Scripture reference: Habakkuk 3:17-19 (AMPC) ; Job 1:1-22 (AMPC); Job 2:1-13 (AMPC); Job 35:16 (AMPC); Job 36:1-4 (AMPC); Job 37:23-24 (AMPC); Job 38:1-7 (AMPC); Job 39:19-27 (AMPC); Job 40:1-8 (AMPC); Job 42:1-17 (AMPC)
That’s good to hear. I’m also blessed, thank you for asking. Ja, but you can tell it to me too, you know.
Yesterday, late yesterday evening, it says here 17:18 to be exact on the WhatsApp. I got a message from a young lady in the Johannesburg church. She is my daughter because I’m in covenant with her family and so Mia Forgey sent me a message and she said, “Good teaching today, dad.” She is 16 years old and so when a 16 year old young woman sends you a message, “Good teaching today, dad,” then you know you did something okay. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
So, these services, most of these services nowadays we are recording to be ready for what we do on TBN and we will use materials as the Lord sees fit for us to do things on TBN. I want you to know that it is an important component of what we are doing that our music ministry, our worship ministry and music ministry goes to the highest level of what God has called us to do in praise and worship. So, I believe with all my heart that God is giving us songs and He’s giving us ways of developing music that is not what everybody else is writing and playing out there.
Well, you might say to me, “Well, Pastor John, how do you know that?” I’ll tell you why I know that; because when I became pastor, because I’ve been called to be a shepherd all my life, but when I officially became a pastor of a church, the Lord put it on my heart to employ young musicians to actually write songs and create music. Because already then, the Lord put it in my heart and already then He was speaking to me about the gift that was in my wife, Pastor Sharon, and in my son, Garth, who was one of those young men that we employed full time to write songs and do music.
It is a travesty that the enemy has the ability to make suggestions and influence people’s emotions and hearts and minds so that they walk away from the things that God has called them to. So, most of those young people have left and gone their own paths and own directions and their own ways. Many of them are not even serving God anymore. Many of them are not even playing music anymore, as talented as they were. It’s a sad thing when that happens.
But I am delighted to say that God has brought us to this place. Someone might say to me, “Well, Pastor John, how are you going to get it done?” Well, I know this; the Lord put it in our hearts to create an album and then sow all of the money that came in from the album to Brother Jerry. So then it means, not only have we taken care of what we’re supposed to do here, but we’ve sowed all that money to Brother Jerry.
So, my future is not in what someone else thinks or doesn’t think. My future is always in what I sow. Hallelujah. People sometimes, you know, they have… and well, I don’t want to say too much. I just want to say that we are where we are right now and right now is where I want to be. I don’t want to be anywhere else than where God has brought us to be right now. Hallelujah. He’s given us a voice and He’s given us a time and a place to be what we must become. Hallelujah. Our seed has brought us here. Our consistency, our constancy, our faithfulness, our relentless desire to never quit and give up, has brought us to this place. Hallelujah.
Glory to Jesus. Hallelujah. It’s difficult for me to catch up what God did yesterday, because the words, the messages that God had me give yesterday was about the Knowledge of God is Prosperity and I can’t go back and teach what I taught yesterday. I need to move forward. If you want to hear what was said you may make a request and have the possibility of our department making it available to you, but what we did yesterday is going to be on TBN, so that’s why you can’t go and watch it live, you can’t go and watch it on YouTube anymore, because we’re creating everything in slots for TBN. Amen. The only reason I’m making this offer available to you is because of the times that we’re living in economically and God gave me specifically this message yesterday to preach about economics and about finance and about the prosperity of God and I’ve got to finish this message today. Amen. Praise the Lord.
I start with the scriptures that I started with yesterday, which is in Habakkuk chapter 3 verse 17 says 17 Though the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, [though] the product of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls, 18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the [victorious] God of my salvation! 19The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds’ feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]! (Habakkuk 3:17-19 AMPC)
Praise the Lord. In previous messages, I have been speaking about that God is energy and God is life and I started this series of messages with this verse in the book of Habakkuk because when there is an economic downturn and when there is economic difficulty and there is economic struggle, I don’t think it gets a whole lot worse than what is described here in the book of Habakkuk.
And it talks about, though there’s not even a blossom on the fig tree, though there’s no fruit on the vines, in other words; none of the fruit bearing trees and there’s no ability of even prospects of any future productivity. The product of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, that means there’s a drought going on, some kind of famine virtually going on although it doesn’t say there’s famine, but there’s a famine going on. And though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls, in other words; there’s nothing for them to live on. In this condition, the Bible says, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the victorious God of my salvation.
I make a declaration to you today, and I trust that you will make this a declaration for yourself; that my future is not based on my conditions, my future is based on my rejoicing. My future is based on my worship. My future is not based on what my income looks like or what the ability of my income looks like. My future is based on my worship. This is a very powerful place to be when you are in this condition.
Recently, I had an occasion to be inputting into some people’s lives. Helping them with some direction in their lives. One of the things that I said, is that there is no way that I can determine as a human being, even though I am a spiritual human being who is a mature spiritual being. I’ve lived my whole life in the Word of God and in my service and worship to God. As a mature spiritual being, I still have no way of knowing the depth of anyone’s belief or faith that is in their heart.
People may say to me, “I have faith for this, or I have faith for that”, and I have to take it at face value, because I can’t tell whether they really have faith or not. I can’t tell if you say, “I’m determined to have the plan and the purpose of God for my life”. Then I say, Well, I can’t, I don’t know how deep that belief is. Because, the only way that it’s going to determine how deep your belief is that you want, the plan and purpose of God for your life, is when, when the circumstances become difficult and speak a different outcome to what you believe. Then the challenge is on for the depth of what you believe.
This is important to the rest of my message, because what you believe in your heart is going to come out of your mouth, especially under pressure. When you’re under pressure of any kind, what you believe in your heart is going to come out. So, what you’ve been thinking about, what you’ve been talking about, what you’ve allowed thoughts to come into your mind, other suggestions from media, from circumstances, from whatever place, whatever comes into your mind, it’s going to actually come out of your heart.
The Greek word for energy is within or in within and work, the physics word for ‘energies’ is the property of matter and radiation, which is manifest as the capacity to perform work. So, God is the source of all energy, and we have to believe that His energy source, that He is, resides within us. If you are a Christian and you are a believer, what you have done is, you have asked Jesus to come and bring light, life and love and come and live within you. So, if you believe that life, light and love lives within you, then the source of your future is always going to be about what’s in you, if you let it. If you let your mind confuse what’s in your heart, then you are in a double minded state and you’re never certain about whether you can trust God or whether you can trust yourself. Because if you keep giving yourself to yourself, then the thing that you always depend on when you go forward in your future is yourself, but if you keep giving your trust to what God has placed within you; life, light and love, then that energy you start to trust more and more.
Most of the time, that’s not a big event. Most of the time, that’s a small event on small event, on small event, where you trust God, little by little. You learn to trust Him, you learn to trust Him, you learn to trust Him, and so then when the big things come, then you know that you can trust Him in everything. Amen.
So, I have largely been talking about the fact that prosperity is not about money. Prosperity is about worship, and worship is about what’s working inside you. So, what you worship, because all worship attracts, if you worship food, then you’re going to attract all manner of exciting recipes. Food is going to continuously come into your life. There is a word for it in the Bible, it’s called gluttony. You know what gluttony is? Gluttony is the worship of food. Sorry to burst a bubble for you today. I don’t mean to burst your bubble today, but it is.
One of the things that I’ve been observing recently, it’s been just something the Lord has really highlighted to me. I’ve seen recently, if you go to most large sporting events, and you watch the fans in the stadiums, there is absolutely unrestrained declaration of who their team is, that they’ve chosen to support. They show it clearly and visibly and they get very, very vocal and very active about it. I dare say, that it’s probably one of the greatest weapons that the enemy of God is busy establishing on the earth, is the worship of sport. People are worshiping at the altar of sport all the time and they’re worshiping their sportsmen, that are idols in their lives and they’re allowing those, those activities to control them.
One of the biggest problems that is beginning to emerge in Europe, probably the whole world, but I know for, definitely in Europe, is sports betting. What people are doing, is that because they are worshipping, everything that they’re worshipping is attracting everything that they are, so they’re taking their money that they earn, hard money, that their energy creates and they’re betting on sports outcomes and results.
What you worship, you will attract and there are many people that worship money and they will get and obtain money at just about any cost. They will obtain money. I have made this, in previous sessions I have said this. You just ask the drug lords, they don’t do drugs, they sell drugs. They don’t do drugs because they’re wanting to use the drugs to make money because their god is their money. Their worship is their money. It’s the power that money brings them. Praise the Lord.
Moving right along. I’m going to speak to you, where I left off previously. From the book of Job and I have been speaking about Job and his life. Job chapter one verse one says, 1There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job; and that man was blameless and upright, and one who [reverently] feared God… so he was a worshiper of the Most High God. He worshiped God. Worship attracts …and abstained from and shunned evil [because it was wrong] (Job 1:1 AMPC). It’s an important verse there, in the way that it’s explained from the translation and he shunned evil because it was wrong. There were no laws that was written when Job lived, and I can’t go back and explain everything about Job’s life to you, that I said yesterday.
He shunned evil, because it was wrong, in his heart he knew it was wrong. Not because there was a law that wrote it anywhere, there was no book, or Bible, or law at that time. There was only a relationship that he had with God.
2And there was born to him seven sons and three daughters, and 3He possessed 7000 sheep, and 3000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, and 500 female donkeys, and a very great body of servants, so that this man was the greatest of all the men in the East. (Job 1:2-3 AMPC)
Now, there’s a reference in the way that, the Hebrew translates his wealth. His wealth is referred to in the Hebrew language as of such great magnitude, that it was spread out on the fields and it looked like, it was like a harvest of locusts. It was like a flood of animals. You almost couldn’t look anywhere, for as far as you could see, was all of his herds and his animals. That’s quite amazing, to have this kind of wealth.
I have to, want to make a point to you today, I want to say; When you worship God, your worship of God attracts what God is. In God there is no poverty, there is no sickness, there is no disease, there is no concern about tomorrow or about your future. So, when you worship God, what God is and who God is, is what you attract, but if you worship your own thoughts, your own ideas, your own emotions and you worship the world that you create for yourself, then you will only attract what you’ve created in your world to attract.
That’s why I can say with confidence, and I have lived this in my life; that I can prosper financially, I can prosper in business, when corruption is the order of the day and if you don’t pay bribes, it would assume, it would seem as though you cannot get money and cannot get contracts if you don’t pay bribes. I’ll tell you that the Word of God is more powerful than any corrupt official in any department, and the energy of God that comes out of your mouth, can change every single situation, so that you get to be the one who is favored to get contracts and not other people.
If you believe what everybody else says, that you can’t get a contract in that business or in that government or in that department because of corruption, then that’s what you will speak. When you speak, that then you believe that, then you will begin to function with that mindset. Then you will not have the energy of God work through you, to change what that’s going to change. I say that because, in the book of Habakkuk, the guy said, It doesn’t matter what my circumstances are, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will rejoice in the Lord. Hallelujah.
The book of Job is about, God calls the angels into His presence to give an account of their management of what activities they are supposed to have done. In God’s feedback management, feedback of the Angels, in the throne room of God, along comes Satan, and Satan, you know, he is having an observation about what’s going on in the throne room of God.
And that’s in verse six, 6Now there was a day when the sons (the angels) of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan (the adversary and accuser) also came among them. 7And the Lord said to Satan, From where did you come? Then Satan answered the Lord, From going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it. 8And the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered My servant Job. (Job 1:6-8 AMPC).
There was no accusation by the enemy of God against Job, it was God who asked the devil have you considered my servant Job. So what this is all about, understand, this is about the depths of your worship that is in your heart. What the Lord has revealed to me out of the book of Job is, we seem to have all the answers, or we seem to want to have all the answers, about when trouble comes your way, why trouble, came your way.The rest of the book of Job is about his friends, he has three friends, who come and they come to mourn with Job because, the enemy of God stands in the throne room of God and he says, “Well yes, Job is a man that worships You and he fears You, because of all of the blessings that You have given him, but if You didn’t bless him like that, he wouldn’t worship You.”
So God said, “Well, you are wrong.” He said, well you go and read it, I am not going to read it this morning, and Satan said, “You have put a hedge around him and You have protected him and You have made him wealthy”. And the Lord said, “But he is is in your hands, but you may not touch his body.” So, the story begins to unfold, where just one thing after another, all of his cattle were killed, all of his children were killed, all of his servants were killed, just all this, travesty, all this trouble, all the stuff hits his life.
Then Job, really, he begins to repent, and the words that he used in verse 22, was 22In all of this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly. (Job 1:22 AMPC) He didn’t look at all of his circumstances and say, “Ah God, You have forsaken me, God what have I done wrong, where is my trouble, where is my…” At this point in time, he just said, “I refuse to say this is God.”
I pick up in verse 1 of chapter 2, 1Again there was a day when the sons of God [the angels] came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan (the adversary and the accuser) (Job 2:1 AMPC)
Satan, the word here, the Hebrew word for this is, the one who is lying in wait, who waits patiently. As I said previously, this is an eternal being that thinks he is equal to God, and he is always waiting for an opportunity to prove that he is equal to God and even better than God. He is eternally waiting to prove God wrong.
God said, “Have you seen my servant Job, he worships Me and he fears Me.” And so the enemy said, “Yeah, but it is because of all the good things.” Well, what you worship, you attract. All that God was, was in Job’s life, and so God said, “Okay, you may go after his stuff, because it’s in your hands”, and I’ve described all of this in previous messages, and so everything is destroyed.
1 So the adversary came also among them to present himself before the Lord. 2And the Lord said to Satan, From where do you come? And Satan (the adversary and the accuser) answered the Lord, From going to and fro on the earth and from walking up and down on it. 3And the Lord said to Satan, Have you considered My servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a & blameless and upright man, one who [reverently] fears God and abstains from and shuns all evil [because it is wrong]? And still he holds fast his integrity, although you moved Me against him to destroy him without cause. (Job 2:1-3 AMPC).
I explained that yesterday, it wasn’t God who moved His hand, it was just God who removed the protection that was around Job, because of worship. There was an accusation that the man Job only worshipped God, because of what he could get from Him. You have to go back to my other messages to get my explanation on this. It’s because of worship.
Now God says, He says to the enemy of God, “You see, you have taken everything from him, everything about his life is gone, and yet he holds fast to the fear of God that is in him, he holds fast to his integrity, he holds fast to everything that he has got, he stands strong in what he believes. There is none like him, he is a man who fears Me.” This is about worship. “Have you noticed My servant, that even though you have brought everything against him that you could possibly bring against him, yet he stands in his integrity and he worships Me. He still worships Me, he still worships Me.”
4Then Satan answered the Lord, Skin for skin! Yes, all that a man has will he give for his life. 5But put forth Your hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse and renounce You to Your face. 6And the Lord said to Satan, Behold, he is in your hand; only spare his life. (Job 2:4-6 AMPC).
In other words, you can go after his skin, but you may not touch his life, but you can go after his physical, clay body. 7So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with loathsome and painful sores from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. 8And he took a piece of broken pottery with which to scrape himself, and he sat [down] among the ashes. 9Then his wife said to him, Do you still hold fast your blameless uprightness? Renounce God and die! (Job 2:7-9 AMPC).
I ask you church, where did you find another wife or another partner doing the same kind of thing to the man? Was it not Adam and Eve? “Why don’t you eat of this fruit, and see, there is no harm in it?” In this case, she brings another temptation to him – the enemy of God, causes the one, the only living person that Job still had by his side, the only living person to say to him: “Do you still hold fast to the fact that God is God? Do you still stand with Him? Do you still believe in Him? Surely you can’t believe in God after all of this has happened to you? Why don’t you curse God and die? Just curse Him and die”
It is my responsibility before God, that regardless of what I see happening in your life, regardless of what I see happening in the circumstances of this world, regardless of what even church leaders might say, it is my responsibility before God that I do not come to you and say to you, “Let’s change the way we do church, so that we can have better results.” In effect, what I would be saying is, “The God that I believe in, is not working for me”. So, let me rather change the way that I preach, and the way that I do church, so that we can have a better outcome, or a different outcome.
It is my responsibility, that I have to keep declaring the Word of God in such a manner, that it stands for the uprightness and the integrity and the power of what the Word of God can do for you, regardless of what your circumstances may be saying to you.
I have mentioned this before, if I lay hands on someone and I pray for them and they have got cancer and then they don’t get healed from that cancer. The human condition of soulish interaction with that circumstance might say, “Why do you keep praying for people that have cancer. Obviously God doesn’t answer your prayers.” I would be tempted to stop praying for people, because I don’t get the result that I thought I would get. Then we want to ask God, “But why would do some people get healed and some people don’t get healed”. He has to answer me or you. We may have all kinds of reasons why that might happen, but I think we learn from Job, that there are many things going on in the universe, that are not just about our small logical mind, about what we can figure out or not figure out, and so I have to keep believing God. I got to keep trusting Him. Hallelujah.
His wife said, 9Do you still hold fast your blameless uprightness? Renounce God and die! 10But he said to her, you speak as one of the impious and foolish woman would speak. What? Shall we accept [only] good at the hand of God and shall we not accept [also] misfortune and what is of a bad nature? In [spite of] all this Job did not sin with his lips. (Job 2:9-10 AMPC). Understand that Job is talking about his circumstances here, he is not talking about that it was God that did this to him, but he is, he knows something about God, but he doesn’t know God and I’m going to get that in a minute. So, just stay with me.
11Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come upon him, they came each one from his own place, there was Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, for they had made an appointment together to come to condole with him and to comfort him, 12And when they looked from afar off and saw him [disfigured] beyond recognition, they lifted up their voices and wept; and each one tore his robe, and they cast dust over their heads towards the heavens. 13So they sat down with [Job] on the ground for seven days and seven nights, and none spoke a word to him, for they saw that his grief and pain was very great.” (Job 2:11-13 AMPC).
Well, what do you say to someone that has had this calamity happened to them? One could say these men are being good friends, because they just came to sit around him and you know, mourn with him, because seven days and seven nights they just sat there, they just sat there. Well, you know, we tend to think of seven day and seven nights in the terms of our time frame, but these guys lived to two-hundred years old. Seven days and seven nights wasn’t a lot of time, in the context of their life, but still they sat there for seven days, in silence and they did nothing, they just came to be with him, sorry for all this misfortune.
Now, I want to just speak to you about the rest of the book of Job, until I’m going to get to Job, chapter 35. The rest of the book of Job is essentially about these three friends and each of them have a turn to talk Job and these three friends all have an argument, in various manners and in various ways, they present their arguments. It is essentially, the argument, in all of the chapters, goes like this.
Job, you must have done something very wrong in your life, for all this bad stuff to happen to you, because it is impossible for such bad misfortune to happen to someone, unless something you did something really bad. If you had not done anything bad this would not happen to you. How can you obtain such greatness and in such a short period of time lose everything, and get into this kind of condition, unless there was an interference from God, or a judgement from God? Therefore Job, you must have done something wrong. You need to discover what it is that you did wrong and then you must repent of what you did wrong, so that you can make it right. Otherwise, there is no point in you carrying on, because this God has obviously judged you, and so the judgement that has come upon you, must be because of you. You have got to fix yourself, and if you don’t know what is wrong, then it is best for you to just lie down and die.
That’s the very brief version of 35 chapters worth of conversation that happens between three friends and Job. It is a quicker way, that I can explain 35 chapters to you and every time they have something to say, Job defends himself and he justifies himself to them and his answer to them every time is “I didn’t do anything wrong, I don’t know what it is, I did wrong, I have feared God all my life. I have served God all my life. What is it, that this God would come do and interfere with this life that I’ve been living and it seems like, what else must I do, to please this God that I’m serving.” He defends himself and in defending himself, he criticizes God, because he doesn’t know what it is. This God, is not a just God, how can this just God be doing to me what He just did to me? If it is Him, that did it to me. In brief synopsis, that’s what Job does. He defends himself, he defends his actions, he defends his life, he defends everything that happened to him.
Now I’ll go to chapter 35, and there is a man, that’s a fourth man, that comes on the scene. He is a much younger man and because he sits in the company of these three older men who are the friends of Job, so there are four people there and they’re all older, wealthier, mightier, statesman, elder’s amongst the land of people. They are all there and they all have these words to speak”. Job, verse 16 of Job 35, 16Job uselessly opens his mouth and multiplies words without knowledge, this is Elihu speaking the fourth man, Elihu. He speaks on behalf of God. “16Job uselessly opens his mouth and multiplies words without knowledge drawing the worthless conclusion that the righteous have no more advantage than the wicked. (Job 35:16 AMPC).
Verse 1 of chapter 36, 1Elihu proceeded and said, 2Bear with me and wait a little longer, and I will show you, for I have something still to say on God’s behalf. 3I will bring my knowledge from afar and I will ascribe righteousness to my Maker. 4For truly my words shall not be false; He who is perfect in knowledge is with you, Job. (Job 36:1-4 AMPC).
I move. Elihu is speaking on behalf of God and he is saying, “Job, you have opened your mouth and you spoken useless words and you have multiplied your words uselessly against God, and so on behalf of God, I will bring my knowledge from a far and I will ascribe righteousness to my Maker. In other words, this God that you all have been talking about, that you have all been, had some criticism and justification in your lives about Him and all kinds of manner of arguments about why this has happened to Job, I have come on behalf of God to say, “I will ascribe righteousness to God my Maker, 4For truly my Word shall not be false; He who is perfect in knowledge is with you”.
I go to Job 37 verse 23, Touching the Almighty, we cannot find Him out; He is excellent in power; this is still Elihu speaking, He is excellent in power and to justice and plenteous righteousness, He does no violence [He will disregard no right.] 24Men therefore [reverently] fear Him; He regards and respects not any who are wise in heart. [in their own understanding and conceit]. (Job 37:23-24 AMPC).
So, if I can just, I need to just use this scripture for a moment, it says men therefore reverently fear Him. He regards and respects not any man. He has no regard or no respect for any man who are wise in their own heart, in their own understanding and their own counsel.
So, he is saying, God has a respect and an honour for men who reverently fear Him, but for those people who put their own wise counsel in such a state, that they trust in themselves, He has absolutely no regard or respect for them. In our modern-day world, if we think that in the accumulation of knowledge, that we can depend on our own counsel and our own ability, God has no respect for that. He has absolutely no regard for it. I challenge you to go and read First Corinthians Chapter 13. You go and see, if we are not living in the age of First Corinthians Chapter 13, where it says “you can be as one of those that’s speaking in the tongues of men and of angels, you can be one of those that has knowledge that is beyond what people think knowledge can mean.” In fact the Bible says, “Knowledge will be in a time when knowledge will increase.” But in First Corinthians Chapter 13 it says, “The time will come when even knowledge will be will have no, no value.” Because in the end it’s going to be the Love of God, it’s going to be the Faith of God and it’s going to be the Hope of God that’s going to last forever.
All things that we think we do on the earth that have any value, speaking in the tongues of men and angels, prophesying, walking in all kinds of manners of great and marvellous things that we exhort as being powerful. In the end none of it means anything, unless we are walking in Love, Hope Faith and Love. Hallelujah.
I speak about First Corinthians Chapter 13, because if you look at the First Corinthians Chapter 13 and you read the first six verses or eight verses of First Corinthians Chapter 13, you will begin and you say, “If I was a Christian and I had all these things happening in my life, I would be wow”. Really? It would be, I would be a wow, Christian. In fact, I would be the kind of Christian, that people would come from all around the earth. Hey, he speaks in the tongues of men and of angels and he has prophecies, and he can say things about your life, and he can is this all kinds of things going on in his ministry and all this stuff is out, he is a powerful man, miracles and healings things are happening, you know. Wow! The Bible says, Hope, Faith and Love, that’s all that matters. That’s all that matters.
Job is in this position where there is this multiplication of words that are spoken about God. I must move along here because I need to finish this. 24Men, therefore [reverently] fear Him. I’m going to go to Job verse chapter 38 verse one, 1Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, 2Who is this that darkens council by words without knowledge? 3Gird up now your loins like a man, and I will demand of you, Job and you declare to Me.” (Job 38:1-3 AMPC). Now God is speaking directly to Job. He has bypassed his friends, He bypassed Elio, He has bypassed the council of angels, the sons of man or as the Bible interprets, angels that walk on the earth. There’s no longer, this is not about the angels anymore, this is no longer about Satan anymore, this is no longer about friends that have something to say to you, God comes directly to speak to Job.
He says now Job stand up and talk to Me, Job, and I’m going to talk to you. 4Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Declare to Me, if you have and know understanding. Of how that happened. 5Who determined the measures of the earth, if you know? I mean, He is being really, you know, if you know tell Me? I know you don’t know. Or who stretched the measuring line upon the earth? 6Upon what were the foundations of it fastened, or who laid its cornerstone. 7When the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4-7 AMPC). “Where were you, Job?” God speaking. You know what He is saying? He is saying “This is Me speaking. This is Me.”
Chapter 39 verse 19, He continues to speak to Job. 19Have you giving the horse his might? Have you clothed his neck with quivering and shaking mane? 20Was it you [Job] who made him to leap like a locust? The majesty of his [snorting] nostrils is terrible. 21He paws in the valley and exalts in his strength, he goes out to meet the weapons [of armed men]. 22He mocks at fear and he’s not dismayed or terrified; neither does he turn back [in the battle] from the sword. (Job 39:19-22 AMPC). This majestic horse and I’m only talking about a horse to you Job, tell me if there’s something that you know, that this how this horse was created. Did you create him like that? Where were you Job?
Chapter 39 verse 26, 26Is it by your wisdom [Job] that the hawk soars and stretches her wings towards the south [as the winter approaches]? 27Does the eagle mount up at your command, and make his nest on [a] high in [accessible place]? (Job 39:26-27 AMPC). I think the Lord is making His point to Job quite well here. Again, there are chapters of God having this conversation with God, He talks about many things about who He is and what He has done, and he asks God, He ask Job to answer Him, if He understands who he is talking to.
Chapter 40 verse 1. 1Moreover, the Lord said to Job, 2Shall he who would find fault with your mighty contend with him?… So, after all of this stuff that you think you know about Me Job, shall you, Job, shall you find fault with your mighty and would you contend and debate with Me about what’s right and wrong, about what’s justice and injustice? Will you find that with me Job? Remember I said, prosperity is not about money, prosperity or about things. Prosperity is about worship.
2 “He who disputes with God, let him answer it.” All of these things that I have said. Then Job replied to the Lord, “4Behold I am off small account and vile! What shall I answer You? I lay my hand upon my mouth. 5I have spoken once, but I will not reply again, – indeed, twice [have I answered], but I will proceed no further. 6Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, saying, 7Gird up your loins now like a man; I will demand of you, and you answer Me. 8Will you also annul and (set aside random render void) My judgement? Will you condemn Me [your God], that you may [appear] righteous and justified?” (Job 40:1-8 AMPC) Because that is all the words that he had been speaking to his friends.
I go to Chapter 42 in verse one. “1Then Job said to the Lord, 2I know that You can do all things, and that no thought or purpose of Yours can be restrained or thwarted.” (Job 42:1-2 AMPC). If I go back to the beginning of when I started to talk to you, the story goes like this. God is in His mighty awesome self, in the throne room of the heavenlies and He has angles, that are distributed in the universe to take care of all that has been created by Him. All of that, all of the things that are His, all that is with Him, all that is come from Him, He manages it through the sons of men. In their return to the throne room of God, to bring a report on the management of what is going on in those places, in those things, what’s been created, Satan comes along with them, because he is a spirit being, who has a right to operate on the earth. That’s why, when the Lord asked him where have you been? He says, “Going to and fro, backwards and forwards on the earth,” because he had no right to be anywhere else.
When God asked Satan, have you considered My servant Job? It wasn’t that God was trying to bring calamity on Job, it was God in a relationship, deep inside of Himself and His Own counsel and might that He said, I want to show that there are men on the earth that will worship Me no matter what.
Satan, the one that is the accuser, that lies in wait for eternity to come and bring an accusation against Me. There is one on the earth that stands for Me, that worships Me, his name is Job and he reverently fears Me and he will keep worshipping Me. He (*Satan) says, “Yes, but it is because of what You have given him.” He (God) says, “Take the stuff away.” So, he takes the stuff away. Then God calls another management meeting and in the council, He says, “Have you considered My servant Job?” He says, “He still, in the integrity of his heart, he still worships Me.” Ja, but it is skin for skin and if You really; and then his friends actually describe his condition, that he was so disfigured from all of the attack on his physical body and his wife says, “Curse God and die.” He refuses to curse God, but his friends come around him and his friends have a whole lot to say about God and about him and his life. At the end of all of this conversation, not one time does Job say, “I will not worship this God.” He is just trying to understand in debate, what has happened with this God. Come on now.
Because Job never speaks against the worship of God, he just says,” I’m justifying myself in my position with God.” So, they are all questioning his position with God. He defends his position with God, but he never stopped worshipping the same God. How do we know? Because God shows up into his very presence and He says, “Job, I’m about to have a conversation with you directly.”
Watch what Job says now, watch what Job says now. Job chapter 42:5, 5I had heard of You [only] by the hearing of the ear, for all of Job’s living and worshipping God, he had did it all, because he only heard about this God with his ear, but now my [spiritual] eye sees You. (Job 42:5 AMPC) Come on, church.
He stood in the integrity of the reverential fear of God in his heart and worshipped God in his heart, only because he had heard about this God. He had never experienced this God, face to face, one on one and he never knew Him personally, but because he heard about Him, he worshipped Him. This whole event was about what Job had chosen to worship. That he had chosen to worship Him. He didn’t worship God, because he got wealthy. He didn’t worship his wealth; in spite of what he had heard about God, he worshipped God. You want to know, what you worship? Find out what you are not willing to give away. Find out what you’re not willing to give up. Find out what you are not willing to change, in your life.
I’ll tell you, I had a moment with God a couple of years ago and I have had some people leave the church because of this. I had a moment a few years ago, the Lord said to me, “John, I want to talk to you about your cycling. You got to get this cycling in right order here, I’ve given it to you, to your benefit, to your advantage. There are some things about your cycling that you need to bring into order.” I said, “Yes, Sir.” He began to talk to me about my cycling, that I was in a position where I could have let it dominate me more and more and take more of my time. It was also because of what I am in the body of Christ and my position in the body of Christ. It was also putting at risk those around me, and my life was at risk with those that were around me, because of the order that I needed to place in my life, partly, partly. So what, was I willing to give that up? In a heartbeat. Then the Lord said, “Well, thank you, son. You got it in right order.”
I even told Brother Jerry about it, when I was travelling with Brother Jerry. I was with him in the seven-week timeframe, when I was with him and I said, “Brother Jerry.” He was talking to me about my cycling and my running and the things that I do to keep fit, to keep well-conditioned. I said to him, “Brother Jerry, the Lord spoke to me and He said I can’t afford to let my physical exercise, even though it is really good for my body and it is really good for my psychological well-being and all of those things.” I said, “The Lord spoke to me, He said I can’t afford to let it become imbalanced in my life.” He said, “Yes, John.” That is exactly what he said. “The Lord showed it to me about your life too.” He said, “I’m glad you heard and responded.” You see he didn’t take it upon himself to come and tell me that what he had seen in the spirit was actually what I was doing. All he could say is, “I saw that, I saw that. I am glad you brought it all into order, son.” Hallelujah.
You want to know what you worship, you find out what you’re unwilling to let out of your hand, you find out what you’re unwilling to give up, you find out what you are unwilling to let go of. If you are unwilling to, hey listen; I still enjoy cycling and that is what the Lord, I still enjoy running and I have got goals and I have got still things that I want to do physically that are going to cause me to get fitter. Come on, but now I’m not in a position where those things are actually dominate, I don’t have an out-of-order status with these things. My worship is for God, not any of these things in my life.
The Lord has spoken to Pastor Sharon and I, and said, “I need you to move away from Johannesburg and come and live in Witbank.” Why? I mean we had our family house, beautiful family house. Big home in Johannesburg, I mean we had, our kids have gone to school there, we, you know; all the people we knew, I mean were big city people. We knew everything going on, why must we move to Witbank? Why? Lord, why? It is a smoggy, smoky city, why? Well John, here is the thing; it’s where I need you. That is where I want you to be, that is it. No other answer, no other explanation required. So, here we are and so here’s where our blessing is. Hallelujah. Here is where our blessing is. Hallelujah.
I must finish now. The Lord spoke. Job spoke: Therefore he said 5 but now my [spiritual] eye sees You.6 Therefore I loathe [my words] and abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.7 After the Lord had spoken the previous words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has. 8 Now therefore – you see people, Job had heard about God and even the things that he heard about God, he held it fast in his heart. Even though his friends were saying, hey listen, this is not a God that you want to serve. Now they’re all encountering this living God in different ways. 7 My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends, for you have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has. 8Now therefore take seven bullocks and seven rams and go to My servant Job and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering.
You mean He’s telling men to go to a man? You mean He’s telling men to go to a man? 8 and My servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept [his prayer] that I deal not with you after your folly, in that you have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has. 9 So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did as the Lord commanded them; and the Lord accepted [Job’s prayer]. 10 And the Lord turned the captivity of Job and restored his fortunes, when he prayed for his friends; also the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. (Job 42:5-10 AMPC).
When he did what? When he prayed for his friends. Where did the command come from, for the friends to go to Job? It came from God. What was the encounter that Job had? Job had an encounter with God, where God said; “Job talk to me like a man, come on stand on your feet.” Why did He do that? Well, because Job had continued to worship Him through all of his troubles, so when He went to Job, He went to go and speak to him and said, come, gird up your mind and come and I want to show you who I am. I will show you something about Myself that no one else knows, because you stood and worshipped Me, regardless of your circumstances.
Come on. I told you this whole story about Job is not about money or about trouble, it’s about worship. It’s about worship. It’s about the condition of the heart, and what you will worship. And He says and now come, let your friends come and pray for you, because this thing that’s happened between Me and Job, he has repented. He has said, “I am nothing in front of You, and now I only heard about You, but now I see You, and now that I see You and I see who You are, I am going to completely, I’m here, You are God. My worship is going to be forever, my worship is never ever going to change, not one second, not one thing. I will worship You forever because You’re the Almighty, most righteous, most upright, most great God. God says, “That’s My servant.”
Now you guys that’s spoke, you don’t know nothing. Don’t let Me judge you according to your folly. You go to your friend Job, and you bring a sacrifice to Me in front of him and let him pray for you, on the condition of his prayer, I will not judge your folly. So why did God know that Job was going to pray for his friends? Because Job knew who God was, and He knew that Job didn’t want his friends to have trouble. Not the trouble that he had. They were about to get the same trouble that he just had. Hallelujah.
So, the Lord says, “Job you worship Me, I have no choice. Between Me and you there’s just no option, that which you had before, listen in the rest of your life was just going to get better, better and better.” It’s not about God rewarding Job for anything, it’s about that Job was worshiping Him. Out of what you worship, you attract, and you attract what God is, and God is generous. God is full of prosperity. God is full of increase. God is full of growth. God is full of protection. God is full of favour. God is full of all good, wonderful things. Job was spending the rest of his life worshiping this God that he had seen with his eyes, that he now knew who He was. It could never change and everything out of him flowed into double.
Just let me finish off with this. 12 And the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; for he had 14,000 sheep, 6,000 camels, 1,000 yoke of oxen, and 1,000 female donkeys.13 He had also seven sons and three daughters. (Job 42:12,13 AMPC) God gave him back seven sons and three daughters. But, watch this; 15 And in all the land, chapter 42 verse 15, 15 And in all the land there were no women so fair as the daughters of Job, and their father gave them inheritance among their brothers. 16 After this, Job lived 140 years, and saw his sons and his sons’ sons, even to four generations. 17 So Job died, an old man and full of days. (Job 42:15-17 AMPC).
Of course that’s how that happened to him. That happened to him because his heart was full of worship. He couldn’t help it, every day he would get up and he would say, “Oh, I spoke against You and You showed me that the stars and the skies and the earth and You measured them with your hands. Every day I look up and I see a horse with his quivering mane, I’m reminded of You. When I see the waters and I see the stars, and I see the lands and I see everything, I’m reminded of You. Every day I wake up or I would just worship You and I give You all and anything. You are just the most amazing God, the most living, powerful and of all I’ve heard about You and I worshipped you then, but I’ve seen you with my own eyes and now my worship is eternal, my reverence for You is eternal. These things that You’ve given me, they are lies, but that doesn’t matter a thing, because I worship You eternally.”
I’ll tell you something Church, there is absolutely nothing that compare to the presence of God. I don’t care what Ferrari you drive, I don’t care what aeroplane you fly in, I don’t care what houses you’ve got. I don’t care what places you go to, I don’t care how many gold bars you’ve got stuck away in a safe somewhere. I don’t care what it is that you have or you don’t have. I don’t care, even if you have very little and you’re living in a squatter camp, you can worship the Most High God. Out of your worship will flow, the very essence of everything you ever need, because when you worship Him like that, the glory of who He is, comes into your world and it begins to change it.
You will learn that prosperity is not about money, whether you have it or you don’t have it. Whether you can do things or you can’t do. Whether you’ve got choices or you don’t have choices. You will find that in your worship with God, God creates choices for you, beyond your wildest dreams and comprehension. God will create things for you because out of your mouth, you just worship and you worship Him, and you declare Him to be the Great One. You declare Him to the great I Am of your life. You declare Him to be the Healer of your life. You declare Him to be the God of everything that you stand for, and everything that you live for. You declare that everything that you work with your hands, every place you go, everything that you’re doing is because you love Him. Because you worship Him. Because you put Him first place in your life. When it comes out of you like that in you worship Him, His presence comes into your presence and He says, “Here I am. You are worshiping Me. See Me with your eyes, you’ve heard from Me, about Me, but now see Me. I am the living God, I am the only One, there is no one that can stand before Me and say anything about Me.” Therefore you have nothing to fear about man, you have nothing to fear about governments, you have nothing to fear about any kind of anything that comes into your world.”
I’ve watched, and I’ve seen there’s this new movement going around South Africa now, “I’m not leaving” movement. Well, I’m very glad people have decided not to leave. Really I am, because I have nothing to fear about a government. I have nothing to fear about corruption, I have nothing to fear about anything. If I’m worshiping God with all my heart, with all my life. Everything about me is in the order of Him. Who can be against me, if God is for me?
Who? Who is there in the universe that can be against me if God is for me? Not even Satan himself can bring his best. When he brings his best, I will still worship Him, when he brings his best, I will still praise Him. Even though trouble might be around me, I will worship Him, I will praise Him, I will give Him honour and I will say, “Your Word is first place, Your Word is number one in my life, Your Word is what I live by and I live for. I will not live by another man’s word, in Jesus Name.”
It starts when you get up tomorrow morning, and it feels like, am I going to make it through the month, am I going to make it through the month. Then you start saying with your words; “I’ll make it through this month, I’ll make it through this month.” Why? Because I worship Him. Even though your finances look like, I’m not going to make it through the month, it doesn’t look like I can make it through the month. I make it through the month, because I worship, because I put Him first place. How are you going to get your thing fixed? I don’t care, I’m worshipping Him. I’m going to worship Him. What if this doesn’t work? I’m going to worship Him anyway. It doesn’t look like. I’m going to worship Him.
I’m not telling you something I haven’t lived, my whole life I’ve lived like this. We are where we are right now in our lives, because we lived like this. We have what we have because we live like this., like this. Not because any man promoted us, not because there was any special favour from any man towards us. We stood on the Word of God, and we used the Word of God to get what we’ve got, to be where we are. And you should too. You should and you must. You should and you must.
Come on Garth, get up here? I believe we got to just do a song, a worship. I want to just praise Him, I mean, worship is not about a song, it’s not about a psalm, it’s not about a poem, it’s not about a musical instrument. Worship is what you do out of your heart.
There is a declaration that Brother Jerry did when he was here with us. I just want to find it, where is it, it is here somewhere. You see, I knew, I would run out of time, again, like always. Praise Jesus, praise Jesus. Do you remember this? Come stand to your feet.
Brother Jerry said this when he was here, just a bit more than a year ago, year and a half ago. He said; “And you tell them, that the depths of their praise will determine the magnitude of their breakthrough.” You remember that? “I challenge you to praise God unashamedly. I say, I praise You more and more I praise You unashamedly and continually. On the way here tonight He said to me, Blessings are manifestations of My goodness. The faithful shall abound with blessings. Tell them that the manifestation of my goodness is one of the first things they will experience in the weeks ahead. Blessings are about to break out in my life like I’ve never experienced them before. Financial blessings will break out. I say, the suddenlies are taking place in my life right now. The title deed of ownership of this house comes to us right now even this year in Jesus Name.” Hallelujah. Of everything that you’ve ever need the title deed comes to you of everything you ever need of every house, of every car, everything you’ve ever need it comes to you in Jesus Name. Hallelujah.
You stand up and you say, “Show me Your glory Lord. Show me Your glory Lord show me Your glory Lord.” Haaa, glory to God. “I’m hearing Him in my spirit; supernatural debt reduction and debt cancellation.” This is what He said 18 months ago. Hallelujah, “I believe in God for a hundredfold harvest”. I say now, will you, you can use this declaration with me, I say now, “Lord, show me Your glory. I’m expecting manifestations of Your power and Your presence and Your glory. I have seen in the cloud, Lord. Show me Your glory bring about my harvest. I receive it and I shout Your praise, I receive it and I shout Your praise.” I shout Your praise. I shout Your praise. My expectation will not be cut off, I stay expecting in Jesus Name. The harvest is coming in, somehow, someway; somebody the harvest is coming in, in Jesus Name. My harvest is hunting me down right now. I expect to see His glory on my finances. I am one that will experience supernatural debt cancellation and reduction, in Jesus Name. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
This is about who we worship. This is about who we worship. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Glory to Jesus. Somebody bring the children back into the church we’re going to worship God. Hallelujah. We’re going to praise His name. We’re going to praise His Name. Come on, just for a few minutes we’re going to praise His Name, today. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, Glory to Jesus Glory to Jesus. Hallelujah
[Congregation praises].
[Song: I rejoice in You]
Praise the Name of Jesus. Praise the Name of Jesus. Praise the Name of Jesus. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Glory to God. Hallelujah. In His presence there is joy. In His presence there is strength. In His presence, there is all manner of all kind of twisted ways, just begins to fall away from you. I challenge you and I dare you, this week to worship Him. Worship Him with your mouth, worship Him with your being, give your life to Him. Tell Him that He’s got first place, first priority over everything in your life. Hallelujah.
You know why I called the children in here? I called them in here because I wanted them to see how you praise. Because you know when they go home, they’re going to see you doing the same thing, tomorrow morning and maybe this afternoon. They’re going to see you lift your hands and say, “I praise, I praise, I praise, I praise, I praise, I praise when you get in your car, you can just have this come out of your mouth I praise, I praise I praise You Lord I praise You Lord. Oh, come on now, come now … even the most conservative temperament type can do that. I praise You Lord, I praise You Lord. I wonder if the rest of the people in my car, that are my family, heard me say that, but yes, I praise You Lord. I praise You Lord, I praise You Lord, I praise You Lord. Let me tell you, you can just have one, a few moments like that and I tell you what your whole life starts to turn around. Just begins to turn around. Praise You Jesus.
So now, from this moment onwards as you worship Him, prosperity is going to follow you. It’s going to come and begin to infiltrate all of your world. You can change what you need to change about your life, if you worship Him with everything you got. Hallelujah.
I pray the blessing of God upon you. I pray that peace overtakes you and I pray that no weapon formed against you will prosper. That you are protected and surrounded by His word and by the blood of Jesus and I declare that every intellectual thought, every creative thought, every academic thought, everything comes under the control and under the power of the blood of Jesus and the Word of God and that out of your spirit will flow rivers of living water. The life of God will just filtrate and infiltrate everything in your world around you, in Jesus Name. Hallelujah, hallelujah. Do you agree with this prayer? Hallelujah. Amen.
Thank you for coming to church. God bless you.
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