Scripture reference: Genesis 7:11-12 (NKJV); Exodus 15:11-13 (NKJV); Exodus 15:22-27 (NKJV); Exodus 16:1-21 (NKJV; Malachi 3:6-10 (NKJV); Malachi 3:14-18 (NKJV), Matthew 6:19-24 (NKJV); Matthew 6:31-34 (NKJV); Romans 1:18-25 (NLT), Romans 1:24 (KJV)
Father, we pray this morning in unison for Pastor John, Your messenger Lord, that comes with a message from Your mouth and a voice message from Your mouth and a voice from Your lips Lord, in Your heart. So, our hearts are open to hear and to receive everything You are going to say to us today and thank You so much that it was in Your plan to have a church and to give to Your Church Apostles and Prophets, Teachers, Pastors and Evangelists and today, we receive Pastor John in the fullness of his gifting and his calling. Because it’s You Jesus who gave us this gift and we all thank You in Jesus’ name and we all say, amen.
Pastor John:
Praise the Lord. Thank you. Praise Jesus. Just agree with me this morning that your heart is ready to receive, your mind is clear there is no confusion in your mind, your ears are ready to receive and whatever you hear will go into your spirit man and produce the life that God wants to produce in you. Do you agree with that today? You say, amen.
Just before you sit down turn to someone and say, “I agree with the Pastor” and then you may be seated, thank you. Hallelujah. Well, last Sunday the church spoke. And some of it, a week has gone by and you like, “What happened last Sunday?” But last Sunday the church spoke and it was quite marvellous although I wasn’t here, later on, I fully participated in what the church said and praise the Lord what a wonderful, what a wonderful saying and speaking it was that the church did. Amen, amen.
En nou? En nou? Is julle moeg of wat? Are you here? Are you sure? You know if you say nothing then I think you’re sleeping or something. Because I haven’t even started feeding you yet so you can’t say we’re eating yet. So, you can just say amen. There you go that’s better. Hallelujah.
Message Moments today is going to be immediately after the service and we’ll, it’s going to be no later than 12 o’clock we’re going to do Message Moments and because we have a crit this afternoon it’s starting at three o’clock
It’s not just because of that, it’s for other reasons too. But we do have a crit at 3 o’clock this afternoon and you all are welcome to come and join. I have a two-hour riding programme I have to do as part of my training today. So, I will join the crit. It’s not my normal thing to do but I’ll join the crit today and just do, turning the legs. It’s all I got to do – is turn the legs for two hours. Magtig man. I might as well do it with all of you. Now I want to – when you leave the service today, you will receive a flyer that says, “Save the date.” Like this, and there is a photograph on here and I would like you to save in your diaries. Tuesday night the 12th of March and the 13th of March at least the evening.
If you can make time during the day on the Wednesday of the 13th of March to be here. I would recommend that you do that. Pastor Sharon and I, have been praying for some time that God would give us an opportunity to show our affection and our honour for a man that God brought into our lives for a season. And he fell in love with us, we fell in love with him, and all these years we’ve maintained a personal friendship rather than a ministry friendship, if you like. But many of his messages live in us today. And his name is Dennis Peacocke, and he is coming all the way from California to be with us. And he will be with us, he’s going to stay in our home from the Monday through to the Thursday morning.
And when I make my way down to the Cape Epic I will be dropping him off in Pretoria and then he will continue to do what other people think he’s coming here for them. But actually, the Lord arranged it so that He could use them to bring him here for us. This is the favour of God. We’ve been praying for this for a long time, at least ten years that God would give us an opportunity like this. And whenever we sought opportunities when we were in the USA it just never – schedules never worked out, opportunities never came our way but God arranged it and orchestrated it that he would come here and come to Witbank. And stay in our home so that we could love on him and his wife and his daughter who now runs his ministry, Cathrine and her husband. They are all coming and they are going to be with us.
So, I want you to prepare your hearts for irrational honour. Amen. What you know about ecclesia from us, we learnt it from him. Yeah, I will never forget. He came to our Church in Northriding and you know, God brought us into his life in a supernatural way. I don’t want to spend too much time telling the story, but you might as well know upfront. I listened to a tape of his, a ministry tape of his came into my hands. I was exercising in my study, on an indoor cycle or an indoor running machine or something like that, I don’t remember exactly. We were living in Randburg at the time and as I was listening to him preach the Lord said to me, “You must make contact with this man.”
I got on the internet, looked him up and found out that he was doing a conference in San Diego, California. Sharon and I were going to be in the USA. We kind of arranged it that we could go early and be in San Diego. We knew nobody from his camp of people, from his group of people, we knew nobody. This was a completely new group of Christians for us, we knew nobody. We just registered there, we arrived there, got our things. It was like, everybody was meeting each other in the hotel and just having a fellowship before everybody went into the conference room.
We knew nobody, so we were standing off in the corner, by ourselves there, me and Sharon, just talking to each other. I never even, really, seen much of what he looked like; really. I was really just obeying God. Do you remember that Sharon? Like yesterday?
We were standing on the side, sort of against a wall, pillar, half in a passageway, we were standing there. And this man comes walking up to us and he says, “Hi, my name is Dennis Peacocke.” I said, “Hi, my name is John Bendixen.” Sharon introduced herself, “This is Sharon Bendixen.” He says; “Where are you from?” I said, “South Africa.” He said, “Why are you here?” I said, “To meet you.” He said, “Then I guess we better meet.”
I didn’t say I was there for the conference, because I wasn’t there for the conference. The conference was a vehicle to get me there. He made time to actually have lunch with us and a whole group of people who were close to him at that time. I didn’t know it then but God was establishing a divine connection because there were messages that God wanted to impart through that vessel that we now live in the faith message and I would say there are very few faith churches that have the revelation of Ecclesia that we do. Amen. I can’t imagine what our church would have been like if we didn’t have the revelation of Ecclesia. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
One of the most intellectually, smart men that I have ever met and had the privilege of connecting with. Intellectual, really powerful. I have to remind him that when he ministers to us he must use nice words. When he preached in Randbug, one time, he used a word and he did a whole message on it, called equipoise. Equipoise, have you all heard me use the word equipoise one time? You’ve forgotten? No.
I had to ask, he had to go explain to us what the word equipoise means. And equipoise means equal balance and it refers to a walking term where you’re equally balanced on feet so as you’re moving you’re constantly equally balancing. Equipoise. So, you never step too far that you lose your balance and you never step too little so that you’re not moving fast enough. I remember that message from the first time he came to our church, which is 2006. Do you remember that, Sandy? No? You weren’t with us at that time? Wow. Praise the Lord. You remember it, Sharon? All the messages. So, I really want to encourage you, this is the time that he’s got to be with us. Actually, he’s coming to us because of us. The other conferences are, there’s a conference in Pretoria and so they’ve kind of taken up the weekend but they made time to be with us. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah.
You remember a man that I told you about where I used to drive very fast, the Lord spoke to him to tell me I mustn’t drive so fast anymore. This is Dennis. Yeah. We were going to the bush; doing a private safari and on the way back he said, “John, the Lord tells me I must tell you He’s invested too much in your life for you to wreck your life on a car accident. You’ve got to slow down.” I heard the word of the Lord. I said, “Yes, Lord” and I slowed down and if you think I drive fast now you have no idea how fast I used to drive. Amen. Are you all with me today?
We’ll see how the Lord deals with the rest of the day today. We’ll see what happens in Message Moments and we’ll see if there’s a flow from here to there because of the things that I have to say. So, what’s going on, what’s going on with God? What’s going on with the Holy Spirit? What’s going on? Why is the Holy Spirit speaking to us about holy days, holidays, and vacations at a time of crossover? Why is the Holy Spirit talking to us about kingdom economics, and ecclesia economics, at the same time that He’s talking to us about crossover? Why is the Lord doing this right now to you and me?
Well, I pray that as the Lord brings teaching out of me and messages out of me, you will get an understanding. You know, we need to have the full impartation of the Holy Spirit. We need to have the fullness of what God is giving us, not just little bits of information and not just partial knowledge. We need to get the full picture. It helps don’t you think?
I might say this, obedience doesn’t require the full picture before you get obedient. Obedience is something that you do in your heart before you know the full picture. In our modern-day world, we want to know the full picture before we actually make a full, full-hearted decision because we think we are, we need to have all the facts, and we need to have all the information before we commit all of ourselves and all of our resources. So, we have this attitude that we have to get the big picture before we have a full, give ourselves fully to everything. Well, God certainly doesn’t act, doesn’t behave that way. And in weeks to come I will share with you why Jesus talked in parables.
I will share with you why Jesus talked in parables to the masses and then afterwards Jesus would come and explain the parable to His disciples. Because there were things that He could share information with, but people needed to make choices before He could give them the full revelation. And it’s only in the choice that you make before God can give you the next. So, you might get information but He doesn’t, He’s not waiting for you to get to a point where you say, “I’ve got enough knowledge and enough information so that I can now, that I’ve got a big picture that I can make a decision of the heart.” On the contrary, I would, I would go so far as to say, that He wants to know what your heart’s decision is before He gives you the full picture. Because only then can He trust your heart to receive the full picture. That’s contrary to the way the world works right now.
So, what’s God doing with these holy days, these holidays? The story that God is telling us about crossover? Well, it’s been quite remarkable that I have observed as the church was speaking – it’s remarkable the confrontation that our church has had when God said, “Give me your holiday. Give Me your vacation day, give Me your sacred December. Give it to Me.” It’s been quite remarkable the confrontation that has occurred in this Ecclesia, on this one thing, Give me your December. Right?
How many people have been confronted in their hearts by this one thing, Give me your December. Sjoe! Who would have thunk, hey? I wonder if it is possible that maybe December’s have become so sacred that God can’t touch it. So, maybe that’s why He came to touch it, to see how you and I are going to respond to Him because my holidays, my holy days, are so holy to me, God doesn’t touch it. So, what’s He going to do about it? He’s going to come after the very thing that’s more holy to you than Him. And if it’s more important to you than Him, and He can’t touch those sacred days, then He’s going to come after it. Because He doesn’t want anything more important to you, than Him.
So, what’s going on with God? Is it possible that God says, “The crossover has got to happen in your obedience. The crossover has got to happen in your heart and I’m going to touch on things that your heart has previously said, “No God, don’t touch that.” And that in order for God to get us to cross over He says, “I’ve got to touch it, because I’ve got… you have to see how important this is to you. And when you begin to see how important it is to you, then you can begin to decide whether you want to go all in with Me.” If He didn’t show it to us, how would we know what to do? How would we know how important this is to us? Nê.
So, I’m going to start in one place and as I say, we’ll see how it goes with Message Moments, but at least I’m starting here and then in the weeks to come, we’ll go step by step and we’ll answer these questions. Kingdom economics, ecclesia economics. Does God have your money? Does He? Or does He have the money that you will permit Him to have? Well, I want to just show you what’s in the heart of God today and then you can decide. All right?
Genesis chapter 7 verse 11, I’m going to read this to you out of the New King James version. You know, in those days people lived long. ¹¹ In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. ¹² And the rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights. (Genesis 7:11-12 NKJV)
There are three times in the Bible, that the Bible refers to the windows of heaven opening up. There are three times. Three times this is a direct reflection of the windows of heaven opening up. I’m going to show you the other times in a moment when the bible talks about the windows of heaven being opened. Here, the windows of heaven are opened. Tell me what happens for 40 days and 40 nights? It rains. In other words, it wasn’t the windows opened of heaven and there was such a downpour it was… You know, here in our part of the world when we have afternoon thundershowers – it’s like the thunder makes a big noise and everything and then the window… the heavens open up and it rains like… there’s an English version of it, you know, like cats and dogs. I mean it doesn’t literally rain cats and dogs, but you know, there’s this, I’ve got this picture in my mind now, you know, but literally, I mean, you can get soaking wet. There can be rivers of water running down the streets. I mean even some people’s houses can – in 10 minutes of rain, water can flood through your doors, and can create a mess because there’s such a downpour. Right? And so, we often refer to that “The windows… the heavens opened.” Well, I mean, if you can just imagine, and so we have this mentality, and we have this thought process that it opens, it dumps its stuff, and then it moves on.
Well, actually the windows of heaven that God’s talking about, is if you can take what happens in 15, 20 minutes and just keep that going for 40 days and nights – it just never stops, never stops. It’s constant, constant, constant. It never stops. It’s just there – all the time. If you… whatever happens, it’s just it’s flooding with water from the heavens. You’re getting the picture. It’s like, “Wow, man.” I mean, we’ve had days in South Africa, I mean, recently there’s been some… in the summertime, there’s been storms in Natal sometimes. We’ve had here, in this region of the world, what they used to call the Highveld, or still sometimes people call it the Highveld. I mean, we have sometimes we’ll just have rain for three days and it’ll cause chaos because the rivers will run and they’ll burst their banks and all of that. I mean, and that’s just little compared to 40 days and nights of just constant rain.
Moses, this is the second time… I’m getting to the second time when this happens. Moses is leading the people out of Egypt. They pass through the Red Sea and the whole of Pharaoh’s army is drowned. And so, Moses begins to have a prophetic song that he sings to the Lord after this great victory, and it’s found in Exodus chapter 15, verse 11, and it says this: 11 “Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods? Why would he use this word, among the gods? Well, because there are many gods that people make gods. And other peoples have gods, and Moses is making a declaration and he’s saying, 11 “Who is like You… among all the gods that the people make? All the gods that the people worship. Who is there like You, glorious in holiness, Fearful in praises, doing wonders? 12 You stretched out Your right hand; The earth swallowed them. 13 You in your mercy have led forth The people whom You have redeemed; You have guided them in Your strength To Your holy habitation (Exodus 15:11-13 NKJV).
I’m just reading to you what Moses is declaring in front of the people of God, he’s declaring this announcement of God’s goodness right after a great victory and a great celebration of continuous freedom from slavery. Hey, is this a good thing or not? Continuous freedom from slavery this is a good thing. Right? So, that’s Exodus chapter 15 verse 11. I’m going to go to verse 22, the same chapter. 22 So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the Wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. What is very essential for the human body to live? Water. They are three days from the Red Sea this great victory that God destroyed the whole army in front of their eyes three days and now they have no water. 23 Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. 24 And the people complained against Moses, who are they complaining against? [Congregation answers Moses] Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”. “Moses you came to fetch us out of Egypt – you have a problem, fix it.” Who actually led them out of Egypt? [Congregation answers, God] God. Moses was just what? Messenger. It doesn’t changed much in all these years. Anything people don’t like to hear in the church, it becomes the messenger’s fault. 25 So he cried out to the Lord, and this is what we do, he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. Waters were made sweet There He made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, 26 and said, He’s making a declaration this is God speaking to them. “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. Another more accurate translation which was “I permitted the Egyptians to have” For I am the Lord who heals you.” 27 Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees; so they camped there by the waters. (Exodus 15:22-27 NKJV) What? They came to where? So, how far was Elim from Marah? Come on. They were complaining they didn’t have water yet. God was busy taking them to Elim where there were wells of water and palm trees for their comfort.
But because they complained for an instant need to be satisfied, they had a confrontation with the messenger and with God. We want water now. So, God turned the bitter waters to sweet, but they were so close to the wells of water where they could camp and drink. So, they’ve got water now they know that God’s busy taking care of them, they got water and the next chapter verse 1, 1 And they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt.
Which means they were camping out at Elim where the water was for quite some time. Are you all with me here? Verse 2, 2 Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 3 And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, What are you telling me? God just delivered you from the children of Egypt, showed you money miracle, killed the whole army of Pharaoh and now you’re in the wilderness, He gives you water and now you’re complaining, 3… “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exodus 16:1-3 NKJV)
Huh? Yeah, I guess that’s why God showed them all the miracles in Egypt, brought them out of Egypt, had them cross over the Red Sea, drowned the whole army of Pharaoh, turned bitter waters into sweet, brought them to a whole well of water and encampment and now, “Oh we long for those pots of meat, those pots of meat that we had when we were slaves and we worked night and day with our slaving hands, but we had, at least we had pots of meat there, oh that God would have killed us, let us die there with our pots of meat.” This is the complaint.
4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not. (Exodus 16:4, NKJV) This rain bread from heaven every day is the windows of heaven will open and every day there will come, there will come food day after day after day. I will open up the windows of heaven and bread will rain from heaven and when the bread rains from heaven I’m going to test them because here’s what’s going to happen; 5 And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.” 6 Then Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, “At evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt. 7 And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord; for He hears your complaints against the Lord. (Exodus 16:4-7 NKJV) This is about what you’re going to eat what you’re going to drink what you’re going to wear. Matthew chapter 6 was Jesus responding to generations of people who did not believe that God would provide for them. When I read Matthew chapter 6 and Jesus speaking this is not John Bendixen’s prosperity theory, this is not John Bendixen’s prosperity message. This is God speaking through Jesus the Messiah our Savior His Son who came to represent the Father to come and speak to us the way He spoke to his covenant children in the wilderness.
So, 7 …for He hears your complaints against the Lord. But what are we, that you complain against us?” 8 Also Moses said, “This shall be seen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to the full; for the Lord hears your complaints which you make against Him. And what are we? Your complaints are not against us but against the Lord.” (Exodus 16:8 NKJV).
I might be the messenger bringing you this messenger and people might have a word to say about me and they might say, “This Pastor, he’s radical, he’s a…” but I don’t stand here speaking words to you that are convenient for me. You know I was recently in a conversation with, with someone who I fully recognize as certainly part of his perspective of us is that I’m preaching in the church because I couldn’t make it somewhere else. And if you have to go to church to get something to make it in life then you’re weaker than anybody else because only weak people go to church.
Well, let me tell you it’s really strong dedicated people that know how to stick it out in church because when the enemy comes to come against the Word of God you got to know you got to have some stuff on the inside of you to stand against it. And just by the way I didn’t come and preach to you because I didn’t have anything better to do, I came because God called me to do. Because this is the better thing for me to do because He called me to it while I was in the world, God was using my faith and using my walk with Him to bless me to such a point that anybody else in the world would have called me highly successful. That wasn’t my point of being there my point of being there was waiting for God to call me into the full time of what I do. Amen.
So, if people want to speak against me as the messenger or against Pastor Sharon, against the way that we represent Jesus here, be careful that you’re not making words that complain against God. Because every one of these things they were saying, what is it that we are to you, why are you complaining to us when you’re actually complaining against God? I know that there are lots of people out there in the world today, there are charlatans, there are Christian, leaders so-called Christian leaders, church leaders people there that take advantage of people that do many things. But you people here know that that’s not Pastor Sharon and I. You know. Yeah.
And what are we? Your complaints are not against us but against the Lord.” 9 Then Moses spoke to Aaron, “Say to all the congregation of the children of Israel, ‘Come near before the Lord, for He has heard your complaints.’ ” 10 Now it came to pass, as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. 11 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 12 “I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying, ‘At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. And you shall know that I am the Lord your God.’ ” 13 So it was that quails came up at evening and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. 14 And when the layer of dew lifted, there, on the surface of the wilderness, was a small round substance, as fine as frost on the ground. 15 So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. 16 This is the thing which the Lord has commanded: ‘Let every man gather it according to each one’s need, for themselves take it to his tent.’ ” 17 Then the children of Israel did so and gathered, some more, some less (Exodus 16:8-17 NKJV). Depending on what they wanted to do.
20 Notwithstanding they did not heed Moses. But some of them left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. 21 So they gathered it every morning, every man according to his need. And when the sun became hot, it melted (Exodus 16:20-21 NKJV). Here’s what God was testing them, are you going to gather more than you need or you’re going to trust that every morning when you wake up there’s fresh bread? The windows open fresh bread every morning. What did they do the first time? They gathered for tomorrow, which means they didn’t trust God that even though it rained today they had to gather for tomorrow. Hello?
So, now what do you think, what do you think the whole world system is geared up to do? Gather for tomorrow. And when you’ve gathered for tomorrow then for tomorrow’s tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow and tomorrow’s tomorrow and the more you can gather the more you can be sure of the tomorrows of tomorrow. And so your trust is in what now? What you can gather for tomorrow. Yeah, yeah but Pastor John, you know, I mean we know those days Jesus, God, you know, He was like… I mean there weren’t credit card systems and there weren’t supermarkets and there weren’t all that kind of stuff where you know you had to do all that. Do you think God doesn’t know what time we live in? You think He can’t provide every day? I want to, they keep on murmuring and contending with God about water and about stuff and then God has to get water out of a rock through Moses and there’s always these complaints that they have against God. I’ve got much to say about that but little time this morning. The third time that the windows of heaven are referred to in the Bible, the third time is in the book of Malachi chapter three. Are you all with me still?
Malachi 3 verse six, 6 “For I am the Lord, I do not change; Is God the God of the provision in the wilderness the same God our God today? He does not change. Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob. 7 Yet from the days of your fathers You have gone away from My ordinances My ways, My Word, My statutes, My commands And you have not kept them. Return to Me, and I will return to you,” Says the Lord of hosts. “But you said, ‘In what way shall we return?’ 8 “Will a man rob God? Yet you have robbed Me! But you say, ‘In what way have we robbed You?’ In tithes and offerings. You are cursed with a curse. You have an anti-blessing in your life. For you have robbed Me, Even this whole nation. 10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this,” Says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it. (Malachi 3:6-10 NKJV)
What’s God saying? The same windows that are opened for Noah, the same windows are opened up for 40 years day and night. How many quails do you think exist on the earth that God could feed them 40 years of nights of quail? Every night quails would come into the camp of Israelites and feed them. They just flew from somewhere, came into the camp and said, “Kill us and eat us.” Does that sound like the birds you know? Any bird you know you just come and try and get close to them and they fly off. God brought swarms of quails every night into the camp of the Israelites to feed them. 40 years of nights. Never mind opening the windows of heaven for bread every day. I wonder where God got all the quail? He had some private breeding plan.
I wonder if He didn’t just speak them into being every day. “Well Pastor John, no, that couldn’t have happened, I mean, you know they must have – science. They must have had breeding – they must have had eggs and stuff.” Well, that’s how normal science works but how do normal quail just come and land in your camp and say, “Eat me.” Oh no, that had to be a command of the Lord, “Go and feed. Go and become meat to my people.” Huh?
Watch this, is this not the same as the windows of heaven in Noah’s time, and it will rain, and it will rain, and it will rain, and it just will never stop? In Malachi God says, “You want blessings that never stop? You have to obey My command. In the Old Testament, you want blessings that never stop you can’t take food for the next day you got to go and fetch it the next morning and trust Me to provide it for you every day.” That’s an obedience of the heart. You can’t see the whole picture for 40 years, you just have to obey for the next day. Hey come on, I can see your logic, I can see your logic, your natural human brain working and says, “Huh, but that was then, and this is now. Now we have Visa, we have overdrafts, we have investments, and we have a whole career portfolio, a career plan we have to pursue. Now we have a whole different thing.” Ja.
Look what He says in verse 11, 11And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground, Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field,” Says the Lord of hosts; 12 “And all nations, all people, will call you blessed, For you will be a delightful land,” Says the Lord of hosts. Verse 13, 13“Your words have been harsh against Me,” Says the Lord, “Yet you say, ‘What have we spoken against You?’ 14 You have said, ‘It is useless to serve God; What profit is it that we have kept His ways, His commandments, His ordinance, And that we have walked as mourners, in other words, because we obey God we are sad. Because we can’t have as much fun as the world can have because “Can’t you see how much fun they can have because they don’t have to give any money to God?”
So, the money that they would give to God, they have fun with that money. Yeah, that money that they could give to God they keep it for themselves and they have a party; but we have to walk around with a sad face because we have to give to God. 14 …we walk as mourners before the Lord of Hosts? Like He’s crying 15 So now we call the proud blessed, or those who do wickedness are raised up; They even tempt God and go free.’” (Malachi 3:14-15 NKJV) This is what they say. Yeah, you look at people around the world and you say look how they disobey God, and they all get away with it. They get away with it, they get away with it. They don’t. They just make you think they’re getting away with it because they’re good at faking it.
15 So now we call the proud blessed, or those who do wickedness are raised up; They even tempt God and go free.’” 16 Then those who feared the Lord spoke to one another, And the Lord listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance was written before Him For those who fear the Lord And who meditate on His name. 17 “They shall be Mine,” says the Lord of hosts, On the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them As a man spares his own son who serves him.” 18 Then you shall again discern do you notice what’s happened? They had to get their money matters straight then discernment came back. 18 Then you shall again discern Between the righteous and the wicked, Between one who serves God And one who does not serve Him. (Malachi 3:14-18 NKJV) When you do those things your blessing will be so great with so much constant, constant, constant happening now everybody will see who’s the real blessed ones. Hallelujah!
Now does this make sense to you when I read to you this next passage of scripture? I’m reading it from the book of Matthew chapter 6 verse 19 19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:19- 20 NKJV)
Hey? Don’t touch that one thing that I’ve really worked hard for in my life to get and I’ve believed God for it for so many years now I’ve got it. Don’t touch it, God, hey? Praise the Lord. This is what the Word of God says if you have an attitude about money like that 22 the lamp of the body is the eye if therefore your eye is good your whole body will be full of light 23 but if your eye is bad your whole body will be full of darkness if therefore the light is in you is darkness how great is the darkness (Matthew 6:22-23 NKJV)
I wonder what God’s doing? I wonder if He’s touching our holidays our holy days? Because He wants to show that while you’re living in the light you’re living in darkness. And then how great is that darkness if God can’t touch that part of your life, hey? How great is that darkness, verse 24 24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (Matthew 6:24 NKJV) I want to put it this way because if you take the Greek word and you look at the Greek word of mammon and you extrapolate it and do a bit of a search on it you will find out that its meaning is this – that you cannot serve God and your confidence in the wealth system. You cannot serve God and your confidence in the money that you have. You cannot do both. You will love the one and hate the other. You can’t serve both. This scripture says you can’t serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will be loyal to one and despise the other. This is as a servant you cannot serve two masters.
Come on this is quite simple stuff. If Empie had to give me an employment contract and I had to go work for Empie and he was my master, he would expect me to work for him and to obey him and his rules. I would have to do what he tells me to do, right? Now what happens if I went over to Christo here and Christo offered me a job? And he begins to pay me and he has a contract with me and he has a demand that I must do work for him. How can I do work for both guys? I can’t do it. I’ve got to choose which one am I going to work for. I can’t work for both. It’s about the serving. It’s about where’s my energy, where’s my attention, where’s my affection. Where am I, what am I going to do with what I’ve got?
Christo phones me and he says, “John I gave you a contract and I’m paying you to do this and that.” I say, “No sorry Christo I can’t do that I’m actually busy with Empie today.” And he says, “Hey, I didn’t pay you to do half-time for me.” I’ll go to Empie and say, “Hey Empie sorry man you know actually Christo is paying me.” You know and then Empie is going to say, “No John I didn’t pay you for half your time you can’t work for Christo and me at the same time. What are you doing?”
I’m trying to be practical about this because this is the way it works. What we want to do is we want to say, “God we want to serve You. We want to serve You but we want our confidence in all of our money that we make and all of the stuff that we’ve got hidden. We’ve got stashed, we’ve got in the bank, we’ve got in investments. We got this, we’ve got a backup plan, everything’s a backup plan, everything is…. We got it all sorted. For the rest of our lives, we’re done.”
“Okay God, I’m here to worship You.” “Okay John,” I’m just going to use this because this is current. No, I’m going to use something in the past. “John I want you to do a whole new thing with the stage and the screen and the whatta, whatta, whatta. Okay? “Yes Lord, I’m going to do that.” What do I have to do? I can’t go to the people and say, “Who’s going to help fund it?” Because my trust is not in – you. If He told me to do it then I must just do it. So, I started to do it and there was engineering stuff and there was this and there was this. And there were people and we had to do this, and then as we started to do it God began to release the money. Yes?
And so now we sit on a world-class platform, an excellent platform that when we do these meetings and we do television, and we do things we have excellence here. Right? I have to do what God places in my heart to do because of us. Come on now! Come on now. He can’t be talking to all of you all the time about what I must do. He’s going to talk to me about what we must do. That’s how leadership works. That’s why God put me here.
So, okay. Lord, I know I have to go there. So, we’ve got to go buy a farm. Right? So, what must I do? I’m not trusting in you. There’s not been one conversation that I’ve had that I’ve put my trust in any single person that says they’re going to give us money for the farm. Every time I’ve made sure that our negotiation with the person who owns the farm, I’ve said quite clearly, “We don’t have the money right now but we will have the money when we need it.” Okay?
Come on now. Why would God give us a project to go and get a farm? Well, when I spoke to Brother Jerry about it he said, “John, I see. I see people coming from America, I see people coming on missions trips, I see camping, I see things happening on that farm that will have an international implication.” That’s what he said. So, hmm, I wonder. I wonder who’s going to pay for it? Who do you think God wants to pay for it? He’s going to work on your hearts. Why does He want you to pay for it? Because He wants to take the stuff that you love out of your hands and He wants to say, “Love Me first. Love Me first. Take the stuff that you so treasure out of your hands and put it in My hands. Love Me first.” “And then what?” “You’ll find out when you know you love Me first.” “You’re not going to tell me what the outcome is?”
He’s already put it on my heart to tell you this whole economic thing; Kingdom Economics, Ecclesia Economics, He’s already put it on my heart to reveal to you what His reward is; blessing and blessing and blessing! “But I can’t see where it’s going to come from because I’ve worked for twenty years to pay off my bond I’ve worked for ten years to pay off my cars and I’ve got to do that all over again?” “No.” That is what you’re holding on to, that’s what’s making it so precious to you because you did it your way. So, now it’s about how much time you already put into your life and God is saying, “Do you want your future to look like your past or do you want your future to look like; blessing, blessing, blessing, blessing that all the nations will call you blessed.”
“Well, Pastor John, you know, if I have to…” I’m just going to put numbers out there because numbers are different to different people. “If I have to give a R1 000 into the church, you know, how much money that is to me? That is so much money you can’t even believe how much a R1 000 is to me. I’ve been saving, I put that money into a savings account in the hope that I could be part of a Stockvel – because I need a new washing machine.” Come on. “So that’s my part of the Stockvel so I can get a new washing machine.” I’m being real where people different people are at. So, God says, “You want to trust your Stockvel people or you want to trust Me?” Someone else is going to say, “You know, I’ve got maybe R10 000 but you know it’s like three years’ worth of savings.” Praise the Lord.
Just before I went away to go and do a cycle training program, it’s called a race but anyway, it was just training for me, but before I went away someone arrived at my house, brought a motorbike and parked it in my garage. I’m now becoming a – my garage is becoming like a parking yard for motorbikes. I want you to know that none of the motorbikes that occupy my garage do I see as mine. Sharon will tell you in fact I’ve even had a conversation with my kids that I am listening to God because I really wanting to know if God wants me to give all of these motorbikes away. Because this means so little to me in terms of ownership. I recognise that the reason why people put motorbikes in my hands is because I am the place, I’m the contact point for the blessing to be released in their lives. So, someone came because this is a significant seed they could give. This is a significant seed that God worked on their heart for them to give. How much money does it equate in their budget? I don’t know. I just know it is a significant seed. What are they saying? “God, I could sell this bike, take the money, put it into my savings account, and maybe that will actually make sure that I have no income shortfall for the next 12 months, 24 months, however long it might be”.
I don’t know what their personal circumstances are exactly, but I know this: they are putting their trust in God because they are saying, “Our assets don’t belong to us, they belong to God.” So, why is God talking to us about holidays and about economics at this time? Well, I guess He is actually touching on the things that are really important in our hearts. He is saying, “These things that you think are untouchable, I am coming to touch them. I am after your hearts because you have already shown Me you are a people, that you really want My best in your life, and you want the blessing of God. And so now I have to come to you to bring you to the next level of blessing.
Yeah, Pastor John, you don’t know what you, you don’t know what you are asking, you don’t know what you are saying, you don’t know, you don’t know. I mean you know pastor John, really eish Pastor John, Pastor John. Matthew 6 verse 31 31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. (Matthew 6:31-32 NKJV) Who are the Gentiles? People that don’t believe God. So, He says you are worried about everything the same way the Gentiles are! Hallelujah.
31 …“or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Matthew 6:32-34 NKJV) Praise Jesus, praise Jesus.
Does this message make you a little bit uncomfortable? Well, I’m not apologizing for it if it’s making you uncomfortable, I am very happy it is because God is not trying to take anything away from us, He is not trying to take our holidays away from us. Hello? He is trying to give us rest and peace. He is trying to give us His way of doing things. But you can’t walk away, you can’t just say, “I don’t want to hear what God has to say about this.”
Let me just put it to you this way. I know that Brother Jerry has given away all of his motorbikes at least three times, he has given away all of his motorbikes. Three different times. He had so many motorbikes and he has given them away and then God has given him more, and then he has given them away and God’s given him more, and now he has got so much he can’t give them all away in one shot. I just want to tell you that God couldn’t give them back to him until he gave them all away.
You can’t just circumcise your heart and say, “That’s enough.” Because then everything is just a private conversation that you have with God and that’s enough. Faith is something that you act on. It’s not just a prayer that you pray it’s something that you act on. Huh? Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. My Father, I wish that there would be another messenger that You could use to say this. I wish there was someone else who could preach this message.
I was talking to the young people in the week, and I was saying this to them, “You know I know that some people have a confrontation with the way Pastor Sharon’s gift flows through her personality.” And I said to the young people, “You should be glad that God uses Pastor Sharon to burn the fire in this church.” Because her fire will burn the little issues in your life. But if God uses my fire, He raises a standard of authority that cannot be moved. Because as the spiritual head of the house, when God speaks through me, it becomes a word that He must back. The way God uses Pastor Sharon is, He will use her to stir the fire in you, and confront you, and touch things in your heart, you say, “I don’t like that. I don’t like the way that came out. I don’t like the way that was said.” And God is okay with you to be confronted with that and to do all of that, and then go home and fuss with yourself. And then scratch around and look under the rock and say, “Maybe she’s right, and God uses her to shine the light and all of that kind of stuff.” You know.
I guess it’s like this – somebody that’s walking around in a garden and they don’t like a rock in a particular place and they kick the rock and they just make sure there are no bugs under it and they move the rock into a different place, and that’s what Pastor Sharon’s gift does. She kicks rocks and moves them around and creates some order. You know what my gift does? My gift says, “Come let’s bring the ditch builder, let’s take all this, let’s dig a ditch all the way down there and we’re going to build bricks and we’re going to build a wall and we’re going to make everything.” That’s my gift. When my gift speaks it creates a level of authority that God creates an entire order of things. When Pastor Sharon’s gift works He just kicks a few rocks around preparing stuff. Huh? And so people sometimes they don’t like the way that she does things. I would say to you, “Get over yourself. Get over yourself.” Because God’s using a prophetic voice, a mouthpiece. Amen.
When God uses me to speak like this, as I’m speaking today and have been speaking for weeks, what He’s coming to do, He’s coming to shake your whole tree of the way you see your life. He’s come to shake the foundations of everything that you hold sacred. He’s coming to shake the foundation so that what needs to remain shall remain. Amen.
And so, I have this walk before God and I say, “Lord, I will do whatever You tell me to do, I will present this to people, I will speak Your Word, I will do it with boldness, I will do it with everything that You put inside of me. And now You have to do and deal with the people.” And I’ll tell you as for me, I don’t need a farm. I don’t need a farm in my own self. What do I want to farm for? I don’t need to go and ride horses. Huh? I don’t need a farm.
I have another message I have to preach. I’m not going to do it right now. I’m going to take a break and I’m going to pray. I’m going to have Pastor Sharon pray with me and see if I must do this in Message Moments because I have a part two to this message and part two to this message is Idols. Things that we worship – idols, idols.
I’m going to just read this passage of scripture and then we’ll just leave it there. Romans chapter 1 verse 18, 18 But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. 19 They know the truth about God because he has made it obvious to them. 20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God. 21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused. 22 Claiming to be wise, they instead became utter fools. 23 And instead of worshipping the glorious, ever-living God, they worshipped idols made to look like mere people and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. (Romans 1:18-24 NLT) Another translation puts it this way the King James version says, 24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: (Romans 1:24 KJV) Verse 25 says, 25 They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshipped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. (Romans 1:25 NLT)
So, I’ve said this many times before and I’m going to finish this and if it’s enough for today then it’s enough and if we’ve got to have Message Moments the way we normally have then I will leave this message right here. But the people who have ideas of God, idols they have created before God, these people that we live amongst all of these people. These people establish a culture amongst us. These people have traded what God has revealed to them about Himself and they know who God is. That scripture says, “They know who God is and even though they know who God is they have chosen not to worship the glorious God and they’ve instead decided we will worship creation. All things that are created rather than the Creator.”
So, God says, “I will give you over to all of your choices, all of your lusts, all of your desires that are in your heart. I will give you over to them so that you can live as you choose to live.” Are we not living with those people today at every level in our society? If you don’t think green energy is a god to worship – think again. It’s become the most prominent religion on the earth. What are they doing? They’re worshipping the created rather than the Creator and they know who the Creator is but they are choosing to elevate other things to be more important as their worship than God Himself. These people, these things are the very systems that we put our all our lives investments into. The ways of the system have unfolded themselves into the church so that there’s little distinction between the church of the Lord Jesus and the systems that are out there. And I’m just touching on this very briefly now but I wonder, I wonder how many churches in the world are out there today that are unwilling to go and preach the way I’m preaching today because half their congregation will leave overnight.
So, they don’t want to offend the people and they don’t want to upset people because what do we do with the church without people? And so the church has been compromised significantly so that people that are in the church think that they can live… as everybody else does. I can live the way everybody else that I go to school with lives, that I go to university with lives, that I go to work with lives. I can live like everybody else lives I can live like them and then I can come to church on a Sunday and I can have a Pastor preach a good message to me and I can be engaged and I can do some stuff and I’ll be alright. This is not the people that God wants, that’s not the kind of Church that God is looking for, God is looking for a people that will say, “I’m ready for open windows, I’m ready for open windows.”
How do I get there? Next time I preach to you, I will tell you. I will tell you how the world has scammed us. I am going to tell you how we are led to believe things. Remember this message started when this message, I had a whole weekend of teaching about economics, scarcity of the management of resources, and home economics is just the management of resources in the home. It started all the way back there about the management of resources and we find ourselves here.
I’m just reminding you, that this is a whole journey that God has been bringing us and right in between he sandwiched this whole thing: What are you going to do with your holy days? Amen. Won’t you stand with me, please?
Praise the Lord. Hallelujah, hallelujah. I want to tell you that I’m so glad that God has over so many years, He has challenged me. He has challenged me in my personal life. He has challenged me in my corporate life, He has challenged me in my community life, He has challenged me, He continues to challenge me. And all the time it’s because He doesn’t want to leave me in the way that I was. He wants me to become more like Him all of the time.
Don’t you want to become more like Him? Don’t you? I wonder what that really looks like, I wonder what that really looks like? I wonder if we really ready to go there? I think the Lord is actually saying we are. I think we are. That’s why we have to preach these messages. Right? Amen.
Won’t you put your hand on your heart and just say, “Lord, I receive these messages into my heart. I will become a son of God, I will serve You, I will live for You, I’ll give my life to You. I commit it to You today, in Jesus’ name. I thank You for Your peace, I thank You for Your joy, I thank You for the blessing of God on all that is mine, in Jesus’ name. Amen.”
I pray that the healing power of God touches your body. One of the scriptures I didn’t get to, I mean, I briefly touched on it this morning, is that when God was leading them, He said, “I promise you if you will do the things I told you, all of the diseases that came on Egypt – none of these diseases will come on you.” And I’m telling you, what we are all teaching, it’s all related. We are going to be healed, healthy, whole. We are going to walk in the blessing of God in our bodies, we are going to walk in the blessing of God in our ways of living, we are going to live in the blessing of God in our income and our finances, and we are going to live in the blessing of God in so many different things. And people are truly going to look at us and say there goes the blessed of the Lord.
And so I declare that you are blessed going out and blessed coming in. The peace of God rests upon you. No weapon formed against you will prosper. He gives His angels charge over you and protects you, in Jesus’ name. Do you agree with this? Amen.
I showed the young people my helmet because when I was on the race last weekend, I had a tumble. It’s an understatement, but I’ll just leave it there. But, I had a tumble and my head hit a rock. My helmet hit a rock and it properly, properly damaged the helmet. I wonder if my head had hit the rock without a helmet what would have happened. But more than that, there was any part of my body that could have landed in an awkward, different, bad position – broken bones, broken ribs, any manner of things. I want to just declare to you today that I thank God for His protection, that He truly is the God that protects us and it doesn’t matter what we find ourselves in life, if we will trust Him, He will protect us. He will make sure His angels have charge over us and no weapon formed against us will prosper. In Jesus’ name.
In that incident, my Garmin1040 came off my bike and it was lost somewhere in the veld. So, Kit and I got together and we called that Garmin to come back to me. Then, someone that was riding behind us was riding on that pathway and he found the Garmin and he rode, it was still on so that Garmin finished the course. [Congregation laughs] But that guy rode that Garmin, in his back pocket, he rode that Garmin back to me – to the guy that was the announcer at the end of the race, he rode it back to me and then… I had it in my heart, I just went to the announcer rather than to the registration office, I went to the announcer and I said if someone brings you a Garmin1040, it’s mine. I hadn’t told him that, 10 or 15 minutes later, we were making our way to the car, he makes the announcement; “Person who told me about the 1040, please come and fetch it, someone brought it back to you.” We agreed that the Garmin1040 would come back and someone brought it right back to me. We didn’t have to walk more than about 20 meters to go and fetch that Garmin.
Come on, hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. I reckon that’s the goodness of God. Don’t you think? Hallelujah. I can live a blessed life like that all the time. “Well, Pastor John, didn’t you have a tumble?” I did. But the angels were there to cushion me. And whatever happens in the future, they’re always going to be there for me and you. Amen. We’ll see you at 12 o’clock.
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