6 March 2022 Power of Resurrection Part 16: Baptism Ps John Bendixen (WTB)
Scripture Reference: Colossians 3:1-4 (TPT); Romans 6:1-13 (NKJV), Romans 6:19-23 (TPT), Romans 7:5-8:4 (TPT)
Thank You, Lord. Thank You. You are the greatest story in the universe. You are, You have been, You always will be. Hallelujah. We praise Your Holy Name. We praise Your mighty Name. We praise the Name of the Great I Am and He answers. Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord, that we can worship and serve a living God, not a sometimes God, a living God, a forever the same God. We worship You and we praise You, we honour You for that. Thank You for loving us and sending Jesus. I asked You this morning, Father, in front of witnesses, I ask You that everything that is said and done today will be covered by the blood of Jesus. It will be inspired by the Holy Spirit, it will bring life and health and healing and restoration. I ask You, Father, that it will give an opportunity for people to say all things have become brand new and I live life fully, completely and wholly dedicated and devoted to the forever, eternal, mighty God. Hallelujah. Thank You, Lord, that no intellect, no preconditioned heart, no cultural issue, no sickness, no pain, no whatever might be ailing people – financial troubles – will stop people from hearing and hearing the Word of God this morning, Lord. Hallelujah. Thank You, Jesus. Amen and Amen. Thank you, you may be seated. Praise the Lord.
I want to just say how amazing I think our sound and song group are, our musicians. I think they’re amazing. You know, I’ve come to know, and they’ve taught me and the excellence of the music that they bring that, you know, most of the times if you go to a concert, for example, those musicians play that song over and over and over and over again. And it sounds like when they’re in, when you’re listening to them in concert, it sounds like, you know, this is the first time that they have been playing it. But it’s because they’ve played it so many times that they can know exactly what to do. Well, we strive for that excellence and quality. But we also want to flow with the way the Holy Spirit wants us to flow. And so, truly, my heart is grateful and I’m thankful to the musicians that in the excellence of their gifting, they’re willing to flow with us to help us experience the Holy Spirit. And it’s a wonderful thing that the flow of the Holy Spirit working with the music gift can create what God wants to create. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. I’m grateful to God that we have such wonderful people in our lives. Amen. Hallelujah. I expect you will see more in the not too distant future. Hallelujah.
I have a lot to say today, I have a lot to get through today. And I’m going to do my best to get through it. So, the first thing I have to talk about is, God has been fundamentally redesigning our ministry. He has become the Architect of reconstruction of our ministry. And I will say that the reconstruction began at the end of 2014, when the Lord had me take a bunch of people and we went to Texas to Brother Jerry, and he brought a message and I asked the Lord how do I go about that message, and living it out? And He gave me 4x4x40. For me, and for the rest of the people, it was 3x4x40. And from that time, I have expected myself, and I’ve expected the ministry and everything in it to undergo an identity change. And so that’s what we’ve been praying into. That’s what we’ve been believing God for. And He has started to bring out other messages and one of them is, I Will Take The Children coming out of Babylon; What’s Your More For?. Repentance, for the things that we have been living, because when God calls us out on something, then obviously there’s some changes that we must make. And the result of the ongoing redesigning, and the architectural change that God has been doing in our ministry, part of it is sound on song. Isn’t it amazing? I mean, if you had said to me at the end of 2015, that we would have what we’ve got, and we would have amazing albums which are available, you know, what a glorious thing. We are going to be doing something special on Easter weekend, which is going to blow your mind. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
That is, of course, as God makes the changes, we have to adapt to what God’s will is, not what our agenda is. And so along came COVID and the world stood still. But God had prepared us as a ministry, and He certainly had prepared my heart in that November to be ready for COVID from a digital media point of view from all the things that God had us do. I didn’t realise that His preparation was that COVID was coming. But prepare I did and then I understood later. And when God said I Will Take the Children, it had to be a change of heart in both children and parents. And what an amazing, what an amazing adventure we’ve been on over the last 18 months, going on two years. And Pastor Sharon and I, our focus has been very strong. It’s been a requirement of the Lord that we focus on MiXchange as a ministry because truly what God is doing is there’s a generation of young people that are growing up that are struggling with identity, number one, and number two, they’re struggling with purpose. Because if you don’t have one, you can’t have the other. And even though you might have one, if you still are struggling with the other, your life is very fluid and you will be going this way and that. And God had me start by faith a MlXchange ministry 10 years ago, and it really came to life and began to become what God wanted it to be in the last three years or so. And so by nature of that, it’s required Pastor Sharon and I to have a focus. And we have had a very strong focus on imparting and ministering to a young generation who are willing to give up time, give up the potential of their future, that they say that the world says, that’s your potential, that’s where you can succeed. They gave that up to follow Jesus. So they have been following Jesus, rather than following what the world says success is, and that’s not a small thing. It’s a big change in the condition of the children’s hearts. And that’s a big change in the hearts of the parents because they say, “We’re going to trust God with our kids more than we trust the system.” It’s a big change.
If you don’t think that the system has failed, then you need to go and get some statistics on how many marriages of the system are actually making it. And what a small percentage of people actually make it financially. And what’s happening to the world now with wars and rumours of wars, and many things to come, if we and I’m not one that has preached on this much, I sense the Lord wants me to do more of that in the near future but the Bible said that these things will happen. And the difference between previous rumours of wars and wars, was nuclear weapons we’re not made then. And now the nuclear option is an Armageddon option. Hello there. Yeah.
And so what we think the future of our children is going to look like because we can control it – as long as they have a good education, and we give them the right pushstart, they’re going to make it. You have no idea. If you are a Ukrainian person who is giving your child the best education, giving them the best connections, the best start in life, if you were a Ukrainian, what would happen to your best plans now? Because there are universally evil bullies and people that want to destabilise the Earth and take the place of God. And so, more than ever, we need to understand that the more we follow God, that’s where our safety and our protection is. Our safety and our protection is not how much, how well you can do at school. If you get all A’s at school, and someone invades your country, what does that mean? And now you can’t go to university. What does that mean?
And if you think, in South Africa, that can’t happen to us – ninety percent of the people that have left South Africa said we were going to become like Zimbabwe. We haven’t and I’m telling you, we won’t. But you can’t predict what’s going to happen with another COVID or not, and how that’s going to impact your best plans for your life. But if you give it to God, He knows. And He can give you the direction and the thing that you need. Hallelujah. So Pastor Sharon and I have been really focused on imparting – everything that God has given us for the last 40 years. In fact, my whole life has been dedicated to Jesus. And so what I’ve learned in the Word, what I’ve learned in my connection with my spiritual leaders, it’s our business to impart to them knowing God’s plan for their life. It’s our business to impart to them what happens when confrontation happens in the world and with yourself. What happens when God starts to deal with you; it’s uncomfortable. But the cracking process must happen so the seed can be released, so that your future can be secured. Come on everybody. Hallelujah.
Every year, as a representative of Jerry Savelle Ministries, as the director for Jerry Savelle Ministries in Africa, every year I would be invited and I would be required by Brother Jerry around this time of the year to go to America. And whenever I went to America, Brother Jerry understood and it was an accepted practice for us – a norm – if you like, that when people would hear that Pastor Sharon and I are going to be in America, some of our Canadian friends, some of our American friends, ministers, sometimes over the past it’s been in the state of Florida. But various places, we would get invited to come and minister. And so, we ended up staying about three weeks. So, it became clear to us that Brother Jerry, in this year’s President’s cabinet – so we haven’t been for a couple of years for obvious reasons, but we haven’t been. So, it had become obvious that things were changing in the global way that the world was seeing the pandemic and we started to prepare ourselves spiritually, that maybe it will be a requirement for us to go to the US and go to the President’s cabinet. So, we prepared ourselves and Brother Jerry wanted us really to be there. So, we’ve bought tickets, and we bought it in such a way that we would leave after a Sunday service. We’d be there for the next weekend.
The President’s cabinet runs Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and then he does things on Sunday in church. On the Monday morning he has an International Ministries, international directors’ meetings. And generally speaking, our sort of formal time with Brother Jerry, and his staff, and Joe and Carolyn Savelle, and all the people would kind of be over around about the Tuesday. And then we would go on and go to minister, go to minister at places, or go to conferences, or whatever God wanted us to do since we were there. Right?
Well, this year, we plan to leave on the Sunday and be back by the following Thursday, which would have taken us out of the office, out of this environment for about nine days. So, we’re all set and ready to fly. On Monday evening, I got a phone call from Brother Jerry and Joe. We were like on a triangulated phone call, and he has requested that Pastor Sharon and I stay on in America to be on assignment with him for another 10 days. And then he said, “Well, if you’re going to stay for another 10 days, then you might as well come with me and be with me at Brother Copeland’s conference in Branson, in Missouri. And then you might as well stay for that next – which ends on the Saturday – and he said, “Then you… I suggest you stay for the Sunday, so that you can be there for Richard Roberts’s healing meeting that he’s going to run in the church. And then you can go home after that, you know.”
When Brother Jerry makes a suggestion, I listen. You know, it’s not just a suggestion, it’s a, let’s do this. So, we have ended up having to change our air tickets, and we will be away for about 20 days. We will miss three Sundays. But we are working extremely diligently at making sure that what God expected of us for the MiXchangers, it’s not going to stop, it’s going to increase. It’s going to gain momentum. It’s not going to lose momentum. God is busy giving us a plan of execution that we can do more and do greater and better things. So, I’m going to ask you to, in the next week or two, I’m going to ask you to bless us, and as a ministry to pray for us so that we can go with your blessing. Because it’s important that we get sent, that we don’t just go. Even though our apostolic leader, and our spiritual father has called for us, which we consider to be a great privilege that he would ask us to come and be with him. I mean, that’s something that is a very unique thing to happen. It’s a very special thing to happen with a man that is so well known internationally. I thank God for that. It’s a privilege and an honour for us to do that. Amen.
Here’s the good news – whatever God has got for us, He’s got it, because how can I say this? Brother Jerry doesn’t just invite people to be on assignment with him just because he thinks it’s a good idea. You know, everything he does in his life is spiritually purposeful. That means there’s something that God wants us to get as we serve, as we come alongside him and be what we need to be for him. Then it means God’s got something for us. That means He’s got something for you. Hallelujah. Glory to God.
So, I just wanted to let you know that it was our intention to go and come back as quickly as possible, but God had other ideas. So that’s only good, that’s only good. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Thank You, Jesus. Before I start my ministry this morning, I just wanted to show you some things about the Joburg church, and I wanted to just give you an idea of, just give you an update of what’s happening on the Joburg church. [Pastor John presents a slide show of the Johannesburg building project on the screen] So, I know you guys have seen this particular slide. I just wanted to remind you – this is our vision of what we’re looking to do with the Joburg property. This is the idea of how we see things actually fitting into the future. And then I wanted to show you the last two or three slides, which you haven’t seen before. And this is what we see the inside of the auditorium looking like. I like the one that’s filled with people. Hallelujah.
What do you all think? Hey? State of the art auditorium with all the sound, all the WiFi’s and we won’t give you passcodes so you can’t do stuff while you’re in the service, you know. So, I just wanted to tell you that, advice that I got, was that we actually do a proper quantity analysis, so we hired a quantity surveyor to review the property and make sure that all of the quantities of whatever we need are the right quantities, so we don’t waste money, spend money that we shouldn’t be spending and to make sure that we have the right kind of time frame the idea of whatever needs to happen. So, we delayed the start of the project but I think 35,000 bricks have been delivered already to the property and I’m expecting that we will be able to find – we are all going to get into agreement that God is going to do supernatural things as we develop this property to become like that. Number one. Number 2; I want us to be in agreement because we’ve had lots of interference on this property for a long time and we are not going to let that interference prevent us from doing what God wants to do Amen. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Number 3; we want some of the work we want to do in the gardens for example and some of the social fabric areas of how we see that we can use the facility, we’d like you guys to come and put some labour into it. You know, come and do something, come and be part of it. Witbank people, we got some tents we can pitch up and you don’t even have to leave there. You can sleep there for a week and come and just work, you know. But, if not you can stay the day and you can, you know, if you are not physically conditioned well enough where you can do hard labour, well, you can give someone water and you can encourage some people that are doing things.
I really feel like it’s part of our community business to do the will of God. It’s your tithes and offerings, it’s our churches, so we must do what we can do. We are using professionals to build the church but, there’s things that we can do in the garden and do things that we can put a hedge around the ministry – literally – to create, to stop interference and people from trying to break in and do things. So your energy and your resources and your gifting would be valuable for us. Amen. Praise the Lord. Glory to Jesus. So Pastor John, what’s all this happening about? Big and bold version 2 for 22. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
I’m going to just begin to minister on baptism now. Power of the resurrection of God and baptism. I want to remind you from Colossians chapter 3 verse 1, 1 Christ’s resurrection is your resurrection too. This is why we are to yearn for all that is above, for that’s where Christ sits enthroned at the place of all power, honor, and authority! Glory to God. That’s what God has given us through the power of the resurrected Christ. Hallelujah. That’s where I want to live. Don’t you think? That’s where I want to live. 2 Yes, feast on all the treasures of the heavenly realm and fill your thoughts with heavenly realities, and not with the distractions of the natural realm (Colossians 3:1-2 TPT).
Now we have a lot of new people in the ministry and praise the Lord there’s still a bunch of people here that has been with us for a long time but as I was preparing for the ministry this morning the Lord began to deal with me and I believe it’s prudent for me to go back to one of the messages I preached some time ago. I’m only going to spend a few minutes on it. It’s just a component of what I’m preaching this morning on, I’m not preaching on the whole subject. So, if you can put the reason slide up for me, please. Hallelujah. So, you’ve heard this message. Everybody has to live in reality, everybody has to live with reason and everybody has to live what’s relevant in your world. What’s relevant in your world is very different to what might be relevant in my world. So, everybody has to live with what’s relevant to your world. Do you understand what relevance is? It’s relevant to you, you know. Some people, it’s relevant for them to just get clean water, that’s the reality and the relevance of their world. Other people take water for granted and they use water to sprinkle their garden systems. There are people in Africa who have to walk for kilometres with buckets and barrels and wheelbarrows to collect water because that is the only way they can get it. Right?
So, someone’s relevance and reality is different but we all live with reality. We all live with our reasoning and we live with what’s relevant to us. So the Lord showed me when He gave me this message a long time ago, He showed me a number of things. If we as Christians only live in reason, so you are born again, you have Jesus living in your heart. Right? Come on, work with me here. You can say; Amen. If you have Jesus living in your heart, you’re a born-again Christian, you’re going to heaven, you can live on the left-hand side of what of the brain, here. [Pastor John referring to the slide] You can live with your reality, you can live with your reasoning, and you can live with what’s relevant to you. On the contrary in support of that I’d say you could do everything with your reason and your reasoning to change your reality, to make it relevant to what you want. Actually, for most people they live there all the time, they live with their reasons and their intellect and their talents and their skills. They live there and so then they use their reasoning to change their reality to make it more relevant for themselves. So every person on the planet does that. Every person on the planet is trying to use their reasoning to change their reality for better, so that their life can have more relevance. Even the poorest of the poor cling to some hope of changing their reality so that their life can have more significance and a bit more relevant, yes?
But God didn’t call us to live like everybody else. God called us to live in redemption, so that your redemption can give you revelation and the revelation will create the revolution of your reality. It will create revolution in your reasoning, and it will create revolution in your relevance. The way you get from reasoning, reality and relevance, the way you get from there to live in redemption and revelation and revolution is through faith, hope, and love. That’s the bridge. You’ve got to use faith, you’ve got to understand and trust the love of God and you’ve got to be in a place where you have hope because hope works with faith. In fact, the Bible says in the book of Corinthians everything will pass away except faith, hope, and love. So, faith, hope, and love is the bridge that we have to redemption.
Now, if you’re a Christian and you trust God, your trust in God is going to always be founded in the love of God because if you don’t trust the love of God, you can’t have faith. If you don’t trust the love of God, you can’t walk in the hope that God is going to help you. So, obviously, there is always going to be an attack on your life and then you’re going to have things happen experientially – you’re going to have things that are going to make you not trust God. So let me just say, what the parents did, the MiXchange people that have joined the ministry – they are doing MiXchange – they had to say, “We are trusting God with our children, we are not trusting the university. We are not trusting our corporate connections, our political connections, we are not trusting the system, we are trusting God.” That’s a big thing. It’s a big thing when you have hopes and plans for your children, to hand them over to God. But it’s a real measure of how much you trust God. Because who are you living for? Are you living for your children or are you living for God? Because if you’re living for God, then you will understand that your children’s best future is in God. It’s following the plan of God, not your plan. Hallelujah.
So the way God works and the way God is, His redemption creates revelation. So part of the revelation that you need to have, is a revelation that God’s power and what God’s got going for you – the plans and purposes that He has got for you from before you were even born – you have to trust and you have to get a revelation of that because that’s the power of your redemption. Come on. The power of your redemption is not just to save you from going to hell. Although no one wants to go to hell and I don’t want anybody to go to hell. You know. So that’s a good thing. But that’s not the reason why we got saved. We got saved so that our redemption could lead to greater revelation, so that your life can have a revolution. Your revolution and my revolution begins to affect other people who look at your life and say, “How are you able to still have what you’ve got while the world is falling apart?” That’s how the revolution works. That’s how perhaps I could change the word revolution and maybe one could say, use the word; reward.
When the Lord gave me this revelation, He said, “I want you to use the name revolution.” I preached this message in Kenya with Brother Jerry a number of years ago and later on, the lady said to me, you know, “You shouldn’t have used the word revolution,” because in Kenya they have had some and the Mau Maus and all of that kind of stuff. If you don’t know the history, it was very bloody and then a lot of people were killed with hatchets and many other things and it was a revolution. So the word didn’t go down. So I learned then that actually, for some audiences, I would have to change my wording. But actually this is the way the Lord gave it to me, that we would have a revolution.
What’s happened in our ministry is a revolution. Because God gave us revelation so that redemption could have its full work and it started to create a revolution in the hearts of parents and in the hearts of children. Some people will call it revival. It’s okay if you want to call it revival. I call it God’s intervention and He’s saying, “I’m going to take the children,” and children come and they’re encountering God. I’ll tell you what, as they’re busy encountering God, they’re getting so absorbed with God that it would be a surprise to me, if they, after what they’ve learned in the time that they’re with us that they will choose to follow their own plans for their life after they’ve heard what God’s got for them. Because they would have to deliberately disobey God. Because God’s got good plans for those that are wanting to seek Him. Doesn’t the Bible say that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him? So whose reward do you want? Do you want the reward of men or the reward of God? Jy kan sê, jy preek goed, Pastoor. (You can say you are preaching well, Pastor)
So ,I’d like you to take this slide off and I want to just read to you and I’d like you to just listen, I’m going to read some of some of this Scripture to you in in the New King James and then I’m going to go and keep reading scripture to you from The Passion Translation. Romans six, verse 1 to 13. 1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? 2 Certainly not? How shall we who died to sin, live any longer in it? God has put this message in my heart to give you today and it will give you a full picture. So you need to just stay connected with me, okay? Are you with me? 3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death. 4 Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death. That just as Christ was raised from the body by the glory of the Father, even so, we also should walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also should be in the likeness of His resurrection, 6 knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. Please, just say this after me, “No longer slaves of sin.” No longer, no longer – huh? 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. Please, say this with me, “Freed from sin.” Let’s just say, “Free, free,” come on, “free, free. We are free from sin.” So we are no longer slaves, we are free. For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him. 9 Knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. So you can only die once, in your body. 10 Death no longer has dominion over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all. But the life that He lives, He lives to God. 11 Likewise, you also reckon yourselves dead indeed to sin. Come on, say that with me, “Dead to sin.” … but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. So you’re no longer a slave, you’re free, you’re dead to sin, but you’re alive to Christ. That’s a big difference.
12 Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body. Does that sound like it’s your power to choose now, because God’s done the job, so it’s now your power to choose? So do not let sin reign in your mortal body. Do not let it. Who’s got to stop it? God’s not going to stop the sin from coming into your life. He’s already done the job. So who’s got to stop it? You and me, we got to stop it. Right? 13 Therefore, do not let sin reign in your mortal body, that you should obey it in its lusts. And do not present your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin, but present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness to God (Romans 6:1-13 NKJV). Well, if you understand this passage of Scripture, you will understand that sin had a hold on people and it caused death. Jesus came as a perfect person and He died for us and He was resurrected again. So we don’t have to be slaves to sin, we can be free from sin. And just as someone who has died from, in a physical body, has died from anything that can affect him in the natural world, so we as people have been and we identify with the resurrected body of Christ and in the same way that He has dominion over anything that touches His body, so do we.
Am I teaching from the Bible or is this something I’m sucking out of my thumb here? I don’t do that anyway, but I want to make sure you understand that the choice of not letting sin reign in your mortal bodies, is our choice, it’s not God’s choice. So come on, I’m going to just blow a holy cow to smithereens right now. I’ve done it a number of times. So I’m going to do it one more time. You know? So if anybody says to you God’s in control? No, He’s not. He is in control of the overall eternal agenda, absolutely; the time frame of Jesus dying, Jesus coming back again. He is in charge of that. And Jesus said, “I don’t even know that, only the Father knows that.” Right? So, in the overall timeline of God’s agenda, but you are in charge of the choices of what you let dominate your life. So then God’s not in control of your world. Who’s in control of your world? Yeah, dt is julle. (It is you) It’s not yellow, it’s julle. But if it’s yellow, then that is julle too.
So, Romans six, verse 19 to 23, I’m just going to keep reading but this time I’m reading in the, in The Passion Translation. 19 I’ve used the familiar terms of a “servant” and a “master” to compensate for your weakness to understand. For just as you surrendered your bodies and souls to impurity and lawlessness, would you just please say this with me, “Impurity and lawlessness.” … which only brought more lawlessness into your lives, so now surrender yourselves as servants of righteousness, which brings you deeper into true holiness. So surrender brings holiness. Saved you are, surrender is your choice. Right? 20 For when you were bound as servants to sin, you lived your lives free from any obligation to righteousness (Romans 6:19-20 TPT). You know, it’s actually better this way, if someone’s going to be a sinner, then sin properly. I mean, don’t try and hide your sin socially because you’re concerned about what people are going to think about you. Because even that’s a sin of pride. And that’s probably the biggest one that people can’t see. So if you’re going to sin, sin properly and sin in front of everybody. Pastor John, what are you telling me? To sin? No, I’m not telling you to sin. But I’m saying hidden sin is more dangerous because you think you’re getting away with it. And you think as a Christian it’s okay for me to live in those margins of sin. But because, and that’s why people out in the world there they live sinfully as they wish. Why? Because they’ve got no obligation to righteousness because they’re not saved. So it’s better for people that are not saved to go big with sin. I mean, bold in sin is what they do. You know, but what I’m saying is that they’ve got no obligation to righteousness. So they can sin and do what they like.
21 So tell me, what benefit ensued from doing those things that you’re now ashamed of? It left you with nothing but a legacy of shame and death (Romans 6:21 TPT). So you can be a Christian, and you can consider yourself free from the obligation. And I’m going to show you a slide now in a minute, but you can consider yourself free from an obligation to sin or to righteousness, and you can live just like the sinners live. What’s it going to bring you? Shame, death, shame. It’s going to leave you a legacy of shame and death. If you think that you can sin, as a Christian, and you can get away with it, you’re not. Because even though your life might look like it’s all right, you are constantly living with a shame because the Holy Spirit will never leave you alone. Never, will never leave you alone. He will always draw you, try and draw you closer to the Father. He will always warn you of shameful decisions that you’re making; death based decisions that you want to make.
22 But now, as God’s loving servants, you live in joyous freedom from the power of sin (Romans 6:22 TPT). Oh, Pastor John, I don’t feel like I’m free from the power of sin. Sometimes, I feel sin has got, it is like, “Arg.” Hold on, I haven’t finished reading yet But I’m wanting you to see that if you live free from sin, you live with joy. Not shame and death, you live with joy. You live with freedom. People think freedom is choosing to do whatever you want to, and join all your mates out there that are also doing it. No, you’re just enslaved to their opinions. You’re enslaved to their way of life that they want you to live with them. And when you do it together, then you all say, “Yes, we did lekker. Ons het so dronk geraak”. You know, we got so drunk and wasn’t it lekker and then we got this and we got that. And they want to be able to talk about it and brag about it to each other. But the minute there’s someone who doesn’t do it, they don’t like you anymore. So then everybody says but I’m free to do whatever I want to do because I can go and drink with my mates and I can do this and I can go… You can’t. You are being enslaved to them.
Have you heard about what’s happening in America, the cancel culture? No. I mean, cancel culture is a big thing. If you’re not liberal, and you’re not doing everything they actually have, I mean, this is a big deal, they are taking senators, government politicians, Donald Trump when he was in power, they actually censored him and took him off Twitter and YouTube and all this kind of stuff, because you’re making sounds that don’t sound like them. So they cancel your voice because if you think that that mob are saying, “Well, those are my mates. They stick with me. We’re going to be loyal. We grew up in school together and as long a…”. Well, why don’t you just stand for Jesus for an hour or two and see how much loyalty your school friends have to you now. So people say, “I’m free.” You’re not free, you’re as controlled or more controlled and enslaved to their opinion and the way they want to conduct their lives and their friendship than anything else.
Well, my kids are okay, I don’t have to bother too much about them, and they are all going to university, they’ve got the highest marks in the class, and they’re all going to be alright. Really? You think the university is going to leave them alone, even though they’re Christians? If they’re into the university, they are either going to be accepted, because they’re going to start talking and thinking like the university, or they’re going to be rejected and isolated. Jesus said, “If Me, as the Master has been persecuted, do you think you, as the servants, the followers of the Master will not get persecuted for your faith?” He guaranteed it, actually. 22 …So consider the benefits you now enjoy—you are brought deeper into the experience of true holiness that ends with eternal life! 23 For sin’s meager wages is death, but God’s lavish gift is life eternal (Romans 6:22-23 TPT). And by the way, if you’re a Christian, you’ve already started living in eternity. You may still know you’re in the body, but I’m living in eternity, which is why I’ve been speaking to the Lord recently about it. I said, “Lord, why is it that you’re pushing us harder and harder as it were, You’re drawing us closer and closer to Your agenda, to Your assignment to being big and bold and doing many things like this.”
He says, and He’s began to speak to me and He said, “Because John, your walk in eternity has got to the level where I can now communicate to you, because of your walk that is already eternal, your faith that you now understand that is already eternal, I can now bring the eternal heavenly realm reality into your world.” So by the way, that’s why Kenneth Copeland’s believing to live to 120 because God spoke to him, and He said, “There are things that are eternal, that you haven’t been able to get yet, and you’ve got to live longer to get what I want you to get.” So when we stand up here, and we say, God’s taking the children, you think we’re just preaching, it’s a good message to revive the youth in the ministry. Listen to me, if the youth don’t want to be revived, they won’t be because they’re going to rather be on Twitter and Snapchat and Instagram, and they’re going to do whatever they do, and they’re going to take all of their future direction from all the other young people that are doing the same thing. They don’t want to listen to perceived old people. Because what have old people got to help me with? I can, I mean, how do you know the difference between an old person and a young person. It’s how fast they can type on their phone. Sometimes Matt has to help me out with my technology and it’s on my phone or something and he says, “Pastor John just give me your phone.” [Pastor John imitating someone who types really fast on their phone] Don’t you dare call me old. I’m just older than him. Hallelujah.
So you remember this slide? The self-oneness slide, please. You remember this slide I put up and what I ministered on this. This is important for what I’m going to share with you because if you remember I said the plans and purposes that God predestined and foreknew for us is all part of the self-existent God and the great I Am and so there’s nothing outside. There’s nothing in God that catches Him unawares. Come on, do you think Bluetooth technology was created by men? I mean, you say ja, of course. Do you think they could do it without God? Do you think the World Wide Web was created by men, that they could do it without God? People seem to think that all this technology we’re walking in, that God wasn’t part of it, men did it. They have no creativity at all without God and God meant it all for our benefit and our good and not to be used for all the wrong that it gets used for.
Anyway, I don’t want to talk too much about this. The world system is what we live in for sure but you’re either going to live in self-oneness which means that you’re going to chase your own career, you’re going to do whatever you desire, whatever your goals are. Remember that? And so then church life becomes something that you squeeze in to satisfy your conscience or maybe your wife has a baseball bat that beats you in the morning before church, “Kom ons moet kerk toe”. (Come, we need to go to church) Rather engage yourself properly with God because if you’re God centred, then you become in alignment with God’s people and then you become part of the Church, the proper Ecclesia of God. And so then anything that you do grows out of that and you get into a world system that the world system serves you, you don’t serve the world system. You have dominion over the world system, the world system doesn’t have dominion over you.
And so, obviously you’re going to touch people, nations, realms and kingdoms. Everything’s got to do with dominion and authority in the Heavenly realms and whether you know it or not, the earth is in a Heavenly realm. If you could speed up what you could see to the speed of light, you’d see that we actually live with a Heavenly realm all around us. The Heavenly beings, there are spirit beings, there are creatures around us all the time, you just can’t see them. And so in the Heavens, there are angelic hosts and there are principalities and powers and there are legitimate rulers of this world. Why are they legitimate? Remember that slide? Why are they legitimate? They are legitimate because men gave them legitimacy when they chose to follow themselves rather than follow what God says. Hello. You give the devil legitimacy in your life if you choose what he says. You stop the devil’s legitimacy in your life when you say no to him. So are you still a slave to sin? Come on, you’re not a slave to sin. You don’t have to worry about death anymore because you won’t die. Your body might but you won’t and so you’re free to enjoy living for God. That’s what Jesus paid the price for.
Romans chapter 7, reading from The Passion Translation. Now I’m going to read quite a long passage of Scripture if you’ll just stick with me. (Can I have some water, please Empie? I’m a little thirsty this morning. Thank you.) So, Romans 7 verse 5, 5 When we were merely living natural lives, the law, through defining sin, actually awakened sinful desires within us. I’m not going to teach on the whole book of Romans today because the book of Romans is a big book and there’s lots of subject matter in the book of Romans. I’m doing my best to give you highlights that will help you. Actually the law awakened sinful desires with us which resulted in bearing the fruit of death. 6 But now that we have been fully released from the power of the law, we are dead to what once controlled us. So you’re dead to the law and sin that controlled you. And our lives are no longer motivated by the obsolete way of following the written code, so that now we may serve God by living in the freshness of a new life in the power of the Holy Spirit (Romans 7:5-6 TPT). The freshness of your new life is in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is not in your accomplishments. The freedom in your life is not in your accomplishments. The freedom in your life is not in your accomplishments. The freedom in your life is not in your accomplishments. It’s in the life of the Holy Spirit.
7 So, what shall we say about all this? Am I suggesting that the law is sinful? Of course not! In fact, it was the law that gave us the clear definition of sin. For example, when the law said, “Do not covet,” it became the catalyst to see how wrong it was for me to crave what belongs to someone else. If you crave someone else’s success, it’s covetousness and you wouldn’t have been made aware of it until the law came. 8 It was through God’s commandment that sin was awakened in me and built its base of operation within me to stir up every kind of wrong desire. For in the absence of the law, sin hides dormant (Romans 7:7-8 TPT).
So I just want you to understand this; the more you make your life about accomplishments, and about performance, the more you’re stepping into the space that is forcing God to serve you in the life that you choose. You are not walking in the life that God has chosen for you. If you choose to walk with God in the way that you want God to answer your prayers for your life because it’s your desires and you start to use your faith that God will give you what you want without asking Him to put the desire in you of the things that He wants you to desire so that you can believe Him for the things that He wants you to desire that He puts in your heart, that you now get faith for because He puts the desire in your heart. So instead of opening that whole realm up, you keep that closed and say, “I need God to serve me on my terms.” That is an achievement-based accomplishment, it’s law dominated and it awakens all manor of desires in you, lusts.
9-10Once lived without a clear understanding of the law, but when I heard God’s commandments, sin sprang to life and brought with it a death sentence. The commandment that was intended to bring life brought me death instead. 11 Sin, by means of the commandment, built a base of operation within me, to overpower me and put me to death (Romans 7:9-11 TPT).
He’s not talking about putting me to actual death although it would end up in death, it built it’s base of operation in me so that I could keep dying. That’s why Christians that have a self agenda are so damaging to the body of Christ, because they’re actually dying and they don’t want to die alone. They want to drag as many people along with them, in their dying, so that they feel like they’re not dying. So that they feel like their purpose is, they’re rescuing you from such a high level of determination and purpose for God. “You can’t surely live like that. No Christian is supposed to live like that. So come along and die with me, because I’ve got the answers.” Come on. I’m still preaching good.
12 So then, we have to conclude that the problem is not with the law itself, for the law is holy and it’s commandments are correct and for our good (Romans 7:12 TPT). Now, I’d like you to put the next slide up; the redeeming time slide please. This is this message I preached. I don’t know how long ago was it? No, no, it’s a year ago, maybe. How long ago is it then? Three years ago? It’s been a long time. Mirands, you found the slide for me? Three, four years ago? Okay. I couldn’t find the slide because I didn’t have all of my backup disks which are on those… I couldn’t, Miranda found it; she and Tarryn are my heroes today and Ester who got some of the slides done for me.
This slide adequately tells you and as you know, I don’t believe in time management, time is just a thing that we can actually just coordinate our lives and organize our lives around time; everything about our life is about our energy and how we spend our energy, not what we do with our time. Anyway, I mustn’t go there.
I wanted to put this slide up for you, because I’m wanting you to just remember that, actually prayer and meditation and learning and unity and alignment is something that we must live with, because if we live with that you redeem time. If you are in a place where you’re following your own desires, and your own things, and in all of these components of our lives, you can either choose to do it your way, or you could choose to do it God’s way. If you choose to do personal activities; sleep, and work… Remember, I spoke quite a lot about that, and if you didn’t hear that message, you need to go back and ask Miranda and ask people in the office, they can give it to you, and you can go through it again. But work is something that we have to do, sleep is something that we have to do, right? Then we have personal time in between.
If we take all of those things, and we give it to God, He redeems time. If we do all of those things for ourselves, you can’t redeem time. I’m here to tell you that whatever you’ve lost, in terms of because you’ve been living under a death sentence, now you know what I mean by that? That means you’ve been following your sin nature. Under the death sentence, you can’t redeem time. But if you realize that you’re living in eternity, and you have a revelation of your redemption, you begin to create a revolution in your life and you begin to redeem time. One of the most critical things that God can do for us in our lives is to redeem time. Because in your physical body, there is a time that you are going to stop existing.
I think I shared this with you last week. I’m going to share with you again. I had a personal moment with Pastor Sharon and I was just saying to her I said to her, “You know, babe, I’m really sorry that the time is going to come, that your body’s going to die and that my body’s going to die. I’m really sorry about that.” I said, “Because I’ve enjoyed living with you, in marriage, it’s been so satisfying and so joyful for me and there’s been such a wonderful experience for me for all these years, that the time will come when I can’t have that same relationship with you. Because your body will cease to exist and your soul and your spirit will go into eternity and so will mine. And so our time on the earth will come to an end.” I’m not saying sorry, like, ‘feel sorry for me.’ You’re going to understand how joyful an experience I’m having with marriage. That actually I’d like to live longer just so I can live with her longer.
When you’ve been married 40 years, and you can still say that… Here’s what I’m believing God though and we’ve talked about it. That what we know in our marriage now, after 40 years, wouldn’t it be great if we knew that stuff in the first five years of our marriage? Come on. Everybody that’s married more than 10 years says, “Yes, please.” Ha, but if you give your life to God, and you give your whole assignment to God, He redeems the time. The stuff that you didn’t have that you didn’t know in the first five years of your marriage, He can start giving you stuff now that can restore things that you didn’t build then. That’s how personal, redeeming time becomes.
How many of you would like to say, “Jis, that first five years I wish I had enough money. We lived on bread and water and love.” Certainly part of our life, at that time, with Pastor Sharon and I; we lived on bread and water and love. We didn’t have much else. Well guess what? Some of the mindsets, the captivity, the poverty mindset, the scarcity, the things that we had to work on and try and balance our lives for intimacy and work and creating a future and having children and having all of this work stuff that you have to do that God wasn’t fully with us because we didn’t know God the way we know God now. Hello?
Guess what, He can redeem time. We can’t go back to being 30. But what we can do is that the things that have developed in all of our lives because of what we experienced, then; God can redeem the time. So, that His blood washes away all of the negativity, and it renews and revives and restores the way God would have intended it to be. Now, come on, I ask you this, why would He want to do that with me and Pastor Sharon? Isn’t it partly because if we get to know it, we can share it with you? If your heart is open to the revelation of God, then He begins to bring redemption to you, and then your life becomes a revolution. You don’t have to just live in reality and reason and the life of relevance. Pastor Sharon and I are determined, I mean, literally, we are determined; we are making decisions that are action based, real decisions that are forcing ourselves out of our comfort zone of living together for 40 years. “Let’s do this differently. Let’s change this behavior pattern. Let’s make space for each other to do this.” We are deliberately doing it because we are giving God our faith and we are giving God freedom from sin, empowered to live completely free with the resurrected life of Christ after forty years of marriage. The more we do that, the more we get revelation from God, the more we live in the fullness of God, the more we can share it with you. That’s part of redeeming the time when God sends messengers with a message and you receive it; He redeems the time in your life.
Okay, verse 13, 13 So, did something meant to be good become death to me? Certainly not! It was not the law but sin unmasked that produced my spiritual death. The sacred commandment merely uncovered the evil of sin so it could be seen for what it is. 14 For we know that the law is divinely inspired and comes from the spiritual realm, but I am a human being made of flesh and trafficked as a slave under sin’s authority.
15 I’m a mystery to myself. For I want to do what is right, but end up doing what my moral instincts condemn. Come on now. He’s talking about a personal, internal conflict here. 15 I’m a mystery to myself. I want to do what is right, but end up doing what my moral instincts condemn. 16 And if my behavior is not in line with my desire, my conscience still confirms the excellence of the law. 17 And now I realize that it is no longer my true self doing it, my born again self. It’s the external man. It’s no longer my true self doing it, but the unwelcome intruder of sin that lives in my humanity. 18 For I know that nothing good lives within the flesh of my fallen humanity, the longings to do what is right are within me. But willpower is not enough to accomplish it. Willpower is not enough to accomplish it. Impossible. Enough willpower. 19 My lofty desires to do what is good are dashed when I do the things I want to avoid. 20 So if my behavior contradicts my desires to do good, I must conclude that is not my true identity doing it, but the unwelcome intruder of sin hindering me from being who I really am.
Why am I preaching this, this morning? Because here’s what happens. When you go into baptism and you go into the death of the identity of the death of the Lord Jesus Christ; you are dying to yourself. You are actually saying in the same way that Jesus died in His body where sin could no longer have control over Him, you get resurrected into life and your identity is now the same identity that is resurrected Jesus, that nothing in the world can touch Him in His body because His spirit is now in control, because no desires can control His resurrected body.
Paul says, “I understand this principle, I’m preaching to you this principle. Nevertheless, I’m a mystery to myself, because nevertheless, I found myself doing things I don’t want to do. So then I have to conclude the things that I’m doing that it goes against my moral excellence, against the things that I have set myself… That I don’t want. When I do that, I come to realize that it is not the true person that’s in me, that died and was resurrected with Christ, that true person is not the one sinning. It’s this body that has to be saved from itself.”
When you go into baptism and you come out and people say, “I’m never ever going to sin again.” Wrong answer. Why? Because you’re living in a body that doesn’t know that you are, yet, resurrected. 21 Through my experience of this principle, I discover that even when I want to do good, evil is ready to sabotage me. 22 Truly, deep within my true identity, I love to do what pleases God. 23 But I discern another power operating in my humanity, waging a war against the moral principles of my conscience and bringing me into captivity as a prisoner to the “law” of sin—this unwelcome intruder in my humanity. Wow.
24 What an agonizing situation I am in! So who has the power to rescue this miserable man from the unwelcome intruder of sin and death? 25 I give thanks to God, for His mighty power has finally provided a way out through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One. So if left to myself, the flesh is aligned with the law of sin, but now my renewed mind is fixed and submitted to God’s righteous principles (Romans 7:15-25 TPT). Hallelujah.
I’m not going to let the devil lie to you, when you go in to get baptized and then you find yourself in conflict with yourself. Don’t shout me down because I’m preaching good now. No, no, come, shout me down. Come on. Shout me down. Come on, come on, shout me down. I made two slides for you. This is what the Lord gave me. I need the first slide, please. The new life graphic. Okay.
The eternal will of God is to have to deal with people. So I’m just talking about you as an individual. Are you all with me? On the left hand side is this dark sin thing. On the right hand side is light. If I’m subject to law and I have a sin consciousness, everything about my life is performance. “I’ve got to get the results of my strong will performance. And either which way, I’m either going to be filled with pride or shame, or I’m going to stop my conscience.” The Bible says some people have sheared their conscience because they can’t live with this all the time, as a born again, Christian. They have separation from God and from light and they don’t want to repent. They might, the only way to get back into fellowship is repentance. But eventually, they repeat it so many times that they say, “I can’t keep living like this.” Then they reject church and they reject Christian life, and they reject the things of God because they can’t keep living in performance and results and all of this stuff like that. So just repeat, repeat until eventually, rejection. “I don’t want to have anything to do with the church. Because I feel under pressure. I feel under condemnation. I feel under feel guilty, feel ashamed because I’m always letting myself down?”
Didn’t the Apostle Paul just write about his own conflict? However, Jesus gives us mercy for life and He gives us the power through grace to overcome performance. Let me tell you, if you get this slide, there’s a lot of years of knowledge and a lot of knowing a word of truth that’s in these slides. If you get this, it will help you. The power of God’s grace frees you from performance which allows you to have a relationship rather than results.
Do you know who died yesterday, day before yesterday, famous cricketer? Shane Warne died. Shane Warne, I think it was 55 or 53 years old. What? 52. Shane Warne died. So everybody’s mourning the death of Shane Warne because he was a cricketer and he was a great cricketer. They’re showing you all these clips of how he spun and how he won this cricket test match and, you know, I didn’t hear much about him other than one person said and “he was honest guy”, you know, in other words, he spoke it like it was. Is that what you want your life to be remembered for? “I was a good spin bowler best, in the world. I played for Australia so many times and I made a reputation – best spin bowler in the world.” [Pastor John clapping] Where’s he going to spend eternity? I don’t know. But I promise you this, if he gets into heaven, Jesus is not going to say to him, “Well done with a spin bowling boy.” You think all those spinners and all those wickets that he took is going to matter to God? He’s going to stand before God and He’s going to say, “Shane, you used some human channels to perform in, that you could get results in…” He lived (I need that slide back) And he lived his whole life over here.
When God gives us grace and power, He gives us the ability to have relationship rather than results. He gives us, in our hearts, gratitude and thanksgiving, rather than to live in pride and shame and conscious. He gives us the option to integrate with Him rather than separate from Him. He gives us the recognition of who He is rather than having to repent from what He is. He gives us the recognition of who He is, not what He is because everybody wants to know, what can I get from God, what is God to me? He says, “Who am I to you.” We can recognize who He is not what He is. He gives us the ability to renew ourselves and obey everything that it gives us, then we can respond and follow. It leads us to light. We can choose to live in the kingdom of darkness or the kingdom of light.
Here’s what happens in real life. In real life. If you’re a born again, Christian, just bear with me now. [Pastor John referring to slide] Here is Jesus, you’re the individual, here is Jesus. What’s going to happen is that the devil is going to sometimes try and bring you to performance, when actually Jesus wants you to live in the power of grace, and you’re going to live in results. And He wants you to live in relationship. And then you’re going to say, “Oh, no, I’ve got to repent.” Then you come over to repentance and you come back into this wonderful structure here. Then he’s going to try and pull you into this process here, and meantime, He says “No, no, come over here. The Holy Spirit. Come over here. Come over here.” He’s doing it even to you today. Today. The Holy Spirit’s bringing you to this today.
Last slide, please. I’m done now. I know I preached a bit longer, but I had to get this out to you. Bear in mind. I’ve got to go and be with Brother Jerry in a couple of weeks that I’ve had to fit more in quickly. So this is about, again, the kingdoms. This is about the difference between… The same, previous slide, was the eternal will of God, the people and church revealing Jesus. That’s why you and I are here, which leads us to Ecclesia. The Ecclesia is about overcoming Christians, and the Christ life. Just coming to church doesn’t give you the ability to be an overcoming Christian. If you treat church life like, “I’ve got to go to church on Sunday, and I’ll go sit there and endure the Pastor for a while. The music’s good, but that Pastor is always confrontational. I don’t know if I can handle him too much.” You know, so “I’ll come to church occasionally. So that I can handle just enough of him.” Well refer to a previous slide. But if you say, “Hey, I want to be an overcoming Christian, and I want to live the Christ life”, you gain access to Ecclesia. Okay, watch this. You have your own individual walk with God, and I wanted to show you the difference between the last slide which is about the individual. This slide is about God’s plan.
The devil wants you to compromise, because he wants you to go against God’s plan of devotion to Him. The devil wants to create division, so that you don’t walk in love and servitude, and serving. The devil wants you to live in your self will, refer to this oneness of self slide, self will so that you don’t live in God’s will. He wants you to live in the knowledge problem, rather than in the Word of God. What’s the knowledge problem? I need one minute on the knowledge problem. The knowledge problem is this: “I want to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, I don’t just want to eat of the tree of life. I want to keep one foot in the tree of life, which is God’s way. And I want to keep one foot in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because the knowledge of good and evil has been good to me.” Connections, performance, education, sport, whatever, “I want to keep my foot in the knowledge of good and evil, and I want also the tree of life.” So it’s a knowledge problem.
When you live like that, the Bible says “My people perish for a lack of knowledge.” They think they’re getting more knowledge because they’re using the world system to live and they’re worshipping God. But actually, what they’re doing is they’re constantly eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. You can’t live like that. Because if you live like that, it will defeat you and then you will reject the Church and you will reject God. Can you see why I had to show you all these sequences of slides? So you’re no longer live in reason and reality and relevance, but you have faith, hope and loving God, which leads you to redemption and it leads you to revelation so that you can have a revolution.
The Church cannot be relevant in society unless it’s in revolution. The revolutionary church is the Ecclesia Church where people walk in authority together. The knowledge problem is, either you’re living in the knowledge of God’s Word, or you’re trying to live in the knowledge of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; partly in the world system and partly in God’s system. The Bible says, “Such a person he’s unstable in all his ways, and he can’t receive anything from the Lord.” Because he’s unstable. He’s tossed to and fro, this way, that way. “Pastor John, that’s not me, I’m a very stable person.” No, but your thinking is unstable. Your life actions are unstable; ultimately. Hmm. That’s the knowledge problem. The more people want to follow knowledge, knowledge, knowledge, “Knowledge is what saves me, knowledge is what directs me, knowledge is… You’re not living in revelation. Enough of the knowledge problem, the Word of God solves that.
Knowledge wants you to serve alternative gods. What’s the alternative god for you? That’s the back door, in case all of the stuff I’m teaching is not real. What’s your back door? In case you think I’m some kind of weird teacher? What’s your back door? “In case God doesn’t come through for me, because maybe He’s not trustworthy enough.” What’s your backdoor? Is your backdoor money? Is your backdoor education? Is your backdoor the people that I know? Family, because “If my life gets so bad, at least I can go and stay with family. My family will take care of me.” Is that your back door? It’s the biggest trump card that people play. Family, you can never let your family behind. That’s not what Jesus says. Jesus said you must trust Me so much that you walk away from brother and sister, mother and father; even spouse if you have to, where’s your back door? Because the back door is the alternative god that you serve. “Oh, I don’t serve an alternative god.” Okay, take your back door, shut it and burn it, I dare you! I dare you!
I have spoken to alcoholics not so long ago. Thank God that there are a number of people that have been addicted to drugs and alcohol that God has got us helping. Praise God, they’re all getting free. Speak to an alcoholic. “So do you know you’re an alcoholic?” “No, I’m not.” “No, you’re an alcoholic?” “No, I’m not.” “Well, you drink all the time.” “Yeah, but I can stop anytime I want to.” So I said, “Well, then stop.” “I just don’t want to. I can stop for a day. Okay, let me stop for two or three days, then I can prove to you that I can stop.” And then after two or three days back on the bottle. “Well, why are you drinking again?” “Well, because I choose to.” “So you’re not an alcoholic?” “No no.” “So why are you drinking again?” “Because I want to.” Come on. I’m trying to talk about your back door. Oh, burn your back door bridges. What’s your back door? “Oh, it’s all the wealth that I’ve accumulated. But it doesn’t control my life. It’s not the God that I serve.” Burn it, I mean, don’t burn the money, give it to the church rather. No I mean it, give it to God. Why don’t you give all your money to God and see if that’s not your God that you serve. I’m gonna leave it there.
I gotta finish this. If you serve other gods, you open yourself to legitimate deception. The legitimate deception is always going to take you to the devil and his destruction in your life. Because it’s all about the kingdom of darkness. Refer previous slide, individual. But if you live for God in devotion, He gives you the ability to love and serve; you have the power to do God’s will in your life. The Word of God becomes your foundation of everything that you do, then your words in your worship will take the place of alternative gods in your life. When you have words of God and worship of God, you begin to walk in authority and honour in your life, and when you walk in your authority and honour you begin to experience the Holy Spirit and all of the angels and the abundance of God that He has in your life. When you operate that way, you’re operating in the kingdom of God and Jesus said, “Now My Father which art in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done.” When you start to operate in the kingdom of God, He makes all things possible because even His disciples said, “How can a wealthy man enter and get anything?” Then He said, “With man things are impossible but with God all things are possible.” Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
That’s a lot of teaching this morning. But you understand I had to get all these all these slides out. Do you want them? Okay, I’m going to pass a bucket around. Any cheque made out less than 10 000 – forget it. I’m teasing, really. Someone will show a copy of this; “have you see that prosperity man, he sells everything.” That’s how the people work with media. Praise the Lord. Did you get something out of this message today? Hallelujah.
I don’t want the devil to lie to you, you come out of the water of baptism and you think that, you know, I’m gonna never ever do anything wrong again in your life. That conflict that exists in you, God gives you the power to say no. But you’re going to have to learn how to do it. In the process of learning how to use the power to say no, don’t be overcome with what your own contradiction of yourself, that baptism has given you strength. Don’t quit on it. Don’t give up on it. Stay with it. Stay with it.
Those people that are getting baptised today. Please come, everybody, please stand with us. Please. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. God, Glory to God. I trust that you have been enlightened this morning. That revelation has come to you today. Hallelujah. This is this is how revelation knowledge sets you free. Glory to God. Praise Jesus. I just want to pray over you if I may. Will you put your hand on your heart and say:
I’m a son of God. I trust in Jesus. I choose to follow Him. As much as I’m a mystery to myself, I still choose Him. I still follow Him. He’s the Lord of my life. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Those people that are getting baptised, please come and stand on the front here. I want to just pronounce a blessing. I know we started a little bit late today, but we will get there. We will start baptism in 15 minutes. For the rest of you, there’s things to eat. There was a powerful anointing last week, those that stayed. En nou, wat nou – and now, what now? Those that stayed, they really, really did enjoy the anointing that was in the auditorium. We give you coffee and tea to help you anyway. Praise the Lord.
[The people being baptised standing on the stage] Look at all of you wonderful people. Wow. Wow. I want to just declare because this is the way the Holy Spirit has led me to do week by week. I am aware that as you come into the water, the anointing of God is very strong on me. Even now, the anointing of God is so strong on me to do this that I’m doing. As I’m in the water there, I have… What often happens to me, and it happened to me last week and I had to restrain myself because actually, as you come into the water, the anointing wants to release that prophetic voice that God has given me for people. The word of knowledge and the word of wisdom begins to operate. I don’t have the timeframe to do all of that. So it is my desire, that as I baptise you today, I’m the vessel that God has chosen. I thank you for honouring God and allowing me as His servant to bless you this way. I want to declare that all your old things that have hung around you, you are free from them. You are free from them in Jesus’ name. You are free. You are free. You are free. Even if it tries to come back into your mind and tries to come back into your life, you’re free. You’re free. God has empowered you and He is powering you to be free. Hallelujah.
It is my prayer now and I’m making this declaration over you that as each one of you is baptised and you come out of the water. It is my desire that God will reveal to you in your spirit. He will reveal to you the plans and purposes that He has for your life. He will reveal to you mysteries. It won’t only just happen as you come out of the water, but as you come out the water in the days to come, I urge you to go in and encounter God and press into God because He wants to show you things. He wants to reveal things to you, He wants to restore and renew things in your life. He wants to redeem time for you. Hallelujah. Glory to God. I’m believing that healing miracles are taking place and that after today, sickness and diseases that have been upon us, go! Restoration is going to happen. I’m believing for that. Hallelujah, restoration, anything, things that you might not even know are wrong in your body, God’s going to begin to heal it. If you will speak it, it will become real. Hallelujah. Glory to God.
Most of all, I pray and it is my desire and as you come into the water, I pray that the Spirit of Christ just bursts out of you. It’s the Spirit of God that will just begin to just overwhelm you in everything in your life. You’ll find yourself in places where His glory and His anointing is making a way for you. It’s creating favour for you. It’s creating blessing for you. It’s creating insights and mysteries and revelations for you. You’re going to find new relationships and new things and understand things. It’s gonna get stronger and stronger in the weeks ahead. Hallelujah.
This is a new beginning. This is your heart that you’re giving to God, through baptism, and resurrection; death and life. Glory to God. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Jesus. Praise You, Lord. Praise You, Lord. I pray that faithfulness, that you’re full of faith, faithfulness, and strength will be your portion as you come out of the water, Hallelujah. Glory to God. Praise Jesus.
I’m already shaking under the anointing. It’s best that you go and change otherwise I might not get to the pool. Hallelujah. I’ll see you outside. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus. Praise the name of the Lord. For the rest of you, you may be seated or go out and have some munchies and some tea. Just give the others a chance to get to where they’ve got to go so they can change and get ready for baptism. Please come back in after you’ve had tea, please come back and watch. It’s really powerful to witness what God is doing here.
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