Scripture Reference: 1 Peter 2:9 (NKJV); Romans 12:3 (KJV); Acts 2:16 (NKJV); Hebrews 12:1-2 (NKJV); Hebrews 4:16 (NKJV); Hebrews 6:1 (NKJV); Hebrews 10:22-24 (NKJV); Hebrews 12:28 (NKJV); Hebrews 13:15 (NKJV); Acts 20:20-21 (NKJV)
Are we ready to go? Matthew, have we got that clip? Can we run with that clip?
Audio Clip of Brother Jerry:
Thank you very much. Praise God. I’m honoured by the way you’ve honoured us and our ministry and calling of God on our lives. We thank you for that. And obviously, as a spiritual father, this is a very proud moment. There’s nothing more exciting than to see, you know, spiritual offspring carrying on the vision and excelling. Hallelujah. I remember one day standing next to Oral Roberts and Brother Copeland, and Brother Roberts was expressing to Brother Copeland how proud he was of him. He said, “You know, you’re reaching areas that I’ve never been able to reach in all these years of my ministry.” He said, “In a lot of ways, your ministry is larger than mine in many ways.” And he didn’t say it in grief, he was proud of a spiritual son who had taken what he had imparted into him and taken it to another level. Amen. And I believe that’s exactly what’s going to happen here. You guys are going to take it a lot further than I’ve been able to in the 34 years I’ve been coming to this continent. You’re going to take it to another level, and I’m just going to sit back and enjoy watching it. Hallelujah. Amen. It’s your time. Amen. Give the Lord a good shout. Praise God. Amen. Hallelujah.
And I want to publicly express my sincere gratitude to Joe McCroskey. He’s been serving in this ministry for 31 years now. And that’s pretty rare in the body of Christ to find some fine people that stay where God plants them. Amen? And, thank you, Joe. I can’t express to you enough how grateful I am for that. Of course, he’s my cousin, I wouldn’t let him leave anyway. Hallelujah. I’m older than him, he has to do what I tell him. Hallelujah. Amen.
Pastor John Bendixen:
That was in 2012 and at that time, Joe had been in the ministry with Brother Jerry for 31 years or whatever it was, and by the time Brother Jerry went home to be with the Lord, I think it ended up being 45 years. And then he was saying it’s not often you find anybody that will stay planted for all that amount of time. You know, I’ve had conversations with Brother Joe plenty since Brother Jerry’s departure. And I want to say there was between then and now, for many weeks, we would talk daily, sometimes even more than once a day. We would talk on the phone, and, it’s been just a wonderful journey because our relationship has always exceeded and gone beyond that one of when I was working full time with Brother Jerry in the ministry, and my only job at that time was to be the director of Jerry Savelle Ministries for the first couple of years. I never ever saw him just as my boss. I always saw him as a spiritual man. God showed that to me, and I’m glad He did because between him and I there has always been a very strong element of honour between us. And, I guess, you know, in my own walk with God, I was planted in my church for 19 years, and now I’ve been with Brother Jerry for 28 years almost, yeah, 28 years when he left. I was planted, you know, it’s a powerful thing. We talk about being planted, but actually another way to put it is being accountable.
So, when Brother Jerry came here in 2012, he had made a decision that he was going to take it easy. I don’t think he intended to fully never ever minister again. At that time, he was talking more along the lines of, “I think I’ll just minister where I want to.” It will be selective. So, I don’t think he was ever going to stop preaching in Brother Copeland’s, Southwest Believers’ Convention, for example, and in 2012, I think there were other believer conventions that were still going. I want to say I think there was still one in Milwaukee. There were a few believers’ conventions and some other meetings that they did together, and I don’t think that Brother Jerry ever intended to stop preaching altogether, but he certainly had intended to go off the road. And he was not going to believe God for another aeroplane and that was always going to be a major part of his ministry. I’m already talking about Touching the Dream, session 2, in case you didn’t know. So Brother Jerry never had intended to do that, but certainly when he was here, he had personal meetings with me, and basically, he was saying, “John, I’m not coming back to Africa again and you are going to continue to fulfil the mandate that God called me to do.”
So, I mean, that he said to me personally. He didn’t need to say that publicly, but he said that to me personally. And so when he came and stood here in public, in this church, in this geographic location, he said what he just said. So he had a recognition that God had done something special here. Amen. You know, we had a ministry that was, I want to say in terms of how many we had, membership of maybe 600, 700 people in 2003, 2004, and we had our first Bible school graduation in 2003, I think. It was 2003 or 2004 in Johannesburg, when Brother Jerry came here to do the graduation, and I I believe we did 220 odd students just in the Johannesburg location. And then there were four or five other locations in the Cape and different places. And, he was standing on the stage with me and he said to me, looking over all the students and looking at all of this and that, you know, at that time we agreed that he should have the title as president. Later on, he didn’t want to be that involved in 2012. So we asked him to be the chancellor, which is a non executive position, if you like, of the Bible school.
So, well, after we had this amazing evening where he said, “I’m busy standing in my dream, John.” The dream of people graduating from Bible school. It was his Bible school. That was his ministry, meaning us. I mean, he didn’t actually physically come and preach in any and teach any one of those courses, but I always gave him the honour that whatever we did he did. And he said, “I’m standing in my dream.” Well, you know, it wasn’t but a week, that same night actually, some people were conniving against our ministry and it ended up splitting the Church, causing many things. And, you know, Brother Jerry, ended up phoning me back from the USA when he got back and stayed in contact with me. And, because he said to me, he said, “John, it’s rare that I see any ministry survive from this, from this kind of onslaught by the devil to divide the Church.” So when he came in 2012 and he saw what manner of church we had, he recognised the call of God. He recognised that what he had spoken over me when he laid hands on me and sent me into the ministry in the year 2000 in the Sandton Convention Centre, when he laid hands on me with Joe and Earl Sherrick and various others, and he laid hands on me and sent me into the ministry as a pastor.
You know, he recognised that what he had prayed over me was still working. So what the enemy had meant for harm, God had turned it around for certain good, and here we are as an amazing ministry. And I believe Brother Jerry is watching from heaven. I mean, the Bible says he is. He’s in the great cloud of witnesses and he’s watching. And when he hears us talk about, like this, I bet you he’s up there saying, “Hey, someone’s using my name there. Let me see what’s going, oh, it’s John. I know what he’s going to say next.” Because it’s real time in the spirit. It’s real time. He knows what’s going on here. Amen.
So, part of my accountability, and I’ll talk about this a little bit later, part of my accountability that I chose to have with Brother Jerry, Brother Jerry never asked me for many things that I gave him, because he recognised that I’m a pastor of the ministry. And, you know, he can’t be here in every meeting, he can’t be here in everything. So he had to recognise that some things the anointing takes care of, and some things the gifting takes care of. Amen.
But over the years, in many different forms, I would give him report on what the church was doing. It is possible that he that he didn’t ask me for it because I just gave it to him, you know. So, every year, I would give him a report. Sometimes it would just be four pages or six pages, eight pages. Around about 2021, 2022, somewhere around that I think this is the revised one that I gave, I decided I really wanted him to know what was happening in the ministry, and I printed this book. We did a whole lot of work in this ministry and we printed this book called, The Witness. Everything the ministry does is in here and there’s no extra verbiage to give it more papers. Everything that’s in here, we actually try to break it down to the very least amount of words that we could say, so that this book would tell what the story is of our ministry. The Witness, a journey from ancient paths to new discoveries. I gave a copy to Joe, gave a copy to Brother Jerry and then we did a revised version and let him have that. And so, in here is everything that he ever would want to know. Some of your pictures, a lot of your pictures are in this book. Some of the Mixchange’s pictures are here in the book, shovelling food in their mouths. Chariots of Light is in this book. Our mission strips are in this book. Spring Valley is in this book. I’s all here, it’s all here. Thank you, Empie.
So, I God called me to Brother Jerry, so that means He called us. So, you know, there are some things that will never change, but everything’s changed. Amen. I mean, we are in relationship with the people of JSMI and Heritage of Faith, and God willing, that will never change. God willing, that will get stronger. The reason I say God willing, because I’m dealing with a new era, if you like, and people are different. I always knew how Brother Jerry was going to behave and react, and now there’s new people doing new things, and I’m not sure yet how they’re going to react and behave and so we’ll just see how that all turns out. But I say, God willing, and as far as I can, this won’t change much. Amen.
I just want to remind you of this scripture that I read this morning, 1 Peter 2 verse 9, 9 But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light (1 Peter 2:9 NKJV). So, we are a very peculiar people, we are a strange people. Just ask the world. They don’t quite know how to deal with us. Yeah. We are a confident bunch of people because we are confident in our calling. We are confident in our salvation. And I think as a Church of the Lord Jesus, we are becoming and His people, we are becoming more certain of our salvation and not having to defend our salvation wherever we are. We are becoming a people that is learning how to live in the world, but not be like the world. We are learning that more and more. Okay.
So, we’re talking about dreams. What did you think about this morning session? It was alright, hey? Holy Spirit was involved in this meeting this morning. It was okay. Thank you, Martie. She says very good. Thank you. Amen. Praise the Lord. What do you say, Melusi, Pastoor van Diepsloot? (Pastor of Diepsloot) Very good. Very good. Amen. Praise the Lord.
Kenneth E Hagin, about that scripture I’ve just read, he said it this way; under the new covenant, all believers are made kings and priests unto God. In other words, all believers have access to God for themselves. They don’t have to go through a priest or a sacrificial system to get to God. They don’t have to go through an intermediary of any kind. Even a person who stands in a ministry office. In order to get to God or to receive his counsel and guidance. Of course, the pastor has the oversight of the flock, but believers don’t have to go through their pastor to get their prayers answered or to be able to communicate with God.
This is a wonderful freedom that we all have. We are kings and priests. All believers are both kings and priests. And none of you have to ask my permission or use me to talk to God. Go ahead and have at it as much as you want, as often as you want, as intensely as you want, as little as you want, but have at it. There is no stopping you. Amen. So my job then is to be the shepherd of the flock, not an intermediary. Right? So then the people who God has given to be leaders in the ministry as 5 fold ministry, our job is to do what I read to you in Ephesians this morning, is to allow you to grow into maturity. Presenting Christ to you, presenting the Gospel to you, presenting God’s Word and God’s order to you, so that in the order and in His Word, you get free. You are free to pursue God even more.
So, like every parent, it’s their job to create an environment for a child to grow in. I don’t want to put myself in as a parent over people in the church, but it’s a similar role. It is to create an environment for people who are young in the Lord, to grow up and become mature in the Lord. So what happens when mature people get to maturity in the Lord and they are still in the same church? Well, we are going to talk about that, but the ideal is that when they grow up and they become mature, that they take a place in the church where their gift is operating, and they do the work of ministry, as said this morning, they do the work of ministry. Amen.
One of the people that Brother Hagin often…. he did a lot of reading and he was one of the people that he would sometimes refer to, as has many other great and wonderful men have made reference to a writer, preacher, minister by the name of AW Tozer, and this is what AW Tozer had to say.
Every Christian then should be vitally concerned with and personally interested in what the Bible tells us about the functions of the members. You are the members. You should be interested in the functions of the members. These functions, called gifts in the Bible, are special abilities. They are gifts from God out of the store of His grace. Paul wrote to the church, the Roman church, this reminder from Romans 12 verse 3, 3 For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, according to God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith (Romans 12:3 KJV).
So we all need to have a very sober mindset about ourselves because we are all members of the body of Christ. We are all connected. We are all needed with each other, to each other, for each other. We cannot actually grow without each other. Yeah. We can’t. I want to say that I have always believed this. I want to tell you, I believed this when I was 12 years old, 11 years old and 12 years old. I believed this not because I thought I had anything in particular that was better than anybody else, but when I was 11 years old, I used to stand up. Those days, we had Assemblies of God Church, and we, the church that was in Pretoria anyway, that my dad was the pastor of. The church would sit like in a square almost with a pulpit in the middle, and it was designed that way so that on a Sunday morning, they would have what is called open ministry time. And so I used to prepare, you’ve heard me tell you this story, I used to prepare every Sunday in case I could preach. Talk about a gift, you talk about a calling, talk about a dream. I had a dream. Every Sunday, I wanted to preach, man. I wanted to preach. Many people have asked me over time, this is just for free, many people over time have asked me, “If you have a teaching gift and you have, some of the gifts that are reflected in Romans 12 verse 3 to 6, if you have a gift like that, how do you know that those gifts will also be a five fold gift?” So if you’re a teacher, how do you know you’re going to also have a five fold calling, teaching gift? I’ll tell it to you like this; when the zeal of God is so strong on you and the anointing of God is so strong on you and the call of God is so strong on you that you cannot stay out of public appearance. It’s not what you want to do. It’s what you, it’s like pulling you. Yes? It’s like, I’ve got to teach somebody about Jesus. I’ve got to preach something. I’ve got to. So for me, I mean, when I couldn’t do it in the church when I was eleven and twelve years old, when we moved to Johannesburg and my dad took the church in Johannesburg, I went to the streets. I did what Brother Jerry did. He went and preached on the streets. I couldn’t keep quiet. I had to preach. I went into the streets to preach. That’s how you’ll tell if you’ve got a five fold ministry. People won’t stop you. Your ministry will drive you to preach somewhere.
See, in this environment, it looks like what I’m doing is easy, and it looks like I can stand here and do what he’s doing, because I can communicate well, and I can read the Bible, and I can talk, and so I can do it. It’s an easy thing to do. Not really. You might be able to do it once or twice, but when you’re, when you’re living with the same people all the time, you better have an authenticity that’s personal leadership in your life. Right? Better be more than just, ‘I can preach.’ Yeah. Amen. Wat sê julle almal? [What do you say?] So we, as the church, we are all members, and we need each other. We need each other. Acts chapter 2 verse 16, 16 but this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 And it shall come to pass in the last day, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. I’ve been dreaming quite a lot lately. I wonder what that says. Don’t you say it. 18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants, I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy (Acts 2:16 NKJV). Well, I believe that whatever your desire is and whatever your walk with God is, you can pull on the Holy Spirit for dreams, for visions, for prophecies. And, whatever state your flesh is in, whatever age your flesh is in, doesn’t matter. This is what the Spirit of God can bring to you. Amen.
So then, we have to talk about a dream. What is a God-given dream and what is a personal dream? Well, I would say it like this. Everybody can have a personal dream. So if I wanted to be someone that wanted to make money out of teaching people how to dream, I suspect that my life example and the leadership that God has placed in my life from the military to business to ministry, I think I would have quite a good story to tell. I think I could come up with a lot of bullet points to tell people how to dream. Right? I could come up with really good PowerPoint presentations. I could come up with lots of things that are in the Bible. I could come up with a lot of stuff where I can teach you how to dream, how to fulfil your goals, how to set goals, how to have objectives in your life, how to have personal mission statements. In fact, some of this is in Leadership Academy. Right? But God is wanting us to dream His dream. God’s wanting us to dream His dream. That’s a whole different ball game. It’s a whole different ball game because, I can set goals and I can chase after something and you know what they say, if you aim for the stars and you hit the moon, you’ve still got further than someone else that never left the earth? Right? So, aim for the stars.
Hey, you can set any goals for yourself that you want to set for yourself in life. There’s no one that’s going to stop you from doing whatever you want to do. You’re looking at me like, “Where you going with this, Pastor John?” I mean, I’m just saying, in real terms, if I wasn’t pulling you into the plan of God and into the purposes of God, if I wasn’t teaching that, then I would say to you, “You can do anything you want. You can plan anything you want. You can set any dream you want. You can have any kind of goals that you want and you can reach for them. Use self discipline and go for it.” Right? You can do that. There’s nothing stopping anybody from doing that.
But to aim and to reach for what God has got for your life, it requires something different. So, Brother Jerry preached a message many years ago. In fact, he preached it in a number of different places. I want to say he preached it at a believers conference, a believers convention, I want to say, maybe 15 years ago, maybe longer. He preached about a God-inspired dream. He said, “These are 7 things that if these seven things are present, it’s most likely a God-inspired dream.” Why could he not say it’s definitely a God-inspired dream? Because he doesn’t know if God is inspiring a dream in you. If these things are present, it’s most likely a God-inspired dream. Okay?
Number 1, if it captures your imagination and inspires and motivates you every day of your life, if it captures your imagination and inspires and motivates you every day of your life. Well, I can say this about my desire to be in the ministry. From when I was a little boy, I don’t know that there was ever a day that went by – not even when I was thinking about being a game ranger and being a a sportsman – there was never a day that went by that in my own walk with God, in my own communication with God that there wasn’t something that was pulling me to preach. You know, when you’re 8 years old, 10 years old, 12 years old, 13, 14, 15 years old, you don’t think about your preaching in terms of being a leader of a church. You know, you just want to be used by God to preach.
Number 2, if it seems impossible and you are unable to fulfill it on your own and it would require faith to do it. Why? It would require faith because you couldn’t do it on your own. You would need God’s glory to get it done. God’s power to get it done. The supernatural to get it done. So if it seems impossible and you’re unable to fulfill it on your own, part of that, he didn’t say this, but part of that I believe he said at that time was, I know that I can’t do it without you. Right? I mean, we need each other if we’re going to fulfil God’s dreams for our lives.
Number 3, if it seems as though it will never come to pass, but deep down inside of you, you’re unwilling to give up on it. I’ll tell you, there are still some things that I’m believing God for that haven’t yet come to pass, but I’m pressing. Hey. Isn’t that the story of Brother Jerry’s life for 20 years? He believed in God for an international jet, and then he got it 2 or 3 years before he went to heaven. Thank God he saw the end of his faith, and yet he was still pressing for more things. He was going to build a bigger church building. He was going to believe God for this. He was going to do a whole lot of other stuff before. His faith was still active, pushing towards a dream that was bigger than him, unable to fulfill it all by himself. Many times, it must have seemed to him like it would never come to pass, but deep down inside of him, he was unwilling to give up on it and certainly, I’m unwilling to give up on the things that God has called me to do. Amen. Hey, Martie, that’s what drives you. That deep-down thing. You’re unwilling to give up on it. So you’re still pressing. Yes. Amen.
Come on. If you got a dream that God has put in your life to do something different, to make an impact, to be significant, to press the boundaries, to do something, you can’t give up on it. It’s a passion inside of you. It’s driving you. It’s like a fire inside your belly. It keeps you awake at night, sometimes. Huh? Yeah.
This one, I mean, this happens a lot; if not everyone is as enthusiastic about it as you are. Well, sure. I mean, you see things that they don’t see because the calling is pulling you. Hey? Number 5, if you’ve experienced resistance, difficulties, frustrations, and sometimes you just want to quit, then you can almost certainly say this is probably a dream from God for my life.
Number 6, if it consumes your thinking and even seems to get bigger and bigger. Wow. Well, as you get things done and you say, hey, that part of the dream got done, it’s got to get bigger because if you stop dreaming, then you start dying. I believe that with all my heart. If you stop dreaming, you start dying. So whatever age you are, you got to dream something. And the best thing to do is no matter how old you get, if you’re getting older, your dream can get stronger and stronger, how to impart to someone else, to help someone else, to bless someone else, to strengthen someone else with whatever you’ve got so your dream can still keep going.
Number 7, if it defines your life and shapes your life, it is most likely a dream from God. If it defines your life and shapes your life. I want you to see what’s absent here. What’s absent here? What’s absent here is how much it can do for me. Right? So what Brother Jerry had from the Lord then about a God-inspired dream, is this what’s absent here; what is it going to do for me? How much am I going to get out of it? How am I going to drive the Maserati, or I’m going to do a school bus thing? It’s absent. The Maserati is absent from this. Self-glory, self-honour, self-entitlement, it’s absent from here. Hey? I’ll tell you what. That’s one of the big ways that you can tell between having a personal dream and having a God-inspired dream is if God gives you a dream, it’s always going to be about somebody else, for somebody else, to somebody else, and it’s not going to be about you. If your dream is about you, then you can almost certainly say, this is not a God-inspired dream. This is a desire, a dream that is in me, that I want for me. Amen.
I’m so glad that Brother Jerry preached this. You know, because he said it, I don’t have to say it. Because I say a lot of things already that put people on the back foot. Not big foot, back foot. You know, I mean, I know that I’m already quite radical and our ministry is a a really strong ministry. So sometimes I’m very glad that someone else says it first. And then I can just repeat what they said, and it makes it a little easier for me. Amen. Praise the Lord.
Matthew, is he hearing me? Whoever’s in the back there, I would like to play the second clip now, please. Hello? Thank you, Reyhan.
Audio Clip of Brother Jerry:
I don’t have the guarantee of a paycheck, but God told me if I would be faithful to His Word, and give it first place in my life, He said, “I will take care of you.” And He did. And we never looked back, praise God. But then, you know, when we began to get in the Word and discover that God promised us houses, He promised us prosperity, He promised us divine health, He even said, “I’ll fill those houses with good things.” Carolyn found a scripture one day that said; He will fill your house with treasures. Oh, her faith went up to another level. Praise God. And she insisted my faith goes with hers. Hallelujah. Because Brother Jerry, she said,; “We’re going to have treasures. We’re not only going to have a good house, it’s going to be filled with good things and even treasures.” Hallelujah. And God began to honour it. Amen. Now there were times when it looked like, is this ever going to work? Anybody ever had that thought? Is this ever going to work? But we go back and read that verse. They all died in faith and wouldn’t give up. What they were believing for was not even intended for their lifetime, but they were unwilling to give up on it. Surely, we can stand for whatever God wants us to have in our lifetime. Can you say, Amen? Amen.
Pastor John Bendixen:
I know you listened to the message. So, I’m just giving you clips to remind you of some of the things that were important. I want to read to you Hebrews chapter 12 verse 1, and it says this, 1Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:1-2 NKJV)
Let us run. Let us run with endurance. I think the King James version says, let us run with patience. He said in that message, and if you listen to it, you can listen again and again. I believe, I’m taking that message for us now. It doesn’t matter that it’s 12 years old. That message is still alive, and all of the principles that are in that message is still alive, and I’m still standing on some of the stuff that he said then. And one of the things he said then was some faith projects are about to be completed. Those faith projects that you have been standing on are about to be completed, and he was standing in this pulpit in Witbank. Some faith projects are about to be completed. And I’m just telling you, I believe that some faith projects are about to be completed. Amen. Amen. So you can take it for yourself.
Another thing that he said in that message, he said the following. He said, “I have learned not to talk what’s going on in your head, but to talk what’s going on in your heart.” Now how would he have the confidence to talk what’s going on in his heart? Because he was constantly in the Word. So because he was in the Word, he would pray in the Spirit, he was in the Word, and the Word was coming into his life, he was confident about what was in his heart. Stay with me. The other thing he never did, is he never spoke with his mouth criticism or judgement or opinions about other ministries or about other people by name. Sometimes, and even in that message, he would say, a minister said this to me, and I know the setting. It was in a very public setting where a minister actually challenged him about a hundredfold return and when he tells the story about a minister challenging him and he says, “Have you had a return on every seed, a hundredfold return on every seed that you sow?” I can tell you that that was in a setting where the room was at least the size of this room and it was filled with some of the biggest name preachers in the world, and someone challenged him from the podium about his belief in a hundredfold return. And what he said to you is what he said that day. “Not yet. I’ve had many seeds that have come back with a hundredfold return. Not everyone, not yet.” So you never give up on a seed sown. Amen.
So he learned not to talk what was going on in his head, but to talk what was in his heart. So if you’ve been, you know what the Bible says, guard your heart because out of your heart flows the issues of life. So you’ve got to guard your heart. So, if you’re listening to what other people say about different people, different pastors, different churches, different things, if you’re listening to that and there’s criticism, there’s opinions, there’s judgement, then you’re not going to be sure about what’s in your heart. So, when God is speaking a word to you, that you’ve got to go and check on what’s in your heart, that you’re not speaking from your head, but what’s in your heart, now you’re not that sure about what’s in your heart. Cause all kinds of stuff has come out of you. Right? So,you have to protect what’s in your heart. Amen.
So, let us run, let us run with endurance. Remember what of the seven things; if you don’t think you’re going to fulfil it in your lifetime, if it seems like it’s bigger than you, what does that mean? It means you’ve got to still keep running. Right? And you’ve got to run with endurance until you can get it done. Hey, don’t go to sleep on me now this time of the afternoon. Oh, you want to dream, so you’re sleeping. Dream tonight, don’t dream now. I’m teaching you about dreams now. Amen.
Hebrews 4 verse 16, ¹⁶ Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16 NKJV). Let us. ¹ … let us go on to perfection (Hebrews 6:1 NKJV). ²² Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:22 NKJV). Hebrews 10:22. ²³ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23 NKJV). Hebrews 10:23 ²⁴ … let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works (Hebrews 10:24 NKJV). Hebrews 10:24. 28 … let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear (Hebrews 12:28 NKJV). Hebrews 12:28. ¹⁵ … let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name (Hebrews 13:15 NKJV). Hebrews 13:15. Let us run with endurance. Let us, let us, let us. Come on. Let us. Let us. Let us. Let us do this. Let us.
You know, when Brother Jerry was here, he said in the year of 2012, he said, “Let us give it everything you’ve got. Let us give it everything you’ve got.” You know, he was actually here. Brother Jerry was that kind of man. He understood what his ministry did, and he understood what his authority did, and he understood what his calling did. And, you know, as I got to know him over the years, I realised that actually there are many similarities between his calling and mine. Most people who are around me will know that I am slow to bring harsh discipline. You know, I’m much quicker to give encouraging marginal correction, encouraging marginal correction. That’s the nature of what I do. I don’t turn a blind eye to what’s going wrong, but I’m encouraging people to change, to do things differently, to have a different approach, a better approach, and to do better. So, you might want to call me someone who’s nurturing. I’m much more of a nurturing person. I’m much more of a, come, let’s do it together. Oh, you’re falling. Come, let me help you up. Let someone help you up. Let’s go and do this together. That’s my calling. But I’ve also learned that when I have a strong recognition, and I do, it’s the way I learned faith, is I actually understand the great love of God. I learned it from Kenneth Hagin, that actually, if you take the high road of love, then God is honour bound because you exercise unconditional love. He’s honour bound to fix everything that goes wrong in the natural. And so Kenneth Hagin had a situation, and I don’t want to get all of it now, where a man treated him very poorly when he went and preached at the church, and he could have reported him, and he didn’t report him. And God taught him about how he would love unconditionally and not address a natural thing because you can. He often left it up to God to fix it or to do something. Amen.
So, you know, Brother Jerry, he understood that he was a gentle person, but that never made him a weak person. A gentle person that is a meek person is actually a very strong person. Most people don’t understand meekness. They think meekness is weakness, but actually meekness is strong. It’s really strong. And, I mean, you know, the Bible speaks about Moses as being the meekest man, but he was a strong leader because he was meek. So, Brother Jerry was just that kind of man and he knew that if he came and this happened to him a lot. He knew he would sometimes come into a church and he would know, “Tonight or today, this is a marker moment for this church. My ministry here in this pulpit, this day, it’s a marker moment for this church,” and often God would use his apostolic ministry to bring something to a church and he would know it’s a marker moment. For the majority of Brother Jerry’s life, I want to say out of the 55 years that he was in the ministry, I’d say at least 42, 43 years of his ministry, every church he went to, every church he preached at and where he went to, he required, at first, a cassette and or then a CD and or then some form of audio recording that he would keep in his archives for a period of time. Because he had experienced over time that sometimes people would say, but you said this in my church because things would happen when he would preach. And that church would have an altered course of direction forever because of things that God would have him say.
So, when he came here, if you listen to that recording, he said, I want it to be on record. He knew this may be the marker moment of this ministry and this relationship. So, I want it to be on record that you’ve got to live by faith. You’ve got to run this race with endurance. You’ve got to keep pressing for all the things that God’s got for you. And so, yes, he made it also about the next year’s word of the Lord. But he was making a marker message about a church that was going to follow the message of faith. Remember, this was 2012.
It was 2014 that I first took a bunch of people across to America to go and say to him, “These are my sons, this is my strength, use it as you wish.” And from 2014, our relationship got closer and closer because, of course, God spoke to him and said, “Did I tell you to slow down?” “No, Lord.” “So why are you doing this, Jerry? Believe me for the next aeroplane.” Remember? So, I’m just saying that when he made a marker message in this church, I thank God that when I received that message, I said, “Okay, Lord, I’m drawing closer. I’m not leaving him. I’m not letting him just come and preach here and then leave because even though he said he wasn’t going to come back, I never knew when he was going to come back, if ever. So, I started going to him. So that marker message was a marker message, it changed everything. Amen. Praise the Lord.
I want to make sure that, I’ve got another half an hour. Do you think you can handle another half an hour? I’m not sure. I think you must stand up. Shake a leg. Tell somebody, “You’ve got to be ready for the next half hour.” Please tell somebody else, “Please be ready for the next half hour.” Miranda, are you awake? [Mirand responds, I’m very awake.] She had a nap this afternoon. She’s awake. Oh dear. Praise the Lord. So, are you okay now? You got some blood rushing to the head. Okay. Jy’s wakker, wakker – wawyd wakker. (You’re awake, wide awake) Amen. Ok, please be seated.
Okay, church. You wonderful people. I’m going to end off this session today with rocket fuel. Rocket fuel. Are you ready for rocket fuel? I’ll tell you what, boy, God is great. So, amazing.
D. L. Moody said this; We are not told that Jesus ever taught His disciples how to preach, but He taught them how to pray. Isn’t it amazing that everybody wants to preach, but not all preachers want to pray? I mean, all of these people I’m going to quote now are really people that are giants in the Church of the Lord Jesus. E. M. Bounds said; What the church needs today is not machinery or better, not new organisations or more and novel methods, but men whom the Holy Spirit can use – men mighty in prayer. The Holy Spirit does not flow through methods, but through men of prayer. And we might add, through women of prayer. Amen. Why is that such a profound statement? Well, because so much about the church in this world that we’re living is about the new methods. Methods. And certainly, what you and I are going to be talking about tomorrow, maybe we’ll touch on it in the next half hour, we’ll see how we go. Hey, I’ve got nothing against having online church services. If people are planted in this church and they can’t make it here because people come from a host of geographic locations, but this is where they planted, I don’t mind them watching and being connected to us because circumstances don’t permit them. Right? I don’t mind sending you every morning an encouraging message on YouTube or some form of social media where you can hear about dreams. Right? And, or other subjects.
I mean, these are all good methods, but if methods replace prayer, then we just become another organisation. We just have a product that we sell. It’s called, “Feel like you belong, feel like you belong somewhere.” But we may might as well be a gang. Because gang members feel like they belong, and they feel significantly part of a family, and they’ll die for their family. But God doesn’t want His Church to be a gang. [Pastor John starts laughing] Melusi was in one of those when he was young, so he knows what it’s all about. But, you know, God doesn’t want churches to be gangs or equivalent like the mafia. “There’s the head boss, and then there’s all the lieutenants, and then everybody’s got to come and give their gifts to the boss.” [Pastor John speaks in a Mafia boss & congregation laughs] It is more real than you think, in many, many churches.
God doesn’t want us to be like that. He wants us to be a church that is a praying church, because then in prayer, we change everything. Everything. Don’t you feel like, hey, politically we got some hope in our country, at last? After 30 years, we’ve got some hope in our country at last. I mean, thank God that prayer has worked and the ANC has got some sense and the Democratic Alliance have got some sense, and the IFP, they’re coming to alliance. And now is the time to keep pressing in for prayer so that our nation can arise from the depths of all the stuff that it’s been in all these years. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We got a part to play in it. Our prayers have got a part to play in it. Praise Jesus. Aren’t you glad that you’re a praying church and on the other side of this whole thing, you can say, “We’ve been praying all these years for this to happen.” And you know, when we get to heaven, every prayer that we’ve all prayed in this church, God is going to say, “Hey, you came and you prayed, you prayed, you prayed, you prayed. Come into the joy of the Lord, and your prayer is part of your gold. It’s part of your gold. It’s part of your eternal reward. Your prayers. When you came together to pray for that, you prayed according to My Word. You prayed My will. It’s your gold.” Wow. Praise Jesus. I spat on my {Pastor John referring to his iPad] And on you too? Sorry, babe. I’ll keep my distance. It’s holy spit. Thank you, babe.
Oswald Chambers said this; Prayer does not fit us for the greater work. Prayer is the greater work. So when we hear stuff like this, you want to go and do business, you want to be more effective in business, you want the calling of God and the anointing of God on your business? You think it’s any different the way you get that anointing? It’s the same thing. Prayer is the greater work for you. The more you can pray before you work, the more your work is going to be in line with what God wants. He will lead you to deals. He will cause you to have things and things will happen to you that are way beyond your wildest dreams if you will give your time to God before you go and give your time to customers.
So, you people, you would expect your pastor to be spiritual. Right? Well, do you think God doesn’t expect you to be spiritual when you’re doing business? You are the difference maker in the earth. When you’re out there doing something like, Doctor Nico, I mean, I don’t want to get caught up in Doctor Nico’s stuff, but he’s been sending me stuff over the last couple of days. And what amazing testimonies. He’s got miracles that has happened by his hands that God has done. And like he said, you know, he just provides the environment and God does the healing. You know? But it’s a wonderful thing that I know that when people go to him, they touch a spirit being that says, “I know what faith is. I know what faith is, and I want to pray for you, and I want to pray.” Some of you have been to Doctor Gerrie, and when you go there, he prays for you. We spirit beings, wherever we are, whatever we’re supposed to be doing, we’re supposed to be doing it because we’re prepared in God. The more you prepare in God, the better your life outside of the church, when you’re not here in the church, wherever you’re supposed to be, the better you’re going to function there.
I’ve said this to you many, many times, my testimony of when I was having to solve a big problem with one of our partners in the business, and it was like, this company had been partners with us for a long time and this thing happened, and it was like, if we lose this partner, we lose a major channel of business in our company. So I had to go in there and speak to them and try and solve the problem. I went into the boardroom, I was there early, and I went into the boardroom, and I just started praying in the Spirit and the next minute, the anointing of God came all over me, and I just started to laugh. And I just said, “Lord, I can’t be laughing now.” I mean, this was a very serious, heavy meeting, you know. If they come in here and they see me laughing and drunk in the Spirit, this is not a good thing. That’s what’s happening in my mind. As I’m laughing in the Spirit, I mean, the anointing is all over me. I’m almost drunk in the Spirit. I’m so laughing in the Spirit. And I said, in my mind, I’m saying, “Lord, please not now.” And I mean, like, thirty seconds or a minute before they all came walking in the boardroom, the Holy Spirit just lifted His presence off me like that, just gently. I became more normal, normal. Their kind of normal. So, they all came, sat around the boardroom table, and they didn’t even let me speak. “Hey, John. Don’t worry about it. We got it. We saw what the problem is. We know how to fix it. Don’t worry. There’s no issues here. We just gotta fix this, make sure this doesn’t happen again. This doesn’t …” “No problem. You got it? You got it? Okay. Let’s go on. Let’s make money. Let’s do business together.” I mean, that thing was over in ten minutes. We thought we’re going to, this contract, this sub clause, this, and you didn’t deliver that, and just like that, ten minutes. Holy Spirit took care of it. Come on.
This is the way we can do stuff. We can get stuff done. We can be highly productive beyond our human reason. That’s why as people that do normal things, we can do extraordinary things. That’s what we’re supposed to do. How about this? You know Max Lucado? Some of you know him. He’s a good author. When we work, we work, but when we pray, God works. Hello? When we work, we work. This sounds too simple. I mean, but it’s so powerful, isn’t it? When we work, we work, but when we pray, God works. Hallelujah. Come on. In our ministry, here, us together as a church, in our business, and all the things that our gifts and members of what we’re going to do together, we have to do this all together. As we pray, God works. God works. God’s working on it. Amen.
Turbocharge. We’re already heading to turbocharge because God has called all of us to be multi-dimensional beings. How many of you heard me speak about this multi-dimensional thing? Many, many years I’ve been speaking about multi-dimensional relationships, multi-dimensional things. I want to read you something that a man by the name of Simpson said. The Christian that is bound by his own horizon, the church that lives simply for itself, is bound to die a spiritual death, and sink into stagnancy, and corruption. We never can thank God enough for giving us not only a whole Gospel to believe, but a whole world to give it to. I’m going to read that again. The Christian that is bound by his own horizon, in other words, I can only see what I can see and that’s enough for me. The church that lives simply for itself is bound to die a spiritual death, and sink into stagnancy, and corruption. We never can thank God enough for giving us not only a whole Gospel to believe, but a whole world to give it to. Amen.
Pastor Sharon and I, after listening to Brother Jerry’s 2012 message that he brought here, a daughter of ours, a spiritual daughter who was in our church got married to a man, a Nigerian man, and they were, I mean I was, I still am her spiritual father. She asked me to marry her, walk her down the aisle, and all that, and, they were in that service. And the next day, they asked to see us and they came to tell us what they saw in the spirit. And they declared and he prophesied and he declared that I would be ministering to thousands of black people, white people, coloured people, brown people, all over the world and all over this continent. Well, you know, at that time, you know, you hear a prophecy like that and you say, “Cool.” But I’ll tell you that, I don’t see Sid and Pat here. There they are. I mean Sid and Pat will tell you how many churches we have touched around Africa. Thousands of people, pastors. Right, Pat? Sid? Thousands. To some measure that prophecy has already come to pass, to some measure. After 2012, our Crossborder Missions Ministry started to happen. We started to plan for it, and so we have, not just because of our connection with Brother Jerry, but certainly everything is because of our connection with Brother Jerry, but also because of the call of God on my life. So, you know, God’s master plan is amazing. When he called Brother Jerry, He knew that at some point He was going to need someone like me. And so He put the calling on me, and He put the calling on him, and He put the two callings together, and so they were able to do what they both needed to do together. And so he’s gone and we still keep going. Amen.
So, it’s time for us as a church to activate the dreams that God has for our church. And so we have to go and become more intentional about things that God wants us to do, not just here in Witbank, but everywhere in South Africa. Everywhere in Africa, everywhere in the world. Hey. Are you listening? Heritage of Faith, South Africa, are you listening?
Acts chapter 20 verse 20 and 21 says, 20 How I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, 21 testifying to Jews and also to Greeks, repentance towards God and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ (Acts 20:20-21 NKJV). I would like you to see a few things here. That when Paul is talking, he’s talking about publicly and from house to house. That means house to house, but publicly, is however public it might be. In those days, they would go and stand in the town square, and anybody that could hear them would shout, and that was their platform. Today, it could be social media, it could be television, it could be auditoriums, everywhere, whatever is publicly, it could be publicly. Hello? Can you see that he said to the Jews and to the Greeks? That means to those that are in covenant and those that are not just in covenant, but that are out there everywhere, we’ll go and talk to them. This was the Apostle of apostles, Paul. Do you see that, what he was careful about what he declared to them, both repentance and faith. Sunelle, it looks like you’re deep in thought there. I can feel the smoke coming out of your head. Are you with me? 100%? Are you all with me? Is the smoke coming out of your head too? I can see it coming out of her head, but what about you? You too, Sharon. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord.
If we’re going to dream God’s dream for us, we can’t be limited by our horizon. Neither can we be limited by just what we think we should be doing. We’ve got to let God minister to us what His dream is for us. “So, Pastor John, you know, why is this all coming out now?” Well, as I said to you before, actually, if you and that’s the reason I started with that book, The Witness, because if you see what’s in The Witness, everything I’m telling you now has always been in my heart. It’s always been the call of God on my life. But I was always honouring my apostle and working with him and strengthening him and going with him. Now he’s gone. Now we go. It’s not like he wasn’t hindering me, but the honour relationship that I had was to work together with him. Now that he’s gone, I’m still going to work together with him however I can in the ministry that he’s left, but we’ve also got to do what God’s telling us to do now. And we’ve got to be strong and courageous. We’ve got to run with endurance. That’s why I was reading to you. Let us, I’m going to read it again just so that now you can read it again and see it differently. ¹⁶ Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16 NKJV). ¹ … let us go on to perfection (Hebrews 6:1 NKJV). Us.²² Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. ²³ Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. ²⁴ … let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works (Hebrews 10:22-24 NKJV). 28 … let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear (Hebrews 12:28 NKJV). ¹⁵ … let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name (Hebrews 13:15 NKJV). Let us. This is how we ensure that we do God’s dreams, not our dreams. Let us. Let us. Hallelujah.
You know, we are living in a 3rd dimension, and so because we’re in a 3rd dimension, I touched on this a little bit yesterday with the men. Because we’re in a 3rd dimension, we are always looking for confirmation of what’s happening to us from our senses. So when you’re driving a car, you’re listening, you’re feeling the steering wheel, you’re watching, you’re hearing. All your senses are alert, and everything that you’re doing, you’re confirming back to you that what you’re doing is the right thing. When you’re cooking food, your senses are engaged, confirming what you’re doing. We’ve become so used to having everything confirmed back to us that what we’re doing is in the right position. It’s in the right place. It’s getting the right result. We’re always looking for the confirmation.
The challenge of faith is that you are, now faith is the substance of something you hope for, the evidence of something you cannot see. So you’re not getting a confirmation back of your faith. But you’re always used to getting confirmation back. Confirmation. Confirmation. So I got it. Where’s my confirmation? You’re not getting it. That’s what faith’s all about. But God has already made it a substance in the spirit realm. You just can’t see it. It’s not confirmed to your senses yet. So, what do you do about faith? You can’t keep looking for confirmation. Your confirmation is your confession. Your confirmation is the Word of God that keeps coming out that even when something is against your confirmation, you still keep confirming it by what you say. Hallelujah.
So what that does is that pulls you into the 4th dimension. It takes you to a heavenly dimension, a spiritual dimension, and says, “I’m going to live there. I’m not going to look for confirmation all the time with my senses with my senses. I’m going to live there.” So what happens if your senses don’t tell you anything? I don’t care what my senses are telling me. They can lie to me because what I’m pressing to God for, I can’t see it yet. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. It just has not manifested yet, so I’m still standing with my confession. Hey. Once you get something in faith, you will never turn back. That’s why Brother Jerry and I, we often used to have this conversation about it. How is it anybody that gets faith and they say, “We don’t do the faith message anymore?” That means they never got it because it’s impossible when you know how this works, it’s impossible to live any other way.
Pastor Sharon and I, when we first started out with our faith, we were so broke and so poor that we couldn’t pay attention. Literally, we had nothing in our cupboards, and we had nothing to feed our kids, and we opened up our cupboard doors that were empty like that. I mean, literally, the last thing we were doing is we were pouring hot water into an empty Marmite bottle so that we could drink. You don’t even know, Bovril. We used to put it there so we could drink soup because that’s the last meal that we were eating. I’m not exaggerating. This is a true fact. Our cupboards were that empty, and we would stand in front of our cupboards and we say, “We speak to you, and we command you to be full of groceries and full of food in Jesus’ name.” And so, you know the story. Someone arrived, came to Pastor Sharon, said, “Come, we’re taking your grocery shopping.” Filled up our cupboards with groceries. When I got home, she said, “Look what God did.” And I said, “Sharon, let’s take half our groceries down the road to our friends who are in the same position as we are and their faith hasn’t worked yet. Let’s take it.” Because I said to her, “Babes, if God can do it once, He can do it again. So let’s go with this all the way. Let’s give half our stuff away and watch God work.” So then we became the answer to their faith, and from that time till now, we’ve never gone without groceries. I’ll tell you what, you can go and drop me in the middle of in the Namib Desert somewhere. Hopefully not. Please don’t. Or somewhere in a village in Malawi somewhere, and you say, “John, you’re on your own, boy. This is checkout time.” No. No. No. If it’s not God’s time for me, it’s not checkout time. Faith will get me out of that village. Faith will get me out of that desert. “Well, how can you be so sure?” Because I know God. I know God. He’s not going to leave me nor forsake me. “But how’s He going to save you in the middle of the desert?” I don’t care if He’s got to come put a cloud over my head to protect me from the sun. I don’t care because He’s done it before, He’ll do it again. If He’s got to come and put a fire over my head to keep me warm at night. He can feed me from the heavens. He can have somebody fly overhead with an aeroplane and suddenly look down and see, “Hey, there’s a guy in the desert. Let me phone somebody. Here’s a guy in the desert, you know that?” Someone could pick me up from a satellite. Who knows? The modern-day version of Moses in the desert. A satellite spotted you. Hallelujah.
I don’t know about you but I want to live in the dimension of faith. ‘Cause when you live there, you’re in a multidimensional environment. You’re in a multidimensional environment where God is doing multitasking, multidimensional stuff. Anytime it comes from the 4th dimension into the 3rd dimension, it’s multidimensional. Hallelujah. And that’s why when I started talking about multidimensional relationships, at first, you know – touch, integration of ways, strategic intentions, divine productivity, covenant. It was, first of all, I called it multidimensional relationships. Because it went from the natural of touch to the supernatural of covenant. Amen. What a way to live. What a way to live. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus.
Alright, I think this is a good time to stop. I’ve got a lot more to say, a lot more to preach, but môre is nog ‘n dag (tomorrow is another day). Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Ah, Mari, thank you. Praise the Lord. Isn’t it good to be in the house of the Lord? And so, Lord willing, tomorrow we’ll talk tekkie. We’ll talk tekkie, rubber meets the road stuff. Like, you know, maybe if the Lord’s willing, I’m ready for it, I’ll tell you. I’m ready for it. Let’s see what God’s going to do. Let’s see where God’s going to take us. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord.
By the way, are you all interested in an updated version of The Witness? I’ll make sure that we update it, and we’ll get it to you via a PDF or some kind of an E-document because I don’t want to print 60 pages for you. Pass it to me, here, Empie. I mean, hey, I think if you want to, you can give us a R1000 a copy. I’ll print it for you anytime you like. A R1000 will do it. Otherwise, we can just email it to you. [Pastor John laughs] Pastor Sharon wants a hard copy, she’s going to cause me to pay a R1000. If you want a hard copy, you can get one. It’s not a R1000 but it is a fair price to pay to print one of these. I don’t know who did it. Jeanine, can you remember what it cost? What, it cost a lot hey, it was like R700 or something like that, a copy for one of these. But if you want a hard copy, we can print one for you. Yeah. I carried that across in my suitcase to America, three of them. Dis swaar jong. Swaar. (It’s heavy) When you got to do kilograms on the plane, it’s swaar. Don’t you all want to stand with me, please?
Praise the Lord. What do you say, church? Are you ready? Are you ready, are you ready for some lift-off stuff? Multidimensional stuff? Glory of God stuff? His kind of dreams, that we can’t do on our own, that we’ve got to trust Him to do it. I’m up for that kind of dream. You know what’s so amazing about that kind of dream? Is that when you set out to do it, you just know you’re not going to do it – unless God. And that makes the adventure awesome! Awesome! Wow.
I just want to thank the Lord for bringing you here safely. Bless you for coming today, giving your energy and your time. May He reward you with His presence. May He reward you with all the ideas you need for business, all the productivity you need, all of the peace that you need. May He reward you because of the seed that you’ve sown, your investment that you’ve made, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Be at peace tonight.
Oh yes, we must take up an offering. Thank you, Mari. She waved the thing at me so you’d better sit down. You never take an offering standing up. Do you know why? Because you can’t reach your wallet when you’re standing up. Most of the time it’s in your bag on the ground. But also, when you’re sitting down, people can’t take stuff out of the offering. Praise the Lord. Ja, I’ve been in church a long time. I’ve heard lots of stories. I’ve seen lots of things. People come to church, I mean, this is a real thing, this has really happened at Rhema, this really happened; people came to church and they didn’t have, this is what they say, they say they didn’t have time to break a note, so when they came to put their offering in, they looked for the change. Ja nê. Ja nê. You put a note in and you look for change? Ja, that’s what you were doing… right? [Pastor John laughs] “Ja, I put R10 in and I was looking for a R50 change.” [Congregation laughs] I’ve been in church a long time. I’ve seen a lot of things. Pastor Sharon says it’s one way of giving to the poor. That’s not the way that God intended for the poor to get rich. [Congregation laughs] It’s supposed to be voluntary. Hallelujah.
Also, you know, the Sunday Times wrote an article about Pastor Ray and Rhema. They said, you know, the reason why they have these baskets, they said they have baskets that have got big holes in it so you can’t put change, you can only put notes. Really. We never saw those baskets ever – not those baskets. And then they also wrote in the article that Pastor Ray charges R500 a time to lay hands on your Porsche and then you got an automatic spiritual service on your Porsche so that he can get the … I promise you. I promise you, it was in the newspaper. Kom staan, julle. (Let’s stand) Thank God it doesn’t happen here. But if you want me to lay hands on your car, I’ll do it for you. [Congregation laughs] [Pastor John whispers: I’ll give you my bank account later] I’m having fun, man! My wife’s looking at me here, like, hey…
Thank You, Lord, for the seed that people sow every week, every way, whether it’s EFT, whether it’s money they put into the basket. We thank You, Father, that You bless us. It’s just our way of saying thank you, showing our gratitude, our love for You. And we thank You that You bless us and we are so grateful that You cause us to live in health and wealth and all the blessings You give us. Thank You, Lord, in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. Alright, y’all, what do you say? Is it time to go home? And throw your legs up? And chill? And relax? Do multidimensional relaxing. Ciao.
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