28 July 2024 Motion for Promotion Part 3 Pastor John Bendixen (WTB)
Scripture reference: Daniel 10:4-19 (NKJV); Ephesians 6:10-12 (TPT)
Pastor Sharon: Father, so we thank You for Your Word that comes now. Your message that we’re ready for, Lord, that comes through Pastor John. We receive it this morning with hearts open. You’ll find no resistance from us to Your message and Your Word this morning. We thank You for bringing us instruction, correction, direction in everything and we’re looking in our hearts for You to be doing just this for us. We thank You for Your anointing that’s upon Pastor John, within Pastor John, upon us and within us and we correspond to everything You’re gonna say to us today and to do. In Jesus’ name, and we all say, amen. Hallelujah.
Pastor John: Praise the Lord. Thank you. Thank you. Wonderful. Before you sit down, just, greet somebody one, two, three people, tell them you’re glad you’re in church this morning. I’m glad I’m in church this morning. Make sure everybody’s glad they’re in church this morning. Otherwise, what’s the point? Alright. There are some things that a man can do that a woman cannot do. That makes a man an unique specimen. It makes a man an unique creature. There are some things that women can do that men cannot do, that makes them rather unique specimens, creatures. So when we go away with the men, I’m trusting the Lord and as the Lord’s been, working with me to be prepared for our men’s getaway, we are going to talk about the things that men can do, that women can’t do. Yeah. Praise the Lord.
You know, contrary to what most people feel, women do have testosterone. They have very little of it, but they do have testosterone. Contrary to what people think, men do have other chemicals like estrogen. We just have very little of it. So men have a great deal of testosterone. They do, that makes, that gives them a view of life that is unique to the way that God has created them chemically and the way that God has created through the way that He’s physiologically created them, He’s given them a unique way of seeing the world. And, so when we go away with the men, we are going to talk about the power of what is in a man and how God is intending to use men in these days, and this is not open to the woman. That’s the reason we’re going to a wild bush place so that women can’t send somebody with eves-dropping ears to come hear what we have to say. If the women really prayed hard enough, we might have something to say to the woman somewhere down the line. You know, if they pray hard enough and if they’re good to us, you know. I want to just encourage the men, please, communicate with our team that is, organising the camp. There are some forms that we need you to complete by tomorrow, so there’s a form that will be sent to you. Please fill out the form and send it. And then also just indicate what your financial position is and how much you can contribute towards the camp or whatever your circumstances are. There’s a very small team of people that are managing this, and we will keep your requests private and confidential, but we would also like to know how we can assist you to get to the camp. Amen. Praise the Lord. I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to hearing the lions roar at night and then the men roaring after it. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Alright. I think we’ve got about 85, somewhere around about 85 men registered to come, so I think we’re gonna have a great time. Praise the Lord. Okay. Message Moments this afternoon at five o’clock. Glory to God.
You know, Brother Jerry, every October, he would kind of separate himself, and he would expect the Lord to say something to him. And, year on year, he would have a word for us. And so oftentimes, he would have a phrase, you know, this is the year of advancement, it’s the year of progression, it’s the year of promotion, and this is the year of our highest expectations to be fulfilled. So that is the headline, But then what he would do is he’d go around the world and he would preach on what he would preach, teach on what the Lord had given him as a headline, and so the message wasn’t so much the headline. The message was all of the scriptures and all of the ways that you could believe God for the headline. Amen. The headline was just to keep you focused on what God was wanting to do, but it’s the Word of God that comes with that, that gives the substance to that message. Amen.
So, this whole morning, this phrase has been rolling around in my spirit and I’ve kind of, sort of every time I’ve, it’s come up, I wanted to put it on the shelf. “Alright, Lord, I’ll attend to that this week.” I’ll find some scriptures about that this week, and I’ve kind of wanted to put it aside. Every time I do that, it comes back stronger and stronger in my spirit, and so I know that it’s the Holy Spirit who wants me to declare it today. The thing that keeps coming up in my spirit is that He’s lifting the lid. He’s lifting the lid and so as this phrase has been rolling around in my spirit, I’ve kind of asked the Lord, “Well what is it, what is it that I’m seeing here? What are you trying to tell me?” And, there’s a couple of things. The one thing is that, and this is how I saw it, you know, Pastor Sharon and I have had a week of conversing about certain subjects and certain things and yesterday, I just, we just, both felt that it was time for us to sit down and just have long conversations, and we literally, just chatted the Word to each other, spoke our hearts to each other, shared things with each other. Yesterday, for six seven hours. We just sat on the couch and drank green tea, had tea and different things, and we just talked for six or seven hours yesterday.
At a certain time, Sharon said, I think it’s time for us to eat something. And so she went and began to do some stuff and she made this amazing sauce and it had a couple of ingredients in it. I wasn’t there all of the time, but I certainly tasted it afterwards and it was amazing. But oftentimes, when people are making something, they have a vision to taste something. They’ll put a bit of water in it, they might put some vegetables in the water, some salt in the water, they might put some oils, olive oil, whatever they might want to do. It might be different ingredients that they put into a pot and then they wait for the pot and the water and the heat to do its job, so that whatever is in the pot, that pot can bring a different result than just an individual ingredient can give you.
So, I mean, yesterday, Sharon made an amazing mushroom dish and it had a bit of chilli in it. And normally with the way she made the dish, you wouldn’t put chilli with it. Normally, it wouldn’t have chilli with mushrooms, it kind of, you know, normally. But she put a bit of chilli and some garlic and some stuff into that sauce, and wow, I mean, it was like an explosion of tasting in our mouth. I have seen chefs do this, and I have done it myself, but Sharon is the one who does most of the cooking in the house, because she has very high standards and there is no way that I can ever match up to her standards. I make a great cup of tea, she says. I do. I made her some tea yesterday, and she said, “Wow, this is such a nice cup of tea.” I make good tea. Like any person can do, you know, I can scramble eggs. I can do a fried egg, and I can make toast. I can do steak and boerewors, you know, things like that and lamb chops. I can grill lamb chops. And, anyway, you get the drift.
But, when Sharon is busy in the kitchen, she has this thing there. When she is cooking something in a pot, she lifts the lid and she will take a wooden spoon or a spoon of sorts, and she will put it into the sauce or to whatever she is making, and she will taste it, and she will taste it. So she has to lift the lid to get what is inside. She has to lift the lid. So, I really feel like what God’s doing is that God is lifting the lid to reveal what He’s put into us, what He’s doing with us, what He’s creating amongst us, and what He’s doing with us as He’s lifting the lid is going to be many, many, many people that will taste what God has done with us. What God is doing with us, He’s lifting the lid so that all can taste.
Here’s what they’re going to taste. They’re going to taste and see that the Lord is good. They’re going to taste and see that He is amongst us, that He is our King, He’s our Lord, He’s our Master, and that we as a people are united. We are in agreement. We are full of the Holy Spirit. We are full of God and we are full of all of His plans and purposes. When people begin to taste and see what God has done among us, God is going to lift the lid for us in many things that He’s going to do for us.
A lid is also something that confines things, and so He’s taking the lid off, not only so that people can taste what we are, but also that we can be exposed to many things that God’s got for us. The only way to add something to a pot is to lift the lid. So, we know that God is busy adding things to us in this season. Amen. He’s lifting the lid. Hallelujah. I’m going to leave that there for now and we’ll see what the Lord will do with what He’s put in my spirit. But I knew I had to just bring it out this morning. Amen.
There’s no doubt about it in my mind because the scripture says it, Jesus said it Himself. So, because Jesus said it Himself, it must be true because He came as Truth and He came to declare the Truth to us both in word and in deed. Jesus said that He came to give us life, and He came to give us life more abundantly. He also said that there’s another one in the world and that’s the devil. The devil comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. Amen.
When life is busy revealing itself in abundance, there’s a lot of change that takes place, but there’s no chaos where there’s abundant growing life. There’s no chaos. There’s no crisis. There is change. It might look like there is a bit of messy and a bit of disorder, but it’s just the ingredients that are put together to produce life. So, you know, if you’re going to plant a harvest or, you know, plant seeds to get a harvest, you’ve got to plow the ground. You’ve got to put seed into the ground. You’ve gotta fertilize the ground with some form of compost, some kind of fertilizer, and that process may seem like there’s disorder, but it’s not really disorder, it’s preparation. It’s preparation. It’s a healthy disorder. Can I put it that way? Just because you’re breaking up fallow ground and you’re making it prepared and ready for seed.
So when you put seed into the ground and then you and then the and water comes on it, it might look like it’s muddy and messy, but it’s a perfect environment for the seed to grow. That’s not chaos and crisis. That just may look like a bit of messy. It might just look like it’s, you know, not quite in the state that it needs to be, but there’s a purpose to it. It’s preparing life. It’s preparing for more life. It’s preparing for more abundance. Amen? Yes.
So, in that state, you may drive past a field and see it all turned up and you might and you might see different things, and it might not look very interesting, and it might not look very, like there’s anything going on there. But if you come back to that place two or three months later, you will see that there are there’s a whole field of green shoots and then you begin to see rows that have been created, and you see, “Oh, that stuff that looked rather uninteresting and rather messy and rather like nothing’s going on there. Oh, now I can see something’s happening here.” Right? That’s because all the real stuff that’s happening is happening underground. So you can’t see what’s happening, but it’s happening underground, and then when the sunshine and the water and the sunshine and the water do its job, it comes above the ground and then it begins to do more and more above the ground.
Well, when Satan comes to steal, kill and to destroy, there’s all manner of chaos and crisis that comes with what he does because inevitably if something gets taken away from you without your permission because that’s what stealing is. Right? Stealing is not giving. It means somebody has taken something from you without permission. So if somebody takes something from you without permission, then you are going to feel aggrieved. You are going to feel violated because they’ve taken it without your permission. If there’s something that’s destroying your future, opportunities, you might feel like, I wish I could have had that again. Stealing, killing, destroying always brings crisis, it always brings chaos. It’s not God. God you will always find God in the middle of crisis and chaos because He’ll never leave you and forsake you and me. But because you can find Him in the chaos and the crisis doesn’t mean to say that He’s the author of the chaos and the crisis. It means He’s always there. You can count on God to always be there. You can trust Him to always be where there’s chaos and crisis. He thrives where there’s chaos and crisis. Amen. Hallelujah. I’ve been wanting to for weeks now, I’ve been wanting to teach you and share some things with you about Jacob and Abraham and I just don’t seem to be able to get there and again in preparing for this Sunday, the Lord has got me in a direction here.
If you are a slave, just work with me for a minute, if you’re a slave, then it means you are someone that’s been captured and you have no personal choices open to you. Right? You are a slave. If you are a slave, it means you’ve been captured, you are in a form of prison, but you’re not necessarily confined into walls or behind bars, but if you’re a slave, it’s a similar form of being in prison because you have no choices of your own. You are forced to do what someone else tells you to do. So, all of your energy, all of your gifts, and all of your talents, if they’re captured, then you are a slave. Come on. Right? A slave is different to a servant because if someone’s a servant, there is a transaction that occurs. Transaction says, “I’ll serve you in return for something.”
So, when you go to a restaurant, do you have someone serve you? I can use that as a different word. I can say they are servants. Right? I mean, in a broader context, the people that serve you in a restaurant are servants because they’re serving you. What’s the transaction? The transaction is they are employed by the restaurant to understand the menu, to make recommendations to you and they get paid a basic salary to do that. They have energy, gifts, callings, talents that they are being paid for so they are serving. There is also the possibility that if they do a good job of serving someone at a table, that someone might give them a tip and might be very generous and they might have a completely different experience depending on the tip, but they are serving you.
I was just reminded of a situation that happened when we were in California. We were on our way back to the hotel that we were staying at and we stopped at a place that Pastor Josh wanted and Iliana wanted to show us and we were kind of busy around in this, it’s like a delicatessen come road stop type thing. Sold all kinds of sweet things and drinks and stuff. It wasn’t a garage, but it was like a supermarket, but it was a fun store. They had animals playing outside and you could walk outside and have an experience with the animals. A bit like the Alzu store going down, that kind of a stop, you know.
After a while, it became clear that there was a lady that came to the till, young lady, that came to the till, and she knew Pastor Josh and the interaction between them escalated quite quickly into something very personal and turns out that she had come out of a foster care system, had come to their church. She had been in their church for a period of time and had left the church and hadn’t seen Pastor Josh and Iliana for some time, and this was a reconnection, by chance. Right? So, you know, Pastor Josh, he said, I mean, there was love words from him to her and then she started crying and she was a little bit uncomfortable because she was behind the till. There wasn’t a lot of people in that area at that time and he just took her hand like this and said, “Can I pray for you?” While he’s praying for her, the Lord put it on my heart to give her some money. So the amount was $100, and I’m thinking, a $100? I don’t know this person, you know, $100, you know.
Anyway, I kind of, “No, Lord. No. This is Pastor Josh and his thing.” But as Pastor Josh walked away, I went to him. I said, “Hey, Josh. Do you think it would be okay if I give this young lady some money?” And, he said, “Yes.” I seem to think he also gave her some money. I don’t recall exactly, but I gave her $100. I think Pastor Josh gave her $100 too. Suddenly, she went from standing behind the counter serving us as a servant, where God intervened in her life, and I mean she just broke down after the money was given to her. She came back around from the counter. She came and hugged me. She hugged Pastor Josh. You know, she said, “Thank you, I can’t tell you what this means to me. Why would you do this for me?” Pastor Josh said, “It’s because the Lord loves you and He wants to show His love for you.” “Why would you do this for me?”
When we got in the car to leave, I said, “Wow, what an experience,” and Pastor Josh said to me, he said, “You know why this means so much to her?” He said, “It’s the first of the month.” He said, “I’m willing to bet she doesn’t have money for her rent. What we just did was help her pay her rent.” This is what he was saying. It was his interpretation of what happened there. I said, “Wow.” You see, a servant is in a position where they can give, they can give service and people can end up blessing them. A slave’s transaction is, you’re captured. You don’t have any choices. Amen.
The story I’m about to share with you this morning, it’s about a young man. His name was Daniel. I’m going to start at the end of Daniel, towards the end of Daniel’s life, and Lord willing, next week or whenever, maybe this afternoon, we’ll see how the Lord leads us in Message Moments, we’ll come back to the beginning of his life. But Daniel 10 verse 4 says this, 4 Now on the twenty-fourth day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, that is, the Tigris, 5 I lifted my eyes and looked, so you understand that he’s standing by a river, and in the natural, he lifts up his eyes and he’s looking. He’s not in some heavenly realm, he’s got both his feet on the ground, and it’s with his natural eyes that he looks. 5 And behold, a certain man clothed in linen, whose waist was girded with gold of Uphaz! 6 His body was like beryl, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnished bronze in colour and the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude. 7 And I, Daniel, alone saw the vision, for the men who were with me did not see the vision.
So this is similar to the experience that the Apostle Paul had, or Saul had, 7 but a great terror fell upon them so that they fled to hide themselves. 8 Therefore I was left alone when I saw this great vision, and no strength remained in me; for my vigor my strength, my energy, my vigor was turned to frailty in me, and I retained no strength. 9 Yet I heard the sound of his words; and while I heard the sound of his words I was in a deep sleep on my face, with my face to the ground (Daniel 10:4-9 NKJV).
So I just want to show you what happens here to Daniel, just for a few brief moments, I want to say, he is standing, he’s got men with him. Bearing in mind that he had the equivalent position of a president, he was a very high counselor to the king. He had a high status and high position in the country. So he never went anywhere without somebody attending to him and without people being around him because of his status.
So, if he’s standing at the river, he talks about the men that were with him. These were administrators, they were advisers, they were people that were with him. They were around him, and they were with him for whatever reason he needed them to be there. While he’s standing there, he’s looking up and the next minute, he sees this man with all of the brilliance and amazing visage that he could see. For some reason, he alone could see this man, but for some reason, the other men that were with him, terror struck them. They were so afraid that they ran, and they went away from there and they hid themselves.
So, you know, while I was meditating on that, I said to the Lord, I said, “Lord, why is it that when there’s an angel of God or the strong presence of God, a strong anointing of God…..?” Obviously the glory of God was present. It was either an angel or it was God Himself, Jesus, in a form that came and appeared to Daniel. It was most likely an angel, but this appearance was so powerful and the anointing and the glory of God was so powerful that Daniel, being one who had understood and interpreted many dreams and visions. Up to this point, he had had several visions, dreams, supernatural encounters. He was not unused to this.
He’d had, at this point, remember, he’d had many interventions. His friends had been thrown into a fiery furnace and Jesus showed up to protect their future. He himself had been thrown into a lion’s den and the angels of the Lord sent to shut the lion’s mouths. At this point, at this stage of his life, this scripture, there’s many things that have happened to Daniel. So this is not an unusual, completely out-of-the-ordinary activity that would happen to Daniel. He’s had these things before. But the glory of God is such an amazing thing that when pure life arrives, people understand their own weakness and their own frailty and they don’t know what to do with the vulnerability that they feel. Huh?
One day, somebody, talked about, they were standing in the shower and God, the presence of God, showed up in the bathroom and the glory was so strong in the bathroom, and they felt so weak and so inadequate of the presence and the glory of God that they just fell to their feet, fell to their knees in the shower, because that was their instinctive reaction when the glory of God comes to a place. Well, I can tell you that whenever God shows up on the scene and there are people that are unrighteous or serve other gods, they are going to run in fear and terror because they will become aware of how powerful the real power of God is when it shows up, and they are unable to deal with it. They will recognize their frailty, their inadequacy, their humanity, and they will run from the very power because they have no answer to it. They are terrorised by it.
Well, Daniel’s experience is, the next minute he finds himself with his face on the ground. The Bible says here, 9 I was in a deep sleep on my face with my face to the ground (Daniel 10:9 NKJV). In other words, he was standing by the shore looking. The next minute, these men all run, and he finds himself in a deep sleep face down on the floor. So the probability is that when he became aware of the glory of the presence of the Being in front of, his body couldn’t handle it, and he just fell flat on his face. Amen.
“10 Suddenly, a hand touched me, which made me tremble on my knees and on the palms of my hands, 11 And he said to me, “Oh Daniel, man greatly beloved, understand the words that I speak to you, and stand upright, for I have now been sent to you.” While he was speaking this word to me, I stood trembling. 12 Then he said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. 13 But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia. 14 Now I have come to make you understand what will happen to your people in the latter days, for the vision refers to many days yet to come.” 15 When he had spoken such words to me, I turned my face towards the ground and became speechless. 16 And suddenly, one having the likeness of the sons of men touched my lips; then I opened my mouth and spoke, saying to him who who stood before me, “My lord, because of the vision my sorrows have overwhelmed me, and I have retained no strength. 17 For how can this servant of my lord talk with you, my lord? As for me, no strength remains in me now, nor is any breath left in me.” 18 Then again, the one having the likeness of a man touched me and strengthened me. 19 And he said, “Oh man, greatly beloved, fear not! Peace be to you; be strong, yes, be strong!” So when he spoke to me, I was strengthened, and said, “Let my lord speak, for you have strengthened me.” (Daniel 10:10-19 NKJV)
This encounter here, there seems to be, seems to be a number of spirit beings involved here. He certainly has a vision. He ends up in a deep sleep with his face flat on the ground. Then he begins to rise. He sees another being, then he sees another being that had the visage of a man. So, there seems to be different beings involved in this vision. It seems to be. If you just read it from the beginning to the end, you would think that it’s just one person that came. But it’s obvious that there are different beings involved here. Either way, I mean, Daniel’s experience is something that I want us to explore together for a little. Are you all with me?
There’s a few things that Daniel speak, that this angel, this messenger from God says. The first thing is: “¹² … “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. ¹³ But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the kings of Persia.” (Daniel 10:12-13 NKJV) I want you to recognise here that Daniel, and if you read the chapter beforehand, you will see that Daniel chose to set himself to fast, and he put his clothes in sackcloth. And so that was a common thing of fasting. They would take off all their beautiful garments, and they would not put perfume on themselves. They would put themselves into a state where they would humble their appearance. And so they would eat no food, and they would be in a place of outward humility.
So, Daniel in a previous chapter, you will see Daniel was fasting, and he was praying, and he was making petition to God about the state of Israel and all of the things that were going to happen to Israel because of the things that he saw. And so he was making petition to God on behalf of Israel, and he was making requests on behalf of Israel, and he was also seeking to understand what it is that he saw, in a vision.
So, if God shows you something, one would automatically assume that when God shows you a vision or He gives you something and He and He makes something available to you in the spirit realm, that you will automatically immediately understand everything about it. Well, that’s not always true. Sometimes God will give you one instruction so you can be obedient to it and then reveal the next instruction so you can be obedient to it. And before you know it, you’ve done and you’ve been obedient to a number of things, and then when you look back, you say, “Oh, now it makes sense what He was, where He was trying to take me.” But He wanted me to be obedient, or you to be obedient step by step. Well, why is that? Because more often than not, if He showed you the whole picture, you’d actually be like Daniel and you’d faint and have no strength and have nothing inside in you that could do anything about it. So He gives us bit by bit so that we can live in a realm of faith and live in a realm of trusting God to do the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. Amen. Praise the Lord.
It’s been that way with most spiritual leaders and with most humans that God has dealt with. Even with Abraham, you know when Abraham, God appeared to Abraham and He said, “Leave this place and go to a country that I’ll show you.” What did He expect him to do? He expected him to journey towards the country until he got to the country, then He showed him the country. He didn’t show him where the country was or where the other country, everything about the country, until he started the journey. Amen. So you have to start the journey and be obedient to God step by step before the whole vision unfolds itself. Amen?
Over the last number of weeks, we’ve been talking about energy and how God’s energy inside of us is really the thing that can make all the difference. It’s the energy that’s in your spirit-man. The energy of life, the energy of light, the energy of love that’s in your spirit that is far stronger than the energy that you have in your natural body. And if you can… if you and I can tap into the spiritual energy of God that’s in you, then that spiritual energy has eternal value, and it also is capable of doing things in the natural realm that are beyond your natural being. Amen. Hallelujah.
This week, the Lord gave me this phrase. He showed it to me this way: There are many people that and I used to teach my sons this. Right when they were teenagers, I used to teach them this. I’d say, “Brynn and Garth, do you want to be right or do you want to do the right thing?” Because if you do the right thing, then you’re always going to have your course in life with God. But if you live your life to be right, then it means everything you do, you’re ordering your life to be right. Whereas God wants to order our life to do the right thing. So the difference between discipline and a disciple is that someone who’s disciplined always wants to do things right, but someone who’s disciplined doesn’t always do the right thing. Hello? The difference between a disciplined one and a disciple is a disciplined one does everything for themselves, a disciple dies to themselves to do everything for God. And so a disciple will do the right things, and in doing the right things, they will inevitably end up doing things right. But someone that’s disciplined that wants to do everything right, they will do it because doing everything right means you draw glory and attention to yourself that you do everything right, that no one can accuse you for doing something wrong because you do everything right. Right is a performance-orientated lifestyle. Discipleship, doing the right thing, is a God-oriented lifestyle.
Come on. If I preach nothing else, that you can go home with and you can meditate on that and you can live your whole life with that and you can start to evaluate yourself and say, “Am I doing the right thing, or do I need to do something right?” As for me, I’m constantly evaluating myself to say, “Am I doing the right thing?” Because if I’m doing the right thing, then I’m doing the God thing. If I’m doing things right, then that’s inevitably just to please others or to present my image to others as, “Look how great I am because I do everything right. So because I do everything right, you can’t argue with me that there’s anything wrong because look how right my life is.” Come on, that’s liberating stuff. Because if you say, “I’m going to do the right thing,” then it doesn’t matter if people accuse you for not being right. Because you can understand if they want you to be right all the time, then they are performance-oriented in their mindset, and that doesn’t mean they’re doing the right thing. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
So I used to teach my sons this all the time. I say, “Brynn and Garth, don’t come to me and tell me that you have done things right. ‘I asked you, Dad, if I could go out. I said I’d be back by eleven o’clock. I said we would do this and do that, and I’ll be with my friends, and I’ll do all of these things.’ That’s doing everything right. But when you’re away from me, are you doing the right thing?” So I was teaching them then, you can’t just do everything right with me, you also have to do the right thing. Because it’s doing the right thing that’s going to preserve you and protect you. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
So, the energy of God, the energy of God that’s in us is always driving us to do the right thing, to give up ourselves so that we can do what God wants us to do. As far as Daniel was concerned, he gave his life even though he was an elevated, promoted person, high up in society. Remember that he got there by being a slave. How does someone be a slave, then become the ruler and governor of a world that he was a slave to?
So, if we go back to the beginning of Daniel, you will find out that there was a king whose name was Nebuchadnezzar and he was a conqueror of Israel, and he took children and people and he took them captive. He could do with them whatever he liked, they were essentially his slaves. And so he said, “Find the best of them and come and make them work in my palace so that I can see if there’s any good in them that they can actually serve my agenda.” They had no choice. They were not servants. They were slaves. God willing, we will get to another conversation about this, but because the favour of God was on Daniel and because of his excellent spirit, he moved up from being a slave, to being a servant, but he always served God before he served a king.
Do you remember how the other three boys that were with Daniel in that process, how they refused to bow to the idol, the god idol that he made, and when the trumpet blast, everybody was to bow down to the image of himself. They refused to do that because they put God before they put themselves into doing the right thing. What did the king want everybody to do? “Do the right thing and bow before my great idol of myself.” And everybody bowed down except these boys. And so then he said, “No, no, these guys are leaders in my government here. I’m going to give them another chance.” And they said, “No, we’re not going to bow. Don’t even bother giving us another chance. We are never going to bow down to your statue.” And he got fuming and mad, and he told them to make the fire seven times hotter in the furnace, and he gooi-ed (threw) them in the furnace, and they just stood there. And one that had the appearance of the Son of God was standing there with them and burnt off all of their restraints and they just stood there looking at the king and said, “Do your best, man, because your best ain’t better than our God.” Hey?
You see, they chose not to just do the right thing because if they had done the right thing, they would have bowed. They chose to do things right in the order of God, so they refused the right thing to do, to do things right rather than the right thing. Yes? So by doing that, they changed the whole order of the realm where actually he said, “This is the God that must be worshipped.” Because they chose to follow God’s right thing rather than being right. If they just had the mentality of being right, they would have bowed.
Hey, God’s got me on this this morning. He’s got me on this, this morning. I wonder how much of all of our decisions in our life is, we must be right. I’m telling you, you know what the cancel culture is all about? You are not doing things right. You are not doing things right. We are going to cancel you because we don’t think you have the right attitude towards climate change. We don’t think you have the right attitude or the right perspective about racism. We don’t think you have the right attitude towards all kinds of sexual practices. So, if you don’t do what we say is right, you’re not going to be part of our community. We cancel you. This whole world is being run on what’s right rather than doing the right thing. Hallelujah.
So, I have to say this again, you know, I would rather be in the right side of doing what God wants me to do. Do the right stuff, than being right. Yes. It’s a bit of a play on words, but isn’t that what righteousness is? Righteousness is being in right standing with God. So, when you’re in right standing with God, then you’re doing the right thing. You’re not just being right. Because society can decide whatever’s wrong and right, and they can change what’s right and wrong as they choose to say what’s right and wrong. And if your views on right and wrong change with what society is saying is right and wrong, then you’re always going to be unsure of what is right. Whereas God wants us to do things right and follow His righteousness. And if we are righteous before Him and we seek His Kingdom first, all the things we need on the earth will come from us being righteous. Doing the right stuff rather than being right. Hallelujah.
God brings a supernatural energy into your spirit man to help you go in the direction and do the things that are right in God’s eyes rather than being right. Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. You know, I’ve never seen it like this before. Just right now, I’m seeing it. That, if you are a perfectionist, if you’re a perfectionist, that means you want everything to be right. That doesn’t mean to say in what you’re doing that everything must be right, that you’re doing the right thing. It just means the thing that you’re doing must be right. And so, if you’re a perfectionist and your focus is on doing things right, you can miss the whole ballgame by saying, “As long as things are right and I do everything right, I don’t have to worry about doing the right thing, as long as in my world everything is right.” You know who challenges that more than anything else? It’s the God of righteousness that challenges everybody’s worldview of doing things right.
Because everybody is right now, they’re trying to make what they consider to be a perfect worldview. What’s a perfect worldview? “We’ve got to have a long-term sustainability of the planet. We got to give everybody freedom of expression. Everybody’s got to be able to do what they want to do, when they want to do it, how they want to do it in as free a place as they want to do it in. And so, we’ve got to go about creating a world social order that can have to everybody doing right things”. You know why they do that? Because they don’t have a right cause. They’ve made right things the right cause, but that’s not right. It’s only righteousness that is the right cause.
So, God has made you perfect in His own image. You don’t have to be a perfectionist to be perfect. If you try and have a relationship with God based out of perfection, you will never achieve it and you will always try and walk away from God because your perfection standard that you’re trying to acquire will always be based on doing right, being right. So, instead of trying to achieve perfection, God’s already given us perfection, not in our humanity, but in our spirit. And if we let the energy of perfection come through us, then God says, “Here’s an excellent spirit like Daniel’s that I can work with. And I will give you visions, and I will give you revelations, and I will begin to show you visions, and dreams, and things that come out of the spirit realm.”
Sometimes, you will find yourself flat on your face not knowing what to do next. But in prayer and in conversation with the Spirit of God, the Divine Being that gives energy to you, “I will reveal it to you.” In Daniel’s case, God wanted him to see what was to come in the future, and so powerful was Daniel’s words that were going to heaven and his position before God that God said, “I’m going to send Michael, the angel, to come and give you the interpretation to your vision and to all of the words that you’ve seen. I’m going to tell you what’s going to happen in the future.” The power of the words that were being spoken by Daniel and the power of the words of the future that had to come out and be revealed was so powerful that the enemy of God and all the demons had wars with these angels in the heavenlies.
Like I’ve said to you before, that war wasn’t based on swords, it was the war of words. I want to tell you something right now that every word that you speak that is about your future, that is based on the Word of God. Every word that you say, “God is for me, He’s not against me. I can do all things through Christ Who strengthens me. I thank You, Lord, that if You are for me, no one can stand against me. I thank You, Father, that I prosper, I’m in good health even as my soul is prospering, and my soul is prospering because of the Word of God that is in me. I thank You, Lord, that I’m very strong, I’m very courageous, I don’t fear. And wherever my foot goes, whatever my hand touches, You will give me that territory. And I’m prosperous everywhere I go, in all the things that I do. Thank You, Lord, that You have given me, not a spirit of fear but of love and power, and of a sound mind. I’m a sound person with a sound mind, with a sound view of the world, and I’m going about this for God’s sake.”
When you speak words like that, the demons recognise a spirit being that understands the power of words, and they will do what they can to stop your words from coming to pass. Why? Because every time your words come to pass; testimonies. The truth of the spirit realm is revealed in the result of words. Hello? Glory to Jesus. Glory to Jesus. Thank You, Lord. Yeah. Thank You, Jesus. Yeah. LeRoux and Liesl, I just saw this in my spirit now that you, as a married couple, have been speaking words for your future. I just saw it. I just got a glimpse of it in your house, standing there speaking words. Yeah. I saw that, and the Lord wants to say that those words have already broken through into the future that you are declaring, and it’s about to come to pass. You mustn’t quit now. It’s about to come to pass. All those things that you’ve been speaking, I don’t know what they are. I just saw as you’re speaking, I saw God doing it. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Staan vas. Gaan maar aan. [Stand strong. Keep going.] Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Yeah. I’ll tell you there’s a war that will come against the words, but if God is for you, then there’s no one that can stand against you. No one. Even though there may be battles raging in the heavenly realm, there might be things going on to prevent what God has given you to do and He wants to show you. Hallelujah. It will come to pass. If you will just stay steady, it will come to pass. It will come to pass.
The Bible says and last week I read it to you, and my time is up this morning. Last week, I read it to you. I’m going to just read it to you again. I’ve got all these Daniel scriptures here. Let me see where is that scripture. 10 Now my beloved ones, Ephesians 6 verse 10 in The Passion Translation, 10 ….. my beloved ones, I have saved these most important truths for last: Be infused. Be supernaturally infused with strength through your life union with the Lord. Stand victorious with the force of His explosive power flowing in and through you. Stand victorious with the force of His explosive power. 11 Put on God’s complete set of armour provided for us so that you will be protected as you fight against the evil strategies of the accuser! 12 Your hand to hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realm. For they are a powerless class of demon-gods and evil spirits that hold this dark world in bondage (Ephesians 6:10-12 TPT). They are designed, everything they do is designed to keep us in bondage. And what is our freedom? Our freedom is to declare the Word of God and to keep speaking it and live in the realm of the Spirit and watch God do what we declare. Hallelujah. Thank You, Jesus.
Have you detected something different in the last numbers of Sundays that’s been happening? There’s a greater flow of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit in the service. Isn’t that what I’ve been declaring? Isn’t that what we’ve been praying for? Yes. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. I want to tell you, God is lifting the lid. He’s lifting the lid. He’s lifting the lid, and He’s adding some ingredients to us, but it’s for us to be able to be served to the world. Hallelujah. Glory to God.
It’s quite, it’s quite big, you know, that for Daniel, and I I’m gonna close with this, but for Daniel, he never looked for promotion. He only looked to be in right-standing with God. So when he was put in the king’s palace and there was food that was being given to him that was the king’s food, he went to the eunuch and he said to the eunuch, “Please, can we have our own food?” You know, the eunuch was representing the king. If these guys became scrawny and anemic, and the king came to find out what they have been eating versus what someone else has been eating, “Oh, you’ve been feeding them their food, not my food. I’m gonna take your head.” That’s what kings did.
The eunuch was a slave to the king. So when the eunuch said, “Okay, I’ll do that.” He did it because the favour of God was on Daniel. The favour of God was on Daniel. How else do you get favour with someone whose life could be taken if he didn’t feed you the right food? His life was at stake. This wasn’t, “Oh, my life is at stake.” You know, it’s like the Americans, the Democratic Party said, “Democracies are on the line.” Meanwhile, they’re breaking all their democratic rules. Anyway, that’s another story. You know, if you just keep throwing a line away, democracy is at stake, my life is at stake, then it means nothing. For this guy, if the king found out something, his life was truly at stake. So the favour of God had to be on Daniel, and I will tell you the favour of God is a powerful thing we can trust in, we can rely on, and the favour of God will keep working for us.
I’m expecting the favour of God to be present in big decisions that we are making in the ministry. There are big things that God has planned for us in this ministry. There are big things, and God is wanting to reveal and lift the lid on the pot of what He’s developed and created here in this ministry. He’s wanting to lift the lid and make it available to the world. I wanna tell you that this word that God placed in me this morning, this weekend, I’ll tell you, it’s as much for me as it is for you. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
So from now onwards, this is gonna be my declaration. “I thank You, Lord, that You’re lifting the lid. That You’re lifting the lid and whatever You wanna do by doing that, we receive it, we walk in it, we declare it, we believe it, and we’ll work with You on this. In Jesus’ name. Hallelujah. Fifty million. It’s going to take fifty million to lift the lid. Let’s do it. Let’s do it. That’s just the start. Amen. Praise Jesus. Okay, let’s take up an offering. For those of you that are billionaires, the one million is spelled with an “M” and billion is spelled with a “B” as you write out your checks. Oh we don’t do checks, we do EFT’s. Okay, just put it there, billionaire. Hallelujah.
I’ll tell you this week, I’ll share this personal thing with you, this week, the Lord really encouraged me this week because if you have to ask me, and say, “Pastor John, how great is your marriage?” Then I’d say to you, “Well, I don’t know what a bad marriage is. I can only tell you what a bad marriage is because other people have told me what happens in their marriage, but I don’t know what a bad marriage is.” So I live every day in my marriage. Right? So what I live normally in my marriage is what my normal life is. That’s not something extraordinary, for me. Every day, this is normal. Other people look at our marriage and they say, “You’ve got an extraordinary marriage. It’s really a wonderful marriage. It’s a powerful marriage. We can see it.” I don’t see it that way, because I live every day in it. I can tell you this, that what you guys receive here from this pulpit and in this church, with all of the things that God does, this is an extraordinary church. We may not feel like it’s something special or really powerful because we live in it all week, every week, every month. But let me tell you, what God has done in this ministry here is extraordinary. It’s a God church this. It’s a God church this. It’s not a man-made church. It’s not a marketing church. It’s not any of those things.
This is a God church. And the Lord has encouraged me about that this week to say, “John, don’t think that all of the stuff that you have done in this church is unnoticed in the spirit realm. It’s very noticed in the spirit realm,” and actually, the fact of the matter is whatever men have to say about it is not really that important to me. Never has been. It’s more about what God thinks.
Won’t you all stand with me, please? Come, Tom. Praise the Lord. Won’t you reach out your hands, stretch out your hands? Father, we thank You, as always, we thank You for seed. We thank You for seed to sow and for bread to eat. And I thank You, Lord, that all of our eating of our bread and all of our prosperity and all of our abundance in our life is because we sow seeds of words and seeds of finance. And this energy that we have used to put finances into this basket, the energy now gives glory to You. All of the energy we’ve used to take up and bring this money, it gives honor to You. And we honor You with our substance, Father. And we thank You that because we honor You and we’re obedient to You, that You restore us, You replenish us, You bless us, and You fill us up to overflowing with all good things in our lives. We thank You for it, Lord, in Jesus’ Name. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
I want to just declare over you shalom. Shalom. I declare the peace of God on you. I declare the blessing of God over you. And I declare that He, the heavenly Father, and all of the angels and the messengers, they are sent to make sure that all the words that you speak that are God-words, they come to pass. Not one word that you speak that is the Word of God that comes out of your mouth will fall on its ground without producing what it needs to produce. It will bring harvests, on every wave it will come in for you. In Jesus’ name, I thank You, Father, that no weapon formed against them will prosper. Your Word and the Blood of Jesus surrounds them and protects them. You give Your angels charge over them that You won’t even let their food get caught in a hidden snare. Hallelujah. Glory to God.
They will walk on all the paths that You have chosen and prepared for them. They will not wander or detour or do anything, but they will choose the paths and walk on the paths, and You will show them the way, and You will grant them everything that their hearts desire because they put You first, Father. Thank You for it today in Jesus’ Name. Blessed is what they do with their hands. Blessed is where You take them with their feet. Blessed are they, Father, as they go about everything they do in their life. Blessings upon blessings upon blessings, Father. We declare it. And all of you agree with me by saying, [Congregation: Amen]. And another, [Congregation: Amen]. And another [Congregation: Amen]. Hallelujah. See you later alligator.
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