The Source and The Future Part 2 – Ps John (WTB)

Scripture References:  Genesis 9:17-29 AMPC, Hebrews 11:1 (AMPC), Mark 4 13 (AMPC), 1 Corinthians 15:1-4, 19-22, 36-37, 45-49 (AMPC)   

Praise the Lord. Praise You Father. Praise You Jesus. Thank You Lord. There is more power in the Name of Jesus than any government or any power that exists on this earth. Your Word says that every Name that can be named, that has a Name on this earth, must bow to the Name of Jesus. And we thank You Father that even in this service this morning, every distraction, every thought that would try and interfere with what You are doing in our hearts this morning, any habit, any pattern, any thought process, we thank You Lord that we bring it captive to the obedience of Christ. We bring it captive to the Name of Jesus, and we ask You Father, that in this service this morning, Jesus will be glorified. You Father, will have Your way, and the Holy Spirit will make it plain truth to us, clear, and it will be something that will grow and set us free, in Jesus Name. We receive it this morning Father, and everybody said, “Amen.” You may be seated. Hallelujah.

Bertus, can you just give this to my wife, please, otherwise it will weigh my pulpit down. (referring to Ps Sharon’s bible). Praise the Lord. Thank you for your blessings and your prayers on my birthday. I had a marvellous time. Sunday’s are always a very busy day for me, because I preach here in the morning and in Johannesburg in the afternoon, and it’s normally a long day for me. So, yesterday I celebrated with my kids, they came over and we had lunch together. My eldest granddaughter Keira-Leigh, she somehow understood how special this day is, and she wouldn’t actually walk more than about two metres away from me and she’d come back to me and she’d say, “I love you Grandpa.”   And I’ll be sitting on the couch, you know, and she’d come and she’d take my cheeks in her hands and she’d say, “I love you Grandpa. Happy Birthday Grandpa,” and that like went on for like two or three hours, and eventually my heart was so full of joy, it’s like Uh, I can’t take anymore, you know. It was really cool. So, thank you for your love and your blessings and your prayer. It’s a wonderful time. Hallelujah.

So, I’m going to jump into the Word, because birthday or not, the Holy Spirit is all over me and has been for some weeks and months to be preaching the materials that I have been preaching. How many of you are enjoying the prayer meetings every, in the mornings on Facebook or on YouTube?  So if you don’t do Facebook, you can go to YouTube, subscribe to Heritage of Faith, and you will get a reminder that you must pray. So you can watch it on YouTube or Facebook. Every morning there is a prayer that you can pray with me, and I just share the Word with you for a few minutes. I watch myself. I do. I watch myself, on myself. Because what the Lord has given me I pray with myself. Because it’s good stuff to pray, what I’m praying, by the Holy Spirit, I pray with myself. I do. Praise the Lord. Sometimes I do it more than once a day, because what the Lord has given me to pray and to teach is good stuff. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. And I don’t do it more than twice a day probably, so that I can increase ratings on the numbers. I do it because I want my Spirit man to be active with what’s going on there. Hallelujah.

So, you’ll be aware that I’m wearing glasses. I wear glasses and my glasses are multifocal, and that allows me to see you, and it allows me to read, and it allows me to do many things, and so my vision is always clear. If I take my glasses of, my eyesight, due to age, deterioration of the muscles in my eyes, have got to the point, that if I take my glasses of and I look at you in the audience this morning. For the most part, you are a blur to me, and if you had to smile at me and look for a response of recognition, I might not give it to you, because I might not even see that you’re smiling. So, I have to wear my glasses. This is very important, because I went to a medical professional, and they tested my eyes, and they said these are the strength of glasses you need, and this is what has happened to your eyes. Your eyes are all good, but you need this strength of glasses. So I now wear glasses and I can wear different shapes and forms of glasses, as my mood suits me, or my finances suit me, or my fashion statement suits me, or the practicality of what I’m doing suits me. Huh?

So, I’ll give you an example of the goodness of God in my life. I have another pair of glasses, which were made for me. And I chose the frame, which is a silhouette frame, primarily for public speaking, because of lights and television and the things that are, that I’m engaged in, and so, I chose those glasses because they have a very thin metal band, they are very flexible, and etcetera. So, but I felt that I needed to have a second pair of glasses, and so I went and had my eyes retested. It was time for that, and so I walked into the shop to have my silhouette glasses, there’s a little mechanism in the silhouette glasses that need to be tightened from time to time, and it needs a special kind of tool to do that. You can’t just take a screwdriver and screw it in, it needs a special tool. So, I walked into a shop and low and behold there’s a member in the congregation that’s in the shop, and so, “No problem, Pastor John I’ll tighten your, fix your glasses.” I said, “Well actually I’ve had my eyes tested and I’m looking to get a new pair of glasses,” and so then this congregation member said, ‘Well Pastor John, why don’t you pick out a pair of frames and I would like to bless you with the lenses,” and so thank you, I got blessed by the Father through one of you, for a new pair of glasses.

I’m telling you that, because the blessing of God can happen to you any time any place, anywhere you walk into a place God can bless you. Hallelujah. You know, I mean if you would with the way my reading glasses are, is they are fairly expensive prescription glasses, because of the way my eyes have deteriorated. You know, the kind of genetics that I have, if they were to deteriorate, it means it certain type of glasses and they normally are much more expensive kind of lens that you have to purchase. But I’m not just telling you about my glasses today for the sake of that testimony, although that is a wonderful testimony. Don’t you think? And so I say like Brother Jerry, “Blessing and favour is overtaking me, wherever I go, any given day, any given place everywhere I go there is a blessing that is waiting there for me. There is not a curse, there is a blessing. There is a blessing that’s waiting for me”. Brother Jerry says it this way. “When I arrive at a new country, I tell that space that I’ve arrived and that wherever blessings are here I am, waiting to overtake me. They know where I am so that they can come and overtake me.” Well, that might sound simplistic. Well surely in the spirit realm, and you know well it’s good to speak it out and say, “I’ve arrived, Blessing come on now, overtake me. I’m waiting for blessings to overtake me”. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.

So, when I wear these glasses you can see my eyes, you can connect with me, and you can communicate with me through my eyes. But these are my eyes, they’re not your eyes, right? So you don’t know what’s going on in my eyes. You don’t know what’s going on in my eyes, because my eyes genetically have certain something happening to them and so I have to wear these glasses in order for my eyes to see you properly. But because I wear these glasses, you can see my eyes and you can see what’s going on in my eyes, hallelujah. So if I have an expression and you now smile at me, I can see you, and I can smile back. I can say, “Hi” and then you don’t feel like, well Pastor John ignored me I wonder what I did wrong?

So these glasses are designed for these kinds of conditions, where I would need to be communicating with people and have clear sight. Now I’m going to show you another pair of glasses, which are also prescription glasses. These pair of glasses, I like them very much. I bought them, they are prescription glasses. I got them in America. Now you can buy them in South Africa, then you couldn’t. These are my shades, what do you think about my shades? They’re pretty cool shades, don’t you think? They suit me, don’t you think? Hey? I mean these are my shades, these are the things that you know, if I’m sitting watching Nadal and Federer play tennis at Monaco you know somewhere, I’d be sitting in the grandstand wearing these shades looking cool. I’ve never done that, but just say you know, it’s one of those things.

But these are, these are sunglasses. They are the same prescription glasses as these. They are multifocal, which allows me to wear them anywhere. But how many of you know that, because if I put these on you can’t see me. My eyes at least, you can’t see my eyes. Even under the lights, because there’s a kind of coat on them, it actually reflects, right? So you can’t see me, but I can see you perfectly. So if you smiled at me I can smile back you know. The idea of these sunglasses is to cut out the harsh light so that it is an ease and a comfort, because they’re polarized and they’ve got all kinds of things, and so then it’s just cool. They have a very practical thing. But it does change the way that I see the world, because it’s darker. So even if I’m in the auditorium and there are strong lights, it would be much better for me to take my glasses off, so I can see better, yeah?

I use these glasses and I’m using this as an illustration to you this morning, that if Jesus was standing here today, there would be things that He can see through His eyes, that you don’t see through your eyes. Why would the things that Jesus sees through His eyes, be different to what you see through your eyes? Well to use me as an example. My natural man has created a situation where my eyesight has deteriorated through natural circumstances. Therefore, I need filters to help me see the world properly. Jesus does not need any filters. His eyesight is the eyesight of the Father. His eyesight is the eyesight of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus doesn’t need filters, His filter is the will of God.

So I’ve taken this from a natural point of view and I’m making it a spiritual exercise, because this is so real to me that what Pastor Sharon said from the platform this morning, is that the world is filled with a spirit of fear. Jesus has eyesight that does not have a filter of fear. What is the filter that is Jesus’ filter through the Father? Is it love? Is it power? Is it a sound mind? Well, He wouldn’t even think that I have a filter of love, power and of a sound mind, because those things are just in His eyes. You know, so He wouldn’t need a filter. So in our world the enemy comes to try and put filters in our sight and the filters that he tries to bring is a filter of poverty, a filter of scarcity, a filter of fear, a filter of sickness and disease, a filter of thoughts and ideas and things about how you must run your life.

Yesterday I said something to Pastor Sharon and I said something to the kids. I said, you know one of the things that has really been growing in me this year is, and excuse me if I say something about my personal relationship with God that might make you think that my statement is arrogant, or you know prideful, it’s not. I’m explaining something to you. So forgive me if it leaves you with a different impression, but I have been a person who has lived for God all my life, and I have lived for God, because I love the ways of God. There have been challenges in my life where I have been tempted to follow ways that suit me. If I look back on my life, I recognize that part of my decision-making in my life was born from a spirit of fear, not from a perspective of my calling.

When I was 19 years old, so as you know, God called me to the ministry, when I was just 15. I was going out of 14 and it was around my birthday time actually, and instead of going to church one Sunday night, I really strongly felt to stay at home and spend time in prayer with the Lord. I had a 3-hour encounter with God, Who showed up in my room and He called me into the ministry. I already knew I was called into the ministry, but in that encounter He showed me and told me how and what would happen in my ministry. He showed me that part of my ministry would be to tear down things that would stand up against the truth and the knowledge of God, to root them out and He showed me that part of my calling would be that I would build in its place things that would be lasting and generational. That’s what He called me to, He told me that when I was 15.

Now I love God all my life. There’s been a part of me that has followed God, because I really wanted to. So now I’m going to just give you the best example I can to try and tell you what I’m trying to say today. There are many times that my marriage to Sharon is married, because I’ve been married to her for a long time and we have a responsibility of marriage to each other. So the ways of our marriage need to continue as they are, and they need to have; there’s a certain structure about what we have done in our marriage that we live in our marriage in the way of our marriage. You understand what I’m saying? So I love the way of my marriage, and I love to be in the way of this marriage, but oftentimes I’m walking in the marriage and it’s the marriage ways that keep us in the marriage ways. Are you with me? So if that’s all I have in my marriage, even though I’ve been doing it for 37 years, if that’s all I have in my marriage, then my marriage just becomes a function of responsibility to the ways of the marriage. It doesn’t become a function of any joy in the marriage. So if you only have a responsibility to the ways of the marriage, then you lose the joy of the marriage. That’s when you start to get dissatisfied with the ways of the marriage.

So that’s why Sharon and I have always taught this and I just said again, how long does it take to destroy a marriage? Just one day, it’s not one day, it’s one day at a time, every day. What does it take to build a good marriage? One day, one day every day is what builds a good marriage. So if I go for a day without joy in my marriage, then that’s a day that the ways of my marriage, are driving my marriage, not the joy of my marriage. So there are times when I can go for a period of time, where the ways of the marriage are structured, they’re ordered, they give safety, they give comfort, they give things that are also good for me. But then there’s got to be time where you give time to make the joy of the marriage happen, because the joy is what keeps the ways going. So if you don’t have the joy of living for Jesus, then everything about your life becomes about the ways of Jesus, not the joy of Jesus. If you lose the joy of Jesus and you don’t experience the joy of Jesus, then you just become a person who only operates in a set pattern and routine, and you’re not really open to much change, because why should I? Because what you’re looking for is nothing negative, you’re looking for something that’s full of joy. Everybody in life is looking for something that’s got joy in it, it’s got excellence in it, it’s got purpose in it, it’s got assignment in it. You’re not looking for something that’s going to give you something worse. Hallelujah. So, the messages that I have been preaching and the Lord has been, impressing upon me to preach, is because God is so involved with us, from generations past, that we might be tempted to think, that our walk with God is a function of the ways of generations. That’s true, but He’s not just the God who’s interested in us in the ways of generations, He’s also interested in us, in the moments of joy. Hallelujah.

So, I started last week, ministering to you, and I can’t review the things of last week, but, because I’m going to be preaching on Jacob’s Constellation. The Lord began to show me, how I’ve got to go back and start. So, the whole title of the series is The Source and the Future, and I started with Hebrews 11 verse 1; 11Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of the things [we] hope for, being the proof of things [we] do not see (and the Amplified says) and the conviction of their reality [faith perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses]. (Hebrews 11:1 AMPC)

So, I have used these words about faith before; Faith is the power released by the Father, to enforce the will of the Father, expressed through His Words. So, His Words, demonstrate His will, and they release the power. Amen.

So, last week, I talked about Adam and how Adam made a choice, and how God cursed, the work of Adam’s hands, and He cursed the ground, because of Adam. So, that Adam would have to work by the sweat of his brow. Last week, I used the message on, what is toiling and what is sorrow, to get wealth. So, if you didn’t hear it you should go back and listen to last week’s message. It’s a good idea, anyway to listen to it. This is important, because of where I’m going, in these set of messages. I gave you Hebrew version of what it is to be sorrowful, or to toil. I talked about how Adam and Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel, and how they both brought the sacrifice of their first fruits of what they produced. It is interesting, that there wasn’t a commandment that said, Cain and Abel, you must bring an offering to God. They just knew they had to. This is not a law, they just knew, they had to. And I told you last week, how Cain and Abel brought their offerings. How the Lord spoke to Cain and said, “Sin is at the door of your heart. Your offering is not accepted, because of what’s in your heart”. So, He said, “But sin is at the door of your heart, but you must master it”. He didn’t, he killed his brother. Then, the Lord cursed the earth, to not be able to yield its strength, because the blood of Abel was in the earth.

So, I can’t go back and teach all of that, I’m giving you a review of what I did, so that I can get to my point. I went from the natural component of the earth giving forth its seed and its abundance to us, to Mark chapter 4, where God gives us a spiritual indication of what changed when Jesus came to the earth, because Jesus was the Word, and the Word was amongst us and dwelt amongst us, and so I read to you and I read to you again this morning, from Mark 4 verse 13; 13 And He said to them, “Do you not discern and understand this parable? How then is it possible for you to discern and understand all the parables?” (Mark 4:13 AMPC). The sower sows the Word.

So, I just go back, and I say, “Adam and all-natural men, sow into the Earth’s soil.”  Can I put it this way? The Earth’s system, so that we can yield productivity back. That was, what God said, “Adam all the days of your life, you will work this way, with toil and sorrow and sweat, will you have to get from the earth, what is for your future.”  Jesus gives them, a response, about what He is teaching, and He says, “The sower, sows the Word.”   And He says, “This Word that you sow,” I’m not going to read the whole thing. This Word that you sow, and I’m repeating what I said last week, this Word that I sow is no longer about what you sow in toil into the natural ground of the earth, this Word that you are sowing is the soil of your heart.

So, He’s saying, the real incubation place for your future, is not what you put into the ground and return from the ground, because that will always have sorrow and toil with it. If you want to have a future that is in God you must sow to the soil of your heart, to change what’s there. And so the Bible talks about different conditions of the heart. Talks about a hard heart where the seed goes on to the heart and then there’s nothing for it to grow there, so circumstances, the birds of the air, things that happen in a day, just come and pluck it away and you can’t even remember what that Word did, what that Word was.

Then the Bible talks about a different kind of condition of heart. Where the Word comes in and it finds a place to grow, but there’s no real depth in the soil in your heart, there’s no depth there. So, it grows immediately, but then because it has no depth, it can’t grow and stay growing, and so it dies.

Then there’s another condition, where the soil of your heart has been prepared and   the ground has been put there, and the Word gets in there, but the seeds of weeds have not been removed of the earth, and the Bible says, that the weeds grow up with the Word and they choke the Word that is in your life.  Those weeds are the pride of life, the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh. They grow up, the anxieties, the worries, the cares of this world. They grow up with the Word and before you know it, they crush the Word and there’s no Word in you to receive a harvest. Then there’s another condition of the heart, where the heart is well prepared, it is well developed and when the Word goes in, it is cultivated properly, it has a proper environment to grow, and it returns thirty, sixty and a hundredfold return. So, Jesus is talking about a condition of the heart that produces a condition in the spirit, of return, spiritual return. Okay.

So, I have to make this clear. This Scripture is not talking about money. This Scripture is talking about the Word of God. However, when you have a thirty-fold return of the Word of God in your heart, when it comes to poverty and finances and God’s blessing and how He set you free from poverty and scarcity. When you have a thirty-fold return that comes back to you in the natural world. Which is how I finished my message last week, from the book of Proverbs, where the Bible says, “God adds to you wealth, but He adds no sorrow with it.” Because the toiling, sorrow component that is in Adam is no longer relevant, to what comes from the soil of your heart.

That is why you will hear me often preaching on a value system. And so, you know, some people will say to me, “Pastor John, these look like expensive glasses”. You know these are expensive glasses, and I didn’t buy them on a medical aid. At the time when I bought these glasses, these frames were only available in America.  I was there for seven days, and I walked into an optometrist store, and they said, “We’ll do your tests for free, if you buy the glasses.” So they said, “But we don’t do these glasses, we have to send them to the manufacturer.”  Just like Oakley. If you buy Oakley prescription glasses, which I have as sports glasses. You know, the optometrist doesn’t make them, they send them to Oakley. Oakley makes your frames, your lenses and puts them in their frame. If you didn’t know that, you can know it now. Same with these glasses, they’re not made by optometrists. They’re made by the manufacturer of the frames.

So I said, “Look, I’m in America, for just seven days. How long will it take?” “Oh no, the kind of place where they manufacture these lenses, are made in Ohio or someplace. You’ll have it in five or six days.” I said, “If you guarantee it, then I will buy it.” So they guaranteed it, I bought it and I got it. So you know, I bought it because I, this is the kind of glasses I’d been looking for a long time and I wanted to wear them because they’re the kind of glasses that in my view anyway, this is just my view you know, they are a combination of some I can wear outdoors that is both classy but sporty. See, you got it immediately. And if I’m hanging around with some of the men that I hang around with Brother Jerry and Brother Richard Roberts, different men that I hang around with, and I’m walking outside with them which happened many years later then I bought these in Italy, I don’t feel out of place because they’re both classy and sporty.

So some people say to me, so Pastor John you know, “Why did you spend this much money on your glasses?” Because the value that they give me is not the value of the money that I spend. Their value is of much higher value to me than the money that they cost. At the same time, I could just buy lenses, I could buy frames that are much cheaper and they could add value to me in ways that are good for me.

My decision-making is not based on what’s of value, my decision-making is based on what my spirit through the Words of God can return to me. If you don’t get this, then you can’t get anything else the Bible teaches.

So we all, all of us, all of us have a value system, which means we have glasses that we see the world through. I can promise you this. You can go and find yourself a billionaire man, and he will make a decision to spend a hundred million on investing in a business. The people would have put a proposal to him, this is a good opportunity, you need to invest this. If it goes belly under you might lose 50 million but if it really works out the way it’s going to work out you could have a return over 100 million and you can watch that billionaire make a decision in a matter of hours, and not blink an eye, and have nothing more to say about it, other than, “Now you manage it.”  He gives it to people then delegate and give me a feedback what’s happening with his business. Right?

You can watch that same billionaire man walk into a shop where he is going to go and buy a dog, and he can go and negotiate with the people who are selling him the dog, and let’s just say the dog costs $10,000. Because it’s a pedigree and it’s a this, and he wants this kind of dog, and you can watch that same billionaire walking through the shop and speak to the owner of this pedigree and say $5,000 is too much. What? You know, I’m not prepared to pay more than $3500 for this dog. You just made a hundred-million-dollar decision and your quivering over one and a half thousand. Because even billionaires have value systems. Right or wrong, it’s a value system that in this particular instance I’m going to engage in this negotiation because I want to. But one and a half thousand dollars means nothing to you. That’s not the point.  I don’t think there’s value in this decision? That’s his prerogative. It does show one thing. It shows that there are things in his life that control him outside of his wealth.

In other words, there are glasses that he has on, that come from somewhere that says in this instance, I’m going to negotiate because it’s my choice and I’m not going to buckle. Maybe it’s a power struggle, maybe it’s a pride thing, maybe who knows what glasses he’s wearing at that point. But it’s his glasses. The only one that can change his glasses at that moment is Jesus. Hallelujah.

I want to tell you that when Jesus came to the earth, and He came and He said, “I have come so that man can have life and have it more abundantly.” The Bible says everyone that hangs on a tree is cursed. So Jesus took all of the curse of mankind on Himself on the tree. So in the natural man we have to live in the habitation of the curse, but in the spirit man we have the power to be free from the curse. This is very important of what I’m telling you now. Hallelujah.

So I’m going to remind you of a message that I preached some while ago and in a few minutes I’m going to call my son Garth up here, and I’m believing God that I won’t get emotional with my son Garth this morning. But it needs to have a practical, visual experience for you. So the first Corinthians chapter 15, I read this to you, verse 1, 1And now let me remind you [since it seems to have escaped you], brethren, of the Gospel (the glad tidings of salvation) which I proclaimed to you, which you welcomed and accepted and upon which your faith rests (1 Corinthians 15:1 AMPC). So all of our faith rests on this Gospel. Part of this Gospel is this Gospel that Jesus preached, that through Jesus we can have the Word of God which we sow into our heart. So powerful was the Word of God in Jesus’ heart, that when He called His disciples into the ministry with Him, He said to them, “You have given me your boat to launch My ministry. Now take your boat and launch it into the waters and throw your nets on the side, on that side.”  And they said to Him, “Jesus you don’t understand you’re a carpenter we’re fishermen, and we’ve been fishing all night and all the good stuff is all gone from the places where we can go fishing. So, You don’t really understand about fishing, we excuse You from what You’re saying.” Jesus said, “Do what I tell you.”  So the Bible says, “But on Your Word”, they said, “We will go and do what You say”. So they take their boats and they go out into the water, and they start fishing and they throw their nets out, and they start throwing the nets out, and as they start catching fish, their nets are so full of fish that they got to call their partners and say, “Come, come help us we can’t take all these fish into…”

So what did He do? He said, “You are my partners in ministry now, my disciples. I’m going to make sure that you go into the ministry wealthy.” So big was the Word of God in His heart that when He spoke out and He called, He funded. Notice, their value system was, you got to fish all night to catch a load. Jesus’ value system is, I speak the Word and the load comes. What is in your heart can bring in a load that a whole night of work can’t do. If you live in ‘the night of work’, then you will not see with the eyes of glasses what the power of the Word can do. Because you’re always placing God in ‘the night of work’. I’m preaching so well today. Don’t you think? Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Praise You Jesus.

Oom Nick. Do you believe this? You do. Yeah. You’ve been on my heart this whole week. And I’ve been standing here now in silence, because after I was just preaching, I know the Lord wants me to say this to you publicly you know, and I didn’t want to because you know, because I know you in the natural. But here’s what the Lord wanted me to say to you. He says, He loves your heart Nick, He loves your heart and He loves the purity of your heart. And He says that if you will take this Word and speak it out into areas of lives, even though you are officially retired, God is going to bless you in ways in the natural world that are beyond what you can imagine right now. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.

Okay, 2And by which you are saved, if you hold fast and keep firmly what I preached to you, unless you believed at first without effect and all for nothing (1 Corinthians 15:2 AMPC). So there is a place where you can believe at first, this is where you have a lot of show and then later on there’s no go. You understand? So what you believed at first, now it’s not showing that you believed at first. 3For I passed on to you first of all what I also received, that Christ (the Messiah, the Anointed One) died for our sins in accordance with [what] the Scriptures [foretold], 4that He was buried, that He arose on the third day as the Scriptures foretold (1 Corinthians 15:3-4 AMPC). I go to verse, 19If we who are [abiding] in Christ have hope only in this life and that is all, then we are all of all people most miserable and to be pitied (1 Corinthians 15:19 AMPC). I’ve read this to you before. Our walk with God is not just about what we can get from God in this life. Our walk with God as an eternal component to it that whatever we’re doing in this life is for eternal and for resurrection. 20But the fact is that Christ (the Messiah) has been raised from the dead, and He became the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep [in death]. 21For since [it was] through a man that death [came into the world, it is] also through a Man that the resurrection of the dead [has come]. 22For just as [because of their union of nature] in Adam all people die, so also [by virtue of the union of nature] shall all in Christ be made alive (1 Corinthians 15:20-22 AMPC).

So this is talking about the natural man Adam and everything that was born into Adam dies, everything that is born into Christ, which is the second Adam, has eternal life through His resurrection. Okay. The next passage of Scripture says verse 36, 36You foolish man! Every time you plant seed, you sow something that does not come to life [germinating, springing up, and growing] unless it dies first. 37Nor is

the seed you sow then the body which it is going to have [later], but it is naked kernel, perhaps of wheat or some of the rest of the grains (1 Corinthians 15:36-37 AMPC). In other words, when you sow a grain of wheat, what it looks like when it grows up is not the same as what, when it went in. It opens up, it grows up into a plant and then it has the whole bunch of wheat kernels that are going to come from it. Okay, so when it dies, it becomes and it looks different to what it becomes. Hallelujah.

So just bear with me now. Because I’m talking about and I will next week, next week I will be talking about Jacob’s constellation. You don’t want to miss the series of messages. This is very, very powerful. In fact, I want to tell you that Pastor Sharon and I had really prayed about us being in America at this point in time, leaving this week to go to be at Brother Copeland’s Believers Convention. And in the end we just didn’t have the peace to go, and we know why now. Part of it is that I’ve got to continue preaching these messages. Part of it, part of it is Brother Jerry called me and he said, “I’m calling you to me in October and I’m wanting you to come with me to places that I have never been before,” because, and I’m going there as his prayer support and his prayer backup. Hallelujah. Glory to Jesus.

45Thus it is written, The first man Adam became a living being (an individual personality); the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving Spirit [restoring the dead to life]. 46But it is not the spiritual life which came first, but the physical and then the spiritual. 47The first man [was] out of earth, made of dust (earthly-minded), the second Man [is] the Lord from out of heaven. 48Now those who are made of the dust are like him who was first made of the dust (the earthly-minded); and as is [the Man] from heaven, so also [are those] who are of heaven (heavenly-minded). 49And just as we have borne the image [of the man] of dust, so shall we and so let us also bear the image [of the Man] of heaven (1 Corinthians 15:45-49 AMPC). This passage of Scripture says in essence this. You have the permission to be on the earth because you are born of the first man of dust. So because you’re born of dust, you have all of the weaknesses that came with a man that was born of the dust. And the man that was born of this dust, is subject to all the conditions that the man of the dust created for himself. But we are also born of the Spirit. So the first man of dust must come first. The second man of the Spirit comes second. So as we are in the natural man, look like a man of dust, so we must be in the spiritual man and look like a man of the Spirit. Why is this important? Because as I’m living in the man of dust, and I’m subject to the environment, I can always choose to live there, and living there gives me somewhat of a comfort because everybody else lives in that space. Everybody else has the same problems to deal with in that space. Everybody has the same challenges to deal with in the space of the man of dust. And so it gives me some kind of identification and some kind of security that I can recognize other men of dust what they’re going through.

But the Bible says, we must move and live in the man of the Spirit also. And in that case, when I live in the realm of the Spirit, I’ve got to identify with the man of the Spirit. So my first identification is with Jesus. So everything that Jesus was is my identification of the man in the Spirit. Just bear with me as I’m speaking this out. Are you all with me? So the man of the Spirit, Jesus says, “This man grows this way.” If you take the Word and place it in your heart, it’s going to grow up. But in the process of putting the Word of God in your heart, there is a dying that’s going to happen. The dying that’s got to happen is the dying that produces a great harvest in the future but the dying must happen. You cannot say you plant a seed without death happening in the process. So the dying that happens, is you start to confront issues of the natural man with the natural man says, “Live this way, live this way, live this way.” The growing of the spiritual man says, “If you live this way, you’ll only get what that man can give you. If you live this way, you’ll have all of the harvest of this spiritual man. Now keep growing here.” But this man is confronting this natural man all the time. All the time this natural man says, “I want to live my way, I want to live my way. I want to do what I want to do. I want to do what I want to do.” The spirit man says, “Do what God wants you to do” and the natural man will follow in great harvest. But you got to die to what he says, “I want to.” You got to die to that. How do you die? It’s not you take control of him; it’s that the power of letting the Word grow up in you, comes with the power to have dominance over him.

When President Cyril Ramaphosa became president, he didn’t have to go and exercise personal dominance and control over everything in South Africa. When he became president, the authority that was given to him, gave him the dominance. He didn’t have to prove dominance. The position gave him dominance. It’s the same with us. When you give to the man of the Spirit, the spirit man becomes dominant. It’s why in the book of Corinthians it says, “A spiritual man judges all things but he himself is judged by no man.” Why? Because a spiritual man is the man that lives in the Spiritual thing of this and he looks at the natural man and he says, “I see the way Jesus sees what’s happening in the natural realm, and as I see what’s happening in the natural realm. I have things to say that come out of my spirit and as I speak things out that come out of my spirit it brings order into my world.”

People don’t understand spiritual people when they do things sometimes. They want explanations for it. Why did you do that? It doesn’t make sense. Then they will pull out scriptures, and they will often say, and the Scripture says, and the Scripture says you should do this and you should do that. And then as a spiritual man you have to be silent. How do I know about that? Well they did that to Jesus. For all of Jesus’ ministry life they all kept preaching the Word to Him. The Book of Moses says this, the Book of the Law says this, our forefather says this. Jesus kept replying to them with the Truth and with love because He knew something different.

It’s a contest between the natural man and the spirit man. So remember… Have you got that slide for me from last week?  So remember I gave you this slide from last week. And I told you about Adam and Eve and I explained to you how Adam and Eve had three sons, because Abel was dead, and they had Seth, and Seth gave birth to Enos, and Cainan and all the way down to Enoch. And I said, and the Bible says, and Enoch lived 365 years and then God took him because he walked with God in such close fellowship with God. Remember I told you last week, that Enoch had a son by the name of Methuselah and Methuselah lived nearly a thousand years, and then he had a son by name of Lamech who lived 777 years and if you’re into Biblical numerics, you will understand that that is a tri of completion and perfection – seven, seven, seven. Anyway that’s for a different day. On that particular point Noah was born, and Lamech actually gave birth to Noah and said, his name is Noah because he will deliver us from this earth where we have to toil and we cannot have yield from this earth. Remember that? 

And I said I have to teach all of these things because I want to get to Jacob. Because ultimately Noah gave birth to Shem, Ham and Japheth, and those three sons all became very significant in eternity. Why? Because everything started again with Noah. So when Noah gave birth to sons, then the sons were going to be the future of everything that happened on the earth. Because Noah was a son of Adam, a natural man. But he found favor with God, and I read that to you last week. He found favor with God, and so God spared him and his sons. And I told you that eventually I would get to Jacob, through this lineage, I would get to Jacob through Abraham, but I had to give you all of this, because I can’t talk to you about the future unless I talk to you about the source.

So, now I need my son Garth to come forward, please?  So my other son Brynn is not here, but Garth is here. When Garth was born as a little guy he was growing up and he was around my house, and he was doing stuff, and then he’d be just a little boy, and he do things that were out of responsibility of what mom and dad was teaching him. And so mom and dad had to discipline him. So when he was a little boy I’d give him a hiding on the bum. It’s an amazing thing that if you obey the Word of God, rather than what the philosophies of men tell you, that you have God’s power for their future.

If you believe in the philosophies of men, then you only have the philosophies of men for the future, which has no power at all. So I disciplined him. And every time I would give him a hiding on his bum, it would hurt me more than it hurt him. Believe me, most kids that get hidings like that, say there’s no ways that it hurts you more than it hurts me, because they feel the pain on their bum, but believe me it does.

Anyway, as Garth was growing up, and I was a soccer player, and you know so in the schools they were playing soccer, and I’d been involved with Garth and Brynn. We would go and play soccer together, and I became aware, I became aware as they were growing into like six, seven, eight, nine years old, I became aware that everything that I am as a male, a man, a father, is what they are becoming. It was so impactful to me, I mean I knew all of this, but one day I just had a revelation that everything that I am, they are becoming. It devastated me. Because I became aware immediately that all of my weaknesses are becoming theirs. Now just listen to me. It didn’t matter how much money I left them. It didn’t matter how much security and protection I could give them. It didn’t matter how many skills I could give, make available to them, and cultivate in them. Hear me now. Money, protection, skills. What else do you need for a future? Skills, education skills. So I’m using in the broader sense, skills. Both life skills, emotional skills, education skills, I could give them skills. I could give them protection, and I could give them money. Pretty much all of that stuff’s taken care of. But I became aware there’s something I cannot change. Because the human weak part of my nature is also touching them. And they are becoming the weaknesses of my weakness.  What do I do about this?  There is nothing I can do to change this, except one thing. I only have one thing that I can do to change it, and this is what I did to them. I said, “Son I want you to come and walk with me, I want you to walk with me in life with the Word of God, and as I speak the Word of God, I want to show you how my faith is working. I want to show you how my joy is working. I want to show you Jesus in my life. I want to show you the Spiritual Heavenly man in my life.” Did I do that Garth? (Pastor Garth nods in agreement). As best as I could. Knowing that there is a part of me that already has weakness. And I walk to him and I said, “Okay Son, we are going to go to church, we are going to be involved in church, you are going to watch me serve my Pastor, you’re going to watch me go and become an usher, and you’re going to watch me when my Pastor phones me and asked me to come and do prayer meetings, and you’re going to watch me go to prayer meetings and you’re going to watch me do things, that’s what I’m going to do Garth.  I’m going to give you Jesus, because I have nothing else to give you to overcome our weakness. My weakness will become your weakness, and it will end in your destruction, because you will always have your weakness with you, because you have weaknesses, and I have my own weaknesses, and there’s a doubling up of weakness in you that I have nothing to do about that.

It devastated me when I came to that realization. But then I had redemption. And my redemption was as much as I can give him Jesus, is as much as his salvation, and the man that he has to become, can become part of him, because that’s the only thing I can give him that can give him strength. It’s the only thing that can overcome his weakness, is Jesus. And the only thing I’ve got that’s going for me is Jesus. It wasn’t my wealth, it wasn’t my protection, it wasn’t St Stithians Private Boys School education. It was none of those things – it was Jesus.

I give you my son. Stand there. I give you my son, Pastor Garth. You have been calling him Pastor Garth for some months now, because we have recognized this as a family we have all recognize this as the moment where he’s got to step into spiritual leadership.  I give you Pastor Garth. What happened from the nature old Garth, to the Garth that he is now? Jesus!  If there’s anything that you can do in your life right now to change your future, is to give somebody around you, Jesus. Especially your kids. Let me tell you something; education has value; protection has value; money has some value, but if they don’t have Jesus as the number one driving force in their life, their weakness will come out. It’s just a matter of time before that weakness starts to undermine everything that you have worked at in life. Because that’s the natural Adamic man that says, “With toil and sorrow will you bring forth out of the ground”. I did okay. For a moment I nearly lost it, but I held on.

I spoke to you about how, last week I spoke to you from Genesis chapter 8 verses 15 and through to chapter 9. How God blessed Noah and He said, “No longer will I curse the ground because of man’s behaviour.” See He knew, Noah, God knew that even in Noah, even though He had found favour with Noah, God knew he was the son of Adam, and God knew that even in Noah’s state of giving himself to God there was a factor in Noah that would come into his sons and so God said, “I must make a covenant before this goes any further.” So Noah gives Him a sacrifice and God makes covenant with Himself; never again will I curse the earth for the sake of man. So from this day onwards, there will be seedtime and harvest, there will be summer and winter, there will be all these seasons of life. And I will put a rainbow in the sky as an ever, a permanent symbol in the sky that I have a covenant with the men and a covenant with the earth, that I will not curse productivity for man’s behaviour.

I’m nearly finished this morning, but this is such, so good you don’t want me to stop, right? But you just need to give me five more minutes or so. Because I’m going to read this from Genesis 9 verse 17, 17 And God said to Noah, “This [rainbow] is the token or sign of the covenant,” I’ve got to just say this; remind me Sharon, I’ve got to say something about man’s weakness when I’m done reading this Scripture, okay? Don’t let me forget. 17And God said to Noah, “This [rainbow] is the token or sign of the covenant or solemn pledge which I have established between Me and all flesh upon the earth. “18 The sons of Noah who went forth from the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Ham was the father of Canaan [born later]. 19 These are the three sons of Noah, and from them the whole earth was overspread and stocked with inhabitants. Watch this now; 20And Noah began to cultivate the ground, and he planted a vineyard. So now he’s going to the natural earthly thing of working the ground. Bearing in mind there is a new blessing that God has given. So as he is cultivating, this thing is taking off. Blessing is happening to Noah. Abundance. 21And he drank wine and became drunk, and he was uncovered and lay naked in his tent.” (Genesis 9:17-21 AMPC)

What do you see here, people? This is the man that God used to save the entire planet! Why is he doing this? Inherent weakness came from Adam. I mean this is not written in the Bible, but this is just my opinion; that he had been caught up in the Ark for so long and this new productivity that was yielding itself out of the earth because of God’s blessing, was so abundant and so blessed, and so magnificent that when he started tasting it, it tasted so good that I’ll just have another one. And I’ll just have another one. I don’t believe Noah set out to get drunk. Are you with me? I mean, the Bible is not specific about it, but I just believe that there was such abundance and blessing and such fruitfulness and he was enjoying this, this new blessing that was around him that he just had a little bit too much. He hadn’t had anything like this in a long time, you know what I mean? It’s like, “It’s so good. It’s so good. Hey! Good, good, good…”

Let me tell you something, if you are listening to this message from wherever you may be in the world listening to this message, if you are listening to this message, I want to tell you; in the moment you are deciding because of this message, how you are going to go about your future and if your internalization of this message says, “I’m not going to change much of what I’ve done,” that is your weakness. If you are internally, internalizing this message and say, “But I’ve done it all so, not so good up to now, how can I possibly change it for the future?” That is your weakness. Because you are not giving your heart to God so that God can produce the power in your heart, the harvest of His Words to give you the power to change your future. And if you can’t do it, the best thing that you can do is to say, “Lord, I’m really helpless in this matter because I’ve given myself to this hard-hearted condition for so long. Help me?” And then the best thing I can tell you to do, go talk to somebody who’s done it.

Hallelujah. I have to just; I have to just talk about this. Noah’s drunk. 22 And Ham, the father of Canaan, glanced at and saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23 So Shem and Japheth, so who’s the father of Abraham? Great, great, great, great father of Abraham? Shem. 23 So Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it upon the shoulders of both, and went backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness” (Genesis 9:22-23 AMPC). So I want to tell you this is a condition of heart where the weakness in the human being of Noah created a circumstance that was not morally and spiritually wholesome. Their behaviour wasn’t to judge him. Their behaviour was not to accuse him. Their behaviour was not to have an opinion about him. What was Ham’s behaviour? Ham, you talking about Shem and Japheth, Ham’s behaviour was, “Let me go and tell somebody and talk to somebody about it and have an opinion about him.” So what did he do? He exposed his weakness, he exposed his nakedness. I’ll have my view about it and I’ll say what I think. That hard-hearted condition cannot bear you a harvest of spiritual growth. Because I have an opinion and it’s mine and I’ll say what I want. And it’s my opinion and because I say what I want it must be right because it’s my opinion. That’s the whole point. It’s your opinion and your opinion must be right to you otherwise you wouldn’t have that opinion. I mean this is not rocket science.

I mean, let me give you an example. So, if I tell you I’m on a diet and I’m eating well and I’ve got a diet plan and you happen to walk into a restaurant, and so last Sunday you heard me talk about my diet plan, and you walk into a restaurant and you see me eating a big chunk of Lorraine’s cheesecake, granadilla cheesecake. You know, you could say, “I thought he said he’s on a diet. How come he’s eating this cheesecake?” So you have an opinion about that. So obviously because you have an opinion about it. You think your opinion must be right otherwise you wouldn’t express your opinion about it. Okay, so you would say what you want to say, have your opinion, you will reap the benefits, the corruption of those words. You will. On the other hand, if you see me eating and you say, “I wonder what happened that these set of circumstances might have occurred for Pastor John. There must be a reason for him eating the cheesecake.” What you might not know is that maybe Lorraine baked it for me for my birthday. And she went to such a job of doing so many things that I decided that I would taste the cheesecake not to offend her. Because not to offend her was of greater value to me than to not eating that cheesecake. You walk in and see me eating the cheesecake so you got something to say about it. And then you go tell everybody else, “I saw, he can’t be a man of integrity because he was eating a cheesecake, and he said that on Sunday morning”. This is how the Adamic man works. Hello.

Just watch this, and I’m nearly finished. So Shem and Ham they covered his nakedness. 24 When Noah awoke from his wine, and knew the thing which his youngest son had done to him (Genesis 9:24 AMPC).

So there is a lot of teaching about this and I want to make him, you know whatever it is. You know there are some people that have a view that have studied the Hebrew and studied all of the old you know, rabbinical texts and they say, some people say that actually the interaction between Ham and his father was of a sexual nature. That may be so, at the very worst this was about words that were spoken. It was about dishonour and disrespect.

25 He exclaimed, so Ham had a son Canaan just watch this – He exclaimed, “Cursed be Canaan!” Why not Ham? Cursed be Canaan! He shall be the servant of servants to his brethren! 26 He also said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem! And blessed by the Lord my God be Shem! And let Canaan be his servant. 27 May God enlarge Japheth; and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant (Genesis 9:25-27 AMPC)

Who was Canaan? Canaan was Ham son. He didn’t curse Ham, He cursed Ham’s son, Canaan. Why? Because the future was in the seed.

27 May God enlarge Japheth; and let him dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant. 28 And Noah lived after the flood 350 years. 29 All the days of Noah were 950 years, and he died (Genesis 9:27-29 AMPC). Praise the Lord. Glory to God!

Next week …. Ahh I really want to tell you about this this morning. I really want to, can I just please … please? I got to finish on this and so after all of these things Abram was born and Abram, God speaks to Abraham and he says, “Go to a country that I will tell you.”

Genesis chapter 12 verse 1 1God told Abram: Leave your country, your family, and your father’s home for a land that I will show you. 2I will make you a great nation and bless you. I’ll make you famous; you’ll be a blessing. I’ll bless those who bless you; those who curse you I’ll curse. All the families of the Earth will be blessed through you. 4 So Abram left just as God said, and Lot left with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran. Abram took his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot with him, along with all the possessions and people they had gotten in Haran, and set out for the land of Canaan and arrived safe and sound. Abram passed through the country as far as Shechem and the Oak of Moreh. At that time the Canaanites occupied the land. 7 God appeared to Abram and said, “I will give this land to your children.” Abram built an altar at the place God had appeared to him (Genesis 12:1-7 AMPC).

Here is where I’m going to finish off. God speaks to Abraham and He says, “You’re going to be blessed and all the nations of the earth are going to be blessed through you, and those who bless you will be blessed, those who curse you will be cursed, and this land I will give to your children.” But Sarah is barren. Come on now. So God speaks but Sarah is barren.

Next week, I’m going to tell you about how the Words of God that God speaks that’s received in a heart, that has a condition to receive the Words of God. That even though you are still living in the Adam body, with a Noah factor, with the Abrahamic weakness, when God speaks, your heart condition will change the nations and change your future. Because God’s Word overcomes even bareness. Hallelujah. I wish I could preach for two more hours. Because God has given me such amazing and wonderful revelation that I will be teaching you next week. How Abraham went with his weakness from a land of famine, he went with his weakness to a land of plenty where the Egyptians lived and the weakness that was in Abraham did not change his faith, but it made him confront who he was, and because he confronted who he was, God was able to take his faith and produce Isaac. And then you will understand how Isaac begets Jacob and how Jacob gives us the full picture of everything I’ve talked about for now. Then I can talk to you about Jacob’s constellation. Hallelujah.

This is full of hope, people. Because I want to tell you if there’s one thing the devil wants to try and do to all of us, is to produce hopelessness. And he will cause circumstances to come into your life, and will cause thinking to happen in your life, in your mind, and he will cause emotions to run wild with you that will cause hopelessness. But the Word of God is more powerful than anything that you can confront in the natural realm. And everybody said, “Amen.”

(Pastor Sharon reminds Pastor John) I’ve already said what I’ve reminded my own self in myself to myself. Thank you Sharon. Hallelujah won’t you stand with me please? Glory to God. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus, praise Jesus, hallelujah, hallelujah. Praise the Name of the Lord (Praises)

I want to tell you this is why it gives me so much confidence to be able to testify about Jesus to other people, because when other people hear about the Jesus that’s in me, you know. The very first thing they want to do but they say look at you, you make mistakes as a human being. Got me! Can’t fault your statement. I am an imperfect human being. But greater is He that is in me than he that is in my own weakness and so if you want to judge my God by my weakness that’s your problem. But if you want all of what my God has got, you can have Him. Without condition. Hallelujah. This gives me confidence to preach the Gospel. Because it’s not about me being perfect. It’s about me having faith. Hallelujah, praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.

Come on let’s pray together. Pray this with me say, “Lord, I declare that Jesus is my Lord. He’s the Saviour of my life. I declare, that every sin, every weakness is in me Jesus, the Blood of Jesus is more powerful than all of my weakness. I put my faith in that and I receive my strength to live in Him and be productive eternally. In Jesus Name. And you say? Amen”. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, this is Good News, this is Good News. Glory to Jesus, glory to God, hallelujah.

I’ve preached myself happy on my birthday. Thank you for coming to church. God bless you all.