Scripture reference: 1 Corinthians 2:6-12 (NKJV); Matthew 10:5-9 (NKJV);
Matthew 10:16-17 (NKJV); Matthew 10:19-22 (NKJV)
Pastor Sharon Bendixen:
Thank You, Father, for the word that is now going to come from Pastor John. Words that are spirit and they are life, Lord. We’re listening with a different heart set and a different mindset and a different ear, Lord. Our spirits open to receive Your Rhema Word, Your living life spirit to spirit, Father. We receive Your Word to our spirit, Father, our intellect and our silent. Silent, Lord, our spirit man is open, spirit man open to receive from You, in the precious name of Jesus. And we all say, Amen. Amen.
Pastor John Bendixen:
Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Hallelujah. What a grand, wonderful time we’ve had in sound and song this weekend. It’s amazing when you give dedicated time to the Lord, how it just elevates you. It grows you almost overnight because you get this rush, you get this surge, you get this powerful impartation of the Spirit. It’s a great and wonderful thing to give dedicated time to the Lord like this. Words cannot explain. Really, words cannot explain when you have an encounter with God because you’ve given Him time and space and opportunity to minister to you with everybody. Yes, I was speaking to someone here in the auditorium and sometimes they can’t make it because one of them is away on an uncontrolled work environment. They were just sharing with me how it’s one thing to watch it on YouTube, but it’s a completely different experience when you are in the anointing and you’re collectively experiencing it with each other. It’s a powerful thing. You can’t actually put words to it because it’s the body, it’s the life flow of the ministry to each other. We bring a collective anointing together here. Hallelujah. Before you sit down, tell at least two or three people, I’m glad you’re here and you better listen today. Thank you, thank you. Praise the Lord.
It’s a wonderful thing, Pastor Sharon, to be in the spirit together because I was in the front here and in my heart was to express thanks to Kate. If you hadn’t done it, I would have because the Lord was speaking to me to make sure we give Kate thanks today and then the Holy Spirit did it in a much sweeter way with you. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
So the way that the Lord ministered to Kate this morning, I want you just to imagine this. I want you just to imagine this, I want you to imagine that Jesus, through the Person of the Holy Spirit, is right there in your life. He’s right there with you. He knows everything about you. So today, what you witnessed God saying thank you to Kate, for her faithfulness, what you witnessed, is God demonstrating publicly to someone who has served Him publicly. Not everybody gets to serve God publicly like this. But when you have a pure heart and you have unbridled love of God, and you give your gift to God. God recognizes that more than anything else. Kate would be the first one to tell you that there are more talented singers than her in the world. But God didn’t choose the most talented singer. He chose someone that had a heart for Him, loved Him and was willing to express all of it in faithfulness. I’m not by any means saying Kate doesn’t have talent. I’m just saying that they are, in the world system, there are more talented people. But God doesn’t recognise talent as the main thing. Hallelujah.
But now, I want you just to imagine for a minute that God wants to put the same focus on you that He put on Kate. Not publicly, but privately. He wants to put His same focus on you. Here’s what He will do. If you come to God and you say to God, “God, I don’t really know if, if I’m worthy of Your love. Maybe like Kate was today. I’m not sure I’m worthy of that love.” What do you think He’s gonna say? He’s going to say, “No, you’re not. You’re not worthy. But it’s not about you.” It’s about Jesus who died for you, He made you worthy. “So I don’t see you with all of you. I see Jesus in you.” So now, if it’s not about how worthy you are, but the Jesus in you that made you worthy, then there’s nothing that you can do to make yourself more worthy.
He would privately stand here and tell you what I’m telling you today. He would say, “You can’t make yourself more worthy. Wat se nonsens is dit?” That’s absolute rubbish. It’s a performance mentality. I’ve got to make myself more worthy so that I can actually have the right to go to God when it’s got nothing to do with your performance. It’s got everything to do with Jesus who died for you, covered you with His blood, removed all of your sins and now you stand behind Him as righteous. So He doesn’t see you. He just sees that Jesus has paid for you. So then He says, “Okay, any more issues you’d like to raise with me?” You might say, “Well, I don’t like the way that I see other Christians behaving.” He’d probably answer you this way, “Neither do I. But that’s no reason for you not to have a relationship with Me, Jesus, because of the way you see others behave.” He would say, “Well, why are you making your relationship with Him about others?” He would say, “Didn’t that die for you?” So then it’s, “Don’t worry about the others, I died for you. What are you going to do? You have an open relationship to Me. So why are you talking about others?”
What He will probably reveal to you, it would be that in your heart you’re wanting to put the blame on others so that you don’t have to make a choice. Huh? You see, if you had to have a personal conversation with Jesus, He would not be in any way intimidated by any kind of argument that you might want to bring to Him. How do I know that? Well, for all the time that Jesus was on the earth, people brought every kind of argument to Him. They challenged Him about whether He was the Son of God, they challenged Him about many statements that He made about the Heavenly Father. They challenged Him about His birthright, they challenged Him about the Sabbath day, and what He did or didn’t do on the Sabbath day. When He forgave someone’s sins, they challenged Him, they challenged Him with, “Who gives You the right to forgive someone’s sins, only God can forgive someone sins.”
I mean, they challenged Him and they had such a narrow mindset through the eyes of the law, and He knew just how narrow their mindset was, and yet He still chose to stand there and answer them, didn’t He? So, I challenge you. If you got any argument with God, about your life going forward with Him, I challenge you to argue with Him, argue with Him. I challenge you. Today I challenge you to argue with Him. “Well, I don’t really want to argue with Go.” Why not? I can safely say there is not an argument that you can win. So bring your argument. You can’t win it.
I know that when you get up close with Jesus, the thing that will strike you first is how much love He has for you and the power of His love would be so great that you can’t resist the love. You know, all kinds of human behaviour can be faked, but the love of God, there is nothing like it. It’s pure. It’s holy. It’s everything. All manner of kinds of things that people call love in the earth. The only true love is the love that comes from Jesus. It’s the love of God, it’s the only true love. All other kinds of love are just demonstrations of it. But the true love of God is pure. It’s pure. It’s pure.
My safety, my safety, for me, and my life is in knowing that He loves me, that He loves me. Well, I’m gonna share some things with you today that will show you how important it is for you and I to be convinced that He loves us. And I say convinced because there are many things that will happen in and around you that will try to undermine you, undermine the fact that you are not convinced.
If you remember I spoke, I shared a scripture with you last week, Pastor Sharon shared it actually yesterday, as well. First Corinthians chapter 2 verse 6, I’m just going to read the whole passage of scripture. 6 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. You know, there are many, many forces in the world out there. Political forces, government forces, military forces, economic forces. The scripture says they’re coming to nothing and you might say, “Wow, that’s a big statement.” You know, there’s a lot of powerful things going on in the earth. Not one of them has even a little bit of power compared to the power of God.
The fact that He’s already spoken it, means their time is already up. They just don’t know it yet. 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. That shows you how dumb they are. 9 But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” There are things that God has for us, for those who love Him. Hallelujah. There are things that you can’t even imagine that God has prepared for us, for those who love Him. 10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. This kind of thing can only be received spiritually; it’s not something that you can have intellectually. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.
Which means you’re not going to know the things that God has for you, unless you get them by the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit, who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God (1 Corinthians 2:6-12 NKJV). If you don’t know the things that have been freely given to you by God, then you can’t get the things that have been freely given to us by God and the only way you can know what has been freely given to you by God is to get it through the Spirit of God. You and I can’t read economic books and think that’s how God is going to give us things by His Spirit. You and I can’t go and listen to the world’s advice there and think that their advice is God’s way of teaching us how to flow in the Spirit. I’m not saying good advice is bad. I’m saying good advice is not necessarily the way God would want you to go. Right?
Everything has a cost, everything has a cost. If you are living in the world system, you will know that everything has a cost. You will pay a price for everything that you do. You will know many people have said this, “Nothing on the earth comes for free. You will pay for everything. Everything comes with a cost.” I don’t disagree with that statement. But there is something that comes without any cost. It’s the free gift of Jesus. But then you might say, “But is there a cost involved in giving your life to Jesus?” Well, yes, it could be called a cost. It depends on what you think is cost. Hey?
Now, if you want to be free from poverty, if you want to be free from sickness and disease, if you want to be free from a system that wants to dominate you and suck all your energy and leave you feeling like you’ve got no purpose and no hope and you’ve got…. I’m doing my best in life, and yet, there’s, like I’m bashing my head against the wall and yet, it seems like everything’s okay. But I feel like I’m bashing my head against the wall. Well, what is that? That is the fact that you haven’t yet paid a price of your own self will, to chase life that you will.
So if you say, “It’s very costly for me, to give up my will, and to give up control of my life, and to give up what I want to do in my world.” If you say, “That is too costly for me.” You have no idea what price you’re about to pay. Because the more you say, “I can be in control of my life and I’ll run my life, because I can do it better than anybody.” You’re in a place where you just said, “I’m sovereign in my life and I don’t recognize any other sovereign or any other will or any other person that can decide for me.”
Well, some people might say, “Well, it’s not quite like that, I still listen to people’s advice, and I still get their input, and I still get them to help me make decisions.” Yeah, but it’s on the margins of what you choose. Still on the margins of what you choose, so you’re just making it an acceptable level of input. Yeah. So God says, “I want to give you something freely, I want to give you My life freely. I want to transfer everything that I have in Me, all of what I paid for, this whole abundant life that I’ve got in Me, I want to transfer it all to you. You can have abundant life, more than you can hope for, more than you can think of, more than you can dream of, you can have life.” What you need to do is to say, “I recognize that the one who controls life is who I’m giving my control of my life to.” That’s a fundamental decision you have to make.
If you want to know where people interface with me, is, because for years and years and years, we are taught, we are taught by the school system, we are taught by the system that we as parents and parents have been so engrafted into a system, that we’ve taught our children, we’ve learned it from society and from culture, we have been taught so completely, that you can become whatever you want. You can go and do whatever you want. Be what you want, do what you want, go what you want. Pursue life as you want. As long as you don’t hurt anybody else. You can have whatever you want in life, go for it.
Where do you think that whole culture comes from? Do you think it comes from God? No, it comes from the one that’s opposing God, because the one that oppose God was the first one to say, “I will do what I want and make myself like God.” Pastor Sharon talked about it yesterday. So every time you and I raise up our self-will to say, “I choose not to put God first place in my life. I choose to make my own will the first place in my life.” You have just taken over control of your life. And whether everybody in the world, the eight or nine billion people in the world, know it or not, they all are going to answer to the One Living God that died for them – and His Name is Jesus.
“So Pastor John, what about all these things, about there are many ways to God, many roads up the mountain. There are many other gods that people worship, are they any less?” Yes, there are no other gods, they’re man-made gods. They are man-made gods. Not one of them came and walked on the earth and lived on the earth and died on the earth and then rose from the dead. So, the whole world is trying to bring down the Name of Jesus because there is no other God in the world that people want to use as a curse word, His Name as a curse word. There is no other faith that’s under absolute threat, like the Christian faith. There’s been a recent survey that was done in America that thirty years ago, 73 percent of Americans identified themselves as Christian. A more recent poll in 2022, or a survey that was done, an actual survey was done, is that has gone down to now less than fifty percent of Christians, It’s on the halfway mark of America. Now no longer sees themselves as Christian. It was always the fact that America is a Christian ation. When you’re a fifty fifty, it’s not quite like that anymore.
I wonder if South Africa would call itself a Christian nation? I think if you go to many, many people on the ground, in townships and everywhere else, I think you will find that we are predominantly a Christian nation. But if you go and talk to the government, they might not say so anymore. Certainly our ANC government no longer sides with Israel on any matter, it sides with Palestine. This is not a good sign. I’m not talking about our president in his personal capacity, I’m talking about the politic of the ANC organisation. Not to mention some of the opposition parties, they’re worse. This is a good time for us to pray for our Nation. We can’t quit praying for our Nation, now. We are the ones that actually are providing some form of hope for our Nation right now. Praise the Lord.
Well, on the ground, I think most people would say they’re Christians, there would be less Muslims in this Nation and less alternative religions, than they would be Christians. If we have a problem in South Africa, our biggest problem is, is that there are so many pastors that call themselves bishops and all kinds of, you know, highfalutin titles and they’re not that. So, they present themselves as Christian leaders when they are not. If we have a problem, that’s our biggest problem. But God is wanting us as a people, to have the transfer of His life into us completely.
Now, if we say all of God’s life is available to us, why are we not living up to the standard of all of the life that God has given us? Well, it’s because we’ve lived for so long, with the self-will mentality, self determination, self made mindset, that when we start to follow God, we are coming from such a deep base of self gratification and self exaltation and living for self, that our journey towards receiving all of what God wants to transfer to us, as got all these obstacles of our self-will, that still shows up all the time. You’re a bit quiet this morning.
So that’s why when people want to make decisions and they say, I want to have God in my decision. I don’t for one minute want to take the place of the Holy Spirit in you. The Holy Spirit is the one that should guide you and lead you and tell you what you should do in your life. But it is my observation that there are so many self-will obstacles that are still in our lives that for us to hear what the Holy Spirit say and we’ve got so many filters, that sometimes when you come and listen to a pastor in a pastor’s office and he talks to you, he says, No, I don’t recognize that as the voice of the Holy Spirit.” Well, what do you recognize, that? It’s your soul? It’s your self-will, it’s yourself desire. You can shut me down because I’m preaching good. So, I’m not there, to want to try and take the place of the Holy Spirit. Never. Who am I? Hallelujah.
But sometimes, if we’re making big decisions, you know, sometimes you need help with it. I’ll tell you what, it’s very important to start the transfer happening on smaller decisions because the more decisions you make, smaller decisions you make, the more likely you are to make better decisions on big decisions. So, for example, when you decide to be a tither, you’re beginning to say, “I recognize the transfer system that’s in place and so I’m recognizing as God being the one who blesses me. So my tithe is a recognition of God blessing me and so now I’m opening up my heart to receive God’s transfer to me.” The real challenge will come in your life when God says, “I want to transfer a whole lot more to you. So, I want you to give a whole lot more as your seed.” Then you say, “No, I’m not gonna give the Church that much money.” “Yeah, but I’m not asking you to give it to the Church. I’m asking you to give it to Me.” So then you say, “But how do I give it to You?” You must give it to the Church. You can’t take your money and throw it in the air and say, “Have it God.” Take a few coins and ask Him to take it. If He does. Question your humanity. Come pray for me. But you might want me to come pray for you or go to the doctor first, because some of those coins will hit you on the head and bruise you. You know, because God’s not going to pluck it, because what is what is rands or dollars or yen or whatever? What does it mean to God in Heaven, that’s a human currency, that’s not His currency. So human currency is just how we transact. God’s currency is, “I’ll give you the currency that you need. But I want the currency of your faith. I want you to show Me through your human currency that you recognize My love for you.”
So, most Christians want to straddle the fence, they say, “I’m not ready to give God the whole deal yet, I want to stand a little bit in this thing where I’ll take care of my life and I want to be in this place where I’ll also listen to God, I will take care of my own life. But I’m also going to listen to God.” The Bible says, “Nee, dit werk nie so nie.” Doesn’t work like that. Such a man is unstable in all his ways. And let him not think that he will receive anything from the Lord. Because of his instability, because how’s he going to know what God wants to get to him, when he’s actually walking the line? Today, I’ll walk for God and tomorrow, I’ll walk for me. I’ll do a bit for God and then I’ll do a bit for me.
You think, come on, let’s just be real about this. If you go work for a company who pays you, let’s just say, whatever income you’re earning now, you go work for a company that triples it. Same work, same skill, same hours, they just give you triple the amount. You think they’re going to say, “Just come and work a little bit. We’re not gonna expect you to give us anything in return.” What do you think the company is gonna say? “We’re paying you, deliver.” Right? “We’re paying you, so you must deliver.” Because they don’t want you unfocused on what they’re paying you for. It’s why when you have people that are CEOs, managing directors, people that run big companies, listed companies, nobody has to tell them to work hard. They don’t get paid to work hard. Working hard comes with the profile. They get paid to be thinking twenty-four-seven for the company. They get paid to come up with solutions, answers. That’s what they get paid for. It’s not about an eight to five job. They know that it’s much, much, much more than an eight to five job.
You think the president of this country can do whatever he chooses, whenever he wants to do it. Everyone looks at him and says, “Well, it would be nice to have that much power.” No. He doesn’t have a life of his own. He’s completely, totally consumed with running this country. It’s a twenty-four-seven job and by the way, he gets paid a lot less than CEOs get paid.
I’m just trying to say to you, that in the natural world, if you give all of that, you get rewarded and if you’re going to get rewarded, they’re going to expect a whole lot of stuff from you. But Jesus says, “Listen, I’ll reward you for your faith.” But faith is not something that you can make a decision, well today I’m going to live by faith, tomorrow I’m not. Today I’m gonna live by faith… So, today I’ll show up to work, tomorrow I won’t. Pay me triple the salary, and I’ll show up to work whenever I want. Hey? No, you know that that doesn’t work.
So, why do you think it works differently with God? Well, because God is love, and He loves you unconditionally, and He doesn’t expect any performance from you. What He expects from you is to trust Him. That’s the one thing that He wants you to do. Have faith in God, have faith in Him. So, He says, “Okay, you can get…” and I’m gonna use natural terms now. I’m not by any means saying God is the same as a natural term, I’m just trying to bring it home to you. If you go and join a company, and they say to you, “Listen, you can earn as much as you want to earn. Here’s what you got to do; whatever you put in, and here’s the framework for you to operate whatever you put in, you’ll get it out. As much effort as you put in, as much as you can work it, that will be determine how much money you get. So now if you come home at the end of the month, and you say, “I’ve got R10 000, it’s not enough.” Well, what did you do with your time? Well, clearly not enough. So now, you start to find out, where do I put my time? How much effort have I got to put in? What do I have to do to get out? What I’ve put in?
Well, faith is working the same way. The system that I just talked about is the alternative system that got itself from God’s system because the devil couldn’t create anything, he is just copying God’s system. So, God’s system is, “Love Me, receive Me, have faith in Me, and I will transfer all of what I have to you.” So, what you’re capable of having in life, is now up to you. It’s not up to God. It’s up to us. Come on, this should be really liberating. It’s up to us.
But you see if you still want to stay in control, and you say, “I want to control what I want to control, and I’ll give God what I want to give God.” Well, what you’re actually saying is, “God’s system doesn’t work, so I’ve got to work my system.” Ok, well on what do you base this argument that you say God’s system doesn’t work? “Well, uh, there’s been times that it hasn’t worked for me.” “Oh, I see, so you’ve lived by faith then?” “Jah, I did, for three weeks.” “Oh, so you think living for God for three weeks or three years, that’s the deal then, right?” You see, if you’re in it with God, then actually time is really time is not the issue, it’s your all in, then it’s no longer that I am in for one day, one week, three weeks, three months, three years, thirty years. Because when you’re all in for God, you’re always all in for God.
So, God wants to transfer His life, that’s why the Lord has been really showing me more and more and if you look at my life and you say, “I am going to measure my future by the success that Pastor John has had in the Spirit.” I am saying, “Don’t.” Maybe you look at Kenneth Copeland and say, “I am going to measure my future success by the success that Kenneth Copeland has had because he’s got a number of jets, and he’s got a big ministry and big lands and he’s got a big world-wide ministry and all of that kind of stuff, so that’s the measure of success. Well, no, actually what God told Brother Copeland, He says, “You’re about, you can die now, or you can die when you’re a hundred and twenty and I want you to believe Me for a hundred and twenty, because there is anointings that have not yet been given to man because they’ve died to early.”
So, in other words, there are things that Kenneth Copeland didn’t learn in his first eighty-five years of life. Why? Because maybe for the first thirty-two years or whatever that number is thirty-two or thirty-four years, I’m not exactly sure, he was following his own agenda. He had a hit record in America and he was chasing after the world system. He had all this talent, all this ability ended up in the army, messing up his life, had an encounter with God and then started to follow God. So, for all that time he was following his own will, he’s been unwinding his own will by faith in God all these years. He’s done a great job in the place and the space that God’s called him to. And yet, when he gets to eighty years old, God says, “Believe Me to live hundred and twenty.” Because there’s anointings you haven’t yet got, because there’s anointings that many people haven’t got, because they haven’t lived long enough. Perhaps I can rephrase that, then I can say, because we haven’t learned fast enough. We’ve had to get older than we needed to, to get what God wants to show us.
Kenneth Copeland gave me part of this answer one day, because when I was driving him around, he was sitting next to me, you know the story. He turned around to Jerry Savelle, who was sitting behind me, 1996. And he said, “You know, Jerry, if all the young men that were coming up in the ministry now would just listen to us and do what we’ve already learned, then we could, we could catch up time because they wouldn’t be learning the same things we learned for twenty years. They learn the same things we learned for twenty years because they think they know how and they’ve got to learn it for themselves. So, when they got to twenty years, they suddenly realised we actually learned all that stuff ourselves. But now we’ve all lost twenty years because they thought we couldn’t teach them anything. Because they could learn it by themselves.” He said to Jerry, he said, “Do you imagine how much we could, how much time and how much progress we could make if every twenty years the ministers would follow what the other twenty year ministers had already learned and we built on that continuously? How much progress the church would make?” I never forgot it.
Listen, I am, you know, Pastor Sharon was sitting in the car, there’s many things that I just, I’m driving around, I’m listening and I’m soaking it up. I’ll never forget of conversations they had, things that happened. Some of them were more significant. Others were just more natural conversations. Praise God. That was the time when he said you connect to Brother Jerry and it hasn’t stopped since. Praise God, divine connections. Hallelujah. But I am saying to you that we are constantly having to deal, and I’ve been talking about this, tolerance spirit. Here’s the thing though. We give ourselves a lot of tolerance. I’ll follow God but I’ll tolerate my own self. I’ll tolerate myself. And don’t anybody tell me about my walk with God because I want to tolerate myself. You think that tolerance spirit to tolerate yourself is not motivated by some other spirit, the same spirit that says you got to tolerate all these sexual spirits, all of these dark power spirits, money spirits in the world, those same spirits are at work in the tolerate everybody spirit. Which is why God says, “I’m not a tolerant God, I do not tolerate sin. I judged it. I never ever said it is not there, I judged it. It’s My mercy that gives you a way in, not tolerance.”
So, to the extent that we tolerate ourselves, it’s where grace is going to come in to help us overcome our tolerant self of ourselves so that we can live more strongly in faith. Amen. I’m teaching truth. Yes. Whether you like it or not, whether you receive it or not, it’s the truth. There’s many people in the world that think that the Bible is just another book. Well, unfortunately for a lot of them when they actually wake up after they’ve died, they will find out that the Book was real. Yeah.
I want to just share some things with you about the transfer. So Jesus, if you read the book of Matthew, and maybe if you’ve got time, you can go read the book of Matthew. You can perhaps start from chapter 5 or chapter 6 and then just read through to chapter 10. But there’s a whole lot of miracles and a whole lot of confrontations that happened in the life of Jesus and He has the twelve disciples with Him and they’re observing these miracles.
Chapter 10 and verse 5 of Matthew says, 5 These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying, “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. 6 But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And as you go, preach, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.” 8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. This is the free word coming in again. Huh? 9 Provide neither gold nor silver, nor copper in your money belts (Matthew 10:5-9 NKJV). In other words, there is no cost to you here. Don’t worry about the provision. Just go. For a worker is worthy of his food. Now, they go about the cities and there are many miracles that happen.
Verse 16, 16 “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Just want to make a point here. I’m sending you as sheep in the midst of wolves (Matthew 10:16 NKJV). Do you think that when you, as a Christian, observe the world, that sometimes you feel like the world is full of wolves? That as a Christian, you feel like a sheep that’s being led to the slaughter. So how does that make you feel, in yourself? You might think I need to be a wolf. Because how do I compete with the wolves that are out there? Because I don’t want to be eaten. Now, this might sound like a rather graphic scenario here. But here’s how it works. I don’t want to be eaten by those that have money and work for the rest of my life for someone for a daily wage. Because those guys are wolves, and they’re making money off my back. They’re making money off my energy. They’re making money off my skill and my talent and those people are all wolves. So I’ve got to go make something happen for myself. Come on.
I’m just giving you one example. “Well, I’m not going to be one of those mamby pamby Christians that don’t experience the freedom of sexuality because Christians are very narrow minded when it comes to sexuality and those people out there in the world, their freedom of expression, they’re obviously enjoying themselves, and I want to have that pleasure.” That’s a wolf talking. So if you say, “I feel like a sheep, here, because I want to stay pure and innocent and I want to give myself to the God way of doing this thing.” Everybody will look at you and say, “We’re gonna chew you up and spit you out, because that’s an old fashioned audiology.” That’s not the way people behave in the modern world.
That I’m telling you, that’s the spirit of a wolf that’s running around seeking for anybody that enters into that activity, it will devour you. You are not like a sheep. The fact of being a sheep is that Jesus is your Shepherd. He will protect you from the wolves. But if you give yourself over to the wolves, it will devour you, because you might think, “This is cool, I’m running with the wolf pack.” You watch when wolves take down prey. They turn savage on each other to get their piece of the action. Yeah, you think the world out there has got the answers? I’d rather be a sheep. Because that means I know the wolves are out there but I’m trusting in the Shepherd. And He has promised to guide me and lead me, to still waters and green pastures and even if I’m walking through the dark valley of the shadow of death and everything seems like it’s about to crumble in on me His rod and His staff are with me, He’s there to comfort me, He’s there to strengthen me and my whole life is dependent on Him, comforting me and strengthening me and He pulls me through it and I don’t have to do it on my own. I’d rather be a sheep than a wolf. Because my trust is in the right place.
So Jesus says, I’m sending you into the world where there are many wolves, religious systems, economic systems, education systems, all kinds of entertainment systems that will edify you”, profile you, exalt you and reward you. But there is nothing rewarding about it because it will consume you. You find out how many rich people die with no purpose. Why do you think it is that Bill Gates has got a foundation that gives so much money away to Africa? Well, it’s because he doesn’t know what to do with his money and he thinks that in the world’s eye the self actualization that he gets from helping other people will be a reward of some sorts. Because his money is god and himself it’s not anybody else. Don’t let him fool you to think that he’s a humanitarian. Everything he does, he’s got a wolf agenda.
So, and for us, we must be wise as serpents and as harmless as doves. Why? Because when we function that way, we pull the teeth of the wolves. 17 But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues …” (Matthew 10:17 NKJV) In the very place that you worship, they’ll come and they’ll attack you. Let me tell you, my life has been full of it. There are, there are people that have left my life, and after they’ve left my life, they still profess love for me and they still profess that actually I’m a wonderful man. But they’ve left me, they’ve left you. I want to tell you that this thing is as old as Jesus and before Jesus. I’m just telling you this thing hasn’t died because Jesus died. These wolves are still out there.
You know, a whole bunch of people decided one day that I didn’t know what I was doing in the church. 2003, 2003, 2004. When did you join Pastor Lynn? 2005? February 2005. Pastor Lynn, just look, join just after that. Pastor Lynn was an answer from God to me. Because a man that had been in the ministry that I knew for nineteen years, probably at that time, God sent him into my ministry to help me when that situation happened in Johannesburg. These people decided that I didn’t know what I was doing running the ministry. So, I think it was a lot of leaders that all got together, or so called influencers in the church, they got together and they decided that I don’t know what I’m doing. So when Brother Jerry came to South Africa, they sought a private audience with him.
So through people that had traveled internationally that Brother Jerry knew, he received accusation against me. So being the spiritual man that he is he said, I won’t receive an accusation against an elder unless he’s present. I won’t have everybody come, I’ll just have one of you who represents everybody else. I’m not going to drag the story out. But I just want to tell you how this thing works. Those wolves came into our church and they came and they held me in public accountability and they said, “You don’t know what you’re doing.” Those wolves came after me. They did.
So, then the guy that was nominated to represent them, and be their spokesman met with me and Brother Jerry in the hotel room And as he was speaking with his mouth and bringing the accusations against me, he stopped. He said, “Actually, I’ve got to shut my mouth right now, Brother Jerry.” He said, “Because John is the most spiritual man I’ve ever had the privilege of working with.” And he said, “I have to get up and leave right now and have to take this meeting on the chin.” He got up and he walked out. What happened? That wolf with all those wolves came after me, to destroy my ministry. But because I was a lamb, God, the Good Shepherd said, “I’m gonna take care of you. I’m gonna take care of you.”
When he walked out, Brother Jerry said, “What is that?” I said, “Brother Jerry, you heard it.” Because he was like, and I even was there early and he said to me again, “John, is there something in your life, some financial things, some drugs, some sex scandal? Tell me now, then I can deal with this with you.” I said, “Brother Jerry, I am clean. My hands are clean. My life is clean. I stand before you. I am not a perfect being, but I am clean.” You know, I am clean. And so when this guy got up and walked out, he said, “Now I know you are clean.” He said, “But you have got a problem John, you got to fix this.” I said, “Yes, Sir.” And thank God Brother Jerry stood with me through the whole thing.
You know what that guy did? He got up and he walked out there. The next Sunday in church, he had written three hundred letters, four hundred letters, and they stood at the entrance of the door handing out letters to everybody one on one, telling them what a bad leader I was, and now they are resigning from the church and they recommend that they don’t stay with me because of the poor leader that I am. So in front of Brother Jerry where the Spirit of God was protecting me, he had one thing to say, but he wasn’t done with that wolf spirit that was in him and them trying to take me out. Huh. What do you think? I stand today in the protection of the Most High God. That wolf spirit cannot destroy our ministry because we are in the hands of the Good Shepherd and we follow His voice and the voice of a stranger we do not follow. Hallelujah.
You want to say something Pastor Lynn? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is a fact of what Pastor Lynn is saying. There was a lot of those people when they came to our ministry, they were drawn to us because they knew me from the previous church. They knew the anointing that was on my life, on Pastor Sharon. They knew what we stood for in our marriage and finances and everything else and they left without God giving them permission to leave. So they were just seeking another church that was the next best church that they could go to. They actually wanted me to; they wanted to; they told me this, they wanted to raise me up as the next biggest church that was going to be in Johannesburg, and they would fit the bill for it, if I would just let them run the church, and I could preach. So they were, I mean, that was a proper wolf pack. Hallelujah.
Listen to what it says. 19 But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; 20 for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. 21 “Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. You want to talk about a wolf spirit. It is alive in this earth. It has been running rampant. 22 And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved (Matthew 10:19-22 NKJV). This is not, “He who endures to the end of time and then dies will be saved.” This is you are just going to endure that attack. And then you will be saved. Just don’t quit on when the wolves are snapping around you. Don’t hide, run and hide. Listen, you know, I love the bush. I’ve been out there. I’ve had some scary encounters with buffalos and rhinos and a few things out there. I’m not sure if I say I really want to do this but I’d love to walk into a pride of lions. Yeah, I’m not sure but, you know. Well, why do you say that? Well, actually, to be honest with you, not so long ago, I found myself in a situation walking in the bush and a male lion and a female lion were hunting. I didn’t even know they were there and the people I was with, we didn’t even know they were there. We just became aware of them because the zebra bolted that they were hunting, but they were on a full out stork hunt, completely hidden from us. We were not from that wall to where we are out in the open, out of our cars and they were hunting that zebra. The thing that disturbed their hunt was that actually, they became aware of us. Then when the female was flat out on a run to try and hit that, the lioness was trying to hit that zebra, and saw us standing there, she backed off. Then the male lion saw her back off and he backed off. What does that tell you? They’re scared of us? We have authority.
So why did I give you that example? Well, one day I want to see how much authority I really have out there in the wild. But I’ll tell you one thing, I’m not scared. I’m not scared of the wolfpack that’s coming after the people of God. I’d rather choose to be a sheep. Okay, the Holy Spirit wants me – I really didn’t think I was going to preach this today – but the Holy Spirit wants me to remind you about this. When they did this to me, I went into my closet before God and I said, “Lord, what is it that I need to do about this?” While I was praying the Lord showed me, in a vision He showed me how their future was dependent on my response. He said, “John, if you hold it against them, I will hold it against them. There will be no protection for them in their lives. The enemy will have free reign because they have come against one of My servants.” He said, “So, I’m going to show you what their lives will look like if you don’t forgive them.” I saw into the spirit how their lives would deteriorate and what the devil would do to them if I didn’t forgive them. It became so overwhelming to me, even now when I think about it, I’ve got to protect myself from allowing myself to experience what I experienced then, but it was so overwhelmingly devastating. It was immediate from the deep inward spirit life of my spirit man, I cried out to Jesus and I said, “Forgive them, Lord. There’s no way that any of my worst enemies should ever have that kind of thing happen to them. I forgive them. I forgive them. I forgive them. There is no barrier between my forgiveness. I completely forgive them. I completely forgive them.”
In case you get disturbed by my flashing light. [Pastor John switches his alarm off] I forgive them, I forgive them. And so then I spent the next period of time going to all of those families, all of those people, and saying, “I forgive you, but I don’t trust you. I want you to know that there is no barrier between us any longer. You are completely forgiven. I love you completely but I don’t trust you because what you did was not the Spirit of God. What you did was the spirit of the enemy that was coming to destroy me and to destroy the church. So I’m willing to take the time for us to spend time together to rebuild the trust.” I used it, I used an example of marriage, I said, “It’s like you’ve been unfaithful to me. I forgive you but I don’t trust you. We need to spend time together to rebuild this trust.” Neh? Most of them weren’t prepared to put the time in. Only one person chose to put the time in. Unfortunately, that person is no longer with our ministry either. Much the same reasons. I was judged.
I’ve been the target of wolves many times. Many, many times. I’ve been the target of wolves. I know what the wolf sounds like when it’s coming after the sheep. Do you know what my job is? Come on. What’s my job? If I’m a proper shepherd, and I’m not someone that’s hired because of money, then you can’t scare me off with money, or the lack of money. My ministry to you is not dependent on money. If you want to tithe and you want to give and you want to take care of Pastor Sharon and I, that’s for God to do the job in your heart but I’ll tell you that I don’t do this job because of money. I do this job because God called me to do this job and my job is to say, when the wolves are coming, I will stand in the gap. I will put my life on the line so that the wolves don’t come to your door. Wherever the wolf does come to someone’s door, I tell you what, they better look very carefully because I’ll be standing right there and I’m a hardened, veteran wolf slayer. I am, I’m a wolf slayer. I’m a wolf slayer. I am.
So now the Spirit of God is on me. So I have to speak because He’s been on me the whole weekend. The wolf has come after your life. So you’ve got to say no. If you don’t say no, that wolf is coming to take your life. Say no today. From this day, you say no, every time you say no. Nobody else knows what we’re talking about. You say no. Amen. You say no. The wolf is not coming after her life. It’s not coming after her health, it’s not coming after her life. We say no! I’ve prayed with you many times for her. We say no! I still pray for you. So, today, you’d better know the wolf is coming after you, so you’ve got to say no. God’s got a whole full life for you to lead, a full life, full of wonderful things. Tell the devil to shut up and we tell him, “Shut up, leave your body alone. Leave you.” Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Glory to God. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
I’ll tell you what, I’m setting myself up for a transfer. I’m looking for a transfer. I’m getting the download. There’s a financial transfer coming, there’s a health transfer coming, there’s a relational transfer coming, there’s a transfer of the inheritance that Jesus paid for. It’s coming my way! I’ve got a big funnel waiting for all that transfer to come into my hands. Hallelujah. And wherever my humanity is getting in the way and wherever I’ve got an obstacle, I’m saying; I count on the grace, I count on the grace, I’ve got His grace, I’ve got His empowerment, He’s anointed me and I’m ready for this thing. I’m going maximum. Maximum. Highest level attainable. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus.
We have no choice – God divinely connected us with a man, Dr Jerry Savelle, and all of the people that he’s connected with – they are all barrier breakers. They are all people that have stood up against the pack of wolves of poverty, of people that talked anti-faith-talk, people that still say that they’re just a prosperity bunch of people, they have no idea what they’re talking about because they choose to have a closed mindset and not hear what the Spirit of God is saying. That’s why Jesus says; he who has ears to hear, let him hear. So, they don’t want to hear that, so they don’t, so they become a part of the wolf pack for that issue. Hallelujah.
The wolf has come after Meredith’s life. And I’ll tell you what, we as a ministry are standing with Meredith until he gets a complete victory. Don’t for one minute think that anything that’s happened to Meredith, that the devil has come after his life many, many times. You don’t see him here [Pastor John points to the stage] it’s not because we are not doing our stuff. We will stand with Meredith and do whatever we can with Meredith until he gets his complete deliverance. This is not a sprint. This is a marathon. Hallelujah.
That’s why, you know, when people come into my life, I don’t bring judgment to you. I may not tolerate what you do, but I don’t bring judgment to you. The tolerance level is purely based on what you choose to do with your life, I’m not going to do it. But whatever you choose to do, that’s your business between you and God.
For me, I’m positioning for the inheritance. Don’t you want the transfer? Hey? Don’t you want the transfer? Here’s the thing, I’m going to finish with this, now, I could preach all day with this anointing. Really. But here’s the thing, Sharon and I have been married fourty-three years. By all accounts we have a great, great, great marriage, really it’s great. But we realised, actually, there’s an inheritance transfer that we can still get from the throne room of grace in our marriage that we haven’t yet tapped into. So you might say, “But Pastor John fourty-three years, what’s there to still have?” If you don’t know? Then it means you haven’t walked the way that we’ve walked. But here’s what we are determined to do, we are determined to press into this inheritance transfer so that everybody else can get it. And if we can’t get it, there are very few other people that can. I’m not saying other people don’t have the same level of marriage, but you’re going to look hard for it.
But I expect all the younger generation people, all of the people in our ministry to have outstanding marriages. And the younger generation, they can tap into our grace and they can have all in their marriages that we took thirty, fourty years to get, they can have it quickly. Quickly. Well, maybe they are others that we can get it from, I know this, that we are an anointed called gift to the body of Christ that has a platform that can teach on this stuff. And there are very few people that have a platform that can teach it that we have the marriage that we have. And so if you’re here, you can get it. Have it. And I’ll tell you what, all the lineage of all of the financial inheritance that’s coming in through our connection, it’s all coming. Brother Copeland prophesied over Brother Savelle and he said, “You like a modern-day Abraham with property.” Yeah, he said, “Wherever you go property is going to come to you.” And it did. Hundreds and hundreds of acres. Property is coming to us. Property is coming to us. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Glory to Jesus. He’s got a job to do – property we need, He’s gonna bring it. We just connected to the right Source. We got the right lineage, we got the right inheritance. Hallelujah.
Stand to your feet please everybody. Because Pastor Sharon’s got to finish her message at one o’clock. What are you talking about my babe? How you’re abiding and Pentecost, God’s pinnacle. Hallelujah. How you’re abiding and Pentecost God’s Pinnacle. How you abide is the filtration system or the open funnel system. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. You know, I became aware that in the recent while, the enemy has tried to come after a lot of people in the church, on physical symptoms, and physical health in different areas. And I want you to agree with me today that it stops now in the name of Jesus. It stops now in the name of Jesus. This is just another wolf that is coming into our ministry to try and slow people down, and to try and stop the work of God. So, we agree right now we call, and we pull on the name of the Lord Jesus, we call on the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we say we are under the blood, we are in His Word, we are caught up under the shadow of the wings of the Almighty and no weapon formed against us will prosper in Jesus’ name. and I declare right now, and you are in agreement with me that sickness and disease leaves from amongst us and leaves from every single body, it leaves from every single person that’s here. Every symptom, every sickness, every disease, every condition, leaves now in the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. Put your hand on your body like this and just say, I’m healed in Jesus’ name. I’m delivered in Jesus’ name. I’m free from the wolf of sickness and disease and all manner of physical condition. In Jesus name. Hallelujah.
I’m expecting the healing power of God to flow into your body right now. And right now, you begin to speak it over your body, and you say, I’m healed today. I’m whole today. I’m free today. I’m delivered today. In Jesus name. Every part of my body is restored to health. In Jesus name. Hallelujah. Glory to the name of Jesus. Glory to the name of Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory, glory, glory.
Please put your hand back on your heart like this. I want to make sure that you have an opportunity to say this prayer with me today. Most of you are saved, but it’s a good idea just anyway, maybe you’ve drifted away from the Lord. It’s a good prayer to pray, this prayer today. I’ve been doing this over recent weeks. So, you pray with me. Say, “Jesus, You are the Lord and Savior of my life. I give my life to You. I ask You to run my life for me. In Jesus name. You are my Lord. I am saved, in Jesus’s name.”
You know that is such a powerful prayer because if you say He is Lord, and you are saved, then whatever wolves have come to your door right now you’re saved from them. He steps in right now as the Good Shepherd and immediately stands as your protection. Right now. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
So, I declare that you are blessed. No weapon formed against you prospers. You’re blessed going out, blessed coming in. Your thoughts are blessed, your Spirit Man is highly favored. And out of your inner man comes the forces and the issues of life making that abundant life available to you everywhere. Hallelujah. In Jesus name.
So, we start again at one o’clock. Amen. Means you got an hour and a half to get some grub. Grub-A-Dub-Dub. Oh, there’s some lunch in the foy yay. No, I don’t want a song. I want them to go and eat. Bye Y’all.
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