Scripture reference: Psalm 22:30 KJV; Deuteronomy 2:31 NLT; Revelation 18:2 KJV; Revelation 18:21-22 AMPC; Revelation 18:22 MSG; Isaiah 24:5-11 MSG; Ezekiel 26:13-14 NKJV; 1 John 5:19 KJV; Psalm 137:1-4 KJV; 1 Corinthians 12:28-31 KJV; 2 Timothy 1:6 KJV; 1 Timothy 4:14 KJV, TPT; Romans 11:13 AMPC; Romans 12:6 KJV; 1 Peter 4:10 AMPC; James 3:4-10 AMPC
Good morning, everybody. Can I please ask you to move forward? We are really scattered and isolated from each other. So, if I can ask you to move forward that would be wonderful, thank you. Unless you’re stuck, unless you have a choke point and a favorite seat, but that’s not you. Thank you. Move to the front. Thank you. Hallelujah.
It’s just much more wonderful when we’re singing and we’re ministering to the Lord, that we’re congregational about it, that we’re corporate about it, not isolated in doing it. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
So, welcome everybody. Welcome to sound and song weekend. We are expectant from the Lord; our expectation comes from Him. Glory to God. Pastor John has asked me to do the teaching today and so we are going to do the teaching first and then we are going to move into a time of ministry to the Lord. Because that’s what music was designed for; music was designed to minister to the Lord. Hallelujah.
I think I just maybe need to give people some time to come in. Let’s just lift our hands, let’s just thank Him for all of His goodness. We thank You, for Your goodness today, Lord. Hallelujah. We thank You for this day, it’s a good day, it’s a good morning; it’s a good day, Lord. Thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You, thank You. We love You, Lord, we love You.
We are so looking forward to hearing Your Word, hearing from You and ministering to You today. Father, we thank you for everything that You have in store for us. That You will have Your way, Lord. You will have all Your way; You will have all Your say and You will have full sway, Lord. Thank You, Father, that as Your vessel, I will hear what You are saying and I will say only what I hear You say, Lord, and I will do what I see You do. Father, I bring my gift, I bring my gift to the church today, with power, not performance and not personality. I bring my gift to Your church today in Your power and with Your power, Lord, so that we may all flow together with You today. Hallelujah. I thank You for that, in the precious name of Jesus, and we all say, amen.
Glory to God. That comes from one of Pastor John’s messages that really impacted me; that when you bring your gift to the Church, you don’t bring it with personality or with performance, so that you fill the church with humanity. More humanity. You bring your gift to the Church with power. Hallelujah. The power of God, that it may change all of us so that we may all flow together with the gift of the Lord Jesus.
I’m going to be speaking about the music ministry of the Lord in His Church. And the thing that we have to understand about God is that God is not interested in the way that the world thinks about music and the way the world system does music. He is really not interested. God gave music to mankind to glorify Him. So music that doesn’t glorify Him, He gives it no mind. God gave music to mankind to glorify Him. He gave abilities to glorify Him so that men and women may minister to Him and be blessed in their spirit life. God gave music to mankind for spirit reasons, for spirit life. But men took music to glorify themselves and glorify one another, to worship themselves and worship each other. That’s what mankind has done. He’s perverted what God intended for His glory.
So, this is very important that we understand this; that it’s part of the institution. It’s part of the way we’ve been institutionalised, even about music. So, we are going to have a look today at some of God’s plan for it and God’s purpose for it. Actually, my dilemma was, is that I’ve actually got a file three times this size and I had to, because of the revelations that God has been giving me about His music ministry – He calls it His music ministry – revelations that God has been given me, that I cannot possibly today share all of it with you. Though it is my desire to take and to put all in you, so that you may cooperate with the Lord, so that you may have an understanding of what music ministry, His music ministry is for.
So, I’m going to talk to you about what it’s not. What music ministry is not. Music of the Lord and music in the church is not for entertainment. As far as God is concerned, it’s not for entertainment. That is what the world uses music for: to entertain them. So, God’s music, the purpose for God and His music ministry is not for entertainment. We’re talking about the heart of God here now. Music in His Church is not for having a good interactive soul experience with your emotions and your intellect and just having a good interactive soul experience. I coined that phrase, I heard Pastor John say it many years ago, that most of the music in the Church today, Christians are having interactive soul experiences with it, they just feel good. They just feel good. Right?
But actually, if you have a look at that scripture, in John chapter four, when Jesus spoke to the woman at the well, Jesus said to her: God is a Spirit, and they who worship God must worship Him in spirit, and in truth. So everything that we do with God is to be in spirit and in truth. So including music ministry: in spirit and in truth. That’s how I conduct my marriage: in spirit with the Holy Spirit and in truth. That’s how I conduct my life with the body of Christ: in spirit with the Holy Spirit and in truth, the truth of God’s Word.
That goes for music ministry. And it says; God is seeking for such to worship Him. God is a Spirit and those who worship Him, are to worship Him in spirit. That’s a very different experience to an interactive soul experience, where you are just wanting to connect with the feel good experience and not actually connect your spirit to God’s, your born again, recreated spirit. It’s a big shift. Because you have been so listening so long and so many years to so much worldly music, that you feel good with the worldly music. You come into the church and you get a Christian song and ‘I feel good like I feel good with the worldly music’. That’s not what God’s plan is. God’s plan is for us to glorify and worship Him in spirit and in truth.
So music in His church is not a time filler before preaching so people can come in late. The music of the Lord is not for putting on display talent like the world does. The music of the Lord, the music ministry of the Lord in His Church is not for putting on display talent and skill. Though God will use that, it’s not what God’s intent is, to put it on display, as if man or woman are anything. That is why that was so powerful to me what Pastor John said; when you bring your gift, you bring your gift not in personality and not in performance, but in the power of God. And how do you do that? Hmm! You bring your gift to the Church stirred up by the Spirit of God and with the Spirit of God. I see where the Lord’s going here now.
So, music of the Lord is not for putting on display talent and to impress people and perhaps draw a larger crowd. That is not in God’s heart at all. All these motivations come from the world, from the music-talent-entertainment institution. Popular culture, the Church has adopted and brought into itself, allowed to seep in, a popular culture mindset when it comes to music.
What’s popular in Christian music today? Their approach to music in the church is the same as their approach in the world to music. What’s selling? What’s popular? So, we’ve adopted that same thing, the popular culture, what’s in? What’s everyone listening to? What are all the Christians listening to? We’ve been asleep and we have substituted brass for gold.
Music comes from God, it comes from Him and Him only. He gave music to mankind to bless, I know I’ve said that, to minister to Him, to glorify Him with it. It was given to man for His glory, to experience life and light and love. Satan has used music to destroy millions of lives. Satan has used music to destroy millions of lives. He has used the power that God gave music to worship him. He has used the power that God gave music to draw men to him, to draw men to himself. That’s what he said to Jesus, “If You will worship me. If You will worship me.”
So, he has perverted the power that God gave to bless, to destroy millions of lives. Satan has perverted it to spiral men and women into bondage with words and sounds over and over and over and over again. You that have exposed yourself to worldly music, you know that you would listen to the same song that you really liked over and over and over and you would sing with it and you would sing with it and all the time it’s going into your heart and growing in your heart. It’s just words to music. Right?
So you might say, “Well, I like a good tune and I like a good song and it’s not necessarily bad words.” Well, you develop a casual attitude to music then. And so then you bring that into the church where you don’t reverence as they did in the Old Testament, that we do not reverence the purpose and the plan of God for music ministry.
Words and sounds over and over again, that Satan has used; piercing and penetrating the minds and the hearts of men and women, young men and young women, darkening their hearts and their minds to worship him. So, they don’t actually worship Satan in terms of “now I’m worshiping you, Satan,” but he’s got them. He’s got them. He’s got their worship, what they’re giving their attention to. He’s got them.
One of the things that the Lord has given to Pastor John as a mandate in 2017, and it’s interesting, it was in February 2017, that the Lord gave Pastor John that word occupation; occupy, occupation, inheritance, occupation, illegal occupation, these were the words that came out of your spirit, Pastor John. There is pressure right now that we must apply. Isn’t it interesting that in 2017, it was the year when you were applying pressure, as you said, to the music ministry saying, “We’ve got to go higher. We’ve got to. Things have got to change. They’ve got to change. This music ministry cannot stay the way that it is.” You knew it from the beginning, that it had to change. Right? And then you told us on Sunday that you even paid people to live in a house to write music and so nothing came of it at that time, but it was a seed for now. Now God is having His way. Now God is occupying through obedience. God, now, is occupying the spirit realm of music. He doesn’t need the whole Church to be obedient to Him in music ministry, He needs one seed. He needs one seed of people that will obey Him, listen to Him about music ministry, obey Him to do what He’s telling them to do in His music ministry, and it’s counted, the Bible says a seed is counted for the Lord as a generation.
So right now because of our obedience, if there are other Ecclesias, legitimate churches around the world that are doing the same thing, then that’s praise God; then He has them as a seed too. But I know that here we are giving God our complete obedience so that He may occupy the spirit realm of music. It’s just how it works. It’s just how it works through obedience of one man, the obedience of one man.
So there’s a pressure right now, this is the words of Pastor John, that we must apply for inheritance, of occupation in the spirit, occupation of lands of inheritance, that we would occupy the realm of the spirit, through the flow of the Spirit, the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It is enforced by the Scripture that we are to come boldly to the throne. We have the legal right to occupy the spirit realm dimensions allotted us. God has allotted us, given to us, dimensions in the spirit realm and He expects us to occupy.
And one of them is music ministry, to occupy for Him and to evict illegal occupants. So, you might say, “Well, we don’t see that,” but I’m telling you that it’s happening. Babylon-music has fallen. This is what He said to me, “The power of Babylon-music has fallen.” Because now He has a seed that He can use the power of His sounds, and His song and His music ministry to dislodge, to displace what Satan does. Doesn’t matter that Satan has done it on a grand scale and that only one man obeys Him. That’s all God needs.
So this is what He said to me in 2021, “The power of Babylon music has fallen. It will never rise again. They will still play, but now the Lord occupies the spirit realm.” Psalm 22:30, 30 A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation (Psalm 22:30 KJV). The Lord God Almighty, His sound of music will now be heard in the spirit realm. So, when His songs that He gives and His sounds that He brings resound and reverberate in the realm of the spirit, that’s all He needs. He doesn’t need the whole Church. He’s never needed a majority.
So occupy, I’ll come back to this, occupy, we have the legal rights to occupy the spirit realm dimensions that You have allotted us in the realm of the Spirit. We take occupation of all You’ve given us. See, it’s spiritual occupation. How do you do that? You listen to what the Holy Spirit says and then you do that. That’s how He occupies your life, too. Glory. So it says here; we take occupation of all You have given us. There are many empty spaces where there is no occupation by the Church. God wants us to occupy those spaces, and I wrote here; music, song and sound. He wants us to take back spaces taken up by illegal occupants. Illegal occupants of the demonic realm and the illegal occupants of the soulish realm and of humanity. The humanity and not the spirit-uality, spirituality. Glory to God.
So, it’s a moment, it’s here, our inheritance is here. We’ve been waiting a long time for God to just take us to the next level and so now, we are here. The Lord began to speak to me about occupation. This morning I’m going to speak to you about occupying in this season. Hallelujah.
He said, It’s like sitting in a lawyer’s room and reading out your will and you didn’t even know you’ve inherited all this stuff, and so we know, we know that God has given us the music realm to inherit. Glory to God. Possession. Ten-year. Use. He told me, “You are going to occupy spaces that have previously been unoccupied.” He also told me that I’m going to take back spaces that are illegally occupied. Ha! The earth belongs to the Lord and the fullness thereof. Music belongs to the Lord. Music is the Lord’s. Music is the Lord’s. His music is to occupy. His music.
So, You are going to occupy spaces, you are going to take back spaces that are illegally occupied. There are spaces that the faithful ones… we are going into the spaces that have nothing going on in them, but they exist in the unknown realm of the spirit. They exist there, exist there and we are the ones that can walk into those spaces and occupy them. Right. Pastor John said, Let me tell you that there are spiritual spaces out there that are not occupied. We should, we should. There is no reason we should not be the ones to occupy them, we should. We have everything available to us to occupy those spaces.
And he gave Deuteronomy 2, you don’t have to put that up, 31 Look, the Lord said to me, I have begun to hand King Sihon and his land over to you. Begin now to conquer and occupy this land. (Deuteronomy 2:31 NLT) Glory to God. Oh, hmm, hallelujah. You occupy through obedience to the Holy Spirit. Whatever He tells you to do, there is where you occupy.
And so, let me just see here. Occupation. He said, “Babylon, the sound of Babylon has fallen.” I want to show this in these scriptures. So, they will still play, but the Lord occupies the spirit realm. Revelation 18:2 says, in the King James Version, 2 he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. (Revelation 18:2 KJV) These are demonic spirits. Revelation 18:21 to 22 Amplified, 21 Then a single powerful angel took up a boulder like a great millstone and flung it into the sea, crying, With such violence shall Babylon the great city be hurled down to destruction and shall never again be found. 22 And the sound of harpists and minstrels and flute players and trumpeters shall never again be heard in you, and no skilled artisan of any craft shall ever again be found in you, and the sound of the millstone shall never again be heard in you. (Revelation 18:21-22 AMPC)
Revelation 18:22 The Message Bible says this, 22 Silent the music of harpists and singers — you’ll never hear flutes and trumpets again. Artisans of every kind — gone; you’ll never see their likes again. (Revelation 18:22 MSG)
I want to go to Isaiah 24 verse five from The Message Bible. Isaiah 24 from verse five. I want you to see the condition of the earth and what it’s in right now. What God says. Isaiah 24 verse five, Message Bible. 5 Earth is polluted by its very own people, who have broken its laws. Disrupted its order, violated the sacred eternal covenant. 6 Therefore a curse, like a cancer, ravages the earth. Its people pay the price of their sacrilege. They dwindle away, dying out one by one. 7 No more wine, no more vineyards, no more songs or singers. 8 The laughter of castanets is gone, the shouts of celebrants, gone, the laughter of fiddles gone. 9 No more parties with toasts of champagne. (Isaiah 24:5-9 MSG) Yes, people are having parties. But in this time on the earth, of the wages of sin that has brought so much death, it’s like gravel to them. There is no more, there is no more power in it for them to enjoy.
Because God is occupying spirit realms because He has a seed. So it says here, 9 No more parties with toasts of champagne. Serious drinkers gag on their drinks. 10 The chaotic cities are unlivable. Anarchy reigns. Every house is boarded up, condemned. 11 People riot in the streets for wine, but the good times are gone forever. (Isaiah 24:9-11 MSG) The Lord said that to me on the very first day of lockdown. He said to me, “Nothing will ever again go back to what it was.” It doesn’t matter that we say COVID is over. God, I know what God told me and He said to me, “Nothing will ever, ever, ever again go back to what it was.”
Pastor John, ja. Because the wages of sin is death. And when you’re living in the times of Noah, when everybody is rioting and everybody is living in pleasure, and everybody, then judgement comes on the people. And when their judgement comes, the enjoyment is no more. There’s no more joy in anything they do. So Ezekiel 26, New King James Version, Ezekiel 26 verse 13. 13 I will put an end to the sound of your songs, the sound of your songs, and the sound of your harps shall be heard no more. 14 I will make you like the top of a rock; you shall be a place for spreading nets, and you shall never be rebuilt, for I the Lord have spoken,’ says the Lord God. (Ezekiel 26:13-14 NKJV)
You shall never be rebuilt. If God says a thing shall never be rebuilt, it shall never be rebuilt. Because God holds the times of everything in His hands because He has already prophesied it. He has already spoken it beforehand. He’s already cast through words, through His inspired words and utterances through men and women that have obeyed Him. He’s put those words into the earth and then He does them. And He will reserve those words for a time and then suddenly He will do them, that’s just how He works. That’s how He worked to bring Jesus into the earth; He had someone prophesy it long before Jesus was born and then suddenly the time came and those prophecies that there would come One thousands of years later then Jesus came. So He has put His words in place and He will have His way in this earth. No man can stop Him, no man can stop Him. No institution, no philosophy can stop what God is doing in the earth.
So, alright. And so, 1 John 5:19, it was one of Pastor John’s Blow Your Mind with Light, but the Lord spoke to me about music. 1 John 5:19, 19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in wickedness (1 John 5:19 KJV). The whole world of music lies in wickedness. Because if music does not glorify God then it has no purpose. It has no purpose for God. Right. God is using His messages and His music ministry and prayer.
Psalm 137 King James Version. Psalm 137, 1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, when we remembered Zion is the Church. 1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, and we wept, when we remembered the Church 2 We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. 3 For there they that carried us away captive required of us a song; and they that wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. Sing us a song of the Church. Sing us a song. But here the people of God were held captive, could not even sing a song of Zion, because they had been wasted. And then this says, 4 How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? (Psalm 137:1-4 KJV).
But Babylon is fallen, that is the good news. Jesus said, “Come out from among her, My people, come out from among her.” I just want to see here if I’ve got my definition of Babylon, perhaps not. Okay.
So, Babylon is the world system. It is fallen. It’s falling all around us right now. And God’s Church is rising up, being raised up. And Babylon means, here it is, comes from the word babylim, which means gate of gods, small g. It’s where Satan, principalities, powers, rulers of darkness, spiritual principalities, rulers of wickedness in the heavenly places; gate of gods, that’s where they’re permitted to operate.
That’s their gate, it’s where they’re permitted to operate. It says it’s a city. So we have a city of the living God, in Hebrews, we have the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, we have a kingdom. But then there’s the city devoted to materialism, spiritually speaking, sensual pleasure, desire for fame, and noted for wickedness. It oppresses God’s people, it has no regard for God’s commandments, it comes into the Lord’s house to defile it. It’s filled with self and holds no one in higher esteem than their self.
Babylon conquers spiritually, and literally. Her spiritual warfare with the one true God is expressed in her earthly actions of making war on God and against His people and directly against His house. And Jesus says, “Come out of her, My people, come out of her.” And she is rooted in pride. She is not just faithful to her own false gods, her institutions, but is the chief evangelist where false religion and spiritual deception is concerned.
Right, that’s all I’m going to say about that because God wanted to know, wanted me to know, because of the obediences that we have given the Lord in music ministry, that He is already occupying the spiritual realm and He doesn’t need the majority. Glory to God.
So, Babylon is fallen, I’ve done that. So let me just see if I’m gonna go here… Okay, so I started at 9:30, right? I’ve got time? Right. So what the Lord wanted me to share with you today was Pastor John’s calling and my calling and how they flow together for God as we’re obedient to Him, that God can occupy the spirit realm dimensions. He is occupying the spirit realm dimensions of music, through our obedience. Like I say, I will never say we’re the only legitimate church that’s doing that. But I do know, we are one and God is counting on us to give Him our obediences in music ministry.
Pastor John’s apostolic call. Pastor John’s apostolic call is to occupy geographically, spiritually and relationally. I have been teaching you a long time about the ministry of an apostle and how that word apostoles means an admiral on a ship with a crew, going to a specific region, backed by their country that’s sending them to go and occupy. To occupy with the Word of God and the Spirit of God.
So Pastor John has a part and I have a part and our parts are different. It’s important for you to know, Pastor John and I have a recognition of our gifts because the Holy Spirit shows it to us as we are with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit shows us and makes our gift and what we’re supposed to do in the Body of Christ, and for Him for His glory. So we are more clear than we’ve ever been before. But it needs to be clear to you so that you can cooperate with the Jesus gift placed in Pastor John and the Jesus gift placed in me, as we flow with it so that you can flow with us.
So Pastor John and I do not bring our gifts to the Church in performance or personality, but in power, so that you can all flow with our gift, so that you can all come with our gift. That is the purpose why Jesus gave gifts to men; is to bring His Church to maturity. We did not ask for the gifts but He has placed it in us and so because He’s placed it in us, we honour Pastor John and I have great honour, honour and respect for the gifts that He has given us to bring to His Church. We have great honour.
So I need to show you, Pastor John and I, if we can go to, let me just see here, first Corinthians 12 verse 28, please. First Corinthians 12 verse 28 in the King James, I want you to see why Jesus gave gifts. I’m not going to the Ephesians scripture that you all are familiar with by now that when Jesus ascended, He gave gifts to men, some apostles, some prophets, some pastors, some teachers, evangelists for the perfecting and the equipping of the saints that they may do the work of the ministry in Christ’s Body.
Right, for building up Christ’s body. Now here, I want you to see 1 Corinthians 12:28. 28 And God hath set some in the church, first apostles. You see, God has got a government and a kingdom and He’s got rank. God’s decided the rank; God gave the gifts. Man didn’t decide it. Jesus gave these gifts. ‘First’ and I looked up the word first many years ago and it actually means first in rank. It means first; it means what it says. First, it doesn’t say that the prophet is first. Because the word secondarily means second in rank. Right? First in rank, second, prophets, third, teachers after that, miracle workers, those with gifts of healings, helpers, administrators, those with diversity of tongues. Can you just go to the next one please, Ester? 29 Are all apostles? No. Are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? Can we keep going? 30 Do all have gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But covet earnestly the gifts. And yet show I unto you a more excellent way. (1 Corinthians 12:28-31 KJV) And that is 1 Corinthians 13 the way of love.
The way of love, though Pastor John can prophesy, though Pastor John can have revelations from God, but does not have love, he is the sound of brass to God, but because he has love, he is God’s servant. And there’s a different sound when the love has come to a place of maturity, right? Hallelujah. There are many of us that have touched the love of God through Pastor John. Many of us know that he has love and so and he has revelations and he has all of his powerful gifts that flow through him.
And it’s Jeremiah 1 for those of you who were at prayer connect on Tuesday night, it’s to root, root up, root out. That’s his calling. It’s to root out things, to pull down, to build and to plant. How does he do that? God gives him messages. That’s how He did it through Jeremiah. Jeremiah didn’t take an axe or a hammer and go and do things. He did it through the messages. He did it through the messages that Jeremiah brought, to root things out, throw things down, things to fall in the hearts of people, through the words that God brought.
So, recognition of our gifts will enable you to flow with God and follow Him as we are flowing with Him and following Him and as we bring our gifts to the Church, we bring the power of our gifts, then all can follow as we follow, flow as we flow and go where we go. 2 Timothy 1 verse 6, we bring stirred up gifts, Pastor John and I. We bring stirred-up gifts when we come to you. When we stand before you with a gift that God has placed in us, it’s already a stirred-up gift. 6 I put thee in remembrance, Timothy,that you stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of hands (2 Timothy 1:6 KJV). Brother Jerry laid hands on us and we stir up the gift. How do we stir up the gift? We pray in the Holy Ghost, we bring our gift to the Holy Spirit to say, “Where does this go? Where does this flow? What do I say, what do I do?” We bring a stirred-up gift because it’s with the Holy Spirit all the time. Right.
And then 1 Timothy 4:14 King James as well. We bring our gifts that we honour. 1 Timothy 4:14 14 Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. (1 Timothy 4:14 KJV) We are not neglecting the gift that is in us. We are not minimizing it. We give it great honour because Jesus gave us the gift. Jesus gave us the gift. Hallelujah. And so; Romans 11:13, I think it’s King James. Let me just see where we go there. Pastor John and I lay great stress on our ministry and we magnify our office. Okay, let’s try the Amplified, please. I think it’s the Amplified.
Yeah. This is the apostle Paul speaking but this is Pastor John and I speaking because we walk in the Scripture. 13 I’m speaking to you… Inasmuch then as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I lay great stress on my ministry… (Romans 11:13 AMPC) I lay great stress, I stress it. I’m not stressed about it or in it, but I stress it. It’s a point of stress with the Holy Spirit. …I lay great stress on my ministry and magnify my office. (Romans 11:13 AMPC) Magnify my office. Hallelujah. So that word magnify means make illustrious, make glorious. Is my journal in my bag, Pastor Christi? Thank you. Let me see if I’ve got the right one here. Thank you. Alright. So, it’s interesting that even before the word came from Brother Jerry, I did write here; we do not minimize but we maximize, we maximize. And The Passion Translation says, 14 Don’t minimize the powerful gift that operates in your life, for it was imparted to you by the laying on of hands. (1 Timothy 4:14 TPT)
So, the Apostle Paul says I magnify my office. This word magnify means, doxazo which means I esteemed glorious, I make it glorious. How do I make my gift glorious? I bring it into the glorious presence of the Holy Spirit for Him to speak to me, for Him to show me. That’s how I make my gift glorious. I bring it into the glory, I bring it into the power zone of God, I bring it into His presence. Hallelujah. So that it may manifest all its goodness to His Church. I esteem, I esteem the gift that operates in my life – glorious. I make it glorious. I make it full of glory. I value it. I make it great.
Listen to this, what the Apostle Paul did with his office and his gift. You have to know that Pastor John and I are doing this more than we’ve ever done this before because we carry the responsibility to do this with God so that God can have His way in our lifetime, in your lifetime in this church because this church is on a very specific journey. Alright, 364, I’ll find it. Here it is. This word magnify, when Paul says, “My office, my office as a servant. My office is my administration, my official service as a ministry. My ministry task, my ministry which I received from the Lord. The service that edifies. My ministry of the Word, my loving service, my loving service.”
So, what does it mean to magnify it? It’s to hold it in honour. Make it glorious, adorn it with lustre, clothe it with splendour, give it glory, make it renowned, exalt it to a glorious condition. Oh, hallelujah. Hallelujah. That’s why we pray for Pastor John too and he prays, and we pray for him because your office must function in the glory, Pastor John, it must be made glorious and illustrious. We must render it, we must render it. All these beautiful words that that word means; we must render it, render it illustrious. Let it be exalted to a glorious rank and condition. Give it glory, clothe it with splendour, adorn it with lustre, make it full of glory, let it be held in honour. The gift that Paul said, “I magnify my office.” Let Pastor John’s office be magnified. Let my office be magnified because the glory is for you. Show us Your glory, Lord. This is how He shows us His glory. The magnified office in His church.
Let it be divine. Let it have its share in the divine. Nothing of mine, only the divine. Glory. So Pastor John’s part – he has a part and I have a part. That’s just how it is and we lay great stress on our ministry and we magnify our office. We have differences. One Corinthians… having gifts differing.
Let’s go to Romans 12, five and six, 6 having gifts differing… (Romans 12:6 KJV) That’s what the Bible says, having gifts differing. Right? So you need, why are you bringing this on a sound and song weekend, Pastor Sharon? Because Pastor John, by the Spirit of God, appointed me to chief psalmist ministry. It’s part of my equipment for the Church. So if you have an understanding of what Pastor John’s gift is, which I go through laboriously on Tuesday evenings to show you what his gift does and you see my gift working along with him. And that powerful recurring dream that Pastor John and I’ve had throughout our whole lives with him on my right, and me on my left, and he’s pointing with his right, I’m pointing with my left and wherever we go, the works of darkness, flee. It’s a ruling, reigning victory for us and for God’s Church. It’s an occupying, it’s a dominion. It’s a dominion. It’s to restore back to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ their dominion and their authority over the devil. That’s why you cannot let him have any place in you because you can’t have authority over the devil if he’s got place in you.
Right, and God wants to restore you back to your original spiritual condition and position in Him. Son of God ruling and reigning in life as king, as a king, but you can’t have him ruling and reigning over you. You are to resist him for him to flee. Right? So did we get that scripture? Romans 12, five and six, having then gifts differing… (Romans 12:6 KJV) Having then gifts differing. We all have gifts differing. We all have gifts differing. Shhhh, I want you to go please, Ester, to 1 Peter 4:10 Amplified Bible. The Lord wanted me to bring this scripture to you this morning; 1 Peter 4:10 Amplified. Your gifts, your spiritual gifts, they’re spiritual gifts, they’re spiritual gifts that were placed in you and were designed and decided for you before you were even in your mother’s womb. Your gifts were placed in you. Your spiritual gifts.
Look at this, 10 As each of you, can I see each of you, each of you, 10 As each of you has received a gift (a particular spiritual talent, not a natural talent. Natural talent’s got nothing to do with a spiritual talent. 10 …each of you has received a gift (a particular spiritual talent, a gracious divine endowment), What must you do with it?Employ it for one another. Employ it for one another. That is what Pastor John said in his sermon, that if you think that your gift to the Church is self-serving, it is not. Your gift is never self-serving. …employ it for one another as [befits] good trustees of God’s many-sided grace [faithful stewards of the extremely diverse powers and gifts granted to Christians by unmerited favor]. (1 Peter 4:10 AMPC) So, your spiritual gift, your particular spiritual talent.
How are you going to find out what that is? The Holy Spirit is going to show you and tell you because you have a relationship with Him. Because He is leading you and guiding you into all the truth. We miss out on so much because we don’t hear the Holy Spirit speaking to us about much. Jesus said in John 14 the Holy Spirit is going to come and live in you. He is going to transmit things to you. He is going to declare things to you. He is going to reveal things to you. He is going to transmit, reveal, declare. What is the other word? Disclose! He is going to disclose. So, if you’re not hearing the Holy Spirit about your gift, you may never know what it is. You may have a talent but like I said, we are talking about a spiritual talent here – that you employ for the body of Christ.
So, it is for you to develop that working relationship with the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, why is He living in you if He is not transmitting to you, if He is not helping you, if He is not declaring to you, disclosing things to you? He is the primary One that you should be hearing from, all, every day. And He will speak, especially as you press into Him this December. You press into Him this December. Somebody came to me earlier on and said the Holy Spirit said to them, “This will be a December to remember!” Woah! A December to remember. Glory to God. I will never forget this December. Never. This is my December that I have set aside to press into God and He will speak to me. He will speak to me. He is speaking to me. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. A December to remember. Hallelujah. Glory to God.
So, and I think that that is where I am going to finish right now, because when I continue I am going to speak to you about when God called me and said to me, “Mobilise My army.” 2003, 11 o’clock at night, “Mobilise My army.”I had to get up out of my bed, and I had to go and write everything down, which is what I’m going to read to you. And then Pastor John recently brought that from Brother Jerry, “No exceptions, there is an army of God.” Right? An army. An army. There is a battle. If you become a human, you are called to battle. There is a battle on whether you’re a Christian or not because the battle is what you’re going to choose and who you’re going to choose and what are you going to choose.
So, No exceptions. God wants you in His army. God wants you in His army. “And music ministry”, the Lord said to me many years ago, “Is My preferred choice of military…” Military? My military division. Yeah. He does military manoeuvres through music ministry. We just have to look at the life of Jehoshaphat when the enemies came against him and he put the singers and the musicians right at the front. He put the singers and the musicians right at the front. And they were self-slaughtered. God confused them, confused their plots and their plans. And music ministry has got a very powerful purpose in the hands of God in these last days. And I will continue with that.
And so here it is, Pastor John said this; A lot of what Apostle Paul writes is military style Christian living, not about self-development. But it was all about the Body’s total engagement in eternal matters. Just let me feel good, but that’s not the way the army treats you. They will get you fighting fit. They will get you fit with your weapons training. And one of our mighty weapons is our praise and our rejoicing and our music that pierces, our sounds and songs that pierce and penetrate our hearts and the spirit realm. Hallelujah. Glory to God.
I know you got something out of this and I just want to see how I did here from my points. Yes, very good. Very good. Yes. Thank you, Lord, for helping me. Say, “Thank You, Lord.” Okay, so I know where I’m going to go. Glory to God. Let’s move into sound and song and ministering to the Lord. We’re going to minister to the Lord now. Can somebody just help me here, get these things off? I just want to put my mark there. Thank you very much. There we go. Yeah. Okay.
[Sound and Song]
Pastor John
Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Glory to God. I want to just share this quickly with you before we end this morning’s session. It comes from James chapter 3 verse 4. It says 4 Likewise, look at the ships: though they are so great and are driven by rough winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the impulse of the helmsman determines. So, you’ve got a big ship, you’ve got big waves, you’ve got a big ocean, but you’ve got a ship that goes wherever it wants to because whoever’s in control of it and it only takes a very small rudder to determine where it goes. 5 Even so the tongue is a little member, of your body and it can boast of great things. See how much wood or how great a forest a tiny spark can set ablaze! 6 And the tongue is a fire. [The tongue is a] world of wickedness set among our members, contaminating and depraving the whole body and setting on fire the wheel of birth (the cycle of man’s nature), being itself ignited by hell (Gehenna). Verse 8 says, 8 But the human tongue can be tamed by no man. It is a restless (undisciplined, irreconcilable) evil, full of deadly poison. The tongue. 9 With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men who were made in God’s likeness! 10 Out of the same mouth come forth blessing and cursing. These things, my brethren, ought not to be so. (James 3:4-10 AMPC)
You know, if you want to know about Christian living, the essence of Christian living is the same as every other human living. Every human being eats with a mouth and swallows with a tongue and a throat – every human being, whether you’re a Christian or not. And every human being lives by words. It’s how we communicate. So, the mystery of being a Christian is not so mysterious if you understand this scripture because with the same music you can worship God, with the same music you can speak words that elevate the soul and elevate humans.
So, what Pastor Sharon has been ministering to us this morning and will do this afternoon, and I will pick up tomorrow morning, but what she’s been ministering is we the option to give our tongue, give our body, that we go to the same rugby match or soccer match and throw our hands up in the air and we shout and we can give that same body, that same tongue, to the service of God. Hallelujah. And the more we give our body to the service of God, the more we are able to be used by God and God’s agenda gets fulfilled on the earth.
So when we come with sound and song that is written by our psalmists, all these songs are written by us in this church, all the sound is put together by us in our church, this is what God has wanted to bring into the earth; is this sound. It’s these kinds of songs. It’s this kind of music. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. So that when we give it, we give it out of a base and a foundation of the Word of God that has come to this people. So, we’re not taking other people’s music. God has given us ability to raise up our sound, our song, the things that we need to worship with because He is making us a house of the Lord. He is making us a standard to His image, to His liking, to His desire for what He wants to do. He is making that standard. We just have to obey. Hallelujah.
And I love the song that we finished with; all things are subject to change. And you know, one of the things that we change our whole scope of life is with our words. You know, if I stop my mouth… the good thing about the tongue, here is the good news, even though the tongue cannot be tamed by any man, it can be tamed by the Holy Spirit. It can be tamed by the Word of God. It can be controlled and managed and now when you sail on a ship, you determine the way that God wants you to go in it. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus.
And when you are not reckless and just use words to set a flame and a fire passions and desires and dreams that you think are God’s dreams for you, but actually they’re self-serving dreams, then you become someone who can set on fire and set ablaze and use words to create a whole forest fire, if you like, of things that are God’s dreams that serve others. Hallelujah. Because each of us has a ship that we are sailing in life. We’re either going to sail in a fleet or we’re going to sail on our own course. I’ll tell you what, if you’re sailing in a fleet, every ship has got a purpose, it’s got a thing it’s got to do. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
I thank God for all these wonderful people, here. Thank you. Because they’re bringing their talent and they’re bringing their gifts and God has called them to help us create a sound and a song that is a heavenly sound. It is a heavenly sound that is being proclaimed in this earth. Hallelujah. And it’s for His glory. We are not doing this so that we can draw more people into the church. We are doing this because this is a God-ordained thing for us to proclaim a sound. It will draw more people to the church. It is doing that. But that’s not why we do it. You see, if we did it for that reason, it would be self-serving. But because we’re here to worship the Most High God, it’s His-serving. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
Well, may your lunch time be blessed, may your food be blessed, may your rest be blessed and we see you what time? 1 o’clock. One bells. Cheers.
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TOUCH | TEACH | TRAIN | TRANSFER
