatever leprosy effects he had on him, it disappeared. And if it was fingers gone, they grew back. If it was toes gone, they grew back because He said, “You will not have any effects of leprosy.” He took the leprosy, He healed him of it and took the effects of it away.
Now I want to ask you: What kind of effects do you have, of the things that the devil is put up on you? We know it’s not God, because in John 10:10, it says, the thief comes, but to kill, steal, and destroy, but I have come that you might have life, and not only life, but the wholeness, abundant life. So, no effects of the bad life. So, the leper went forth, I think he recovered everything he had lost because of leprosy, because it said he had no effects of leprosy. I don’t know about you and me, but I’m praising the Lord, because I want exactly everything the devil stole from me, I want it back. But I don’t want the effects of it, Amen.
You might have it in your body right now… You know, me and Brother Jerry travel all over the world. And somebody asked me, I was thinking about different types of effects. And I said, “Well, Lord, you know, there’s several different effects, you know, spirit, soul and body.” And when we go forth into meetings, we see people, and Joyce’s dad had had a stroke. When he was probably in his 50’s. He never recovered from the stroke or the effects of the stroke. The stroke was over, but the effects were still there, and the effects were with him until he died. He couldn’t go down in the pasture, he was a cattleman. He could not go down in the pasture and minister to people, because he couldn’t walk. So, he stumbled, he fell, he couldn’t get up. So, he had the stroke, the stroke left, but the effects never left.
You might have symptoms from a stroke. And now you want the effects gone. That could be an arm that’s stiff, that could be a leg that’s not moving right. That could be any part of your body, that that disease affected you. But it might not be that it could be sugar blood pressure; it could be blood pressure. The devil has attacked you. And now you’ve got it under control, but you don’t even want the effects of it. Then we got to go to the Word and say, “I’m not satisfied with this.”
The Lord asked me this morning, He said “Joe, ask your South African family: Are they satisfied with the least, not having the best of God?” And I said, “I already know what they’ll say, they want the best of God.” That’s what they want in their lives. Because we don’t want what’s left over from the disease. We want where God made us in wholeness, that’s the part we want. When I got to look at it, I thought of the different things that could be the effects, and I started looking at; a person had fallen and broke their leg. And so, when it was repaired, the break was over, but they couldn’t use the leg the way they could before they started playing soccer or your football, or whatever you would say, they couldn’t do it that way. So even the brake was over. They had repaired it, but he still had the effects of it. But when God touches your body, and I’m talking about a person now I know, he had that leg, he couldn’t use it all the time, it limited him in what he did, but when God’s power hit his leg with a hand laid on it, he was instantly healed and had no effects of the break. It was as if the break did not happen.
Praise the Lord with me, people! Look what we have, we have a covenant with God that we can take, and we can believe that even the effect of any evil attack is out of our bodies, is away from our family. You might have a family member that was attacked with some kind of a symptom, and the symptom is not that bad, but the effects are still there. You keep laying hands, you keep praying, you keep praising God until every one of the effects are out of their life, and they can do what they want to do.
Now, I was also looking in other places about effects because it’s good to use the New Testament, but I like the Old Testament, too, and I’d seen some Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego. And you know, that’s one of my favorite stories anyway, because, you know, when they wouldn’t bow to the king and they wouldn’t serve his god; and hey, what do you think’s going on in the world right now? They’re trying to make us bow to their god, but we won’t do it. We’ll never do it, and so that’s what Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego said: “We won’t bow to your god.” So, the king said: “Well, let’s just heat that furnace 7 times hotter.”
You know what, they could’ve heated it 20 times hotter, it isn’t going to make no difference when the King of glory steps into your circumstance. And so, we know that they threw them into the furnace, and we know at some point the king said: “Hold it! How come there’s 4 in there?” Because the King of glory stepped in to help them out. And it said when they came out of there, the king had to go talk to them because his mighty men were burned up by just opening the furnace. They were thrown into the furnace, and they came out not even smelling like smoke. Had no effect of being thrown into flames, because they came out, no burns on their bodies, did not even smell like smoke. I need another shout!
So, you understand that all the things the devil is trying to do in the world today, and we see them one after the other, don’t get your mind on that, get your mind on the promises of God. What has God said to you? What He’s going to do and how He’s going to do it; He knows. All we must do is tune into the Holy Spirit.
You know, this week I was sitting at my desk, and I got a phone call, and it was a disturbing phone call; and it was from one of the reservations that we do a lot of work on in America, and the thing was, is that a 14-year-old and a 17-year-old, they committed suicide. They took their own lives, and it deeply upset me. I just sat there, and I wept, and I said: “Lord, this is why we have to get the Word of God out more than we ever do. This is why we’re doing Zoom, this is why we’re doing media, this is why we’re sending out lessons, discipleship training. Because we’ve got to give the world hope.” Those two kids had no hope, didn’t know where to turn, and you know what? The choice would’ve been all they had to do was turn to God. But if they didn’t know that, and I don’t know, if either one of these kids were saved, I have no idea. That hurt me again, that somehow those kids weren’t in church probably, weren’t hearing the Word, nobody to build them up and edify them, and so they saw no way out, so they ended their life. When I heard that I thought, Lord, you’re the hope of glory, Christ in us is the hope of glory. I even got to meditating on that as: “What is the effects of not knowing the Word?” Well, the effects of not knowing the Word are, we keep going down, down, down, down. But when you put the Word in you and start building it up, it brings you up, up, up, up.
You know, there was a Pastor not long back. Now he was a born-again Pastor, I don’t know about spirit-filled church, but he committed suicide. Now there’s three people I’m talking about that committed suicide. Two of them had no hope. But he was a good, born again, believer, and he had no hope. And he turned to the other way and took his own life, because of all the pressure that was on him because of his job.
People, we can’t let a job, we can’t let anything get to pressure, that we don’t know how to release that pressure by going to God and saying, “Lord, I can’t handle this, show me what I need to do.” But I know you got to get into the Word. You got to listen to God, you got to get in His presence, you got to hear the Holy Spirit.
Now, this tore up everybody in this man’s church. The effects now were not just him taking his own life. Now the effects are going all through the church, and you know what it’s for? It’s trying to destroy the church. But what do we do? We energize the people that’s there in that church. We start talking to them, and we build them up, and we go ahead, and we let them know that we’re behind you; preach the Word, carry the vision out. This man had a beautiful vision. But now they’ll have to carry that out. But God’s will was he carried the vision out, amen.
You know, as I was saying, that story, it brought back something to memory. And these are not my notes at all. But I had a church call me in Austin, Texas and it was a little small Word-church, Word of faith. I’m saying they run about 150 people probably, that would have been the biggest crowds. They called me and they said, “We need somebody to come down and minister to us on Sunday morning. And they said, “We knew to call your ministry because you’re full of faith, your ministry preaches faith, and right now our church needs faith.” I asked him, I said, “Well, can you tell me what happened?” They said, “Well, our Pastor, his wife and the missionary were killed in a plane crash.” When I heard that, immediately, I said: “Lord, I don’t want to do this.” How many of you know, some things that you have to do are kind of hard. And when you’re going in to minister to people that just lost their Pastor and friends and all that, that’s hard. I said, “Lord, do you want me to do this?” And the Lord said, “Yes.” And Brother Jerry was out of town, so Joyce and myself drove down there.
25 miles outside of Austin, I heard the devil saying, “You’re not welcome here, you’re not welcome here, you’re not welcome in our city.” And I knew that that’s where some of the people that didn’t believe in God, I knew that was one of their headquarters and, and I knew there were a lot of evil things that went on around Austin, Texas.
And I just said, “Well devil it doesn’t matter what you think, we are on our way, and we are coming in you better get out of the way.” And that’s what we did. We took him, we attack the devil.
When we got to the church, we went in, we didn’t say anything about what had happened. I said, I don’t even want to talk about what happened. I don’t want to do anything until the Holy Spirit leads me in the service and I do what He tells me to do. We got up and I got up and I said, “You know, I didn’t really know what I would say, because I didn’t know what to say to your people that have lost. But got to think about something. Turn around and look.” They turned around, they looked, there was over three to 400 people in their church that morning wanting to know what was going to happen. See, the devil likes to have all the attention he can have. But when those people came in, they didn’t have any idea. They were going to be ministered to, and we’re going to show him what we do when the devil attacks. Remember people when the devil attacks you, you go attack him. You make him pay for everything he’s attacked you in.
I got ready to preach and I got up and then the back door opened up. And there was a young man staggered in and he was a cussin’, he was a spittin’ he was letting everybody know that he didn’t like God, wasn’t a part of God or anything else. And he was coming right up the aisle. And like I said, he was just cussin, he was drugged up, he was boozed up. He got about halfway up in the aisle, and I just reached my hand down and said, “We love you brother.” And he went right on his back. Knocked him right on his back. We all jumped out, went down there, laid hands on him, got him saved, filled with the Holy Spirit and demons all out of him. And then I turned around and I said, “Now you all know what to do with this church. What you need to do is carry on the vision of your Pastor and his wife and the missionary and get people set free just like this. And we had a revival.
What am I saying? It’s all in our choices. But the thing is, don’t settle unless you’ve got the best from God. Don’t settle until you get the favor of God on your life and it affects others. how many know when you walk out of this church today, your church today, you’re going to bump into somebody that your light is going to shine on them. The key thing I put on my sermon today, if you want to call it that testimony, or whatever. I put, I put on the first part of it, I put good versus evil, light versus darkness, faith versus fear. those things right there. If you keep the good, the light and the faith and let the others go and defeat them. You’re going to have a victorious life everywhere you go, but not only where you go, but you’re going to see others will come to you and say, “I don’t know what it is about you. But there’s something about you, every one of us is a witness.”
Now, I want to go to one other thing as an example. Lazarus, you know when Jesus loved Lazarus, he loved the whole family. And when he heard Lazarus was dead, he knew it, he perceived in His Spirit, and even had to tell his disciples, you know, that he’s dead, because he said he was asleep. And when they found out he was dead, they said, well, then Lord, we don’t have to go.
But Jesus knew God’s plan for Him was to go. And so they went, and when Jesus got there, you know, Martha, and Mary couldn’t understand how come he died. But they said, “Well, yeah, but you know, I am the life I am the bread, and I am the life.” And so they said, “Yeah, we know, Lord in the resurrection,” He said, “No, right now.”
Now, that’s what I want to mention to you. You know, where is your faith? Is it in the now? Or is it in the past, it’s got to be in the now and in the future. In other words, when I went to that hospital with Covid, I put my faith in the now. I didn’t learn about and listen to the past, I didn’t go to the future, I had to have it in the now. Jesus is putting His faith in the now. And He looked in, and He said, “You know, roll the stone away.” Well, this is a phase when it came up. I didn’t have this in my sermon, either, or my talk to you. But the Lord said, “How many of you, you will roll the stone away?” In other words, have you got a blockage there, roll the stone away, and let the dead come forward, let life come forth. In other words, Jesus said, “Roll the stone away, life’s getting ready to come forth death has no hold.” And so he said, “Lazarus come forth.”
But then He told the church what to do. He said, “Now I did the miracle, I brought him up, now you feed him and take care of him and put more life into him.” That’s what our jobs are: build hope, build lives taken and bring the church up to what he’s supposed to be. How many know God said when He comes back, He wants to see faith and He wants to see a glorious church. Hallelujah.
We’re that one – Amen. And then I got to thinking about another instance. I was thinking about the walls of Jericho, you know, and I got to just thinking about the part of where they could drive chariots up across the wall. And I got to thinking about how in the world can they come into Jericho? You know, or Jericho came in and portrayed it? How can they do that? And the Lord said, “Well, I took the effects of the wall down.” How many know if there’s a wall built up, or your stones have not been rolled away? Jesus knows how to take it down, and there’ll be no effect of a wall.
When He went away, He told them what to do. He told them how many times, He told them when to yell, He told them what to shout. When they shouted, the effects of the walls came down. I still to this day, would love to see how it was done. You know, did it go flat into the ground? Did it just go to shambles and then blow away? You know, it never tells us all the story. But I know one thing, the effects of that wall came down, your effects of anything the devil has tried to do to you to put you in bondage, the effects of what he’s tried to do to steal your blessed life. The effects will come down just like that wall came down.
And I remember when the wall came down. When our president said, “…Bring that wall down.” That was in Russia, Germany, you know, and I and that wall came down, it no longer had the effects that that wall had. Don’t let him build up a wall. Don’t let he put a stone in front of your promise. You know what? The promise wasn’t the stone put on the door. The promise was the stone taken away and Jesus coming out, Lazarus coming out. Same thing where Jesus was.
I could go on and on. But the thing I want to leave with you at the last, and I have no idea how long we’ve went. Luke probably got to tell me. But I said, faith cometh. Well, there’s two things that you’re going to hear all through your life. You’re going to hear the Word, you’re going to hear the Holy Spirit, you’re going to hear the stranger. And you have to make up your mind of which one you’re going to follow. No matter what your mind says. And no matter what it looks like, you’re going to have to say “I choose to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading, I choose to hear the Word of God every time.” Then you got to receive it, either faith or fear.
Right now, people are running rapidly in fear right now. All through America, all through different places. We see fearful people, fear trying to take…and John you and Sharon you have seen it when you came and spent time with us. You’ve seen the fear, but you didn’t see it in the States we’re in? You didn’t see it in Texas, but it’s here. But we don’t let it rule us in Texas. We don’t let it rule us in Florida.
I’m getting into a preaching right now. I better get off of that one. What am I saying? Fear is out there. They don’t know what to do. They don’t know when to do it. But God knows what to do. And He knows when to do it. What you’re hearing creates faith and not fear. And then exercise your faith. Don’t exercise your fear. Oh, what are we going to do? What if a loaf of bread gets $10? Well, it’s getting pretty close to it right now. But hey, if it gets $10, God will give you $10 to buy that loaf of bread.
I truly believe because we feed people, we will never go hungry. I believe because we gave gasoline, we will never need gasoline. I believe anything we’ve given; we will have because God said, “Give and it shall be given to you, pressed down and shaken together.”
South African family I love you. I want all of you to stand up right now, I want to pray. Father, I praise You and I thank You for my South African family. But I know this isn’t going to go just to South Africa, it’ll go to all borders, there will be no borders. Father, I praise You and thank You that they are, all out of the effects of any kind of things that’s been thrown on this church, this family, anyone in this family, and I thank You that they have no effects of it. I thank You, if there are strokes in this building, they have no effects to the stroke. If there’s high blood pressure, I thank you, there’s no effects of high blood pressure. I thank You that if there’s sugar diabetes, there’s no effects of sugar diabetes, I thank You that whatever they need in their financial realm, that there is no lack and no effects of a physical attack has been made on their finances. And I thank You for it. And right now, we all celebrate because it’s all done in You, Jesus. You’re the one it’s done in, in the name of Jesus, I pray this and let everybody say I receive it. I receive it. I receive it. They’re saying they receive it.
Pastor John:
Thank you, Joe.
Brother Joe:
Hugs, hugs, hugs and love.
Pastor John:
Lots of love.
© 2024 – Heritage of Faith Ministries International
TOUCH | TEACH | TRAIN | TRANSFER
