Scripture reference: Psalm 63:5 AMPC); 2 Corinthians 2:11 (NKJV); James 4:13-15 (AMPC); Romans 8:11-17 (NLT); 1 Corinthians 5:3-7 (NLT); 2 Corinthians 10:3 (NLT); Ephesians 6:10-17 (KJV); 1 Timothy 6:12 (KJV)
Hello? You guys, you don’t look like you had a late night at all. Either that or you’re all the way through into the morning, and you’ve been praying all night long. Hey, all night you’ve been on your knees the whole 8 hours of the night. Yeah. It’s like Zzzzz [Ps John making a snoring sound], we praying, we praying, we praying Zzzzz [Snoring sound]. Well, Pastor Sharon, that’s very sharp. She just said she went to sleep in the fourth dimension. So, what can you say about that? Sweet sleep. Praise the Lord.
Well, hey. We’re in a new year. I mean, I’ve always had this thing within myself and that is like, so what’s different today than yesterday? I mean, it’s the same 24 hours, you know? But at the same time, I know that in the life of men and mankind and in our own walk with God, we tend to use it as milestones, and God is so great that He works with us in our time and our energy and our stuff.
So well, I’ll start off by just declaring that we are going to have the best year we’ve ever had, this year in 25, the best year we’ve ever had. Yes. Yes. In every way. In every way, our health is going to be tip-top. Tip top health. None of that stuff. [Referring to the stuff as like aches, pains and colds that will not bother us] No. We’re just going to soar. We’re going to be in peak condition. Yes. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. As far as finances and opportunities are concerned, we are going to thrive. We are going to be prosperous and God is going to do multiplication upon multiplication, and He is going to do wonders in our economic circumstances. Amen?
You better get into agreement with me right now because if you are in agreement, then we can make it happen right now. Right now. The blessings are coming from heaven. The windows of heaven are open and pouring blessings upon us that we won’t be able to have enough of it. Just keep coming. Keep coming. Keep coming. Keep coming. Hallelujah. Glory. If we thought we’ve had good fellowship in this church before, the only thing I want to say, it mustn’t be too many milk tarts and too many cheesecakes and too many rusks. You know, we need a few carrots and green beans. Wat sê jy, Marnus? (What do you say Marnus?) [Pastor John is laughing] Praise the Lord. Yeah.
The Lord is good and we are going to have an amazing, amazing year in 2025 and God is accelerating us towards the things that He has in store for us. Now isn’t it amazing that when we started off these meetings there were some thoughts about what’s it going to look like, what’s going to happen, how’s this going to all turn out. It’s 5 days of meetings we’ve had. You guys are suckers for the Word of God. You just suck the Word of God right out of the heavenly realm. You guys are suckers. Hey. It’s like you sucked the marrow out of the bone. You know, it’s like hey lunch comes later, not right now. Amen. I mean, isn’t it one of the favorite things for you to do if you get, like, a piece of bone and there’s that marrow and you want to suck the marrow out of the bone? Isn’t it lekker (nice)? I feel like that’s what we’ve been doing in these last 5 days. It’s just sucking the bone out. You know? Getting that lekker (nice) juicy stuff out of the bone. Yes. Amen. Hallelujah.
Now we’re in our last couple of hours here. Auh, that’s why I feel. I said to Empie when I came, I said, “No it’s the end, and what are we going to do tomorrow?” But praise the Lord, don’t you feel energised and strengthened and revived in your inner man? I mean, just imagine you could have spent 3 or 4 weeks just talking nonsense to people everywhere you go. All of your family, all of your friends, you could have spent all this time talking nonsense and nonsense and nonsense, and where would it have got you all that nonsense? I can tell you this, you might feel like, hey I spent time with the family, but it’s not quite there. You know, it’s like a checklist, you know. We did it, but there’s no real stuff coming out of it.
This, there’s life. So, now when you go and speak to family and you have time with family and all of that, there’s life that can be transmitted because you’re full of life. Yeah. Hallelujah. You got a marrow scripture. [Ps Sharon brings her phone to Ps John] Okay. Psalm 63 verse 5. 5 My whole being shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness; and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips. (Psalm 63:5 AMPC) Yes. I’m satisfied with marrow and fatness. Praise the Lord. Not too many fatness over this season, but praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. My soul is filled and fat, isn’t it? Yes. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus.
You know, I’ll tell you what’s been happening here over the last month or thereabouts. I’ll tell you what’s been happening is that there’s a scripture that, I wanted to share with you. It’s in 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 11, 11 lest Satan should take advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of these devices. (2 Corinthians 2:11 NKJV) You know, when you come and have given your time to the Lord and you come to these meetings and the Word is going out and, particularly, the kind of messages that’s been coming out the fourth dimension, the spirit realm, the kind of activities that are going on and your awareness happens. You are actually putting yourself in a place where you say, “No, no, devil. You can’t take advantage of me.” Because we are not ignorant. So, the implication is if you’re ignorant, the devil can take advantage of you, and that’s what happens a lot, a lot, a lot.
In fact, you know, Pastor Sharon and I were having some conversations about it in the last two months or so. I’ve had very unusual conversations with people on the telephone, very unusual conversations with unusually – let me put it this way, with people that are not usually in my world. For some reason, people have been making contact with me, and I’ve had very unusual conversations. At the time when I was having one or two of these conversations, at the time, I was like, why did I – why did I have that conversation? When that person was on the phone with me, why did I say what I said?
It seemed quite surprising to me that I would say the things that I said. Then a week or two down the line, another conversation would happen with another person that was surprising to me, and then I’d get some facts and some stuff and details. And then I put the two together, I say, “Oh, Lord, those words came out of my mouth and the second conversation, I see where You saved me.” I see where you saved me. Because sometimes people have conversations and they don’t tell you what their motives are. They’re just having conversations with you. Then you say things from your heart, and you often just say, “Why did I say that?” I mean, it’s like, that was so unlike me to say stuff like that and then you find out, ah, but there are other things that are going on that you don’t know of and then it all comes out later.
So, we’re not ignorant of the devices of the enemy that’s trying to trip us up everywhere. The world system is full of potholes. I mean, a pothole is like you riding on the road, and especially if it’s raining and the water’s covered the pothole and you can’t see the pothole right? But that pothole can be really deep, and just because it’s covered in water and you can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s going to wreck your car if you go in it. It’s a hidden pothole, and then before you know it, you’ve hit it and your wheel’s gone, your tyre’s gone, your hub’s gone, whatever it is. It can cause big damage if you hit a pothole.
That’s how the enemy and the world system, the system of the world, lays traps for us. They just fill the potholes with water, hoping to catch you with the car that it can just delay you, distract you, undermine you. But if we stick with the Lord, He’s the God who protects us. Amen. So, I want to tell you that when I came in here this morning, you all smelled very nice. Your fellowship smelled nice to me. There’s a lot of love and joy and peace in the house. The aroma of God is in the conversations. The aroma of God is everywhere. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
Well, there’s a lot of things happening in 2025. There’s a lot of things happening and this is not a day when I’m going to talk about the things that are happening. I want to just tell you about the scripture that Pastor Sharon read, and then I’ll minister on some other things. Pastor Sharon read the scripture, don’t make plans and say to yourself, “I’m going to make a plan, and I’m going to go here, and I’m going to do this,” because you don’t know what the day is going to bring forth, and don’t be so boastful about yourself that you make your own plans. But rather say, “If it is the will of the Lord.” So, if you say, “If it’s the will of the Lord,” you’re putting a question mark on it, and the question mark is – the Lord can change my plan. Right?
So, the first thing is, if you’re sensitive to the Lord and you say, “I’m not making plans that are irreversible.” Any plan is reversible, right? Even if you’re going to spend money, you need to take a view that if I’m going to spend money and book this thing or pay for this thing, it’s got to be reversible. You need to read terms and conditions of your bookings that you make and find out whether something is reversible.
So, I’ll tell you something that I do regularly when I book air tickets, and I had to learn this and it cost us money as a ministry. But it was just because I was trying to be frugal about it. So, you know, you can buy air tickets and you can buy them at a much lower price, but they’re unchangeable. If you then want to change it, it costs you money to be able to change the ticket. Some tickets, if you book them at such low prices, if you change it you have to buy a whole new ticket. You just can’t change the ticket. So, then you learn actually, there are tickets that are more expensive, but they’re fully flexible tickets. Then you can change the date and all that kind of stuff.
So, you have to learn this stuff because when you’re just booking and you’re booking for the cheapest price, you don’t know what the conditions are until you find yourself in a place where it becomes a challenge. So, for example, if I’m in America and the people with me in California, and we were on the California tour, and I had tickets booked and all of that. Then Brother Jerry came to me and he said, “John, come fly with me.” So, I went to all the people that were with me, and I said, “Hey, Brother Jerry’s made the offer to me. What do you guys think?” And they said, “No, you got to go.” Now if your ticket is booked in a certain class, it costs you. So, you can’t make use of the opportunity. Hello? So, I wanted to just put it in context of our lives. It’s not to say that we mustn’t make plans, but I want to just give you the way that the world sees things and the way that God sees things.
So, you’ve heard this, the way the world sees things. If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail. Now if I say that to you, “If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail”, I mean, this is something that everybody in the world system knows you have to plan because if you don’t have a plan, you’re going to fail. Right? But that is all about your own self-centred progress. So, I’ve got to make my plans so that I don’t fail. I’m the one who’s got to make my plans otherwise my plans don’t exist, and then someone else’s plans are going to affect my life.
I can’t say to you standing here today that that’s a wrong concept because if you don’t have God in your life, then you better be planning about your life, because you will fail if you don’t have God in your life. So, how are we to look at this planning and failing thing? Well, that scripture doesn’t say you mustn’t make a plan, and we live in a world where it’s important to make plans. Pastor Sharon and I have been talking about something that we want to do, and so as we were going about it, we discovered that her passport is expiring. If we don’t get it fixed in the next 2 or 3 weeks, we may not be able to go through with our plan, certainly in the early part of the year. It’s not her visa that’s expiring. It’s her actual passport that’s expiring.
So, you understand, you have to do plans. You have to make sure that details of plans are arranged and organised. It’s not that you shouldn’t do plans. But at any given time, you should be saying, “But I’m flexible to anything that the Lord might bring to me that He might want to change for my benefit and for His glory.” So, if you have that adaptability, then you’re always going to be in a position where you say, “Is this okay, Lord? Is this okay, Lord? Is this okay, Lord?” If you get the green light, you know, then do it.
I mean, there were a number of times over the years that I was with Brother Jerry, and the first time I experienced this, I was quite miffed, to put it lightly because in the year 2000 or was it 2001. When did 9/11 happen? Was it 2001. I think it was. Well, Brother Jerry had booked a trip to South Africa, and he was about to bring twenty or thirty Bible school students with him to South Africa, from School of World Evangelism in the USA. It was still a live course at that time, and he was going to bring twenty or thirty students with him. We had booked a conference center in Gaborone in Botswana that could seat three 3 000 people. He had been here the previous year, and the people in Botswana received him really amazingly well.
We had an auditorium that we booked that could seat a thousand five hundred people. It was so booked out, and there were so many people waiting to try and get into the auditorium and all of that stuff that we said, “No, we have got to go bigger” So, we went for a 3 000 seater auditorium. So, we booked the hotels, we booked everything. He was coming in the February or March of the next year. Well, in that September, 9/11 happened. So then, I think he called me in January, he personally called me and he said, “John, I am not coming. I feel in my spirit, I have to cancel this trip. I feel like that is the wisdom of God, because I have too many people’s lives that I have to be responsible for, and after 9/11, we don’t know what other things might be happening in the world, so I am going to cancel it.”
Part of me was like, hey, big spiritual preacher. How come God didn’t tell you that 9/11 was going to happen before it happened? And how come you made all those plans, and now you have cancelled all those plans? We can’t get the money back on the auditorium, and now what are we going to do? So, his next words were, “So John, you are well able to run the conference on my behalf. You need to be the main speaker at the conference, John, and then you can invite others that you feel necessary to come and speak with you as being part of that conference.” So, I invited my dad and I invited a few other people, and we had 4 days of conference. Sure, we didn’t have 3 000 people, but we had a 1 000, a 1 500 people that we ministered to in that conference. Then when we ended up starting our Bible school in Botswana, the first year that we had the Bible school, we had something like 200 students because they heard Pastor John speaking instead of Pastor Jerry speaking.
So, that was my first thing. The Lord is not going to tell us everything that’s going to happen all the time before it happens, and so we got to be these super spiritual beings that know everything that’s going to happen all the time, everywhere. So, we got to live in this world. Come on. As much as we can talk about these things, we have to recognise that we’re living in this dimension, and we’re living in this order. And to the best of our ability, we must make wise, informed, spiritual decisions, but knowing that God can change them because we don’t know everything about the future. And that’s what that scripture says because you don’t know what the day is going to bring forth. You don’t know what a day is going to bring forth. Let me read it, my babes. Yes.
Says here, this is the Amplified Bible: 13 Come now, you who say, Today or tomorrow we will go into such andsuch a city and spend a year there and carry on our business and make money. 14 Yet you do not know [the least thing] about what may happen tomorrow. What is the nature of your life? You are [really] but a wisp of vapor (a puff of smoke, a mist) that is visible for a little while and then disappears [into thin air]. 15 You ought instead to say, If the Lord is willing, we shall live and we shall do this or that [thing]. 16 But as it is, you boast [falsely] in your presumption and your self-conceit. All such boasting is wrong. (James 4:13-15 AMPC) Hey? I mean, that’s in the Bible. That’s not John Maxwell on leadership. This is in the Bible.
We all recognise that people have got to manage resources. They’ve got to manage expectations. People have got jobs. They’ve got family. There’s a multitude of things that are going on, and so I just wanted to bring this to you so that we have a balance of this. That at any time, make your plans, prayerfully, considerately, put your priorities and God’s priorities as best as you know into your plans, and then be willing to adjust your plans as the Holy Spirit leads you. Yeah. Hallelujah. Amen. I hope that helps you all today. Praise the Lord.
You and I, we are in a blessed position because we have the Spirit of God in us and Romans chapter 8 verse 11 says, ¹¹The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you. ¹²Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. ¹³For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live. ¹⁴For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. (Romans 8:11-14 NLT) Hey, if you are a child of God, you should be led by the Spirit of God. Amen.
Now, when we are led by the Spirit of God, things will happen to you that are in the moment. Things will happen to you that have got a longer-term result. So, the Apostle Paul experienced that. He was on his way to Troas, and he didn’t for some reason the Holy Spirit said, “Don’t go here, don’t go there.” And then he had a vision in the night, and the man from Macedonia came to visit him and said, “Come minister to us here in Macedonia.” Then he shared the vision with the guys the next day and they all felt that it was good to the Holy Spirit and to them that they should go to Macedonia and they ended up at Philippi. You understand that even though they had a plan of ministry, the minute the Holy Spirit came to visit them, they changed the plan and they began to follow what God wanted them to do, rather than what their own plans were.
¹⁵So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” ¹⁶For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. Every time you have a direction from the Holy Spirit, He affirms that you are His child. ¹⁷And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. (Romans 11:15-17 NLT)
Now, that suffering is a matter of what I’ve just been talking about. In our life, if we want to do things that we want to do, and yet the Lord says, “Don’t do what you want to do. I want you to do what I want you to do.” That’s a suffering. It’s a suffering. The suffering is that you do the will of God rather than your own will. That is what He’s talking about. We share in His suffering because Jesus didn’t come to do His own will. He came to do the will of the Father.
As a Man, He didn’t have a chance to do His own will. If He was living as a mere man, He would have probably got married. He would have probably had children. He would have probably done the thing that all other males do, but He didn’t come to do His own will. He came to do the will of the Father. So, the things that were acceptable to a natural normal man were not acceptable to Him. In His body, He was partaking in the suffering that was in mankind through Adam, so that He could take on that suffering in the form of a curse on His body and God could judge Him. Amen.
You know, the Holy Spirit is so marvellous in our lives. Brother Joe and I still, from time to time, we talk about it because it happened so quickly, but it was so obviously God, you know, he was here in this church and he was ministering here. And at that time, we still lived in Johannesburg, and we were leaving after a service here. I believe it would have been a Sunday night service. We were leaving church here and we were going back to Johannesburg and, we were maybe thirty, forty kilometres on the highway. We had not yet got to where the Total garage is. We were riding on the highway. And I’m riding in the right-hand lane, which is the lane that you would want to ride in because the other lane has got trucks. Right? And it’s got the slower vehicles in the left-hand lane, and I’m riding in the right-hand lane.
I’m not riding particularly fast or anything like that, but I’m riding in the right-hand lane. And just in my spirit, there was just this prompting, “Move into the left lane.” There’s absolutely, there were no cars. There were no cars. I can’t see a car from anywhere, not on that side of the road, not on this side of the road. It’s dark. We are riding. There’s no cars. And just in my spirit, “Move into the left lane.” So, I just moved into the left lane. I mean, what for? What for? It wasn’t one kilometre further, and there was a truck in the right-hand lane that had no lights, stuck in the right-hand lane, stopped, filling the whole right-hand lane.
I mean, you know these coal trucks, that if you don’t have lights or anything, I mean, they are black. You can’t, even the reflectors don’t work when they are in that state. I mean, even though I was going 120km, maybe 130km, I mean, there is no way I would have stopped in time. Not a chance. That truck was just there. And when we rode past it, Joe and I immediately began to praise God. Because Joe said to me, “’John, what made you go into the left lane?’’ I said, “Joe, I just knew I had to.’’ He said, “That is the Holy Spirit.’’ I said, “I know, Joe.’’ And he said, “Let’s praise God. He saved our lives.’’ That’s what we did. We immediately started to praise God because the Holy Spirit said, “Hey, child of God, there is a pothole waiting for you and that is set up to kill you.’’
I mean, imagine if Joe and I were in the car and the devil was able to take both of us out in one accident? Brother Jerry’s right-hand man. Me, the leader of the ministry and JSMI Africa. What now? I mean, that would have been a fairly good masterstroke of the devil, don’t you think? Well, of course, it was. But the Holy Spirit, “Just move into the lefthand lane.” People can say, “Yeah, but, you know, coincidentally, John.” Okay, whatever. I know. I know. Then you can say, “Nothing major happened in your life.” Exactly. We just went about our business, we could go preach the next day and wherever we’re going to go and do whatever we go and do. Joe got back on the plane to America instead of us now flying everyone out to come and have a funeral in South Africa. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
There’s many times that when you’re giving your life to Jesus, that He can intervene and He can show you things that are to happen. You know, the more I think about it and the more I meditate about it, the more I marvel at God. Kit was riding behind me when I was doing that stage of the Absa Cape Epic. He was riding behind me and he watched me hit an obstacle in my path, on the side of a mountain. We were right at the top of the mountain. We were on this narrow track riding and my wheel hit a rock.
Kit said to me afterwards, he said, “Pastor John, I thought you were done.” He said, “When you hit that rock, there’s no way that I could see in that instant that you were going to recover from that hit.” He said, “Miracles upon miracles, you just ended up staying on your bike.” Hello? I don’t put that down to my great skill because as mountain biking goes, I’m not that skilled of a rider. I don’t put that down to skill. I put that down to the angels that were there to protect me in that moment.
As it was, my leg hit the side of that thing and it ended up causing a contusion and that ended up causing me to tear the muscle in my leg and my Epic was over. Hey, you know, God has still got a big plan for me for the rest of my life. I don’t need to come off on a bike on the side of a mountain because God favoured me with that. Hey? So, we could say, “You tore your muscle and the rest of your Epic didn’t happen and you trained all those months and all that time and you did all of that work and stuff and then you were done.” Doesn’t matter to me, it doesn’t bother me. There’s a part of my male warrior self that wants to go back and do the next Epic and say, “I’ll show you.”
That’s exactly where the enemy wants me to be, “I’ll show you, I’ll do it. I’ll train harder. I’ll do better. I’m going to make it happen.” Now it’s all about me and it’s not about, “John, I favoured you with that,” and now it’s not in His will anymore, it’s not with His favour. Who knows, next time I’m on the side of a mountain, now I come off the bike and I properly come off the bike. Hallelujah. I’m telling you, we are going to look back, one day when we get to heaven, we are going to look back and we are going to find out how many times God saved us, our angels saved us from things that we didn’t even know was happening to us. Yes. Amen. Praise the Lord.
Happy New Year everybody. Blessed, blessed, blessed be your year this year. We are all going to be completely sold out for God this year. Are we not? Yes, we are. I just have to look for this thing I want to read to you here.
I’m going to read to you First Corinthians, chapter five verse three. First Corinthians, chapter five verses three to seven in the New Living Translation; 3 Even though I am not with you in person, I am with you in the Spirit. And as though I were there, I have already passed judgment on this man 4 in the name of the Lord Jesus. You must call a meeting of the church. I will be present with you in spirit, and so will the power of our Lord Jesus. 5 Then you must throw this man out and hand him over to Satan so that his sinful nature will be destroyed and he himself will be saved on the day the Lord returns. 6 Your boasting about this is terrible. Don’t you realize that this sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old “yeast” by removing this wicked person from among you. Then you will be like a fresh batch of dough made without yeast, which is what you really are. Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed for us. (1 Corinthians 5:3-7 NLT)
Don’t you find this, I mean, I find this passage of scripture, now bearing in mind the stuff that I shared with you last night, about how I experienced, personally the fourth dimension; the Heavenly dimension. Hey? Now, just watch this scripture. I am going to read it to you again in case you missed it. So, 3 Even though I am not with you in person, I am with you in the Spirit. Big “S”, the Holy Spirit. See that? 3 …And as though I were there, I have already passed judgment on this man. So, I’m not there, but even though I’m not there, I’m with you in Spirit, and in the Holy Spirit, I have passed sentence, judgment, on this man. 4 in the name of the Lord Jesus. So, now, 4 …You must call a meeting of the church. I will be present with you in spirit, (1 Corinthians 5:3-4 NLT)
What “spirit” is that? [Congregation responds, “Holy Spirit.”] No. No. No. What spirit is that? [Congregation responds, his spirit. Referring to the spirit of Apostle Paul.] His spirit. So, he’s in the Holy Spirit, but he’s going to be present in his spirit. 4 …and so will the power of our Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 5:4 NLT) because the power that is in his spirit is the same power that is the power that he talks about; He will infuse you with mighty power in the inner man. [Referring to Ephesians 3:16] That power is in his spirit, and because that power is in his spirit, then he’s in the power of the Holy Spirit, when this judgment must happen in the church, the authority and the power of his spirit, that is in the Holy Spirit, will function as though he was there. Come on. Come on. We’re able to talk about this stuff because we’ve been, 5 days, in the Word here. Right?
Just so that we understand, and now that I’ve ministered to you for 5 days, you can understand what I’m saying here. There’s lots of idol worship happening all over Asia Minor where Paul is ministering, and Corinth was a very immoral place. Two of the big things that they did that were very immoral, they were people that ate a lot. They were very gluttonous. They ate a lot and they were into all manner of sexual perversion. So, those were the big things that were happening in Corinth at that time.
I mean, there were 2 opposite parts of the spectrum here. There were also these things that everybody was focused on, their body, and they were like; Mister Olympia. So, they were either totally focused on how their body should look and they worshipped their bodies, but on the other hand, there was this other side where they were totally given over to what the Bible calls as lasciviousness and gluttony. It was like, just any manner of stuff can go. Right?
So, when Paul is writing to the church at Corinth, this man that he’s talking about, is a man, who was sleeping with his father’s wife. So, this was not his mother, but it was his father’s wife, and he was cohabiting with her, meaning that this wasn’t just a casual thing, this was an intentional affair and the church was permitting it. Hey, the church was permitting it. So, Paul is writing, and he’s saying, “I want you to understand this, that the mighty power of Jesus that’s working inside of me by the Holy Spirit in my inner man. This mighty power, is able to operate in the realm of the spirit, that even though I’m not there physically, my spirit and my authority functions in the same way as if I was there physically. And whatever judgment I make here, when you make that judgement in a corporate setting with everybody called together, my authority stands with you. Based on the authority that is in me, I instruct you to hand his body over to Satan, so that he can learn, and the church can learn what is happening here.” You know, that is quite something. That is quite something.
You would imagine that if you are going to have a meeting like that, that actually it needs to happen in the church, you know, that someone’s got to be present. But Paul is saying, “I’m as present with you as if I was there.” Now obviously, if I can take us in a modern-day setting and there’s no Skype, and there’s no Zoom, and there’s no anything of that that exists, and I’m in America, and there’s a situation that has developed in the church here, and I now write a letter to the church, send an e-mail to the church, and say, “You must deal with this situation. You can not tolerate this thing that’s happening in the church.” Here’s what the effect would be. Someone is going to stand up here and for the moment I’m going to say it’s Pastor Christi. Okay.
So, Pastor Christi comes, and stands up here and she’s now representing me. And she said, “I have received a letter from Pastor John, and based on this thing that is happening in the church, I am instructed to reveal that so and so is in sin and is sinning this way and we have to deal with this. The way that we have to deal with this, according to the Spirit of God, that comes through our apostle, and our messenger, you are no longer permitted to function in this church and in this body of people, and we are now handing your body over to Satan.”
I wonder how many people would stay in the church after that, in our modern-day world. Because here’s what they would say. They would say, “Pastor John was chicken to come here and say it himself. That’s why he went and said it through Pastor Christi. So that he didn’t have to come and face everybody face to face.” The possibility also exists. You understand that if Pastor Christi gets up and doing it on my part, that they would find her less intimidating than me, right? So, they might actually say, “Well, we don’t believe that you’re representing Pastor John, what have you… what and they could take exception. So, the Apostle Paul, when he was writing and he said, “The mighty power of the Spirit of God that is in me is the Spirit that is taking authority here. And my spirit, that is full of the power of the Spirit, is exercising authority as if I was in your very presence.” So, it’s no longer the person that’s doing the talking. It’s my spirit that is filled with the power of God, in my mighty spirit that’s taken the authority. I just need someone to execute it in public.
Hey, doesn’t this reveal to you how much authority we can really have in the spirit realm, doesn’t it? Yeah, I mean, this is an amazing thing. I have had this. I’ve had this happen and I’ve watched it play out in the church and sometimes I can only say these things once events have unfolded, and many times after they have unfolded a long time ago. But you know, there was someone that was in this church and they continued to remain in the church in a stubborn way. They were here in the church, in our church, they were part of the community, but they were just here. They would talk to people, but there wasn’t any real bringing their gifts, bringing their life, bringing their anything.
On the contrary, from time to time, they would have things to say and then I would find out that they’re influencing people with their words and their ways and their advice. So, I’m sitting in my lounge one day and the Spirit of God comes on me, and I just spoke it out loud, and Pastor Sharon was there. And I said, “From this day, I’m speaking to that person, and I say, that person will be deaf, dumb and blind. In the spirit, they will be deaf, dumb and blind, they won’t be able to hear, they won’t be able to receive, and they will have no connection to this church. Either they will repent or they will leave, but they cannot stay here and sow division in this church.”
Well, I had to do it that way because there was a connection with that person that was quite broad and quite widespread in the church and it wasn’t obvious to everybody that this person would cause division. So, I had to deal with it in the Spirit. Then, wouldn’t you know it? Well, maybe a year later, that person is gone, left the church and the whole family, because that was the way it happened.
I don’t come and stand here and tell you about all these things that I’m dealing with in my prayer time and in the spirit. But I have to be led by the Holy Spirit, and I know that there are there’s spiritual authority that rests in me that I’ve got to take action about, because as a shepherd of the sheep, I am going to stand in that doorway. I am going to stand there and prevent the wolves from coming to do their stuff. Like I’ve said, “I prefer to inform people about this stuff and to learn from it, but there’s just some things that you in the time, in the moment that you just can’t do it, because you run the risk of actually people getting offended by what you’ve done.” Because in our more human modern-day experience, we are expected to be much more tolerant, and we are expected to be much more selah, selah, whatever will be, will be everybody can kind of do what they must do. But actually it’s the church of the Lord Jesus. It’s the church of the Lord Jesus. It’s not my church. I’m just here as a messenger and a custodian. It’s not my church. You all belong to Jesus, and I’m just His servant working on His behalf to do for you whatever needs to be done for you. Hallelujah.
So, Second Corinthians chapter 10 verse 3, this is the New Living Translation. 3 We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. 4 We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons? Come on, people. What weapons are we using? God’s weapons, not human weapons, not worldly weapons. 4 …… to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. 5 We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NLT).
So, we are humans, but we don’t wage war as humans. So, what was the Apostle Paul doing with..? There’s the first letter to the Corinthians and the second letter to the Corinthians and if you go and read the book of Corinthians now and you begin to take the context in which I’ve just taught you, you can go and read in First Corinthians and you will see the thread of this conflict that the Apostle Paul was having with this very carnal, immoral, living church. So, what they were doing is that they were not only engaged in these, permitting these sexually immoral acts in the church. But if you go and read further on, he talks about marriage in chapter 7, and then in chapters 10, 11, 12, he’s talking about, when you come together, don’t everybody bring as much food and you make this a whole big gluttonous eating affair, when you’re actually supposed to come for the Lord’s table. Just come and bring enough so that you can remember the Lord’s death.
This is not supposed to be a feast and when you’re out doing each other with how much food you bringing, it’s supposed to be a remembrance of the Lord’s death. And then he says, “Now when you’re all coming together, you’re also boasting about yourselves by showing how you can operate in the gifts of the Spirit. And this is not right either.” You shouldn’t be taking over the joint and say, “Look, I can prophesy. I can do this and I can do that.” That’s not what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to be only by two or by three, and then you need to be led by the Spirit about how you’re doing it, not be a big show of how much gifts are operating in the church.” Then he begins to describe all the gifts, and then in chapters 13 and on to 14 and 15, he’s talking about love that is the thing that needs to stand and you need to have a proper understanding of what you are in Christ and in the body of Christ. Come on.
Then if you go to Second Corinthians chapter 2, he starts by addressing and he says, “Some of you say that I’m bold when I’m not with you, but then when I get with you, I’m not so bold. Am I the apostle that’s got to find myself and continually commend myself to you where other apostles are always doing things and they’re commending themselves and they’re making money out of it. We don’t come to you with fancy words and promoting ourselves, but we come with words in the power of the Holy Spirit. And we’re bringing down every argument, every reasoning, everything.” And then towards the end of the second chapter of Corinthians, he’s coming and he’s talking about and he’s saying, “Now we pull down strongholds because our warfare is not against flesh and blood. Although we are humans, but we’re pulling down strongholds.”
I’ve just given you a very broad overview of First and Second Corinthians, and you can see in both of those letters that he is in spirit with them knowing what’s going on there even though he’s not there. He’s able to discern spiritually what’s going on all the time. So, when he says, 3 We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. 4 We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments (2 Corinthians 10:3-4 NLT). So, if I say to you that we are waging warfare, then we’re not waging warfare against the devil, are we? Because the devil has already been defeated by Jesus.
So, what is it that we’re waging warfare? The warfare is the strongholds of human reasoning and false arguments. Come on. I’m going to use a false argument and reasoning with you now. I’m going to use this argument. “Pastor John, you should …” How many of you know that once my torn muscle in my thigh was healed, how many of you know that the human John wanted to go and start getting ready for next year’s Epic? I didn’t know if I could get a ticket or anything, but, you know, let’s put it this way; a phone call was had with me, and it would have been possible for me to get a ticket and do next year’s Epic. That was a real possibility. Within the month of finishing the previous Epic, this last year’s Epic, now last year’s Epic, within a month, I could have signed up for this year’s Epic. Part of me was, like “Yeah, I’ve got to go and show that course. I’ve got to go and show that stuff that it can’t beat me.” Hey? Come on, don’t look at me like that, like you don’t think like that sometimes and stuff. Right?
But I immediately recognised that as my own reasoning and argument that is potentially raising itself up because God gave me a favour and blessed me with one Epic, and now I’m just making my own decision based on my own human reasoning and my own argument that’s been raised up that I must go and conquer it. Because what good was that if I don’t actually conquer it? Come on. This seems like a very subtle thing, but this thing is so big, especially, I mean, if you’re a warrior spirit person, whether you’re male or female, you want to conquer something that you haven’t been able to beat in the first place. You didn’t finish it and you want to go and get it done. Right?
It’s an argument. If I can put it this way, it was a false argument, human reasoning that was raising itself up against the stuff that God wanted me to do. Because when He gave me the opportunity to do it the first time, I can tell you based on things that have developed in this last year, God’s grace was on me and it was on Kit. It was. We had a window of grace that everything we did in that year, there was grace upon us and everything slotted in, everything worked, everything, every race we did in preparation, everything, all the stuff we had to work out with nutrition, everything just slotted in. We had grace. We had time. We had capacity. We had grace. Since then, we haven’t had that grace. I mean, both of us have been busy. I wasn’t to know that Brother Jerry, a month later, was going to go and be with the Lord. Things would change dramatically in our lives and everything would shift for me.
But now if I’d made the warrior decision to go and do the Epic again based on my own argument, I would have set my own course for the next year, and now Brother Jerry would have gone home and God wants to speak to me, but I’ve got a plan. The human argument has come and raised itself up against the plan of God. So, our stronghold is not that we’re fighting devils out there, but those devils will try and influence our thinking. The system that he’s created, the principalities of this of the air, of this world system is going to try and direct us and cause us to raise ourselves up. Amen. Praise Jesus.
So, we can honestly say that we don’t wrestle with demons and we don’t wrestle with devils because Jesus defeated them. We have the name of Jesus and that’s all we need. Amen. You can find that all in Ephesians chapter 6. So, what I’m going to do is I’m going to just keep preaching for another 15, 20 minutes, and then we can call it quits. What do you say? [Congregation replies, “No, Pastor John.”] No. You don’t want this time to end. You’re soaking up the Word here. Well, I’m in the groove here, so I’m going to just keep preaching anyway, and we’ll just see how this ends. Hallelujah.
So, if we see in Ephesians 6 verse 10 says, 10 Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. That’s what happened to the Apostle Paul. He was strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Do you understand that it was the Apostle Paul’s spirit, his own spirit, that was strong in the Lord and in the power of His might? That’s why you could say, “I’m dealing with you as though I were there, but I’m not there, but I’m dealing with you.” You got me? 11 Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. This is the strategy of the devil, the tactics of the devil. This is not the devil himself. Are you all with me? I mean, the devil’s been out and about deceiving humanity since before we were around.
He’s got strategies going on all the time. 12 For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. 13 Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. 14 Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; 16 above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. 17 And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:10-17 NKJV)
So, we can see here that He spoiled principalities and powers, triumphing over them. So, He triumphed over them. So, we can just walk in the triumph. We are walking in the victory. Amen? So, when we say that we are in the spirit realm, then what is our fight? Our fight is against the wiles of the devil, the strategies. If I have to take my own exaple, I recognise that the wiles of the devil was speaking to my humanity, and my humanity was, “You got to go and do the Epic at least one more time so that you can finish it.” Right? So, this is my own flesh. This is not anybody else. This is just my own flesh. I want to go and do this. I want to go give it a shot, and now that I’ve done it once, I know how to prepare for it better the next time. All of that stuff. Just that spirit inside of me, you know. But I have to recognise that this is not God giving me an opportunity. This is just the human experience and humans that are connected to me that are making something available to me. Right? So, if I was not wide awake, then I could’ve fallen into that trap.
Now, I want to tell you that I learned from a previous trap that the devil set for me in my own humanity, and I’ve shared this with you a long time ago. I used that experience to prevent myself from making an agreement that I couldn’t get out of. Previously, it was a supernatural thing that happened to me. I’d left my corporate job. I was working for Brother Jerry, sitting in the office with very little to do. Spoke to a friend of mine on the phone, he was working in an IT company as a senior sales executive. He phoned me and he said to me, “John, I just want to tell you that our company is going public, and it’s going public in a month,” I think it was, or a couple of weeks. And he said, I don’t remember the exact timing of it, and he said, “I want to tell you that this is going to be so favourable that there’s going to be a lot of money made on the share price here because it’s listed to go at this price, and we think it’s way too low that price, and the market is going to be responding positively.” He says, “We are so confident about this price, that I’ve taken out a second bond on my house, and I’m using that money to buy shares.”
Now, that’s not a good strategy but I’m just telling you that’s what he did, and he was telling me he’s so confident. So, I asked him a few questions just because I was in senior management, so I knew I didn’t want to be found in a fraudulent place. I said, “Just to be clear, you’re not in the decision-making? You’re not the Director of that company, what you’re sharing with me is your own, personal opinion?” He said, “That’s exactly right, it’s my own, personal opinion. But there are sounds in the company that I’m acting on.” So I said, “Okay, as long as you’re not divulging private information to me that is now trading shares illegally.” So he said, “No, this is just my own, private opinion.”
So, I put the phone down and I said, “Lord, what must I do with this information?” Just like this out of my spirit He said, “Buy the shares.” I said, “Okay.” So, I phoned my broker and I said to him, and I had a bunch of money, I said to him, “I want you to buy this, so many shares. This is how much money, I want you to buy so many shares.” So, he phones me back in a couple of hours and he said, “I’ve managed to get 20 000 shares.” I don’t remember the number, 30 000 shares, I can’t remember exactly what it was but it was a lot. “I managed to get you this at this price.” He said, “Do you want me to go ahead and finalise the transaction?” I said, “Go ahead.”
So, then the company went public, and that share price just started climbing. When it got to double the price I paid for it I started to say to the Lord, “Lord, thank You. What must I do with this?” All of this happened on a single day. I started asking the Lord in the morning, “What must I do with these shares?” And He said, “You’re going to sell them but not now.” So, every hour, just about through that day, I was asking the Lord, “Must I sell these shares now?” “Not now. Not now.” 2 o’clock that afternoon the Holy Spirit spoke to me so clearly. He said, “Sell them, John. Sell them all, right now.” I got on the phone with my broker and I said to him, “I want you to sell all my shares.” He said, “All your shares?” He says, “Everybody that’s talking, everybody says this price is not even there yet. This is going to still run.” He says, “I recommend you hold onto half of the shares or don’t sell all of them.” I said, “I want you to sell everything.”
He phoned me back within an hour, maybe an hour and a half, before the close of share trading that day, he phoned me and he said, “I just want you to know I sold everything.” Before the shares closed, half an hour before share trading closed that price started to come down. From that day it never got to that point where I sold my shares. That price just kept dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping, dropping. It didn’t go back to the opening price of what it was. I mean, it’s still a good share for people to have bought, and even if I’d held onto it for a long time, it would have still been a good share. The Lord was showing me something. He was saying, “I can have you make money anywhere, any place, anytime, John. You are not limited because you now left your corporate job and you’re now in the ministry. You’re not limited in income. I can get money and income to you anyway.”
So, now I’m working with Brother Jerry. I’m not yet preaching in the ministry per se, I’m not yet a pastor. I’m helping his ministry. So, now I get into the office in the morning and I’ve got my newspaper out and I’m checking shares, and so now I start buying shares. I bought a share, I lost money on the share. Don’t want to do that. Then I bought another share, lost money on that share. Then I went back to the Lord and I said, “Lord, I thought You said You’re going to use any means that You can to bless me.” He said, “I did.” He said, “But I didn’t tell you to buy those other shares. You did that all by yourself.” I learned a lesson. He wasn’t telling me to buy those shares, but because He did it one time, I just automatically assumed this is going to be the way He’s going to do it every time. So, I just quit.
I stopped phoning my broker and I stopped looking at share prices, and I said, “I’ll wait for You to tell me what’s next.” He said, “That’s where I want you to be, John. You just wait for Me to tell you what’s next.” Amen. What happened is that when I got a phone call about another Epic, that situation came to me, John, you’ve had the favour of God once before and you went on your own steam and thought that would be a good idea. Don’t make the same mistake twice. So, when I was talking to the person on the phone, I said, “I’m just going to wait. I’m not sure that this is right, and I’ll let you know.” I just waited, and I didn’t get that green light from God. So, I didn’t do it. I mean, at that time, when Brother Jerry passed on, you know, we didn’t expect it would be next month. But everything for us changed after he left. Everything changed. Amen. Praise the Lord.
Our warfare is not against the devils per se, it’s the strategy that they would use to connect you to your human emotion, your human experience, and make you to make decisions like every time based on your human experience. Make a decision, make a decision, make a decision until he traps you in enough decisions where you can’t get yourself out of it because you’re now entrenched in all of your decisions. As we keep moving forward, we must just be mindful of what we’re about. What is it that we are fighting? Well, the Bible says in First Timothy chapter 6 verse 12 that we are to 12 Fight the good fight of faith. (1 Timothy 6:12 KJV) Amen? Because as long as the devil can keep you in this sense realm where he is god and you look at the circumstances he will help you every time. Because he wants to keep you in the human realm. The sense realm. But as long as you stay in the faith realm depending on God’s word to put you over you will whip the strategy of the devil every time.
So, we need to trust God that His word is working for us. The biggest strategy of the devil is to try and convince you that the Word is not working. Too much time has gone by, maybe you haven’t spoken enough of the Word, or maybe you haven’t prayed enough. Maybe you haven’t, maybe you haven’t, maybe you haven’t. So, he wants to convince you that actually you’re not doing enough so the Word is not working enough. So, those two things combined… you’re not going to get it, the Word is never going to work for you. It can work for Pastor John but it is not going to work for you.
I’m just demasking the devil here today. Because you know the devil wants us to believe all these things that the Word is not working for me because I’m not strong enough or I whatever. But actually, we all face the same stuff in ourselves. Just the biggest difference is that I have learned to stand. I have learned to stand and I will not quit. I will not quit until the Word of God is … either the Word of God is working or the Lord shows me directly I missed it somewhere. And it’s not like I have to guess. Because if I missed it somewhere the Lord is going to tell me.
I mean I taught this years ago years ago and then I heard another big preacher preach it at a convention one day and then when he preached it everybody believed it. But when I preached it, it was like… okay Pastor John… But here’s what I said, I said, “If you’re in the wrong place and you’re using your faith there is no way that God can answer your faith even if… because you’re in the wrong place.” And the person that I directly used at that time was Elijah. And Elijah… God took him to a cave where there was a water brook and God said, “I’m going to meet your needs here.” Then the day came when Elijah… the Lord said to him, “You must leave this place and I will take you to a widow woman.” And the Bible says the water brook dried up. Now, Elijah man of faith knowing God, he could have stood there and say, “I command water to come to me. I command water to come to me.” He could have confessed it till the cows came home and that water would not run because God was not going to meet his needs there. God had already instructed him to go somewhere else.
So, it doesn’t help you confess the Word of God when God’s not going to meet your needs the way, in the place, in the geographic location and the stuff where you’re at – God’s not going to meet you there because He’s already told you to go somewhere else. Come on, shout me down because I’m preaching really good. Come on, shout me down, shout me down. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
So, like Elijah, you know, if I’m saying, “Hey, Lord, I’m confessing, I’m confessing, I’m confessing, I’m standing and I’m standing and I’m standing,” and the Lord says, “You’re standing in the wrong place, boy! You must go over here. I told you, you must go over here.” You know, it’s just like when we were living in Joburg, we had a beautiful home in Joburg and the Lord said, “You’ve got to move your address from Joburg and you’ve got to move to Witbank.” If I had said to the Lord, “I don’t think so, Lord. I’ve grown up in Joburg, We’ve made this house in Joburg, it’s our family house in Joburg,” and all of this kind of stuff, you know, “our house is paid for, whatever, I don’t need to be here anymore.” You know? And He says, “Well, My place of blessing is not Joburg – it’s Witbank.”
Now things start to go wrong for me in Joburg and I start to confess and I say, “Lord, thank you for Your prosperity. Thank you for Your blessing. Thank you for Your increase. I’m standing on the Word. I’m standing on the Word. I’m standing on the Word.” And He’s saying, “[in sing-song] Da-da-da-da. I can’t help you, John. I’ll do My best for you, but I can’t help you because I didn’t tell you to be here. You’re supposed to be in Witbank because that’s where My blessing is for you.” So, that’s where the widow woman – if you like – that’s where the widow woman is. That’s where she needs a miracle and your presence there will bring her miracle and I need the two of you to get together because this is My covenant and I need to show My covenant to the whole of Israel through the widow woman and I need you as a prophet to be in her house. You can confess all you like while you’re standing at the brook, I’m not going to let that water flow for you. Amen. Hallelujah.
We need to be strong in the Lord. Well, you know what, hey, I’ve got more to say to you. Do you want me to speak more to you? Hey? Well, then we’re going to have to have a break. Otherwise you’re going to get moeg (tired) sitting here for another hour or another 40 minutes or whatever. People need to have a body break? Okay, let’s have a body break for 15 minutes and then we’ll come back.
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