Crossover Part 15: Crossover from the Curses to the Blessing - Ps John Bendixen - Heritage of Faith Ministries International

December 16, 2023

Scripture reference: Genesis 1:28-29 (NLT), Genesis 2:15-17 (NLT); Genesis 3:1-24 (NLT); Genesis 4:2-15 (NLT)

Well, today’s a grand day. It’s a wonderful day. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Yeah. Today is the day where we get to share some things that God is continuously showing, His goodness, His favour, His blessing on me and anybody else who wishes to have it. If you want it, you can have it. Amen. Hallelujah. So we’re gonna kick off, I mean, obviously, you see bicycles on the platform here. They’re hard to miss. They’re stunning bicycles. I’ll talk about them in a few minutes. But we’re gonna play a video. Isn’t that a wonderful picture? That’s me.

Makes it even better. It is a picture that Matt took of me just recently a couple of weeks ago, heading out on a ride to Middelburg somewhere, I think. And, It was just a good early morning picture, so well done to Matt for taking that off a cell phone on a moving bike. Not too bad. Yeah. So, praise the Lord.

We are going to start off the session by sharing with you something that we are believing God for as a ministry and we don’t, at this moment in time, have the finances available to make this happen, but that’s never stopped us from doing anything in the ministry to this point. But we are planning a trip for mostly the iXchange, MiXchange group of people. But if there are others that can take leave and they want to join us in whatever capacity, you would have to make a application and hundreds of thousands on a cheque. So let’s roll the Joburg to Blouberg. [Joburg to Blouberg clip starts playing]

Joburg to Blouberg. Challenged to your core. Pressing for more of what you have never experienced before. Progress. Advance 2024. Joburg to Blouberg. Challenged to your core. 2024 Jo’burg to Blouberg. Challenged to your core. Pressing for more of what you have never experienced before. Progress. Advance. Stand tall. Breakthroughs. Wave upon wave. Something big is coming. This is a test of your commitment. This is focus, determination. This is pressing for the goal. How hard will you press? How long will you stand? 1600 kilometers. Two wheels. Two feet. Four provinces. Fourteen days. Fifty-five people. I have one compelling focus. I forget all of the past as I fasten my heart to the future. I run straight. We advance together to reach this victory prize following one path with one passion. This one mindset, our one motivation, progressing, advancing, promotion, and seeing our highest expectation fulfilled. One vision.One goal. One heart. This is Joburg to Blouberg. (An extreme xpedition) A journey to new discoveries. [End of the video clip and the congregation is cheering and clapping their hands.] Yeah.

So now we wanna close the church for fourteen days and all go. Right? Yeah. Some of you are saying, “No way, not me.” Hallelujah. Well, it’s a good thing. It’s a wonderful thing. We love adventure in this church. We love to use our faith in this church. It is amazing that we have a spiritual leader in Doctor Jerry Savelle, whose whole thing is Adventures in Faith. And so we have the whole lot together. So something that we will be aiming for in April next year. So the idea is that we will finish that in time to run the Two Oceans Half Marathon. So we will see how that all works out. But that is the plan, yes? Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.

So now on a more personal note, I am going to just share some things with you that has been happening to me since May of this year. The Lord started working with me in May this year. So 2023 is the year of the Maximum, right? So I really have had my faith, my declaration, my confession for the maximum. And so I was having some time alone with the Lord and His presence just came into the room, and He just started to speak to me. And it was such a wonderful moment, and He said, “John, I want to do you a favour. Ask me for a favour.” Well, I didn’t know what to ask Him. It’s an amazing thing when God talks to you. Anybody that has ever had that kind of communication from the Lord, you will know that in a question, in a single statement, you can know so many things.

In our world, we have to have a linear conversation that takes us from A to B. But when God gives it to you, it’s like a shotgun. He hits you with one thing, but He is hitting you with ten things all at the same time. And you just know all ten things at the same time, because you know you know the voice of God, and He communicates all of that to you instantly. So I knew when He asked me that, I knew that He wasn’t coming to me saying, “John, I want to impart a new gift of the Holy Spirit to you.” Or, “I want to do something significant in your ministry.” Or, He is not asking me a question like He asked Solomon. “Ask Me one thing I can give you.” And of course, Solomon asked Him for wisdom, and then wealth came with wisdom. It wasn’t something like that.

It wasn’t something eternal that God was asking me. Neither that I knew this. He did not want to say to me, “I want to get you a new car, I want to give you a new house, I want to give you any of those things.” I know how to get that stuff by faith. I know how to live in the blessing of God for material possessions. So, I knew it was something that was beyond my scope, or my realm of something that was in my world.

So after a couple of days, I kind of it came to me, that I knew what I would want to ask, and so I spoke to Pastor Sharon about it, and I went about the process and the application and doing everything that I could do in the natural. Remember, He said, “I want you to ask Me a favour that’s impossible for you to do. It’s impossible for you to do.” So He was trying to show me that whatever was possible in the past, it doesn’t have to be impossible. What was impossible in the past doesn’t have to be impossible anymore. I want to grant you a favour to make it possible.

And so the process itself was, for me, the scope of it, the effort of it, the cost of it, the status of it. Everything is the reason why I never considered it. You know. Also, it had a physical an element of physical limitation for me, which I had always just said, “I don’t think I can do that.” Because of a physical limitation for me. But in that moment, I knew that God was going to show me something really amazing. So, He has granted me something really extraordinary, and I’m happy today to have all of you join me on this journey. I’ve already been on this journey since June and I will continue on this journey until later next year.

So I want to say to you that the journey that I’m on is a journey that I would love you all to participate within your encouragement, in your faith, in the joy of what’s happening, I would like you all to participate with me in any way that you feel that you can. Amen. But this is not your journey. This is my journey. And neither should you try and participate in any other way than other, just be part of it with me. Amen. Yes. And neither should you try and participate in any other way, than other just be part of it with me. Amen. Hallelujah. So, let’s roll, let’s roll the next clip, please. [The congregation watches a clip on the ABSA Cape Epic]

That’s what I’m doing in March next year. Hallelujah. So, I’m going for a few minutes just tell you about my journey. The first thing, one of reasons I’ve never even considered doing it is because it costs so much to do it. Anybody who has ever known about the ABSA Cape Epic will know that it is a big price tag to just get into this race. If you can get into the race. Normally the race is sold out ten minutes after they launch the next year, literally because people come and do the race on a, from an international. It’s the pinnacle of mountain bike racing. It is referred to as the Tour de France of mountain biking, people literally champions from across the world come and they test themselves at this race. So I’d never considered it to be something that I would want to spend the money on, neither did I consider it to be something that I really wanted to test myself in, because it’s a very, very tough race. So from a financial point of view, from a physical, extreme point of view, from how many days you got to put into it and all that stuff, I just didn’t consider it something that I ever wanted to do in terms of just going after it. In my heart, it was always something I had yearned to be able to do. It was something deep inside of me that said, “If I could, I would.” So when the Lord said, “I want you to ask Me something that I can give you a favour that would be impossible for you to arrange and to organise and to do.” This was it.

So part of my challenge is in going for this. So you got to make the application, then you wait for them to respond. There’s nothing you can do. You can’t phone them. You can’t organise anything. You either get it or you don’t. It’s all sold out. So if you’re going to get something, it’s because they either decided to open a few more slots or someone didn’t take up their allocation, didn’t pay their money and so it became available. I mean, it’s just a rare thing to be able to get into this race. So after a week or two of backwards and forwards asking for more information. They said, “You’re in.” And now you have three months. Was it a three months? No. Maybe it was a month or two months. I don’t recall now exactly, but for some time where you’ve got to pay the money and you’ve got to get a partner because it’s a two man race. It’s a two man race. So I’m, I’m what they call a Grand Master category. Yes. I am. That means you’re over sixty. So they have a category of Grand Masters to ride the Cape Epic. If you are riding with someone that’s say thirty years old then you can’t ride in the veterans category you got to race as an amateur. So there’s a whole lot of rules you always have to ride to youngest person’s category.

So if you’re sixty something, you don’t want to ride in a thirty something category. Right? There’s a lot of practical reasons for that. So who’s gonna ride with me? So I had to pray about that for some time, and I did because this is not just about me. It’s about who’s going to ride with me. And so if the Lord is, He’s gonna give me the favour of getting me in, He’s got someone in mind. Right? And so there are people that normally ride with me, that are usually the people that ride with me, that I’ve done much riding with, they’re just too young for this race. So after much prayer, I made a phone call. And what a wonderful response that I had from him and his wife, and I would like you to welcome Kit Wostenholm to the team.

So Kit and I have been training since June. So if you don’t know, he’s lost weight. I’ve lost weight. And we’re still heading for our fitness goals. Here’s an amazing thing. You know, I was prepared to bring my part financially. So, I want to just, this is not a measure of, anything other than the favour of God, So please just bear with me if I take numbers that are just blowing your mind. Okay? Please. So to enter and pay for and be a participant of the Absa Cape Epic for a team of two is a R110 000. Now you know why I didn’t apply for it in the beginning years ago. Right? It’s just not what you want to normally just go and take your first R110 000 and go and spend it on a entry to ride a race. Right? Maybe you want to buy a new GS motorbike or a house, or a car or something else rather than race. Yes. So but, you know, I said, “Lord, if this is what You want, then You’ll provide it for me.” Certainly, I was ready to bring my side of the financial thing, but this is a journey between me and the Lord. So as I stand here today, I’m happy to say that for both Kit and I, there was a process that developed and unfolded where we have had a donor sponsor that has paid for our entrance. Praise the lord. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Glory to God. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Glory to God. What the Lord does, He provides. Glory to Jesus. So, I initially thought I wasn’t going to tell you anything about it until I had finished the Absa Cape Epic. But so great is this story and this testimony that I felt I’d prefer it if you came on this journey with me. But I needed to get fit enough and strong enough and know that I’m at least working towards it before I told all of you.

So to that extent, we went and did a mountain bike ride in the Cape in September for four days and it was a really challenging ride and I did it on this beautiful beast. Now I want to tell you about this beast. It’s fast, and it’s not just the rider on it that makes it fast. The bike itself is really fast. But, you know, and I just want to tell you that I didn’t pay for this bike. God gave me this bike. Someone paid for this bike for me and blessed me with this bike. This one. [Pastor John referring to the Trek bicycle] I also want to tell you that I’ve never bought a bicycle that I’ve resold. Every single bicycle that I’ve bought, I’ve sowed.

So if I’d sold it, I would have probably made my money back. Some of my bicycles I bought in the early years of my cycling, I bought for 5 000, 7 000, 10 000. I’ve never yet bought a bicycle that I resold. Every bicycle that I’ve bought or that I’ve owned, I’ve sown. Is it a surprise to you then, that someone would give me a bicycle? That’s at least as much as I’ve sown in value, if not more. Amen.

So, you know, I’m not as young as I used to be, and I am riding in the Masters category because Kit is younger than me. But at least he is in his fifties, so we can ride in the Master’s category, not the Grand Master’s category. So but, you know, when we rode that ride, we realized actually, that to do the Absa Cape Epic with this bike is going to be extremely hard on our bodies. There are some technical reasons why. I’m not going to explain all of it to you today because you’ll get drowned in the technology. But both Kit and I just had this conversation that we would like to have something that is better suited to do something as blessed and extravagant as what God has already done. Enter this bike, I’m happy to say to you that God blessed me with a bike. Again, a donor sponsor paid for it. For both Kit and I and we ride as a team. We’re sponsored as a team. We’re blessed as a team. And we are gonna finish this thing as a team.

So, you know, I did that before anybody knew what the route was going to be for 2024. So if you wanna find out, you can find out that the route for 2024 is 600 and, I think. What is it, Kit? Do you know? 640 odd kilometers and 16 000 meters of climbing in eight days. It’s going up and down Everest twice in eight days.

If you see me walking around here like hangdog sometimes, it’s because I’m training so hard. This bike is a blessing of the Lord because not only is it a bike that has a better geometry for the race Absa Cape Epic. It also is a fully electronic version of the bike. It is the top of the range that you can buy. There is no bike in South Africa that has more than this bike. It’s the best of the best. You know, you might have a different name on this here. You might put Specialized here. You might put Cannondale here or Scott or something, a different frame. But as bikes go, there is no better bike. Specialized doesn’t have one that’s better. Scott does not have one that’s better. This is the top of the range bicycle available in South Africa right now. Praise Jesus! Praise Jesus! Praise Jesus! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.

So, you know, when I started this journey, I determined in my heart and Pastor Sharon is going to share some things with you, maybe later this afternoon. We’re just going to see how the Holy Spirit leads, but she’ll share some things with you about what God did for me in 2016, I think it was. When I did the first Tour de Boland, when God said, you know, “I want to do something spiritual, and I want to show you something spiritual in the natural.” And He gave me an opportunity and what a big spiritual springboard that was for our ministry. If you want to talk about all the advancement that we’ve made in our ministry, or the greatest advancement we’ve made in our ministry, it all came after 2015. Because there was a spiritual boom that happened because of what God did. A simple thing called cycling. Well, cycling is no different to you going to work every day. It’s a simple regular task. It’s no different to anything else you do every day. How you love someone, how you talk to someone, how you do something. It’s just a simple, regular, natural task, but God putting His super on it creates something extraordinary. He creates something magnificent.

So praise the Lord. I’m expecting great, wonderful things. I just want you to know that I’m giving everything and I thank God for a partner like Kit. Because even though you hear something from the Lord, it doesn’t mean he was going to say yes. It doesn’t mean Meredith was going to agree to it, you know. I mean, there’s a lot of if’s and but’s in the whole thing, and of course, he’s got other responsibilities and things like that. And he had to have a recognition in himself about what God was doing here, and he did. God imparted that to him, and we continue to develop and grow in this opportunity. And I believe that what’s happening here is something that God is going to just use for His glory. He already is, just by me talking about it to you today, He’s already using it for His glory. And I’m trusting it’s just encouraging your faith. Yeah. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

So this is not just a thing that you know, if you had said to me, “Pastor John…” or if I told you I’m going to ride from Cullies to Dullies, you know, you would have said, “Okay, but maybe that’s just you.” But this is obviously something God wanted to do that’s supernatural, and He’s showing me a favour. So, I have to just conclude by saying this, that as I journeyed, because in the beginning when this all happened, it happened so quickly and then we were ready and we were just going. I mean, it literally had happened in thirty days. Everything just fell into place. The money was there. The partnership was there. I mean, the bikes came later. It’s a new, it’s a brand new bike, but the thing is everything just started happening. I just said to the Lord, I said, “Lord, you know, I really need to understand the deeper, something a bit deeper than this.” Here’s what He said to me. He said, “I want you to get to a level of physical conditioning that when you live your rest of your life, you live the rest of your life for the same determination to live at a physical condition, that is what you’re putting into this now.” Obviously, it won’t be the hours. It won’t be all of that stuff, but He said, “The condition you’re in, I want you to maintain that condition for the rest of your life so that you can fulfill your assignment and all the stuff I’ve called you to do. You need to be in better shape than you have been till now.”

So, as we go further, I will tell you about some of the conversations the Lord and I have had and how it’s impacting my life and impacting my declaration. And how I’m at Kenneth Copeland’s Conference with Brother Jerry, and we start having conversations about health and about assignment and about a hundred and twenty years, things that Kenneth Copeland is believing God for and things that he does in the natural to make sure that he can fulfill the assignment of God.

So, I understand. You know, if we want to talk about some deeper spiritual things. This is the way I feel about it. I’ve got the doctrine for it, whether you agree with my doctrine or not, I’m not going talk about doctrine now. But this is the way I feel about it. It’s like the Lord showed up and He said, “John, I want to give you a favour. Ask Me something.” And when He asked me, He knew what I was going to ask Him, because He already knows my deepest thoughts, my deepest desires. Right? Yes.

He knew what I was going to ask it. So, if He came to ask me, it’s because He had an outcome in mind, not just finishing a race. So, that means that He knew I would respond that way. He knew that He would have everything set up for me to go for it so that it would launch me into a phase of strength and a mindset that doesn’t think I’m sixty three. I’ve got that many more years to still go with God. Amen. Amen. And these young people better watch out. They better watch out. They got to stay pace. Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. They better watch out. They gotta stay pace. Amen. Praise the Lord.

Thank you for sharing in this wonderful moment with me. Thank you. Thank you. It’s really a magnificent and wonderful journey for me. Thank you to my wonderful wife. She’s so with me. I get on my indoor trainer, and I’m doing this and so she comes to me just about every day. “Babes, how long are you doing today?” “Two hours, babes.” “How long are you doing today?” “Two hours, babes.” “How long are you doing today?” “Two hours, babes.” Now she’s got used to it. She doesn’t ask me anymore. I just do two hours. The other day, she came to see, “How long are you doing today?” “I’m doing two and a half hours.” “Two and a half hours?” But just the most amazing thing, the grace that is upon me has come upon her. Now in this last week, she sits next to me on her bicycle, and she does an hour riding with me. This whole week, she did an hour every day. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. So now she’s getting the benefit and we’re enjoying it. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

It’s a glory story. It’s a glory story. It’s the year of the maximum. When Brother Jerry brought the word for 2024 and he said, “Progression.” And he said, “Promotion.” And he said, what is all the things he said? “Advancing, progressing, advancing, promotion and fulfillment of your highest expectations.” I need progress. I need the promotion of my physical well-being to go to a new level. Yes? Everything that he said, I’m already ready for it. God’s launching me into my highest expectations. And my highest expectation is I will ride that race. Me and Kit, we’re gonna ride it. We’re gonna finish it. We’ll have no sickness. We’ll have no disease. We’ll have no injuries. We’ll have nothing that’s gonna stop us. We’re going for gold. I mean, if we win it, that’s a bonus. If we don’t, you know. Elijah legs is a part of my declaration. Forever I needed Elijah legs, now is the time. Praise the Lord. Glory to God. Okay. Are you ready to move on to another subject? Or I mean, this is a big deal that I needed to share with you today, and I couldn’t do it on a Sunday morning service because there’s just too much to get through. So thank you for coming and being part of this amazing day with me today. Amen.

But I do want to talk to you about blessings and about curses, and we’ll see how the Lord leads us. I’m not going to go back to what I preached last Sunday morning. I’m going to preach now, I’m going talk now for about half an hour, then we’ll have a short break, and then I’ll talk again. So blessing and cursing, I said last week, both of them are vehicles of supernatural power. In other words, blessing is the result or consequence of obedience to God. And curses is the result and or consequence of disobedience to God. Here’s what the Lord said to me about a curse. A curse is God’s correction or judgment against disobedience. It is a guard against the full glory and goodness of God. It’s a barrier, and I’ll explain it to you in a minute, because the devil doesn’t have power.

I’m going to share with you now how I can say this that the devil doesn’t have power. All of what the devil got from God before he became the devil, when he was he was the angel of light, he was Lucifer. When he was in the presence of God, he was a reflection of the glory of God. He never had glory of his own. He was a reflection of the glory. Neither did he have any creative power of his own. All of his creative power was God’s creative power that was in him.

You can find this in the book of Isaiah and the book of Ezekiel. So he never had any of his own creative power. It was all God’s creative power. So when he used that creative power to assert his will to be the same level as the will of God, there can only be one will in the universe. And so other Scriptures will reveal that satan fell like lightning from Heaven, and he came to the bowels of the earth. When that event happened, all the light that was in him left him. All of the creative power that he had could no longer remain in him. All of his life, his creative power, all of the glory that he had was removed from him.

Because those things come from God. When you’re no longer in the presence of God, those things are no longer available to you. So what is death? If we get down to a simplistic version of death, then we can say death is the separation from life. And so that’s why when our physical bodies die, it is not that our soul and our spirit is ceasing to exist. It just means the life that comes with your spirit is leaving your natural body. So when the life that comes with your spirit leaves your natural body, your body must cease to exist because there’s a separation of life. So, your body, we call it death, your body ceases to breathe, it ceases to exist. That’s because the life source is God.

So every spirit being’s life source is your spirit. And your soul is the bridge between your body and your spirit. So when your spirit leaves, your life source leaves your body; it’s not the air that you breathe, it’s not your pumping heart that keeps you alive, those things are the result of your spirit man, being in your body. So death is the separation from life. So when the devil got separated from life, there’s no more life in him, he’s existing, but as a spirit created being, but he’s no longer in the presence of God. There’s no life in him. He is death, meaning he’s the absence of life. So, all of the beings that were cast out of Heaven at the same time, they all experience the same thing.

So, a curse is God’s correction or judgment against disobedience. It is a guard against the full glory and the goodness of God. In other words, God has to say if there is any disobedience or anti-God-will, it always has to be corrected and judged. So when God does that, it creates a space for other beings to enter in. This correction is necessary because of the authority given to man and man’s permission given to satan to turn authority and creative power into rebellion. So, man gave his authority and his creative power into the hands of a being who persuaded them to give their authority to him.

So, now when God has to bring a correction or a judgement, it is always because man has given his authority, his creative power to another being who uses what man has to get power because he doesn’t have it. He uses man’s life to have existence, without it, he doesn’t have it. Which is why in the beginning when God said, “Let us make let us have, let us make the earth.” His spirit hovered over the earth, and it was with it was dark, it was without form it was void, there was no life in it. Why? Because that was where satan and all of the angels that followed him were in there. Where they exist, no life exists. So, when God said, “Let’s remake the earth.” He created a new environment for man to live, not for satan to be active.

So, when man gave his authority to the devil, anything that man now does in disobedience to God, God has to correct it or judge it. So, when people refer to something that is a curse, it’s not because, you know, people think there is a power in the curse, there’s no power in a curse. It’s the correction or the judgement of God that permits other forces to come in and bring their death and their destruction. So, what if I said here, blessing is the result and or consequence of obedience, cursing is the consequent the result or consequence of disobedience, I’d like to just tell you what a consequence is. A consequence is something produced by a cause or necessarily followed from a set of conditions. It’s importance with respect to power to produce an effect. Okay. If you have a synonym for consequence, a synonym is an after effect or it’s a chain reaction. And so I know that there are some of you that immediately want to go and jump ahead to the question. Well is witchcraft real? Is curses that people place on other people, is it real? Does it have real power? And people will swear to it that there is power in witchcraft and there is power in the practices of dark arts or evil. And so if you don’t go there for a minute and let me get through the way that I’m going to present this to you, your questions will get answered. Amen.

Genesis chapter 1 verse 28 and now I’m going to be fairly basic about this but I’m reading from the New Living Translation, ²⁸ Then God blessed them man and woman and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” ²⁹Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food (Genesis 1:28-29 NLT). Can you see that God blessed them? There’s no vacuum here. There’s man in Adam, Eve was in him so when He talks about them He’s talking about that Eve hadn’t yet come out of him. But Eve was in him. So when He blesses Adam He’s blessing Eve to come. He blessed them, fruitful, multiply, governance. I haven’t got time to talk about my eight eternal principles. If you have done Leadership School you will know all about the eight eternal principles. But authority, governance, all those things, seed, it’s all in there, it’s eternal, it’s all found in Genesis. It’s an eternal thing.

So when God said, “Be fruitful, multiply and govern and reign.” That’s blessing. That’s blessing. And then He said, “Not only am I going to bless you with these things but I am also going to give you seed that is going to continuously bless you. So you don’t even have to work. Other things will work for you while you just rule, reign and govern.” So when He blesses, He doesn’t say, I bless you to do something. I bless you to work on governance and authority and exercising your blessing mandate. Other things will work to feed you. That’s the blessing.

So then in chapter 2 verse 15, ¹⁵The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. To guard it. ¹⁶But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden — ¹⁷except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:15-17 NLT). Chapter 3, I am going to just read this passage of Scripture to you from the New Living Translation because I can tell you the story. I know you know the story, but there’s wonders in the details. ¹The serpent was the shrewdest of all the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day he asked the woman. You know, everything that the enemy will bring as an anti-blessing, is what I’m gonna call it for now. An anti-blessing, instead of calling it a curse, I’m gonna call it an anti-blessing. Okay? Just for now, anything the devil wants to bring to you as an anti-blessing, he will always start with a question. He will question God’s authority in your life. ¹“Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” She replied, ² “Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. ³ “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it;… Well, that’s not what God said. But I’m not gonna get into the semantics of it, but it is important when you are facing things in your life that you speak what God said, not add your thing to what God said.

³…‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’” ⁴ “You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. ⁵ “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.” The promise was a level of spirituality, a level of life, a level of access to God that was so attractive that everything that God said seemed to be unattractive. I wonder, I wonder if that’s where we find ourselves in life so often. Is that, “Jah, if we could just get to this level of knowing God, then we’d really be someplace.” Meantime, you gotta compromise something God already told you in order to get where you are suggested you can be. So you gotta leave where God’s brought you to get to some place where you can be. But you can never be there because it’ll actually compromise you. I’d say that’s a curse. It’s an anti-blessing.

⁶ The woman was convinced. She saw that the tree was beautiful and its fruit looked delicious, and she wanted the wisdom it would give her. So she took some of the fruit and ate it. Then she gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it, too. ⁷ At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. ⁸When the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man[a] and his wife heard the Lord God walking about in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees. ⁹Then the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” ¹⁰He replied, “I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.” ¹¹“Who told you that you were naked?” the Lord God asked. “Have you eaten from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat?” ¹²The man replied, “It was the woman you gave me who gave me the fruit, and I ate it.” And since then, it has all been about the blame game in the whole world. ¹³Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” “The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.” ¹⁴ Then the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live (Genesis 3:8-14 NLT).

So now, when God is cursing, He is bringing a correction and a judgement. Right? He needs to do it, because this creature has been used by this devil to bring about a disobedience to God. He can’t leave any disobedience uncorrected and unjudged. Because if He did that, then both His love, His glory and His grace would all be at stake. So He always has to bring correction and judgement. So it is not that He cursed, He just proclaimed a new state of being as a correction, as a judgement. So, it left a force of permission in the earth to do things that are anti-God. Are you all with me?

¹⁴ You will crawl on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as you live. ¹⁵And I will cause hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike[b] your head, and you will strike his heel.” ¹⁶Then he said to the woman, “I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy, and in pain you will give birth. And you will desire to control your husband, but he will rule over you.[c]” Where was there control in the earth before then? No control. There was no control, there was only agreement. Suddenly there is an element of control. What is God doing? God is bringing a judgement and a correction so that what is in Him is now removed from what was previously available. In that vacuum is a presence, a force of manipulation, suggestion, all manner of things. What was the devil trying to do to the woman in his deception? Was he not controlling her future? What is God saying? “Because you allowed yourself to be controlled, now you are going to desire control, but you never will have it.” Yeah. “¹⁷And to the man, he said, “ Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you.” Genesis 3:17 (NLT)

In other words, this is what God is saying, “I have to bring correction that you cannot live with the ground in what I originally purposed it to do. The ground was supposed to work for you while you worked with Me. Now the ground cannot work for you anymore, so instead of working with Me, you’re going to have to work the ground that was supposed to give it to you. Now you’re gonna have to work it.” So it’s no longer, it’s not a curse, it’s the absence of the glory and the goodness of God that has to be guarded against advantage. A new knowledge of good and evil. A new knowledge that has been obtained. It’s gotta be guarded against new knowledge.

So, ⁷”All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it. ¹⁸ It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains. ¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return”. ²⁰ Then the man – Adam – named his wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who live. ²¹ And the LORD God made clothing from animal skins for Adam and his wife.

Please notice for the first time there are other consequences. The consequences is that animals had to die to cover what was the glory and goodness. Now there’s a replacement for glory and goodness. Because correction had to be brought that the full goodness and the full glory of God could not be attained any longer. So God has to bring a barrier, a guard against the fullness of who He is by the corrupted human. Because the corrupted human can’t know what to do with the fullness of good, and the goodness of God.

So, it’s a curse. But when people use the word curse, it’s anti-blessing. It’s the absence of blessing with the vacuum that is filled with death and destruction because that’s the force that opposes God. So when people refer to a curse, then they see it as death and destruction. They see it as negative. It’s negative because there’s no goodness there. There’s no glory there. There’s no abundance there. There’s no goodness there.

²² Then the Lord God said, “Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever in this corrupted state. ²³ So the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden, and he sent Adam out to cultivate the ground from which he had been made. ²⁴ After sending them out, the Lord God stationed mighty cherubim to the east of the Garden of Eden. And he placed a flaming sword that flashed back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3:1-24 NLT). Hallelujah.

I’ve got one more passage of Scripture to read, and then we’ll break. Are you with me for five more minutes? Genesis 4 verse 2, ² Later she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel. When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground. ³When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord.

Here’s the important part I want to make to you, is that even though the full goodness and the full glory of God wasn’t available to Adam and Eve and their children anymore. He was still there with them. He has never forsaken humanity. It’s always humanity that forsakes Him. ⁴ Abel also brought a gift—the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, ⁵ but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.⁶ “Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected?⁷ You will be accepted if you do what is right.

So how would Cain know what is right? He already knew what was right. He just chose not to do the right thing. Otherwise, God couldn’t have judged him as being in the wrong, But God didn’t say, “You’re in the wrong.” He’s saying you will be accepted if you do what was right. In other words, He was giving him another chance to do what was right. Before He had to bring another correction and another judgement, He was giving him a chance to correct himself.

⁷ But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master. ⁸One day Cain suggested to his brother, “Let’s go out into the fields.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother, Abel, and killed him. ⁹Afterwards, the lord asked Cain, “Where is your brother? Where is Abel?” “I don’t know,” Cain responded. “Am I my brother’s guardian?” ¹⁰But the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground!” In other words, this man whose blood or whose offering had been accepted. The accepted man’s blood hit the cursed ground. When the blessed man’s blood hits the cursed ground, it cries. It speaks to eternity. So God heard that. So, there’s a lot I can say about that but I’ve gotta move right along.

¹¹ Now you are cursed. Where did the curse come? Why was there a new correction? Why was there a new judgment? Because innocent, accepted blood had hit the curse. There was nothing that was done to Abel that needed correction or judgment. He was accepted. The accepted, when it touched the curse, God had to judge the thing that was unrighteously judging something else. Unrighteous judgement. So let me just say that. The reason I am so against opinions, judgements, brothers in the church having opinions about other brothers in the church, about people speaking against leadership, about people having lots of words and opinions and have things to say where they don’t agree with what the leadership in the church is because they’re not exercising judgment in terms of putting a sword into their heart or into their bodies, but they’re exercising the same level of execution. And if you do that to an innocent person, their walk before God speaks and it brings judgement to you. And so my, my thing is not to preserve the church to be an apolitical church or to preserve a church that people don’t have opinions or have, preserve a church where they are, you know, “Look what a great church we have.” It’s actually born out of my love for you. A love for us. Because if these things exist, we create our own judgment. Anti-blessing. Why would we want to serve God with an anti-blessing system? Ja nê.

So ¹¹ Now you’re cursed and banished from the ground, which has swallowed your brother’s blood. ¹² No longer will the ground yield good crops for you, no matter how hard you work! From now on, you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth.” ¹³ Cain replied to the Lord, “My punishment is too great for me to bear! ¹⁴You have banished me from the land and from Your presence; You have made me a homeless wanderer. Anyone who finds me will kill me!” ¹⁵ The Lord replied, “No, for I have given a sevenfold punishment. for I will give a sevenfold punishment to anyone who kills you.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who might try to kill him (Genesis 4:2-15 NLT).

I’m just trying to make a point to you today that when the Bible talks about cursing and we try and say, “Curses.” And I’m going to speak in the next session about generational curses and about bloodline curses and about different things that people talk about. And, I’ve never wanted address it in twenty three years, but I feel that we are at a season right now. Where in our crossing over, we must understand that we are talking about and blessing behaviour.

And when we are talking about a cursing behaviour, it’s not a curse in the way that I curse you. But if someone does curse you, what are they trying to do to you? If they’re cursing you, they don’t want good for you. If they curse you, they say, “I want, I wish you would die. I wish you would just walk across the road and someone would take you out.” I mean, they’re meaning harm to you. They’re meaning evil to you. They’re not blessing you, so their whole attitude is an anti-blessing attitude. It’s allowing a vengeance, a hate, a harm, an anger, whatever, a rebellion, whatever is in you to want to control And when Cain realised that what he had done had such great consequences, he said, “These consequences are too much for me to bear. It’s better for me to die like my brother.” No you can’t die like your brother because your blood is not innocent. So you’re going to live with your consequence and all that’s gonna come from you. Amen. I think we’ve got a good start this morning. Are you ready for the next session? Yes. Let’s have a ten minute break, and then we’ll come back and do it all again.

Session 2

Scripture reference: Luke 4:1-14 (NKJV); Luke 9:1-6 (NKJV); Matthew 16:16-19 (NKJV); Matthew 18:18-20 (NKJV); Ephesians 6:10-13 (NKJV); Colossians 1:13-20 (NKJV);

Praise the Lord. Are you getting something out of this, today? Hallelujah. I thank God for truth hey, because truth brings light and freedom, all of those good things. Amen. So, if you just come back and listen to this, these sessions over and over again. Then you will, you will see that there is a thread here that will take you into everything that will make much more sense of you in the New Testament and everything that you read off and you understand about the New Testament and so we are going to go there right now. New Testament.

I think I’m gonna make a mention quickly to you that when Cain was cursed by God, I’m going to say corrected and judged because when we say curse, it has a really negative connotation. Okay, so I’m gonna say when he was corrected and judged. It was the first time that a measure was brought into man’s world. So when God told Adam and Eve, this is just by the way for you, this is a little bit of something you can study for yourself. When God gave all the herbs of the field and all of the seed and all of the fruit for Adam and Eve to live by, there was no restricted measure of what it could produce. There wasn’t a anything such as a hundredfold. Because everything God does is in the maximum of what God produced it to do. There was no reason for it not to do everything God said it should do. The minute sin came into the world, measuring started happening and Cain was the first person where he’s pushed back against God cause God to bring a measure. Because he said, “This is too hard for me to live like this, Your punishment is too great, rather people kill me, they are gonna kill me because of all of this stuff that’s obviously in my life.” And God said, “No, no, anybody does this sevenfold punishment.”

So who’s going to measure the punishment? Who’s going to now measure the punishment? Well, when God speaks it, it already has the power to have the correction and the judgement in His Word. He now no longer has to observe anybody that does something against Him. It’s already in the Words that He speaks. So the judgement is already a sevenfold judgement in His Word, but this is the first time that anything is measured in the Bible. Luke chapter 4 verse 1, ¹Then Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan River. He was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, ²where He was tempted by the devil for forty days. Jesus ate nothing all that time and became very hungry. ³Then the devil said to Him, “If you are the Son of God, remember, here’s the question again. “If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.⁴ But Jesus told him, ”No! The Scriptures say, People do not live by bread alone.’” but by every Word of God. ⁵ Then the devil took him up and revealed to him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.

If you ask me what happened when God said to me, “John, I want to do you a favour.” In a moment in time, I knew so much of what He was asking me. What it was not as much as what it was that He was asking me, because that’s what happens in the spirit. It’s a spirit to spirit communication. So took him out, showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.⁶ And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give to You, and their glory. So he’s talking about the kingdoms of the world. Who makes up the kingdoms of the world? Men, men. So when He says, “I will give you all the kingdoms of the world,” What he was saying is, “I will give you all the kings that men have kingdoms that men have created.” These kingdoms are under my authority because those men are under my authority. Right? And the glory of men. Remember what I said? The devil doesn’t have any creative power. He doesn’t have any glory in himself. So his only way to get glory is to have men worship him, men do what he wants, men to give him their power and creativity. So that he can use them to keep the momentum going to glorify him. I will give you and their glory, ⁶ And the devil said to Him, “All this authority I will give you and their glory; for this has been delivered to me, and I give it to whomever I wish.

Therefore, if you will worship before me, all will be yours. Notice that Jesus didn’t question his source of authority or the scope of his authority. That’s not the conversation to have. How much authority do you have? What’s the source of your authority? What’s the scope of your authority? Jesus was not even going to entertain that conversation. What is the biggest conversation that people want to have when they talk about curses, generational curses, bloodline curses any manner of things that they want to have victory over the devil? They want to find out; where was the source of the problem? So always men wants to go to the source of the problem. God says, “The source of the problem is already taken care of, living the solution.” What is Jesus living? He’s not questioning the authority, the scope of the authority, he goes straight to the solution. What’s the solution? Speak the will of God.

⁸ And Jesus answered and said to him, “Get behind Me, satan! For it is written, ‘You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only you shall serve.’” I really like what Jesus is doing here. I mean, I really like the way that He’s revealing to us how we need to live because we always want to go and find out who’s got the authority to do what. Who’s got the authority to do what? And so we always tried to live in this realm. How much authority? Who’s got the authority? What’s the source of the authority? How it’s the scope of the authority? We always wanting to get there. And Jesus is so passionate. He’s just saying, “If you do the Word.” It’s all answered in a Word. It’s all answered in the Word.

Hey, if you’re always doing the Word, then why would you question any scope of authority? If you’re always doing the Word, the question of authority becomes irrelevant. Just think about that. Just meditate on that a little bit. You’ll see later on when I’m going through the message. ⁹Then he brought him to Jerusalem, set Him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down from here. ¹⁰ For it is written He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you, ¹¹ and in their hands, they shall bear you up, lest you dash your foot against the stone. He’s quoting the Bible to him. Just because you get the Bible quoted to you doesn’t mean to say that it’s in the right context. ¹²And Jesus answered and said to him, “It has been said, ‘You shall not tempt the Lord your God.’” ¹³ Now when the devil had ended every temptation, he departed from Him until an opportune time. In other words, I didn’t get you now, but I’m coming back to see if I can get you later. ¹⁴Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region (Luke 4:1-14 NKJV).

Okay. I just want to make you this point, that the devil comes after Jesus. What is he trying to get Him to do? He’s trying to get Him, he’s trying to deceive Him, to manipulate Him, to marginalise the orders of God, so that on a technicality, on a marginal issue, he can get Jesus to give up His authority. Does that sound familiar to you and me? Deception, manipulation on a marginal issue, he is trying to give up your authority, so that you don’t understand the full power and scope of what God has given you. That’s the reason the church is in such a pitiful condition, is because we really don’t know how much authority and power we have and why the world actually scorns the church. Because we speak a big power game, but we don’t live it.

Watch this now. He came in the full; In the power of the Holy Spirit. He returned in the power of the spirit. Chapter 9 verse 1 of Luke Chapter 9 verse 1, New King James Version. ¹ Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases. He’s given them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases. And ² He sent them with this power and authority to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. What is Jesus saying? He is saying, “I conquered the temptation of the devil, he has got nothing in Me, now I give you this power and authority, I transfer it to you. Go do it.”

Now, I’m just going to try and make a point here for you very quickly. Are these men born again? No. These are not born again. These are covenant children of God. They’re Abraham’s covenant seed, but they are not born again. But Jesus is using a covenant group of men to go and preach the Gospel and has given them power and authority over the demons and over all sickness and disease. I want you to notice something. He didn’t give them all authority over everything, every place, everywhere, all the time. He had a limited scope of authority that He delegated to them.

So, ³ And He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey, neither staffs nor bag nor bread nor money; and do not have two tunics apiece. ⁴Whatever house you enter, stay there, and from there depart. ⁵And whoever will not receive you, when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them. ⁶ So they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere.” (Luke 9:1-6 NKJV) So God has given them authority and He’s given them power over demons and over sickness and or diseases. Do we carry that same authority? And more and more and more. So what’s our problem? What’s our problem? Reputation, our status, our trust in the system, our trust in man-made solutions, to evil devilish problems. We trust in things that don’t require us to walk in authority and power. We walk in the trust of men.

Matthew chapter 16 verse 16. I’m moving along. I’ve got to get this out and I’ve got to get this finished between now, tonight or late this afternoon and tomorrow morning. Amen. Then when we go to the farm, we’ll see what the Lord will have me bring out as a separate thing when we have conversations on the farm. Amen. Matthew 16 verse 16, ¹⁶ Simon Peter answered Jesus – Jesus asked him, “Who do men say that I am?” – Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus answered and said to him, ¹⁷Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” Blessed are you. In other words, here’s what God did; He broke through the authority that the enemy had because Jesus was there. Because Jesus gave God the Father the access point because the disciples were under His authority. Because the disciples were under His authority, God the Father, an access point to give a revelation to Simon. That broke through what the enemy was, had the right to deceive men with. He broke through the deception of religion, and He gave him revelation. Amen.

I’m moving right along. ¹⁸ And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades will shall not prevail against it. The gates of the waiting place of those that have no eternity yet because this Messiah has not yet come, that are in the waiting place before they either go to hell or they go to Heaven. They’re in that prejudgment place, Hades. They’re there waiting. The gates of that will not be able to stand against this revelation of You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. ¹⁹ And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of Heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in Heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Now people have used this particular passage of scripture and said, “That whatever you bind on earth is bound, and whatever you loose on earth is loosed.” So they say that we can bind all kinds of spirits everywhere. They want to bind the spirit of abortion. They want to bind the spirit of murder and they want to bind the spirit of all the different spirits everywhere.

Well, if Jesus had that authority wouldn’t He have taken care of all those devils while He was on the earth and just taken them off the earth and cast them into eternity forever? He couldn’t do it because their time has not yet come. So if the church had the capability of doing that, then the time of all things would come to an end. Because that’s the only time the devil’s going to stop doing what he’s doing on the earth is when the church comes to rule and reign forever, and the devil is cast into the lake of fire and he’s been judged by God. Then he will no longer have any right on the earth. Up till then, he has right on the earth. It doesn’t matter how much the church goes and binds and looses. The devil has a right to act through men.

So, I know some people will say this is heresy because they think that church has got all power and if you, if you’re a person that says, “I’m in the blood, and I can do whatever and I can say whatever because here it is.” Well, no. What Jesus actually said to him is, “On the rock of revelation that Jesus is Christ. The revelation that is the Kingdom of God is the revelation of Who Christ is.” Go and ask someone in the street who doesn’t know Jesus if they know what the Kingdom of God is. They don’t know. Why don’t they know? They don’t know because Jesus is not their Lord and Saviour. The revelation of Who Christ is the Messiah is not their revelation. Therefore, they have no access to the Kingdom.

¹⁹And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth ^[^a^]will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” (Matthew 16:16-19 NKJV) It’s only when you are operating in the Kingdom authority. And so God is not going to cause you to do something with your authority that you can’t do with your authority. Well, Pastor John, you’re only reading one Scripture. Glad you think I’ve only got one. Matthew 18 verse 18. ¹⁸“Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. ¹⁹“Again^[^a^] I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. Who’s gonna do this? Come on. Who’s gonna do this? The Father that’s in Heaven. Yes? So if you’re gonna do binding and loosing, Then it’s gonna be done for you by the Father in Heaven. You don’t have the power without Jesus. Right? Who gave Jesus the power? The Father. So when God the father gave Jesus the power and Jesus says, “I’ve delegated authority to you.” Think He’s gonna let you do something that He couldn’t do? In fact, Jesus, when He was walking on earth, He said, “I don’t do anything of myself. I only do what I see the Father doing.” You think now He’s gonna sit on the right hand of the Father and say I’ve got more to give you than the Father gave me. No. The delegation comes from the Father.

The Father’s given that authority to Him. The same authority that He on the earth has given to us. It’s not that there’s more authority when He said the church is there, and these things that you will do that I’ve done, you will do greater thing. It’s not that there’s more greater things to do. It’s more that there are. There’s more of us to do great things. Yeah. Yeah. ²⁰ “For where two or three are gathered in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:18-20 NKJV) This is rather a key thing that whatever you’re agreeing on, Jesus is gonna be in the midst. The Father’s got to be in the midst of them so that what you bless and what you lose, What you bind, what you set free, those things have got to be in the presence of the Lord.

So when the presence of the Lord there so just, bear in mind. I just want to I just want to make a point here. I’m married to Sharon. Sharon and I’ve been married for many years. Even when I’m not in her presence, her presence is in me. So even when I’m travelling overseas, even though we’re not physically in each other’s presence, our covenant and her presence go with me. So if I had to ask Sharon something in her presence and I say, I’m going to be very stupid about this because this will never happen. It’s never happened, but I’m just gonna give you an example. Okay. If I was in Sharon’s presence and I said, “Babe, do you mind if I kiss this other woman?” She’s gonna just say, “Say what?” [Pastor John illustrates a hit in the face: Dsh, dsh] “You’re thinking what?” You get my point? Now even though I’m not with her in her presence in America, I don’t have to ask her a question because it’s like her presence is with me. [Pastor John Illustrates a hit in the face: Dsh, dsh] Don’t be stupid, John.

Right? So when the Bible says where two or three are gathered together, He must be in the midst. His presence is there. His Word is there. His ways are there. So even though He may not physically be there, His Spirit is with us and in His Spirit, He must agree with what we are doing. We can’t just do whatever we say we can do. Jah. Okay. I’m trying to move as quickly as I can and giving you a foundation of this. There are obviously so many scriptures, so many things that we can cover, and I just don’t have the scope of time to get it all to you in our Crossover moment. If the Lord permits me at another point, we might go into some of this in more detail.

But, Ephesians chapter 6 verse 10. ¹⁰ Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. So here is the thing. Be strong in the Lord. Be strong in the Lord. Yeah? So if He is saying be strong, this is not an option. Be strong. He’s saying don’t even think that you’re weak. Come on. He’s not saying, I know you think you’re weak sometimes, and when you’re feeling weak, be strong. He’s not saying that. He said, “Finally, brethren, be strong.” This is important. I’m not just doing some antics here. Be strong and in the power of His might. ¹¹ Put on the whole armour of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. ¹² For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

So, the Bible is not saying, the Apostle Paul is not saying that the enemy doesn’t have power. He’s saying here, there are forces in the Heavenlies that have power. Where do they get their power from? They are not in the presence of God. They are dark. They are without creativity. They have no power in themselves. Where do they get their power from? From men. So the only way that they can get power is to get men to give them their creativity, their energy, their authority. So when the demons can get a hold of men’s authority, their energy, their power that they have, their assignment that they have. When men give it to them, they get energy from that, and they exercise that deception, that influence, that manipulation, that control because men have to willingly give it. ¹³Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand (Ephesians 6:10-13 NKJV).

So there’s no question about it. Evil is going to exist. There is darkness. There is the devil that is working. Where his presence is, there is going to start to happen the absence of life. So the only power that exists is when the absence of life begins to show people give power to the absence of life. Come on now. Just bear with me. I’m healthy. I’m well. I’m feeling strong. I’m really doing good. Life is good. The next minute, I feel not so strong. Something is happening to me. I don’t know what’s happening. I go to the doctor. Can you analyse and tell me what is happening? Can you see what’s going on with my body? Test, test, test, test, test. Yes, we can see you have cancer. What has happened? What God has meant to have me live in health and well-being, suddenly something has entered my body that has power. Okay.

The more power I give it, the more power it’s gonna take. So mankind has given this power and authority to sickness and disease. When it’s evident, you’re done for. So what mankind says, “Well, you know, this is not good. We can’t have this. We are going to intervene.” So medical science has escalated in its capacity and its capability to try and intervene to remove what it can, that is sickness and disease in your body. So sometimes it’s successful, sometimes it’s not. But look what has happened to humanity. Humanity is saying, “Our saviour is not God. Our saviour is science. It’s the human application of science that is our saviour, it’s not God.” I tell you, I’m not talking just about the church, I’m talking about mankind. Okay, so is it fair to say that mankind has given over power and authority to science?

So the more power and authority you give to science, you are relinquishing power and authority given to you and me from God. Amen. Now I just want to say; God has given us science so that we can use it for good. It’s part of God’s blessing. It’s not an anti-God thing. Anytime people use knowledge to help people, it’s not anti-God. Because the devil has come to steal, to kill, and to destroy. So anything that God does or that is revealed in men that helps men, it’s not the devil that’s trying to help men. What is of the devil is that men are giving so much of their power and authority to science that they no longer are willing to go and find out how God will solve their problem.

Let’s go to a financial realm. No longer do people want to believe God for the money to pay cash for things when you can go to the bank and borrow money and make debt. “So I’m borrowing against the future, but my borrowing is going to help me create my future.” So you are trusting in the institutions of money lending, to help your future. What is God saying about blessing? “I empower you to live right now, today with blessing so you don’t have to go to men.” Come on. Isn’t that the everything He told His covenant people that you will be people that will lend to many nations and you will not borrow. That’s the blessing.

So, what’s the curse then? Deuteronomy chapter 28, we’ll get there if we can, over the next while. What’s the curse? The curse is anti-blessing. What’s anti-blessing? Now you’re not getting it from God. You’re getting it from men. So, men have the power. They have the creativity. They have the influence. Where’s the devil going to get it from? Men. Where did he get it from originally? Man. When he came into the garden, he didn’t come with power and say, “Adam, I’m going to smack you around.” Or “Eve, Eve, I’m going to pull your hair. I’m going to pull your hair. I’m going to drag you down.” I’m being little bit, joking, but not, because I want to show you that he didn’t have the power to do that. He didn’t even have a little thing like he could come and show you, “I want to show you how strong, I’m going to pull your hair, and I’m going to subjugate you. I’m going to subject you to my power.” He couldn’t do that. Even a little thing, like, “I’m going to just slap you on the face a little bit, show you how strong I am.” He couldn’t come with that kind of force. The only thing he could do was come with words, influence, deception, impression, a false promise. She had to willingly do what he suggested. So, if we say the devil has power, he doesn’t actually have any power.

So, if we say do witchcraft and sangomas, and do these people, do they have real power? No, they don’t. I’ll tell you what they do have, is they do have available, and I’m going to talk about this, they do have available to them evil spirits that are attracted to their behavior and those evil spirits will act on the access that humans give them. So, when those humans give them access and they say, “We are going to make a doll and we’re going to put pins in the doll, and we’re going to take chicken blood.” I’m just… I don’t know what they do. Never been to one. “I’m going take chicken blood and sprinkle it over this doll, and I’m going to speak these curses over this doll that’s going to represent this person.” Demon spirits are listening to the words of the access point of that person.

Demon spirits can go about to unsaved people and recognise behaviour, even saved people. Recognise behaviour that is the lust of the flesh and attach themselves to a person’s lust behaviour. So here’s an example. If you’re a man, and I’m using a male body as an example. If you’re a man that’s given to anger and to violence, and so you just every now and again, you’ll just let rip and you’ll just give vent to your violence. The violence is predominantly attached or the way that you are violent is towards your wife, maybe your children. Here’s what happens. You’re in a place you don’t feel like you have control. Your anger comes out. You slap your wife. Let’s just say you’re a Christian. If I find a Christian doing that, I’ll baptise him permanently. You catch my drift? I’ll hold them under the water with the help of few some other brothers here and just keep holding them, and we’ll waterboard them for good. You know? But, anyway, I’m just using this to make a point that even if it’s a Christian who do this because he’s giving vent to his violence. If there’s devils around and they’re attracted to violence and they do that, they can attach themselves to that man because he’s giving himself to lust. The lust of anger. Right?

Now what happens is that anytime there’s a friction and a contact point, that devil whispers to him. It’s attached to his body. It’s attached to his being. Will whisper to his body, “Go for it. Go for it. Go for it. Let it go.” Because I need the energy of your lust. Your desire, I need the energy of that to have worship. “Every time you give yourself to your lust and I am influencing you to do that, you worship me.” Devil, demons, satan, darkness.

Watch what happens. It’s a cycle that is very hard to stop. Hmm, watch this. Now the woman starts recognising the signals. She can see this thing happening in him. What happens to her, fear grips her. Now the devil recognises that not only is there violence here but there is fear here. The children get afraid, they start hiding. He is about to capture their whole future. The more afraid they are, the more words they speak, the more they give. So what are they likely to do? Because they don’t know God, they go and look to the Police. They’re go look to the Courts for intervention. Yes, thank God for those things. God says these are people that are fully empowered by God to administer His righteousness.

But that’s not the way God intended us to live. He intended us to say, “No violence, you’re not part of me. I reject you in the name of Jesus. I say you don’t have a part of me in the name of Jesus.” And even if you have to say this to yourself, do it. “Devil get off me. Get off me, devil. Get off, get off me devil, get off me, get off me. You don’t belong on me. I’m covered by the blood of Jesus.” If you have a violence spell, if you’re a Christian and you have a violent spelling and you are all ashamed, “What did I do?” You say, “Devil, get off me you shame, devil get off me you guilt, devil get off me you, devil that spirit is oppressing and harassing me and trying to get me to lose my temper, NO in Jesus name.” Okay. Thank You, Lord.

So, I’m gonna just touch on it for now. We’ll get into it again later, but I want to talk to [you about generational curses. The violence that the father is displaying is getting get taught to his young son who’s living in a house that watching his father do this stuff. How does he behave when he can’t keep in control and when he’s feeling like he’s, things are not going his way? Well he’s been watching his father all this time, so how does he behave? Same way. So when the Bible says, “The sins of the fathers will come on to the children and children’s children.” Why is it coming? Now people want to say it’s because there’s a curse. It’s because there’s a bloodline curse. The devil doesn’t have that authority to carry a curse through generation after generation. He’s got no capacity to do that. All he’s doing is attracted to people that are living with violence. So, when the son learns to behaviour from the father, the devil see that, they get attracted it’s perpetuated. Even if there is no devil or demon there, he’s going live violently because he watched his dad do it and then his sons are going to do it because he wants other men do it.

So people that have a history, I have it in my family. My grandpa was an alcoholic. My mother was an alcoholic, there’s a history of alcoholism in our family. So, I can decide to do one of two things. I can say there’s a bloodline problem here, or I can just say, “You know what? That’s a habit and maybe there’s a DNA thing.” I’m not disputing that maybe there’s a way that people’s bodies react to alcohol in terms of the way I know that there is this theory out there that people alcoholics their metabolism does certain things with alcohol in the way that it handles sugar and things like that, which does things in their body. I mean, that could be real. I’m not disputing that.

But hey, I’m gonna stop it. I’m just not gonna drink it. If I don’t drink it, it stops with me. If someone else after me decides to go that way, that’s not on me. I’ve just proved that it’s not a generational thing. Because I stopped it. So, now it’s a choice thing, not a generational thing. I am going to talk later on about generations. Because God is a generational God. And the only reason people have generational curses is because God’s a generational God. So the devil tries to bring a substitute. He tries to bring, what’s the word I’m looking for? Counterfeit. Trying to bring a counterfeit to what God has authenticated. Like I said, the devil can’t create anything. He can only try and copy God and he does it through people. Hallelujah.

That’s why it’s important for me as a spiritual leader, that I created generational transfer. Because how many children do you know, how many families do you know where people have gone to religious churches? Where everything is about form. It’s about ceremony. It’s about rules. It’s about regulations and they go there and they say, “There’s no life here. When I’m having a dop with my mates that’s where life is, when I’m at, you know, school playing sport and I’m in that vibe and I’m in that life and I go to church and I got to sit there with a glum face for an hour, it’s like pulling teeth. Why do I want to go to church?”

So, people say we have a tradition. And unless you do the tradition, then you can’t go to Heaven either. So you have to do the tradition so you can go to Heaven. So now everybody goes to do the tradition out of fear not because they want to. So the devil starts to rule through religious order a whole new generation of people. That’s why as a spiritual leader, it’s important for me to live in a way that represents and reflects the life of God, the order of God and the ways of God, so that the next generation has got something that they can live for. And by the way, they should do better than me. I want them to do better than me. I want them to get to a place where they can come and say, “Hey Pastor John, you taught us this but I want to tell you what we learned.” Jah ne? Then, “Oh jah, you don’t have that baggage. So you took the best of what God gave through you, to you through me, Pastor Sharon, other spiritual leaders, you took the best, and you went further.” Keep going, because there’s another generation and as we keep going, and as we keep growing, and as you keep getting better. We begin to reflect the glory of God. We begin to be more power, more authority, more of God on the earth. Hallelujah.

Colossians chapter 1 verse 13. I’m just gonna read these two Colossians Scriptures and then I’m gonna call it quits for the morning sessions. Colossians 1 verse 13, ¹³He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the Kingdom of the Son of His love, ¹⁴ in whom we have redemption through His blood, through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

How does the generational curse pass through the forgiveness of sins? It can’t! So what is past through the forgiveness of sins? Behaviour, lifestyle patterns, choices. Hey, I was aware of this long time ago. I bring my humanity to parenting. It doesn’t matter how perfect I try to be as a father. I was always going to miss it. And if you told me that I was going to miss it in the ways that I missed it. I would have told you, “I’m not missing it.” Because at that time, I didn’t believe I was missing it. That’s the scope of having limited knowledge.

So if you told me at that time, “John, I can see into the future and you’re missing it.” I’d say, “No ways. What do you know about the future that I don’t? I’m the parent. You’re not the parent of my kids. Shut up.” You know, “Speak to the hand.” So, the place where I have the biggest repentance is that we took our sons and said, “Education is the most important thing for our kids. Without education what have they got in life? So we took them and we said, “We are going to give them to the institution. Not just any institution, private schooling. We’re going to give them to the best possible private schooling that money can pay for. Because if they get a good education they can do anything they like in life.” Jah, faith man. Purpose man, assignment man.

So, I had to repent because at that time the church was in a fledgling offerings of what it could give in terms of other alternatives. And so you guys that have been with me for a long time, you will know I said, “If you can possibly help it, don’t send your kids to school. Do home schooling.” Because if we had it over to do again we would do that. We would not give our sons to the institutions. So that is my repentance to carry which I have given to God and to my sons and I trust that however I say it, it’s not something you would have to repent from. But that was real in me and at the time if you had said to me and some people did, “John, there is a better alternative.” I said to them, “I am not going to compromise my kids future by doing what other people think I must do.”

So it doesn’t matter how perfect I thought I was being as a parent and I did, I thought I was doing the best. I still have to make sure that my prayers, my love and my walk with God shows a different way. Not just to my sons but my sons’ children and to all those that are around me. I have to be as righteous before God about that one subject as anything else. And if I am not righteous before God about that how can He use me for anything else? This is my thing I had to do. Amen.

So, I got to do whatever I can with all of the resources that God has brought in our ministry to try and bring something that has a better future otherwise for generations are visited on the next generations and we just keep perpetuating our trust in systems and in the power of men rather than in the power of God. ¹⁵ He, Jesus, is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For by Him, this is a very important passage, ¹⁶ For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. ¹⁷ And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. ¹⁸ And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. ¹⁹ For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, ²⁰ and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in Heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:13-20 (NKJV).

I just want to say this, that people will read that and say, “Well, did God make the devil?” Yes. He didn’t make the devil’s behaviour, but He didn’t make the devil. He made an angel called Lucifer with a creative power. Not going to answer your next question. Because I don’t have the answer to that. “Did God know that His creative power was going to be used to create sin?” How am I going to know, that’s not a question that I can ask. So what’s the point of us trying to debate it? All such questions, we only go to undermine God’s authority in your life because if you say, “Yes,” then you’re going to doubt God or you’re going to say, “Well, that shows that God is in control of everything. Well, then I don’t have a choice. So then I might as well just because He’s in control of me.” Wrong way. No answer to the question. So let me live with what I do. Amen. I do know this that angel Lucifer was created, he was given creative power, he was put in charge of certain aspects of God’s presence and His glory and music and things like that and he was he used it to come against God.

I have confidence in this that knowing all of that, His plan is redeemed through the cross. So there is nothing pre-cross that come through the cross. And in your life and my life, there is nothing pre-cross that has to come through the cross. It can die with the cross. Any generational curse, anything, bloodline curse, whatever people want to call it, died in the cross. It’s forever obliterated in the cross. It’s the blood that took care of it forever and ever and ever. So whatever curses, anti-blessing forces come into your life. It’s because of choices. It’s because of lust. It’s because the system entices us. The Bible says, “We are enticed away by the lust of our flesh, by the pride of life, by the lust of our eyes, we are enticed. Those things are the habits that get transferred.

So if we recognize this, we can easily take care of it. Didn’t Jesus give his disciples authority and power over demons? So now, there’s only one of two reasons why you’re behaving the way you’re behaving, either it’s your lust choice or it’s a demon. Huh? Demons are easy to take care of. “Get off me in the name of Jesus.” “Ah, but it’s your lust.” Tell him to get off you in the name of Jesus anyway. Just by invoking the name of Jesus, you put yourself into a spiritual mindset. “Ah, I tried to give up smoking. I can’t give up smoking.” Tell that devil of smoking to get off you.Tell him to get off you. “Yeah, but it’s not the devil, it’s my desire to smoke.” If you’d use the name of Jesus, you’re going to stop smoking anyway. “In Jesus’ name, get out of here. In Jesus’ name, you stop. In Jesus’ name, quit. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus. By the power of the Blood, by the power of his Word, by the power of the Cross. I’m free. I’m free.” Like Brynn did, light up the next cigarette, “I’m free. I’m free. I’m free.” Light it up. Eventually, the freedom is gonna get on you, and you’re gonna quit it. Either which way, God’s given us a solution. Why do we want to go and scratch? I ask you. Why do we wanna go and scratch under rocks to go and find out what bloodline curse may or may not be there or what generational curse is now haunting me? If it’s something that’s obvious, take care of it. Amen. Those things are obvious, you know? They’re not so hidden.

You’re a control freak. Understand why you’re in control? Why you need to have control? Either you’re a perfectionist or you’re in fear. So why are you perfectionist? Maybe you are because you’re in fear. I’m not a psychologist. I can’t tell you all those things. Either which way God wants you to live a balanced life. Not a life that is unbalanced in one way or another. Hey, the blood of Jesus has come to restore all of the life of God to you and me. When He’s come to restore us. He’s come to restore our healing, He’s come to restore our emotions, He’s come to restore our thinking, He’s got to restore our relationship, He’s come to restore everything. Everything’s been taken care of at the Cross. Everything’s been taken care of by the Blood. Everything has been taken care of by the power of the Name of Jesus. The power of His Name and everything that He’s given us authority over. Hallelujah. We are the power people on the earth. We are the Church of the Lord Jesus. We are the fullness of God on the earth. It’s time for us to step up and say, “No more. No more.” Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus.

So, I’m happy to talk to you about me personally. I’ve always said this to you and I will continue to do this with you. I will be vulnerable to you about my weaknesses if you don’t hold it against me. Because if you hold it against me, you’re going to look at my humanity and say that he’s just a man like me. And I am. But I’m also a pastor. I’m also someone that carries on authorities to stand yet to do what I’m doing today. So if you try and run me down in my humanity, then you’re not going to receive from my authority. But I don’t believe in standing in the pulpit and just talking about authority to you and you think I’ve got no vulnerability, because I gotta fight the same devil as you do. I gotta fight the same flesh that you do.

While I’m busy training you think cakes and chocolates don’t scream at me. I’m going to lose another five kilograms at least before I can do what I’m going to do next year. I mean, I’ve lost quite a bit but I got more to go. But you might look at me and say, “Pastor John, you don’t have five kilograms to ….” When I’m in my birth suit I look at myself, you don’t. I know what I carry extra. And then when I’m doing eight days of heavy riding, climbing up mountains and mountains and mountains and mountains, then I’m the one who’s going to carry it up there, not you. So, do you think in this time that chocolates mean nothing to me? Huh? Like all of the things that are nice to eat, whatever it is, your poison. I gotta find my own poison. Amen. Praise the Lord. Praise Jesus, praise Jesus, praise Jesus.

I’ve tried to simplify the subject because it’s such a subject it has been so misused or taught against, you know, I have to talk about rebellion. Because at some point in time, rebellion is disobedience and that is its food, it’s the food of what some people will call curse. It’s the food, it’s the energy of what the enemy uses as to, in disobedience and to get power and I’m not going to make a whole sermon out of rebellion but I have to talk about it. Because the Bible says, “Rebellion is the sin of witchcraft.” It is witchcraft. That what the Bible says, “Rebellion is the sin of witchcraft.” Correct, Sharon. So, rebellion is like witchcraft. It functions the same way.

So I have to talk to you about it because the power that witchcraft gets, it’s not the power of supernatural power and energy, it’s the power of the energy of men and words, in the end, this all boils down to words. Has this brought light to you? Has this brought some clarity to you? Has this giving us a good platform that if we going crossover that there is some words, we can’t take with us. There is some actions and behaviours we got to leave behind. That’s the whole point of crossover to leave some things behind and going to a future that God has prepared for us. Amen.

So you know, I didn’t ask the Lord to create drama for you and me. I really didn’t ask the Lord to create the drama of December holidays. Really. Do I go, don’t go? Do I stay? What happens if I do, if I didn’t? I didn’t ask the Lord to create that kind of conflict in you. Do you want to know, I would have preferred not to have it. But I do know this. I do know that December tends to be a heightened acceptance of live the way you want to. Because after all, you’ve earned this holiday. You’ve earned the right to behave the way you want to behave in December. Well, then it’s not that bad. You know, I’ll just watch as many movies as I want. I’ll eat as many ice creams as I want. And, you know, I’ll go to bed late, wake up late. Do whatever I want to do. I’ll just do whatever I want to do because this is the time of the year that I can do whatever I want to do.

So what’s God doing at this time of the year? Give Me your want. Give Me your want so that I can give you My want. What does He want for you? Do you know yet? No. He’s not gonna give you His want until you give Him your want. I want to. I want what He’s got for me. Praise the Lord. I don’t care. God did this, not me and not Pastor Sharon. She didn’t do this. We’ve been both listening to God. At the same time, God was speaking to us in different ways. I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you. The one way was, you know, Israel was having a party. They were having a music festival. Meantime, there was people, were breaking down the barriers and they were coming in to come and kill them, mutilate them, and murder them, and they didn’t even know they were coming. If they had known they were coming, do you think they would have stopped it? Anybody? Yes? Israel would have gone on high alert and said, “Let’s war before the war comes to us.”

What if God knows something’s coming and He’s saying, “if you just live the way you normally live in December, you’re not gonna be ready for what’s coming.” What if? So that’s the way He talks to Pastor Sharon. The way He talks to me is, I’ve got something on the other side of the crossover that is waiting for you that you won’t see or be ready to get if you don’t do what you have to do now. I said, “You mean, Lord, there’s things that You got prepared for me, waiting for me, such levels of blessing that only my dedication through December will get it done?” “Yes, John.” What choice do I have now? Who’s taken my choice away from me? No one. Jesus didn’t take my choice from me. “John, do what you want, boy. It’s your choice.””But I love You.” “Give Me your want. Show Me your love by giving your want.” Yeah. But I don’t want to make that choice right now because this is not the time to make the choice. Let me have the choice in January, please. Well, then it’s not going to be such a big want, is it? Yeah. “Come on. Pastor John. Pastor John. Oh, so all of the stuff that God’s done, I Will Take the Children. I want you to start Prayer Connect, not a home sell group. All of the stuff with MiXchange, everything God’s done. All those words are okay through us, but don’t touch my December.

Now suddenly, we don’t hear from God anymore because it’s December. You think I want you to start this confrontation? Julle mense, I look in your eyes every day. I love you all, all the time. I live with you. I live amongst you and we all live in God together. And if you think I don’t know the conflict that happens in you, then you think I’m inhuman because I’m in my own humanity facing my same conflict. “Just leave me alone for a while. I need to chill. I wanna go, just chill. I don’t wanna talk to anybody for two weeks.” The Lord says,” John, I want you to open the church. I want you to open the church. I want you to.” But then I’ve gotta be there. “Yes, exactly, John.”

Anyway, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. We’re gonna crossover together and we are all gonna leave the stuff behind that’s been holding us and dragging us and pulling us and just causing us to suffocate. I’m telling you, all the stuff that’s trying to suffocate us, that’s a word that just came out of my spirit right now. The stuff that’s trying to suffocate us, God is gonna give us oxygen to breathe. It’s the breath of His Spirit. It’s the breath of His will. It’s the breath of His glory. He’s gonna give it to us. Amen. Okay. We’ll see you guys at three thirsty for a cup of tea. No. We’ll come and have an infilling of the Holy Spirit at 3h30. Amen. Thank you for giving your time and energy and for coming to get the want to of the Most High God. Amen. Okay. Bye. Have a good lunch.

QUICK LINKS

MiXchange

iXchange

MiXperience Learning

SNCTRY Youth

Privacy Policy

Terms of Use

STAY CONNECTED