Scripture Reference: Ephesians 1:11 (NKJV); Ephesians 1:7-11 (TPT); Ephesians 3:20 (KJV); Ephesians 3:20-21 (TPT); Ephesians 6:11-13 (TPT)
Thank You, Lord, that the joy of the Lord is our strength. And when we are weak, Your joy lifts us up. We thank You, Father, that if Satan can’t steal our joy, he can’t take anything from our lives. Hallelujah. Praise You, Jesus. I thank You, Lord, that as we continue in this service today, Your will is done and You make Your ways known to us and we continue to change. Day by day, moment by moment, we experience the wonderful person of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Thank You that this service is according to Your will in Jesus name. Everybody said; Amen. You may be seated.
Hey, I mean, how’s it that hey? We can praise the Lord to that kind of music, hey? Shoo wee. You know, what you just experienced there were a dream and a vision I had in my heart 20 years ago and now it has come to pass. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Thank God for that. Hey? Thank God for that. Thank God that it is here and we’re just getting started, we’re just getting started. Praise the Lord.
I’ve got quite a few things I need to share with you today. I’m going to start with a word and then I’m going to go into a presentation. I’m going to start with Ephesians chapter one, verse 11 and that’s from the New King James Version. 11In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11 NKJV). So if you read the scripture behind me, according to the purpose of him. According to the purpose of who? Him, who works all things – how many things? Who works all things. So even if people are disobedient to God, and even if they walk in their own ways, it cannot prevent God from making all things happen to determine His purpose.
That’s quite something. God’s not in control of everything. So you know, if you hear people say God’s in control, He’s not. The prince of this world, the Prince of Darkness has a right to influence the ways of men. God can’t control that. Otherwise, He would control that no one actually sells drugs and kills people. So He can’t control that. The enemy has a right to the system because man gave him that right. But God is so powerful that even those things He will work to His purpose. Amen.
So He does it – who works all things according to the counsel of His will (Ephesians 1:11 NKJV). So when He says the counsel of His will, how many people are in counsel that regard His will? Well, certainly we know that Jesus and the Holy Spirit are combined in the counsel of the Father’s will. Right? We know that for sure. But there could be others that are in the counsel of His will. What about the church? What about us? So we could read that scripture and say, In Him also, we have obtained an inheritance. Our inheritance is being predestined according to the purpose of Him. So we are already, our inheritance is that we are worked in Him. And everything in Him is according to His purpose. So because we know that we’re in Him, and we’re in His purpose, all things according to the counsel of His will, includes us. So you have the right to enter into the counsel of the will of God. Come on; this is really good stuff.
I know I’m right into it already but you have the right to enter into the counsel of His will and His purpose, you have the right. You inherited that right. It’s not a right that comes from good works. It’s not a right that comes because you’re better than someone else, not the right because you did everything perfectly. You inherited the right. Hey, come on. If you inherit money from the will of somebody, and suddenly they die and you inherit a 100 million Rand, but your lifestyle is really bad, you know, it changes nothing. It just means your lifestyle is going to get even more worse. (Really bad English) But it’s going to get worse because you have a lot more money to make your will whatever you wanted to will. So you inherit regardless of what your, the only reason that you inherit is because you were in the right to inherit, nominated as an inheritor. So that’s it. You inherited the right to His counsel of His will. This is good stuff. It’s good news, hey? Don’t you think?
So if we inherit the counsel of His will, if that’s part of our inheritance that His purpose and the counsel of His will is known to us, and you don’t know it, it just means you haven’t been seeking His counsel. So you got to keep seeking counsel. Isn’t that right? I’m going to read this whole passage of scripture out of The Passion Translation in a minute but I just want to make a point to you that you are seeking the counsel of will, all day, every day. You are. You may not be seeking someone else’s counsel, or someone else’s will may not be involved but you’re certainly seeking the counsel of your own will. You might not be saying it in words, but you might certainly, you will be doing it in heart and in thought. When you have deep thoughts about things, whose counsel are you seeking? Are you not seeking your own counsel? Are you not determining for yourself what you want for yourself, by yourself, by your own thoughts? You are seeking someone’s counsel, and you are doing the will of someone. So why not seek the counsel of the will of God for you? Because what you seek for yourself, will never yield any real fruit, but what you seek in His counsel and His will and His purpose yields a lot of life and a lot of fruit, don’t you think? Amen.
So let’s read this passage of scripture from verse seven, so we get the whole picture from The Passion Translation. 7Since we are now joined to Christ, we have been given the treasures of redemption by his blood—the total cancellation of our sins. I’m just going to move this down a little bit. So the total cancellation of our sins – all because of the cascading riches of his grace (Ephesians 1:7 TPT). So, how many sins have been cancelled? Say again – how many what, of what? Is that possible? Say again, all cancellation, all cancellation, all. You know, if something is cancelled, it is cancelled. If there is no sin that stands between you and God it’s been cancelled. If it is cancelled then He doesn’t see your sin. If you come into His presence to counsel Him according to what His will and purpose are for you. What the devil wants you to believe is that it is not all cancelled because yesterday’s sin didn’t cancel. Who didn’t cancel it? The only one who didn’t cancel it is you but in His world – cancelled. If you don’t go because you haven’t cancelled it then it’s on you. That is what the devil wants you to believe that because you didn’t cancel it because in your own self you would still hold yourself accountable and you wouldn’t cancel such a thing against someone else, so you hold it against yourself, and because you hold it against yourself because you would hold it against someone else, you think God does. When actually the blood of Jesus cancelled. Come on this is good news hey, this is good news.
So because of this 8This superabundant grace is already powerfully working in us, releasing within us all forms of wisdom and practical understanding (Ephesian 1:8 TPT). The grace of God is releasing in us superabundantly all forms of wisdom and practical understanding. Wow, so no wonder the devil does not want you to believe that your sins are cancelled because then it prevents you from tapping into the wisdom and this understanding practically of everything you need to do. I mean, everything – little details, everything Wow. 9And through the revelation of the Anointed One, he unveiled his secret desires to us (Ephesians 1:9 TPT). His secret desires to us. This tells us that in Him, other translations say mysteries, secret desires. He has. What are they for? They are about what the church must do and be because of the blood of Jesus on the earth. How does it manifest itself? Partly through hidden things that He makes known to us in wisdom and understanding of practical things that just blow the mind of other people. How did you know that? I don’t know, I just knew. How did you know not to be there but to be there? I just had a sense I mustn’t go there.
9The hidden mystery of his long-range plan, which he was delighted to implement from the very beginning of time (Ephesians 1:9 TPT). How long has this thing been going on? Before we started. So before He even began to say, “I am going to measure things,” in his hands, we were already in Him and we just happened to be here now but we were there then. You, eternal beings that were in Him then are in Him now will still be in Him then. For a short time, we must have wisdom and understanding of practical things. But the time will come when we’ll have the full understanding of the eternal things. Cool stuff, hey? Just hang in there with me today.
10And because of God’s unfailing purpose – I’ve got to just ask you this. Because of God’s failed purpose. No, it says what? Unfailing purpose. Are we in Him? Are we part of the plan? Are we part of the purpose? Does He want to make all of the wisdom and practical inside available to us? And so it is going to fail. Unfailing. Ja, but it doesn’t feel like I am successful right now. I don’t care what your feelings say, go with the plan. Well, I don’t know what the plan is. Well, speak the plan so the plan can be alive in you. Don’t speak what your counsel of your will is. If you counsel your own self with your own will then that will fail. 10This detailed plan will reign supreme through every period of time until the fulfilment of all the ages finally reaches its climax. Just want you to make sure that we are on the same page that this detailed plan will reign supreme through every period of time. Does this include, no, this excludes our period of time. No, it’s going to reign supreme in our period of time. So is the plan and purpose of God going to reign supreme in this period of time? It doesn’t look like it, right? I mean, in the chaos in the earth, Covid, governments, economics, doesn’t look like it. Maybe it looks worse for you personally. But what does the Bible say? So, why do you want to fight this? Not you, hey? You don’t want to fight this. Why do you want to fight this? Don’t seek your own counsel, seek the supreme counsel because it won’t fail. When God makes all things new in all of heaven and earth through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:10 TPT). In other words, this process is going to happen until God says, “Okay, the final climax of the ages must come and when that comes, then everything will be revealed to everybody.” Which at that time, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord. That’s the climax of ages. So at the end of time when it all comes to an end, everybody who sought their own council and their own will, will have to bow their knee and confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord, whether they spend their eternity in Hell or Heaven, they’re still going to make that confession.
We might as well live with that confession every day; I bow my knee and confess Him as Lord every day. Because if you do that every day then the counsel of His will becomes your counsel, then all His plans and purposes in your life cannot fail. Wow.
I am going to go and read Ephesians one in The Passion Translation again, 11Through our union with Christ we too have been claimed by God as his own inheritance. God is making a claim on us. God is making a claim on us. We are His inheritance. He didn’t just send Jesus to die for twelve disciples or a hundred and twenty, or three thousand that would be filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. He claimed us as His inheritance. He made a claim on you so that you could be part of His mystery that He wants to reveal. Before we were even born – “Ah, well, I think I’ll do my own thing because I can.” Before you were born, He already had His eye on you because He had a plan for you and a purpose for you. He wanted to show you through His wisdom how He could practically work out those plans every day.
You heard me say this many times that when I left the corporate world, in my position of seniority, I would get to work early in the morning and leave quite late in the afternoons. And literally, some days and at times it felt like I couldn’t even go to the bathroom, because people would walk me down the passage looking for decisions. I mean, I had a very busy time. And then I left and I had to work for Brother Jerry and I sat in the offices and it was just me and myself and me alone. I even tried to get Sharon to come work in the offices and that didn’t work because I was so alone. You know, after having energy around me all the time, you know, suddenly I was alone. So one day I was like really talking to the Lord about that and not feeling so good about stuff. Then the Holy Spirit came upon me and I began to speak in tongues and then I interpreted my own tongue and the Lord said to me, “My anointing rests upon every detail of your life. So don’t think that where you’re sitting right now is not where I want you to be. My anointing rests on every detail of your life.” I may reject His anointing, but it is still there. Before we were even born, He gave us our destiny, that we would fulfil the plan of God Who always accomplishes every purpose and plan in His heart (Ephesians 1:11 TPT). So if you don’t want to do the plan that God wants you to do, He’s going to find someone else to do the plan that you should have done. Wow, so best we get with the programme, hey?
I don’t know if I have shared this with you, but, because I have shared it with some people recently. The first time that I got the full understanding of this, is when the Lord called me to Brother Jerry when he was here in 1996 and the Lord said, “Go speak to Brother Jerry now and go tell him.” Basically, I didn’t know what to say to him, I just said, “I believe our lives are connected.” Then God brought us together and we’ve been together ever since. The Lord showed me, you know, you see these obstacle course kind of TV programmes where people have got to jump on blocks, and they’ve got to do jumps through some kind of hoops and they’ve got to get as far as you can, or you fall in water, or you fall in the mud or whatever. Have you seen those kinds of things? I saw like these swinging hoops on chains that were between two points – these swinging hoops – and as these hoops would swing there would be a moment, just a moment, where all the hoops were perfectly aligned and they made one hole where you could get through at that moment. So, I saw that spiritually that in the time table of God, God orchestrates things around our lives that He brings people, He brings circumstances, He brings things into perfect alignment where you can see through the hole, and you can see I’ve got to go now, I’ve got to jump now. This is where I’ve got to go through. And so you don’t have time at that moment to wait. You’ve just got to jump. You’ve got to obey because those hoops are swinging because people are coming and going; energies are moving around the universe. I sound like a new age person when I talk like that but it’s true. Energies are moving around the universe. There are energies of money, energies of resources, there are energies of people, there are energies moving around and God has aligned for us to get into a place where energies and God’s timing and His detailed plan for us is in that moment. I only saw it, what happened, after I did it. I don’t think I would have ever seen it had I not did what I did. I jumped. I jumped through the hoop and that brought me into a set of relationships and things that we all as people enjoy today, as a ministry. Divine connections, divine alignments. So when I say jump through the hoops, I don’t mean it like in a negative thing. I mean, literally, you have to jump through the hoop in the time of God.
People say to me, “What happens if you don’t jump and you miss it?” Well, that alignment, that particular alignment will not return, ever. What does it mean for your life? What it means is that if you repent, and you give God the opportunity He will cause you to get to the point in another way, He will restore things in your life, but it will never be done the way He originally designed for it to happen.
If you just take what happened with me and Brother Jerry, because of me jumping through that hoop, the very next year, 1997, I went to the USA and when I went to the USA, Brother Jerry called me into a meeting – it could have been 1998. Within 18 months or 24 months, I was in a meeting with Brother Jerry and there I sat in the office, in the speakers’ lounge and there was Kenneth Hagin and there was Oral Roberts and his wife Evelynn, and there was Kenneth Copeland and there was Gloria and there were Jerry and Carolynn and there was Richard Roberts. There I am sitting with Sharon and we were like, “Aah-ha. How did this happen?” Had I not taken that hoop, I am sure had I repented, God would have brought me back to Brother Jerry, and I would have walked my distance with Brother Jerry still. But there are things that happened that God wanted me to be part of that would not have happened.
This is the moment where God is speaking to us as parents that we can’t make decisions for our children like everybody else is making decisions for their children. This is decision time for some of our children to make decisions where they want to jump into God’s hoops that He has planned for their lives, not the hoops that we think they should jump through. Because there is no God-anointing on the hoops that we decide. The God-anointing is for His plan and purpose. When we repent, He brings it round. But there are things that are going to be missed out on. Listen, this is not a scare tactic. I am still a truth speaker.
Ephesians 3 verse 20 says, 20Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us (Ephesians 3:20 KJV). It is directly according to how much we allow the power of God to work in us that we can achieve exceedingly abundantly above all. We must let him work in us, must let Him work in us. Amen.
Ephesians chapter 3 verse 20 in The Passion Translation. I am going to read verse 20 and 21, 20Never doubt God’s mighty power to work in you and accomplish all this. He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all (Ephesians 3:20 TPT). Hey, come on now. God is not saying, please, stop being a dreamer. He is saying, “Let My dreams and My imaginations grow in you so big that even those things that I plant in you, in your vessel, are not big enough to do what I can do. Because what you can receive in your human 3-D culture world is not big enough. You can only see it in the fourth dimension and even then you cannot see far enough. I am still greater and able to do more than you can see in the fourth dimension; the spirit realm.” Ha. Come on, how many of you want to be a person that walks in that way? Don’t you want, if you have children, don’t you want your children to walk that way? Dream so big in Him and dream so big in God that when they start to walk with God, God begins to birth in them according to an imagination that He places in them – big things. As they walk out this mighty power that He places within them, and they let this power grow, He fulfils greater than they can imagine in Him even because they are not big enough yet in their spirit to imagine the greatness of what He can fulfil through them. Rather than saying, well, the world says they must. If they do not do what the system says they won’t. At least we have to give God a chance, right? You have got to give God a chance.
He will achieve infinitely more than your greatest request, your most unbelievable dream, and exceed your wildest imagination! He will outdo them all, for his miraculous power constantly energizes you (Ephesians 3:20 TPT). This is not something that you can do with your own energy. This is the energy that comes in the spirit. 21Now we offer up to God all the glorious praise that rises from every church in every generation through Jesus Christ—and all that will yet be manifest through time and eternity. (Ephesians 3:21 TPT). We happen to be one of those churches in this time within the bandwidth of eternity that God wants to do these things through. Are we not? Come on, I need to know that you believe this. Just put your hand here (on your heart) and say, “We are that church, we are in that time, God wants to use us.” Amen. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Glory to Jesus.
I want to give you a testimony. So we are making some plans for December, because of covid, because of many other reasons we are making some plans. I am talking to the team and we are discussing a few options of what to do for Christmas. You know, Christmas morning, so we are having these conversations and we have a plan. So while we are talking about the plan I said, “You know, it would be a cool thing if we as a church could do a Christmas thing, on Christmas day, on TBN.” Now I am talking to myself as I am talking to the team, I am talking to myself and I say, “But that will be very expensive, right?” I mean prime time, Covid-19, prime time. People can’t get to church; Christmas service. One of the most important evangelistic days of the year for the church, Christmas service, Christmas day. So then I said, “You know what hey, we will not know unless we ask.”’ I said to Matt, I said, “Matt, call TBN and ask them if they have got time on Christmas day’?” Thinking like we are six weeks out or whatever the case might be, you know, it has all been booked. So anyway, he talks to his contact. His contact comes back to him like half an hour later, “How much time were you thinking about?” Half an hour, that is what we wanted. Half an hour, just be present, just have something to say on national TV, on Christmas day. So they come back and they say, “We have half an hour slot for you at 7 o’clock, Christmas night.” That is all they said. So Matt sends a request back, “How much?” Now we are waiting for the big numbers. They send a message back, five minutes, three minutes. They send a little box with a bow-tie and a few other things, “Our gift to you.” Now you know people say, “How did you get that right? How did that happen?” Well, there was just something in me that said, well, if you do not ask, you do not get. The Holy Spirit, He just, He had a detailed plan beyond your wildest dreams, whatever you can think of. So it turns out that a major ministry in America that has had that slot booked up all year long, every 364 days a year, did not book that time slot. So everybody that watches that major international ministry normally at that time slot is now going to see us. Some may say that he made a mistake, that ministry made a mistake. No, no, God was holding that time slot just for us., just waiting for me to walk up and say in practical little details, in the wisdom and mystery He has got a plan figured for us. God is waiting for us, hey.
You know why I am talking like this? It is because there is a lot of stuff that is happening in the world right now, a lot of stuff and I want to remind you in Ephesians chapter six verse twelve, I am going to start from verse ten and I am going to read it out of The Passion Translation. I was going to read the New King James Version, but you can read it for yourself out of that, I just want to read it and then I am going to go into a presentation for you and I will be done. Come on, you are having fun in church today. I mean you are enjoying this so much you can say, “Pastor John, do not worry about lunch, we will just go straight through lunch, and we don’t want pudding or waffles or ice-cream or anything.” This is as good as that, right? Even better. Some of you are looking at me and saying, what about the broccoli and the green beans and all that kind of stuff. Well, I will give that to you too.
Verse 10, 10Now my beloved ones, I have saved these most important truths for last: Be supernaturally infused with strength through your life-union with the Lord Jesus. Stand victorious with the force of his explosive power flowing in and through you (Ephesians 6:10 TPT). How did we get that TBN session? Through union with Him, and in that moment His explosive power and force just worked for us that that half-hour slot was waiting for us. 11Put on God’s complete set of armor provided for us, so that you will be protected as you fight against the evil strategies of the accuser! (Ephesians 6:11 TPT). What is he accusing us of? He is accusing you of that early thing of you’ve got some sin that you still haven’t paid the price for. And it’s not all being paid for, you still have to pay for it. And so you’re not good enough, so you can’t get it. You have to keep doing something to still be better. He is accusing us all the time so that we just capitulate. Come on, I bet you if I ever ask you, are you ready to capitulate to the devil? At anything, you’d say, “No, way. I am not capitulating, bring it, bring it, let’s have a go.” Because if he stood in front of you, and you knew that this was capitulation, you would say, “No, I’m not doing that,” because that would be a known thing to you. But when he comes, he comes with a very subtle kind of, a very deep inward thought process, a very subconscious sense of guilt and shame, and unworthiness and a sense of failure. And so you don’t actually go there with all this mighty power that’s in you.
You have got to put on the armour. 12Your hand-to-hand combat, listen now, your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings (Ephesians 6:12 TPT). If someone is in your way, or someone is running you down, or someone is causing you problems, your fight is not against the someone, it’s the thing that’s driving the someone. But you might say; what about the married person who’s got a marriage partner that is always sarcastic, that has got bad words to say, might even be physically abusive? What about that one? It’s still not that person. It’s some force of evil that is working through the soul of that person that’s causing the soul of that person to react the way they do. Your fight is not against that person, although that person might target you. Your fight is against the force that’s behind that person.
Let me tell you, you can’t bind the spirit that that person allows to use them because their will allows the spirit to use them. What you can do is, you can say, “That force does not touch or harm me. I am protected and impervious to those words. I’m protected and impervious to that physical abuse. Let me tell you; the power is so strong that if a woman who was being physically abused would actually believe this, she could stand in front of an abusive husband physically, and say, “You may not touch me in Jesus’ name.” And the power of those words will prevent it. It takes a deep inward conviction, the power of God that can protect a woman in that situation. It’s that big. Most Christians don’t realise they have that power.
You know, I told you a story of a guy in Witbank, and he was fighting with his father because he wanted a gun because he wanted to kill himself and might even have killed his wife and family. He was in the house and his father was fighting him. I got a phone call. I had just arrived in Witbank and it was this whole mess in the family. I said I’m coming straight away. I arrived at the house, praying in the Spirit. I mean, this all happened in the space of right off the off-ramp in Witbank. I’m at their house in three or four minutes, literally. In those three or four minutes full-on physical battle between dad and son because he wants to get to the gun. You know, so I walk into this house, and there is this war literally, there’s this war going on. All I asked is, where is the gun. It is in the safe and he is trying to get to the safe. So all I did was I went and I stood in front of the safe and I said, “You can stop now.” So the dad was like, “I couldn’t have carried on anyway. I’m done. My son was too young, too strong, and he was getting the better of me.” I said, “Don’t worry, I’m here.” His son looked at me and he had like this enraged look in his eyes, and he came and he was like moving around, hard for me to explain it. But it was like, checking me out like, how am I going to take you? You are the next thing between me? How am I going to take you? And I just stood there and I said, “You’re not getting to this gun in Jesus’ name.” It’s like, he stood there, and he was raging. And I just wouldn’t budge, and he was like, coming closer to me. He was trying to figure out how do I get past this guy? I just stood behind the name of Jesus. The next minute, he turned his rage and he turned on his Hi-Fi system, and he turned it on. He just trashed the room. He went crazy. Then all the rage just left his body and he collapsed on the bed. I went up to him, put my arm around him, and I said, “You are alright now. Jesus is going to help you in your life. And that moment saved his life, got him back on his feet. His life got changed.
But you see, there was a spirit that was using his strength of his physical body. And let me tell you, the reason why his father couldn’t beat him is because that spirit was taking control of his body. I tell you what, you can take a skinny little girl, and have a demon possess that person, and you’ll see the biggest, strongest guy can’t hold her because it’s not a natural strength that overtakes their bodies. So how do you think you’re going to win that anyway? You have got to stand in the name of Jesus, you have got to know the power of the name of Jesus. I mean, you understand my life was at risk that day. If I didn’t believe Jesus, standing in that room, if he got that gun, I would have probably been the first target because I’m not his family. Come on now. That’s where the rubber hits the road when you know you have got to, when you know Jesus is your Lord.
11Put on God’s complete set of armor provided for us, so that you will be protected as you fight against the evil strategies of the accuser! 12Your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms. For they are a powerful class of demon-gods and evil spirits that hold this dark world in bondage (Ephesians 6:11-12 TPT). So can I just read that again, For they are a powerful class of demon-gods and evil spirits that hold this dark world in bondage (Ephesians 6:12 TPT). Where do they get their power from? The will of men. It is only the will of men that allows them to operate on the earth. They have no other power. You understand? They have to operate through the will of men. So where’s the contest? “Give me your will, so that I might consume the will of your children, because if you give me your will, and I can have the will of your children, then I will perpetuate my powerful influence on the earth for generations.” That’s why the Bible says, the sins of the Fathers will be passed on for up to three generations. It’s not, and there is this whole story about you’ve got to break the curse of bloodlines or whatever. The most important thing is the behaviour of the fathers are passed on to the children, which is, I live by my self-will and give the enemy power to control my future. But I think I’m doing it. I think I’m in charge. Meantime, he’s placing thoughts in your mind all the time, desires, attitudes, thought processes, emotions, and the whole world system, through connections, people, associates, colleagues, friends, all kinds of things happening around you all the time. All these ideas he’s planting into you; you’ve got to follow the system. You’ve got to do the system. You’ve got to go with the system – powerful gods that are controlling the lives of men through their will. Now we think we can fight that? You can’t fight that on your own. You need the will of God and the purpose and the plan of God to be able to fight that. And you need the rest of us standing together with you to fight that.
13Because of this, you must wear all the armor that God provides so you’re protected as you confront the slanderer, for you are destined for all things and will rise victorious (Ephesians 6:13 TPT). You will rise victorious if you will do the will of the Lord. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
So I have some, some things that I have been confronting in my own life. I realise that every one of us has something in our past, something in our history that we bring into our present. I want to try and explain this to you and use as few words as possible. If I say, whatever present you were in at the age of 20, 22, 24, 27, 30, whatever your age might be, whatever present you are in, there are things that have happened in your world that you brought with you into that present. Okay? What choices you made in that present may still be continuing with you in those choices till now. So, let me just take a very sort of real-life example – if you were 18 years, 16 years old, and you were at home with your kids, and someone broke into the house and they were not violent, but there was the threat of violence and you were held captive, and violence was around you and there was a lot of stuff that happened in your house, you might go forward in your future with a great deal of fear about being alone.
Number one, so you might go into the future where you might be thinking there is no real safe space because I thought home was a safe space. And if someone could invade my safe space, then I’m never safe anywhere. Are you with me? So as you grow older, everything you do is about trying to create a safe space but never sure that you have one. So you might not even be very conscious of how you’re living, but you’re living in a fear of someone’s going to encroach in my safe space. Are you with me? I’m trying to use a real-life example. And so then you might find that it doesn’t matter even when you are having moments alone at home where you’re trying to enjoy yourself and relax, there’s always this subconscious thing – someone might break-in. So unless you allow God to deal with that, inside of you, that thing will have a – I wouldn’t say dictate all your life, but it will have a dictate on your life.
So I realise that in my… I’ve had to deal with that in a big way. Because when I was growing up as a young man, I lived in a preacher’s home where what was lived and what was taught was two completely different things. I grew up with this idea that if all preachers are like my dad and my mom, then I fundamentally distrust church. But I love church, and I love God. So I had to deal with this. The way that I dealt with it was when I left home, and I went into the military. I said, “God, now it’s You and me. I’m going to go to the toughest part of military and I’m going to say let You and me show Yourself strong in me so that I’m authentic me in my walk with You.”
I also grew up at a time… so you must understand, and please bear with me – I’m not trying to run anybody down here. Okay? But there were some really big preachers in my day and one of them was Jimmy Swaggart. Jimmy Swaggart was like, everybody listened to his music, and he was this big evangelist and he came out of The Assemblies of God. And, of course, we were an Assemblies of God church. And so, Jimmy Swaggart and other guys like that were like big known names. The next minute, Jimmy Swaggart is caught with having adultery, or pornography and prostitution. The biggest name, at that time, he was the biggest name in the Assemblies of God, he had the biggest profile in the world.
Now just bear with me. I’m living at home and had been living at home with people that were not authentic. Now I’m hearing about big names. Hello? So what do you think that did in me? This is what it did in me. I am not going to allow myself to be put in a position where I’m going to let God down. So now, does that sound quite noble to you? It is, right? So I lived my life and I began to hear things like Kenneth Hagin, where he talked about many people that started off strong in their ministries of healing. People like AA Allen and William Branham, and if you don’t know these names, they’re big names that were in America. He could list many names of very, very effective people that had the ministry of healing and miracles happening intense. They either capitulated and died early because I mean, Kenneth Hagin, was sent to speak to William Branham, and give him a word from God and said, “You’re going to die before your time unless you stop eating,” because his biggest thing is he wouldn’t stop eating and he was getting bigger and bigger and bigger. He said, “You’re going to die if you don’t take control of your appetite.” He was a young man, and he died because of his body couldn’t take what he was feeding him. But William Branham was mightily used in the gifts of the Spirit. I mean, he might have only left the earth ten years ago, like Kenneth Hagin did, or fifteen years ago, if he had stayed the distance. You understand? Many things like this.
So, here’s John. I really want to serve God with all my heart and I don’t want to let Him down. And I don’t want to be one of those that people talk about. So, Kenneth Hagin always used to say; I watched all these ministries speed ahead and go ahead and become big and become, you know, they’re the next headline news, only for them to fail. He used to refer to him as the tortoise and the other ministries as the hare. If anybody’s listened to Kenneth Hagin long enough will know that he considered himself… the result was that he only started his Bible school, Rhema, when he was 56. And so big has it been the impact of the Rhema Bible training centre around the world, that that shows you what God can do when you obey Him in the time of God for 20 years before you die. You know. But I didn’t want to let God down. So I just kind of; I’ll just – I’m not in a rush.
Two things I want to say; my nobility was stupid to think that I had the ability to say I’m not going to let God down. How dumb can you get and still breathe? No, really, when you think about it, what strength in myself have I got that I could say to God, “I’m not going to let you down.” The very statement in itself is self-will and that self-will in itself is about to let God down. Even as I’m speaking it I’m letting Him down because He says, “It’s not your will, it’s God’s will.” So why do say it, even so, John – dummy? But it sounded noble for me. Many years that was a driving force and then I realised, actually, it wasn’t nobility, it wasn’t that. It was actually fear of failure, so I had to deal and continue to deal with fear of failure in my life. I still have to because the devil wants to keep always reminding you and accusing you of stuff all the time.
So what’s the next thing that goes with the tortoise? Never do anything fast and in a hurry because slow, steady and sure will get it done. Except when God says, “Jump out of the boat and walk on the water.” Then you are not supposed to be the tortoise. Let me check the wind direction, let me check the compass, let me check how big the waves are. No, no, they are about a half metre above the one that I could normally walk on the water. You know what I’m saying? When God says to do something, you must do something.
When the Lord began to speak to us and say, “I’ll do in one year what would have taken ten years.” Have you not begun to see the restoration of what God has, and I keep saying; I dreamed this twenty years ago, I envisioned this fifteen years ago, I implemented this and started this so many years ago and what has God done for us in the last two years? How far has He brought our ministry the last two years? And so He is saying, “Hey John, this is not a time for you to back off just cause it’s Covid.”
If you would just put up my slide presentation for me, please. If you go to the HOFMI website, homfi.net, you will click on there, there is a button there, in this kind of colour purple, you will see today, it’s a purple button. You can click on projects and we are planning big. Hello? Hello? Next slide, please. This is a list of all the projects that we are putting out there. We are just going to let God fund it and I’m putting it out to you in case you are God’s instrument to fund it. My first project, next slide, is the A-Team workspace. Next year we are getting a whole bunch of people coming into the building. We have got all the plans, we’ve got all the budgets – go to the next slide – this is what we want the workspace to look like. It’s going to cost half a million plus. At this moment I have zero of the half-million. Well, not quite zero. I have maybe 10% of the half-million. I am believing that we can get this done. I am because I want to tell you that what God is doing in this House, is already being noticed by other ministries in the world. This week I have had calls from other ministries in the USA, speaking to me about helping them with decision making that results, that pertains to what we have got here and what God is doing here. Amen.
I’m believing for a TBN miracle, I am. I’m believing for that. Let me tell you, I know how much it costs to be on TV. People will tell you, there are two things a ministry if you are going to go into those things, you have got to have big cheque books. One is aviation, one is television. Amen.
Do you like this workspace? We have a plan. We are going to knock a wall down, we’ve got to put some new tiles and floors in. We have got to create a new kitchen workspace area; knock one down, put the other one in. Hallelujah.
The next one; I don’t know where we will put it? Where will we put it, Waldus, if we put an air conditioning in? One over there and one over there, at the back, all blowing into the front? So we can close all the windows. But you know, if we start church at six in the morning it wouldn’t matter. Huh? In the summer we could start church at six in the morning or seven. You guys don’t look keen, hey. You’re like, bring on the air conditioner.
There are things that are going on in the MiXchange workspace environment that I am not putting a budget to because there are monthly expenses that just need to be taken care of, that are not currently in our budget. But it’s just as God increases you, things just have to get more. I’ll tell you more about that in a minute as I go through the next slide.
So for example, what we want to do is what you experienced this morning here, we want to do live streaming praise and worship from Witbank church into this auditorium; live, live. We want to put some other big screens up here, we want to have aircons in here and we want to have better sound system in here so that when we go live in Witbank, we are live here – live. We have already ordered the satellite dish so that we have got the bandwidth, so we have got everything in Witbank in terms of internet speeds, we need the same here in the House, and so we have already ordered it. Part of what we have to do is an R4000 a month expense to keep it live and our initial expenditure is about R60 000 to make it all happen. I have just said that we are going to do it and I am stepping out on faith and so we have ordered part of it, the rest must still come. Hallelujah.
So let me just, before we go to the next slide, let me just tell you that Faith Broadcasting Network phoned Brother Jerry. I don’t know what day it was but I’m going to give you a timeframe. It was like on a Monday and they asked him if they could interview him live on television like I think it was on a Tuesday, I can’t remember exactly. They had been asking him for months and months and months and he just didn’t have a – whatever the circumstance. Don’t want to get into that. So he said, “All right, I’ll do it.” So what they did is they put an iPad in front of him and they put him in an office and so they interviewed him via zoom. So while they were interviewing him, he was on live TV. And so, this is how the Holy Spirit works. I had no idea this was going to happen. It happened so quickly that neither Joe nor anybody had a chance to phone me to say it’s going to happen in South Africa on Faith Broadcasting Network. So I’m sitting in my home. The Holy Spirit says to me, “Click on Faith Broadcasting Network.” Just like that. And when I clicked on, there I see Brother Jerry’s face. During the course of the meeting, Brother Jerry promises to sow a seed to do something. Next day Joe phones me. He says, “John, I don’t know, please go on Facebook and see what happened.” I said, “I already know about it, Joe.” He said, “You do?” “I do.” So, something’s happened. Brother Jerry said, “John, I want to be speaking to your church and your people like that. I want you to have services between now and next year, I want to be talking to your people.” So I said, “Joe, I’ve got to tell you that what came from Brother Jerry was shocking. You can’t do this on an iPad if he’s going to be on television. And you can’t have that lighting. And you can’t have all of that. You got to do a better job.” He says, “I know. But, he says, there was no time for a trial run. There was no nothing. It was just like that was the time that they had and it just happened.” So I said, “But you can’t let that happen to Brother Jerry.” You know, it’s really bad.
Anyway. So I spoke to Joe this week. He says, “John, we bought this, we bought this, new sound, new lights, new this. We bought new this. It’s all installed in his office and we’re ready to go.” He says, “Name your time, we are going to broadcast to your church.” Hallelujah. In the meantime, I’ve been talking to TBN and saying, “Hey, if we want to broadcast Brother Jerry, hosted by me on a TBN station, will you give me the time?” I don’t want to pay for it. “Will you give me the time that I can host Brother Jerry on your network?” He said, “Let’s make it happen.”
Ha, I wonder if there’s something God’s busy doing here that’s going to allow us to go live streaming to many campuses, not just in South Africa, but even in the world, even in Africa. What about if we get all the pastors from Mzuzu, all the pastors from Lilongwe or Blantyre, all the pastors from wherever we are connected in Vanderbijl, in Cape Town – and they all come and they all participate in a live streaming of Brother Jerry to all of our Bible School partners. When I said that to Joe and Brother Jerry they said, “This is what we want. We want to do this. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.” Hallelujah.
We are in the process of developing a HOFMI mobile app so that everything can happen on the app. You don’t have to go onto the website. The website is on the app and the app is the website. It’s going to cost about R50 000 but we are already doing it. I’m just going. I’m doing what I can do and I’m pushing every button that I can push and now I’m letting you know that I’m not holding back. If I don’t share this with you then you don’t know what I’m believing God for. And then you don’t, can’t bring the gift and the supply of the Spirit that you must bring – which may not be money. It might be in some other way but if it’s money it will help.
I want to tell you what a big evangelistic tool this Slipstream club is becoming. We are investing in that and actually, it’s more about having a person running the club for us on a full-time basis. Part of what we want to do requires about R250 000 to upgrade our media department. Some of the things we have to do have got software implications that are monthly costs – which is why we have R10 000 per month. You just can’t get away from some of the software that you need that you have to run to make a ministry that’s running a full multi-media ministry. You just need to pay those monthly subscription fees. The same applies to some of the other media, social media projects that we’ve got going. We are busy ramping up everything so that we can be a ministry that it’s easy to connect with and there’s an integration between TV and social media. Amen.
Pastor John, did you ever think that you would be in this space? A few years ago – not really. But now, I can’t wait. Hallelujah. So we have an off-site studio that needs a budget for us to get it running so that we can have different… Everything is happening right at the moment in one small studio. We often have to fight doves, hadidas, racing motorbikes, screaming cars and all manner of things. If it rains on the tin roof you have to stop recording because the sound picks it up because we don’t have a fully insulated studio. So we have an offsite-studio which we need to fully furnish. Amen.
The next one is the SNCTRY studio. There we need to do some work on making our studio in Johannesburg, upgrade it so that we have a studio in Johannesburg because the next thing is a thing that we’re having our next meeting this week. And so I just want to tell you that this is not a pipe dream; it is a real, beyond our wildest imagination possibility. That is something that I’ve proposed to TBN and so we are proposing a TBN-Africa leadership college initiative. So what that means is that TBN is going to give us the time for free and we are going to have Bible School on TBN live at times of the day when they are underutilised. We are going to teach on leadership, on business, on entrepreneurship, on things that God has placed in our hearts and our capacity to do so. We are going to leverage resources and people that’s TBN and us. So we will provide the curriculum. They and we will provide the people to teach so that the whole of Africa can get this. And so that if you want to do this through TBN, you have to subscribe to this particular college, which is why we need to upgrade our studio here. We will also use the TBN studio. So that is part of what the Lord has given me – is to be big and bold.
This is just on my radar. I mean, we’re still going to do Being Filled With The Spirit, lots of Morning Moments, things like that. I’m just saying all of these things are all part of the multimedia stuff and that is all happening. But you know, we have a MiXchange program that’s happening. Some people from Joburg is going to live in Witbank for a while, but there’s going to be people that are going to come from around the world. So I didn’t say this in the Witbank church, but right across the road from our church is this place. We have approached them. They are currently struggling because of Covid. When I first took over the church in Witbank and I drove past that place and I asked someone, “What is this place?” They said, “It’s like a townhouse kind of short term rental kind of place.” Someone bought it and turned it into a place that’s got, I don’t know, 60 rooms or 80 rooms or something like that. But it’s very low cost. It’s for mineworkers. You know, very low-level stuff. And they get fed breakfasts and stuff like that. There’s no number attached to this other than our own thumbsuck. They might accept 5 million, they might accept 3 million. Who knows? But wouldn’t it be cool to have a whole college campus across the road with dorms and accommodation and auditoriums, volleyball places. Hey, listen, if I can dream this stuff then God can make this stuff – beyond my wildest imagination. Right? This has been in my imagination for 20 years, so I might as well put it on the board. Hallelujah.
Can you see that what God’s doing next year, can you see the possibility of how many churches in America that’s already connected to us, who wants to know what God’s doing in our church, will start sending their people to come to visit us to come and spend months with us. Even if it’s their summer holidays and our winter holidays, that they will come and spend time with us because they want the spirit of this house in their people. Where do we put such people when they come? Why not here, across the road? So then they don’t need cars, and they don’t need this and they don’t need that. They just walk across to church and it’s like this, you know. And if the government gives us too much trouble, we’ll build a bridge across from one place to the other so they don’t even have to walk across the road. Praise the Lord.
Next slide. Are you ready for extreme adventures? Spiritually and naturally. We’re going to go do missions. We’re going to go and do some extreme things and have a lot of fun in this ministry. Last one, we’re not going old. We’re going bold. Come on, now. Let me tell you, what I’ve just said it’s not a small thing. Because the devil wants to try and bring to me; you’re not so young anymore. I want to tell you, I’m not going old. I’m going bold. My age has got nothing to do with what God can do in one year, what would have taken 10 years. I might have a few more wrinkles. But I’m getting fit enough that even the youngsters are going to have to work hard to keep pace with me. Watch this space all, y’all, y’all. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
Thank you for giving me your time today. Thank you for giving me your attention. Thank you for allowing me to minister the Word and to share the vision with you. Let the Holy Spirit minister to your heart about it. This is our moment. I don’t care about Covid. I want to say this, this is right now, I want to say this by the Holy Spirit. You want security from Covid? Then your answer is not in how much you save. It’s how much you give God. And don’t just give him money. You’ve got to give Him your heart. I’d much rather you give Him your heart before you give Him money. Believe me, I want to make that statement category. I’ve never, ever put financial pressure on anybody. It’s all about your walk with God. It’s much more important to me. So if you are in a place where your heart is not captivated by God, then I’d rather that that happens. But when He’s got your heart then give it to Him because whatever you give God I promise you He’s going to blow your socks off. Amen. And if you can’t give Him money, come alongside us, phone us, say, “Listen, I want to do this. I’ll build that. I’ll break this wall. I’ll bang that out. I’ll do whatever. I’ll take a week’s leave and come do some stuff.” You can do that. We’ll feed you pap and boerewors. Please, stand before we start thinking about pap and boerewors. Hallelujah.
Is it okay that I ministered and shared this with you all today? At least you know what’s going on in the ministry. Right? Hallelujah. Ja, we don’t spend our days doing nothing. Some people think that I enjoy golf. Well, I do too but not that much. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Just raise your hand and say; praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus.
Well, Lord, I’ve been obedient and I’ve shared the Word and I’ve shared what vision you’ve given in our heart; to be bold. And so between us, Father, we are going to walk on water. We are going to carry clay jars and expect you to turn water into wine. But carry jars filled with water, we will and you will turn water into wine. We know that. Hallelujah. So we trust You and we praise You. I ask You, Lord, that this word will not return unto you void, but it will accomplish everything that You’ve sent it out to accomplish. I thank You, Lord, that Your people are blessed going in and going out. No weapon formed against them shall prosper. And I pray that Your peace rests upon them, in Jesus’ name and everybody said; Amen. I want to tell you that I saw the spirit of fear and failure and the signs of the times coming on people and just holding them back like we’re stuck in mud in life because of this Covid thing. I saw Covid and global economies like people were trying to, you know, if your feet are stuck in mud, it’s like you’re trying to, want to get going and you just can’t get going because you just get sucked in this mud. The Lord said to me is, “John, your spiritual position, if you share the Word and you share what God’s imagining for your future, it’s going to lift you up out of that mud, and it’s going to cause you to walk on solid ground.” Amen. I don’t want to start preaching again. You must go home. Goodbye. Thank you for coming.
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