22 September 2024 Ultimate Impact Limitless Imagination Part 2
Pastor John Bendixen (WTB)
Scripture reference: Galatians 3:13-14 (NKJV), Romans 8:37-39, [NKJV], John 14:15-17 (NLT), John 14:12-17 (AMPC), Genesis 12:1-4 (NLT); Genesis 17:1 (NLT), Deuteronomy 28:1-7 (NLT),
Pastor Sharon:
Thank You Father, that this is the time of Your Word. This is the time of the Word now. It’s the time of the Message that has come now, Father. And You have our full attention. Our eyes are fixed. Our ears hear. Our hearts receive and believe Father. Today, today Father, what a Word You’re going to bring. What a Message You’re going to bring. And we thank You for Your anointing that is upon Pastor John, within Pastor John. Mighty anointing. Strong anointing. Thank You for new words that will come today and our ears hear the sound. Oh, yes, Lord. Thank You that he will speak Your oracles, Your oracles. In Jesus’ name, be glorified today. And we all say, Amen. Thank you Sound and Song team. Thank you, everybody.
Pastor John:
Well done, everybody. Praise Jesus. Hallelujah. Well, it’s always good to be in Church even when it’s cold. I guess one could say, especially when it’s cold. Glory to God. You know what’s amazing to me about our church now is that you don’t come here for me anymore. You come for Him, and you come for each other. I just happen to be one of those that’s part of each other. Hallelujah. That’s a good place for a church to be. Hey. Amen.
Before you sit down, just greet somebody and welcome them here and say, I’m glad you managed to get out in the cold today. So there’s no Message Moments this afternoon. So, this is the perfect day for you to have around 3 o’clock or thereabouts. You know, tea and pancakes, waffles. Oh, no. You want to have carrots and celery. (Ps John laughing) Praise the Lord.
So, in the weeks to come, you might just hear a slightly different emphasis come from my spirit to you. And so I ask you to kind of work with me and step into, into this, the Holy Ghost rhythm of what God has for us. Amen. You know, when I was, when I was in the military, I, I, we used to have different, we used to have different kinds of rhythms that we used to have to do. When you were on a parade ground doing marching, you had a particular rhythm that you were commanded to keep on, or if you were the one doing the commanding, you would have a particular rhythm. And then if you needed to go from one place to another as a, as a platoon, as a company, as a whatever, and you needed to get there and you knew it was going to be fairly long but not too long, and you needed to have a rhythm, then you would kind of get into a jogging and you would have everybody run at the same rhythm, keeping into your formation, you know. And then, of course, if you were going to do a very long run, then everybody had to go according to their own pace because of the distance.
Every, everything you do in life has a rhythm. And every, everything you do like when you wake up in the morning, you have a rhythm. And you, you, it’s a kind of everybody sort of has their own rhythm. And whatever your rhythm is in the morning, when you get to work, there’s a rhythm that’s at work. There’s a pace that work has. And if you’re at school or whatever you’re doing, there’s a rhythm. There’s a pace. And then when you’re relaxing or you’re or you’re taking time out, then you have a different rhythm. And so you’ve always got to be adjusting to the different pace and the different rhythms of life. Well, in the spirit, there’s a different rhythm, and in the spirit, the rhythm of God will sometimes say, it’s time to really go, go, go. Then sometimes there’s a rhythm to say, sit down and learn, learn, learn, absorb, get taught. Sometimes the rhythm changes a little bit and you’re being taught and you’re being trained.
Sometimes in faith, faith has a rhythm based on circumstances. Sometimes you’re putting the seed out, you’re putting the word seed out of your mouth, and you kind of just know that this is a season where you go to speak the Word, you’re not in harvesting mode yet. And then you can feel sometimes that switch happens, and now your faith that you speak has started to transition to harvest. And when you feel that rhythm, then it’s time to start harvesting and, and, and start looking for, for the opportunities for harvest. And it’s a, it’s a really marvelous and wonderful recognition if you understand that just as you have an, in the natural rhythm, there’s a Spiritual rhythm, and it’s the rhythm of God, and it’s the way God works with you and me and us. It’s a marvelous thing.
So are you ready? Even if you just heard a few things of what I’ve just said this morning, till now, if you just meditate on this, this will be good for your life because relationships have rhythm. You know, when you certainly, when Sharon and I were courting each other, you know, we couldn’t get enough of spending time with each other. It’s like every waking moment, it’s like, when am I going to speak, speak to her next, see her next, you know, you have that kind of rhythm. Then you get married, and suddenly responsibility hits you, and now your relationship takes on a different kind of rhythm. Then when children come, then there’s a different kind of rhythm. So, you have to adapt all the time to the waiting. If you understand the season of the rhythm, then you won’t get out of beat. And if you’re out of beat and one of you is in rhythm and the other one is out of beat, then you find yourself not in the same place at the same time and that’s when conflict can erupt.
And oftentimes, actually that’s the, that’s the problem with faith, is in people’s faith or their requirements. Their need for things in life is so desperate that they’re out of rhythm, their desperation, their need is out of rhythm with their faith. So, they haven’t sowed enough, and they haven’t got to the harvest point yet for their needs to be taken care of by their faith. So, they find themselves out of rhythm. Which is why for years I’ve preached, if time, if you set deadlines to your faith… by the way, this is also something that is being spoken of by Jerry Savelle, Kenneth Copeland, all those guys. If you’re, if you put too much pressure of deadlines on your faith, you’re going to undermine your faith. Because deadline after deadline, if your faith doesn’t meet the deadline, then you, you undermine your faith, and your trust and your belief in God for not to meet your need is dissipated.
So, you’re now no longer living in faith. You’re actually living in unbelief that God’s going to meet your need, but it’s just because your faith and, and your needs are out of rhythm. I’ve given so many people answers to their questions right now. Amen. You look so beautiful this morning, Maki, with that beautiful colored blankets on and all the stuff. Shoo, Wow. Praise the Lord. Rhythm hey.
You know, Brother Jerry, I was sitting on the chair this morning, here, thinking about brother Jerry. And I was thinking about the fact that, I was just reminiscing that, I found myself on one or two occasions with him in Canada in winter doing meetings in Canada, and, I would find myself waiting in the hotel lobby. And, of course, you know, I’m traveling, and I don’t, you know, I, I don’t do that much time in America in the winter that I have to have special coats, but he does. I mean, he, you know, just because it’s winter doesn’t mean to say he stopped traveling to preach. So he found himself in Canada with me, and he had this big, beautiful, heavy blue coat on that was all the way down almost to his ankles. You know? This beautiful coat. And, and I’d be waiting for him in the lobby, and I’d come see him coming out of the elevator, walking down the passage, and he had this big, beautiful, heavy coat on already, you know.
And he would, we would stand right far inside the hotel, not even close to the doors because, you know, when it’s, when it’s, like minus and I’m going to translate now, celsius now. But if it’s, like, minus 10 degrees celsius with a wind chill factor, you don’t want to be outside. It doesn’t matter how many coats you’ve got on. You just don’t want to be outside, you know. And you know, then he started to say, he started getting invitations to, to minister in Canada in January and February and December. And he said, no. If you want me in Canada, I need it to be May or June. I’m not coming in winter anymore because it’s just too cold, you know. I see some people have had the same idea for church this morning. Not too many, but there are a few. Amen.
I was really reflecting on some of the, some of the times that I’ve had with Brother Jerry in my life. What a joy they have always been. Just to be with him in any kind of place, any kind of space, so many different experiences. It’s been quite a joy to me, you know. So, Praise the Lord. Galatians chapter 3 verse 13. The New King James Bible says, 13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith (Galatians 3:13-14 NKJV). We have a Saviour. Jesus is our Saviour, and He has redeemed us from all of the bad stuff that the devil has created through sin.
If you’ll bear with me for a moment, I will tell you, just, share with you, that everything the devil does, anti-God, everything that is anti-God. Everything. Everything that the devil is is anti-God. So, he doesn’t know any other way of doing stuff other than what he learned from God. So, he uses the God principles to get the stuff done that’s anti-God, that’s his way. So where God uses words for life, he will use words for death. So where God uses ideas for blessing, he will use ideas for self-indulgence. So everything the devil does, he has to, the only thing he knows is what, who God is and what God put into motion. So, God stands for life, and the devil stands for everything that’s anti-life. So when Jesus said, “The thief comes but to steal, kill, and to destroy, but I’ve come to give life and life more abundantly,” that’s the difference between the way God is and the one that is without God.
And so, because he can’t give you anything, he can only steal from you. If someone’s got a music talent and God put music talent in people to actually use for His glory, but he can take it from you and use it for himself to spread words and rhythms in the world that promote his agenda to steal, kill, and to destroy. Even though music is a beautiful thing, he will use it to steal, kill, and destroy. So, for a large portion of, a lot of music, if you hear it today; pop music, hard rock music, R and B music, hip hop music, much of the music that you listen to today has got words of death, and destruction, and violence, and anger.
And if you go back many years and you would listen to jazz or you would listen to different kinds of music. Jazz music pretty much has its roots in sorrow and pity, and, aag shame she left me, aag shame I’ll never find my way back to her. But if one day, maybe she does, you know. Blues, jazz, you know, it’s all about using music with words that create emotions and emotions. The emotions are geared to create anti-God things or self indulgent emotions, whereas God intended music to be for Praise and for Worship. And as you give Praise and Worship, you get life because you’re worshiping Him. So, there’s a transaction of life that happens in the sound and in the songs. But in the world, if you are indulgent in music to write it according to the best of emotion, I mean, it’s a very powerful emotional stimulant or an emotional motivator, and it gets you really emotionally engaged in music and can make you feel happy.
It can make you feel sad. It can make you feel angry. It can make you feel lost. It can make you feel many things. Music depends on the, on the sequence of notes that you put together and the way and the words that you put to it. There’s a lot of stuff that goes in, but it’s not geared to actually bring meaning to your life. It actually causes you to reflect on the meaning of life. Whereas, if you give praise to Jesus and you worship Him and you give glory to God, it brings life to you because you’re giving, you’re recognising life. You’re recognising God’s love. Amen.
So today, I’m going to be talking to you about the Covenant power of God released through joy – through joy. The Covenant power of God that’s released through joy. So, Jesus is our Saviour. Romans 8 verse 37 says, 37 yet in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, this is amazing… neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t mean it means there’s nothing in the heavens. There’s no breath or lack of breath in your body. 38 nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:37-39 NKJV).
This is good news because if you don’t let it, there is nothing that can keep you from experiencing the love of God. Notice what I said, “If you don’t let it.” What Paul is saying is that I’m convinced there is nothing that can separate you. The only thing that can separate you is your choice, and that’s something God can’t take away from any of us is choice. Amen.
So, what is, what is a Covenant? And this is important for us to talk about because I feel, I really sense the drawing of the Holy Spirit for the messages, the new rhythm of messages that are going to come out of my spirit. I really sense a more, Apostolic Voice Message that is going to come, that I’m about to engage in. I want to say a Kingdom Message, an Apostolic message if you like. Praise the Lord. So, Covenant is what?
Covenant essentially is a bringing together of people who come into an agreement. Bringing together of people who come into an agreement. It’s not just any agreement, because if I called Grobbies this afternoon, and I said, “Grobbies, let’s go and have a bicycle ride together.” I mean, we’re, and he says, “Yes, let’s do it Pastor John.” We are in agreement, but that is not Covenant. There is a coming together of people in an agreement, but it’s not a Covenant agreement. It’s just an arrangement.
So, what is the difference between arrangement and a Covenant? Well, the difference between an arrangement and a Covenant is, one, is, is not so formal. It’s easily adaptable and changeable based on circumstances. There is, you know, things I mean, it could happen that he has something to eat, and he says, “Oh, I don’t feel so good, Pastor John, can we have a rain check on it, and can we go another time?” “Well sure, Grobs, it’s not a big thing, you know.” But on the other hand, if we had to go into business together, and we come to an agreement and we say, “Grobs, I’m going to take a R100,000.00 and put it in this business venture, and you take a R100,000.00 and put it in this business venture.” And now we are going to enter into a formal agreement. You understand what is happening is, is that it is a coming together of people, there is a formality to it, there is a cost to it, there is a reward and an outcome to it.
So, we together, we will have this. We make an agreement that is based on what might happen here. If we both lose the money, we lose it together. If we both make money, we make it together. So our Covenant agreement is, we are coming together to make something happen together. Whatever the outcome, we stick together. Right? So we might put it into an agreement. Okay? We say this business must work, no matter what. So we are going to take an extra R100,000.00 and put it in a backup account, that if we run out of the R200,000.00 we will both bring our extra 100 and make it now R400,000.00 that is available in the deal. Right? So we might even go further and we might even say, “You know, it doesn’t matter what happens here, all of our resources are on the line to make this happen.”
So, now we might actually assess each other’s resources, and say, “Well, how many resources do you have?” And he might say, I’m just using an example here. Okay? He might say, “I’ve got a house and my house is worth a million.” And I might say, “Well, I’ve got a house and my house is worth 1,5 million” So now we understand that this thing must work, and we are so dedicated and committed to make this work, that we are putting our houses on the line. That if our 400 doesn’t get it, then we put our houses on the line, sell our houses, and take the rest of our money and put it to make the deal work. Do you understand? This is Covenant. We live together. We lose together. We win together. The whole thing is we have come together in an agreement that we have said, there is nothing that can break this agreement. So, now we are both human. What happens when we both get to the end of our resources, hey, what happens to us then?
Well, you know, we might decide, well, we’re going to go and look for some other resources to be part of this. We can turn on each other and say, “Hey, you didn’t, look how much money we’ve lost here now. You didn’t bring your part.” He can say, “I didn’t bring my part.” And we can turn on each other. That’s not the spirit of the agreement. So, we have a Covenant, no matter what, we stick together. So if we get to the end of our resources and say, “We did our best and this thing didn’t work,” we still are in Covenant together even though we lost all our resources. The Covenant stands because we put everything into it for the sake of the Covenant. So the thing that we have to do about this is we have to come to an agreement. Every Covenant has got to have an agreement to it. You can’t have a Covenant unless there’s an agreement. Hello? You can’t, you can’t. You can’t be a Covenant by absenteeism and without your permission.
Can I tell you what gangs do? What gangs do is they try and make agreements and Covenants with people and things or situations. And then if, let’s just say, Empie is part of a thing with a gang, and he can’t say, “Well, now I’m going to get your sons. They’ve got to make your debt, pay your debt. Because if you can’t pay it, then your sons must pay your debt.” And so they, without them knowing it, without them being part of it, the gangs say, “With threat of violence and with threat of death, your sons have got to pay it.” And so now you go to your sons and say, “Okay, well listen. Can you guys pay it? Because I can’t pay it.” But it’s threat of violence. It’s, they’re not in agreement with it. They’re forced to do it. That’s how the devil works. He uses force, he uses violence, he uses all kinds of underhanded stuff to make people do stuff in life they don’t even know they’re getting themselves into it. But I’m not going to talk about that so much. I’m just going to talk about agreement in a God Covenant. Are you all with me?
So I’m going to read you some scriptures here, and then we’re going to talk about it. But I wanted to ask you, who is, who is the Covenant maker in your world right now? Who is ensuring the Covenant that God has with us on the earth right now. It’s the Holy Spirit. Yes? There’s Father, there’s Son, there’s Holy Spirit. Now, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit got into Covenant with each other. They got into agreement with each other that no matter what happens when They created man, that They would have a solution. The solution to man’s disobedience and man’s betrayal was Jesus. So Father, Son, and Holy Spirit stuck to their agreement in Covenant with each other that They would create a way for Jesus to come to the earth and pay the price to restore the Covenant. Then They all agreed that Jesus had to go and be with the Father, and then the Holy Spirit would be here.
So, the Holy Spirit could be Jesus and the Father represented All in One, in Spirit, in many people’s lives. Whereas Jesus, in Body, could only be in few people’s lives. The Holy Spirit could be in everybody’s lives. So it’s important for us to know that the Holy Spirit is here to help us in Covenant. John chapter 14, first the New Living Translation. John 14 verse 15. 15 If you love me, obey my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. This is important to realize this. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. So if you think the world can understand your Covenant, even if you get to people who truly understand Covenant. They can’t understand your Covenant because they can’t–they don’t look for the Holy Spirit. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.
I’d like to read an extended version of this to you from the Amplified, then I’m going to go and read it to you from the Passion Translation again because it becomes a fairly important part of our message today. Verse 12 of John 14 in the Amplified Classic, 12 I assure you, most solemnly, I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father. 13 And I will do [I Myself will grant] Jesus whatever you ask in My Name [as representing all that I AM], so that the Father may be glorified and extolled in and (through) the Son. So ask something in My Name, I will grant it to you in My Name. What for? Just so that you can have what you want? No. So that the Father is glorified. Even if I give you what you want, the Father’s got to be glorified.
14 [Yes] I will grant [I Myself will do for you] whatever you shall ask in My Name [as presenting all that I AM]. 15 If you [really] love Me, you will keep or [obey] My commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Comforter (Counselor, Helper, Intercessor, Advocate, Strengthener, and Standby), that He may remain with you forever. So is the Holy Spirit remaining with us now? Now and forever. Yes. 17 The Spirit of Truth, Whom the world cannot receive, why? Because the world doesn’t live in truth. The world lives in lies. So everybody else in the world lives in lies. Christians who know Jesus and know the truth and have the Holy Spirit, they live in truth. Still, it’s our choice whether we want to live in the lies or we want to live in the truth. Just because you know the truth doesn’t mean you say you live in the truth. You can still choose to live in lies. There’s too many Christians living in lies, because they choose to live in lies. Eish. So but you know and recognize Him, for He lives with you [constantly] and will be in you (John 14:12-17 TPT).
The Passion Translation verse 15 puts it this way: 15 Loving me empowers you to obey my commands. 16-17 And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Saviour, the Holy Spirit of Truth, who will be to you a friend just like me—and he will never leave you. The world won’t receive him because they can’t see him or know him. But you know him intimately because he will make His home in you and will live inside you (John 14:15-17 TPT).
Okay, Christians. Let’s just make sure we have a solid foundation here. Are you, please just do this with me. I know what the answers are, but just do it with me. Okay? Are you a Christian by the fact that Jesus lives in your heart and you have received Him as your Lord and Savior? Yes, you are. Does the Father therefore live inside of you? Does the Holy Spirit therefore live inside of you? Now, Jesus and the Father are living inside of you by the Holy Spirit, but They’re not actually in you, are They? They’re in heaven. The Father is on the throne, and Jesus is seated on the right hand of the throne. That’s where Their actual presence is. But They are in you by the fact that the Holy Spirit, Who represents Them is in you. Because They are Three in One, in the One that is the Holy Spirit, that Three all lives in you, in the One. So He is also present with the Father, the Holy Spirit.
How does that work? Don’t know. It just does. He is searching the inner parts of the Father and Jesus knowing everything that They want, everything that They desire, everything that Their plans are, and He brings Them to us individually 1 on 1 and the Church. And He searches Them and He searches us, and He’s the Holy Spirit. The Bible says, He’ll never leave us. Never. So what does Jesus say? Jesus says, “Okay, guys. Just so that you and I are straight, I’m going and even now, the Holy Spirit is upon you because I’m here, but the Holy Spirit will come be in you. Not just on you, He will come be in you. You will know Him intimately. He’ll be the Spirit of Truth, and He will never leave you.” Why was it important for Jesus to say, the Holy Spirit will never leave you?
It was important for Him because He was going. He wanted them to know that the Covenant that He established on the Cross with the bloodshed and that Covenant is always going to be enforced. It’s always going to be relied upon. He will never break Covenant, and He’s guaranteeing His Covenant by sending the Holy Spirit. If I have to take my example with Grobbies, as in you know, if we were in a business deal and, you know, Grobbies, we’re doing this business together, but, you know, something’s happened and I’ve got to go away to America. I’ll say, you know what? I’m going to go away, but I’m going to take Pastor Sharon, or I’m going to take Garth, or someone, and they’re going to come and stay with you permanently to make sure that my part of the bargain remains intact, always.
And they will represent me as I represent myself; they can sign for me, whatever their word is, it’s my word. So now there’s no debate here. There’s always somebody that is making decisions with Grobbies to make sure that our agreement continues to work. Even if I’m not actually present here, someone is actually enforcing it or they’re ready to make decisions all the time. Hallelujah. Now sometimes we take this, we have too much, frivolity, you know, we take it too lightly that, actually, the Holy Spirit is in you and me, and He’s here to help us, and He’s here to make sure the Covenant that God the Father has established with Jesus, that Covenant is ours to live in, and He will never leave you. Come on. He will never, never, never, never leave you. He will never leave you.
I believe that in time to come, as the Holy Spirit leads, I’m going to be talking to you about the Church, you know, and, the organized Church, the relational Church, the Covenant Church. And, I feel the Holy Spirit pulling on me to talk about this stuff. Hey. That’s a cool thing. See, because most Christians have a relationship with the organized church, but God is not interested in the organized church. He’s interested in the Covenant Church that’s in relationship with Him. And Jesus actually made a point of making a distinction while He was on the earth because right before He was about to get crucified, you know, He made a point to telling the disciples, “The zeal of the, of the House of the Lord has consumed Me.” And so He goes in there and He sees people doing business in the house of prayer.
And He takes a whip to them and He chases them out and He throws over their money tables because He says, “This is supposed to be a house of prayer, but you’ve made it a place of money.” So what is He saying? The organized business church is different to the Covenant Church. If I used to use it in our modern-day language, the Covenant Church, the Ekklesia Church is different to the organized business church. What most of the world is looking at is, “How good is the business of the church, how good is the organization of the church? How good are the lights? How good is the music? How good is the preaching? How good are the arrangements around the organized church?” But God is not interested in the organized church. He understands that there has to be organization, but not in the organized church. Because the organized church has become too commercial. Hey. Praise the Lord.
God is in Covenant with you, individually, He’s in Covenant with you. And He’s in Covenant with us collectively, but He’s not necessarily interested in how good or how badly we are organized. Hello. He’s much more interested in how we, we as a people, see Him and how we live together in Him. He’s a relational God. So, on that note, we go to Galatians chapter 5 verse 22, the New Living Translation says, 22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives. The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed, have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. 26 Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another (Galatians 5:22-26 NLT). Hallelujah. The fruit of the Holy Spirit produces fruit.
So, you know, I happen to know this because I’ve been to the du Toit farm a few times. The du Toit farm has got different trees on it. They’ve got blue-gum trees, they’ve got all kinds of different trees on the farm. I can’t even name all of them, but they’ve got all kinds of ferns and trees and shrubs and all kinds of stuff on the farm. But then they’ve got orchids of trees, and they’re apple trees. And, and those apple trees produce what? Apples. Because the very DNA of what’s in the apple tree is to produce apples. It would be very strange, it’s very strange if Loutjie went there one day and he found his apple trees bringing peaches. I mean, he would have a serious investigation to find out what’s happened to this apple tree that’s now suddenly producing peaches. Maybe the bees got themselves all mixed up when they were pollinating, you know? Whatever. I’m just saying, it doesn’t happen, right? Because the DNA of an apple tree is to produce apples.
So the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of God. So wherever the Spirit of God is, the Holy Spirit, when He’s present, fruit emerges. The fruit that comes when He’s present is joy, peace, love, patience. When He’s present, you see these things. Come on. So, now I want you to just realize this with me, that I read to you a scripture earlier on and I said it, and the apostle Paul said, I’m persuaded, there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God. Nothing on this earth, nothing in the heavens, nothing to come, no depth, no height, no nothing, not now present, not in the future. Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Why not? Because Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit entered a Covenant agreement, that all of Their resources forever will be ours.
And They sent the Holy Spirit to be evident in His manifestation that we will know the Covenant is ours. So, when He’s in you, His Covenant shows up with joy and love and peace and patience and kindness. The Holy Spirit. So when you, when you are like, wow, I’ve got the peace of God. It’s like, “You know, my circumstances look so troubling, but I’m in such peace now, because I know that I know that He’s got me covered. He takes care of me. He’ll never leave me. He’ll never forsake me. Woah.” That’s just the proof that the Covenant is in place. The Covenant is producing everything you need. Hallelujah. So, you know, Covenant is a big thing. If the Holy Spirit allows me and I feel it in my heart strongly, that in the weeks ahead, I’m going to talk to you about the Covenant that God made with Abraham, first with Abraham.
I’ve got it on my notes for this morning. I don’t think I’ll get to it this morning, but Abraham, you know, God showed up to Abraham and He said, “I want to be your God, and you be My people. And so now, go and leave your place of your fathers and everything, and go to a land that I will show you.” And Abraham said, “Wow. You’re quite a God, hey? I’ll do that.” That took some faith. Don’t you think? Took some faith. So Abraham, he just leaves everything behind. You know, hey Grobs, you’ve worked pretty long in your life to get to where you are now, hey. You’ve got some assets. You’ve worked hard to get assets. Right? What happens if I now come to you and say, “Hey, Grobs, time to leave all your assets. Let’s go to a whole new different place. You don’t know where you’re going? I’m not even going to tell you where you’re going, but let’s go there. Because that’s where, where there is, that’s where your blessing is. What you’ve done till now means nothing. Nothing. Absolutely. You just worked hard. Mooi man. But that doesn’t come close to what I want for you, but you gotta come. Let’s go. Let’s go.”
But you understand? I mean, he’s all the stuff, he, I mean, Abraham was 75 years old. It wasn’t like he was, you know, Nikao. Nikao, come. He’s like, “I’m 19. Leave me alone. I’ve got no assets. I’m gone. Let’s go.” Do you understand what I’m saying? He’s got no not yet, you know. He’s got no girls, got no kids, got no assets. If I say, “Nikao, let’s go.” He says, “I’m ready. Mom and dad, I’ll check you soon.” You know what I mean? That’ll be the biggest pull on his heart, you know, mom and dad, boeties. But, otherwise, he’s free to go. Grobbies on the other hand, he’s in his fifties. Assets are plenty. He’s all steady. “Let’s go, Grobs.” You know? It’s like, “Do I need to? I’ve got to leave my dad. I’ve got to leave all the strength of all of our protection. There’s no 911 calls here. The 911 call is my dad and my brothers, and I’ve got to leave them.” Do you understand what I’m saying?
So when Abraham said, “I’m going to follow God,” this was like a faith thing. This was a trust thing. But still, God didn’t trust Abram to have a Covenant of eternal value by himself. So in time to come, I will talk to you about this, that God made a Covenant with Abraham where He put him, He asked him to arrange all the natural elements on the earth, and He put him to sleep, and then God made a Covenant with Himself. I ask you, who was present at that Covenant? Was it not the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? They couldn’t trust a man to live up the fullness of the Covenant that They wanted to establish with humanity. So They had to have a human agree, but put him to sleep so the fullness of the agreement could be between Them using natural things so that the natural stuff would bring the Covenant of eternity into the Earth with Abraham as the source, but the power of it were to be between them because Abraham couldn’t deliver on his side.
So when Jesus came to die on the cross, He said, I still can’t trust you, 12 Disciples. I can’t trust you even though you lived with Me and you’ve been with Me and you will preach the Gospel in My name. I can’t trust you to live up to the Covenant or be the Covenant. I’ve got to send the Holy Spirit who will be the seal, the guarantee of the Covenant for return, and He will never leave you. He will never forsake you. Never. So when you experience joy, you’re saying, “Hey, the Covenant is in order. It’s working.” If the love of God can’t separate you from God, then the Covenant is working. The Holy Spirit is present to show you Covenant. I mean, come on. You know, I wanted to just say this to you. Covenant is a weighty thing. Yes?
And so if I got to describe to you, like, if Grobbies and I are in a business agreement, and we’re talking serious stuff, and we’ve got rules, and we’ve got regulations, and we’ve got how to spend the money, and how do we get into agreement on spending money. It’s a serious matter. We’re having serious conversations here, you know? But that doesn’t, that’s just setting the framework in place. That’s just making the terms of the Covenant. When we get to finalizing the terms of the Covenant and the Covenant comes into effect, we discover that our agreement, our agreement is so powerful that as we go and do business together, we’re just cracking deals. Things are just working because we have gifts and we have a power of agreement. So now what happens? We have joy. We have peace. We have love. We have patience. We have kindness. These things are evident because we have a Covenant.
So, I can’t look at the seriousness of the Covenant and say that’s all of it. Right? Because that’s not what the Holy Spirit is always reminding me of. He’s not coming to me every day and saying to me, “John, I want to remind you that Jesus, the Father, and Me, We cut Covenant with Abraham, and it was a big ge-storie (story).” Right? He doesn’t do that all the time. What does He say? He leads with joy. He leads with peace. He leads with love. This is the flowing of the Covenant. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. You know, God, maybe I should read it to you. It’s better actually if I read it because if I speak it, it maybe comes out different to the way the Word speaks it, you know.
Genesis 12 verse 1, 1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Leave your native country, your relatives, and your father’s family, and go to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make you into a great nation. I will bless you and make you famous, and you will be a blessing to others. 3 I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt. All the families on earth will be blessed through you.” 4 So Abram departed as the Lord had instructed, and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he left Haran (Genesis 12:1-4 NLT)
Now Genesis 17 verse 1 says, 1 When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him (Genesis 17:1 NLT). 75, 99. How many years is that? 24 years. You know what, hey? Eish. That number hit me right now. 24 years. 1st October, we’ve been in the Ministry 24 years. In 2024, we would have been in the Ministry 24 years. Hallelujah. And the Lord said to me, “I want you to have the vision in 24 month segments.” I just read that now. I realized, actually, 24 years difference from when God called Abraham to the next time He appeared to him to cut a Covenant. Wow. I think God is actually doing something beyond our wildest imagination right now. Right now, we are in a really amazing place with the Lord. You know, umbers, you can preach whole messages on numbers because numbers in the Bible have significance. You know, I tend to not focus on that because of, at one time, the church made numbers quite a sensational level of teaching and people were really kind of elevated because of their knowledge of ceremonies in the Old Testament and numbers of different things that were available, and they’re nice to know.
Sometimes, God can use it to actually bring a message across to us, but I don’t stake my whole ministry on numbers. Amen? But this is cool to know, hey? 75, 99, 24 years, 1…the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am El-Shaddai—‘God Almighty.’ Serve me faithfully and live a blameless life. 2 I will make a Covenant with you, by which I will guarantee to give you countless descendants.” 3 At this, Abram fell face down on, the earth. Then God said to him, 4 “This is my Covenant with you: I will make you the father of a multitude of nations! 5 What’s more, I am changing your name. It will no longer be Abram. Instead, you will be called Abraham, for you will be the father of many nations. 6 I will make you extremely fruitful. Your descendants will become many nations, and kings will be among them! 7 “I will confirm my Covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting Covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you. 8 And I will give the entire land of Canaan, where you now live as a foreigner, to you and your descendants. It will be their possession forever, and I will be their God.” (Genesis 17:1-8 NLT).
Now I want to ask you, when God said to Abraham, “I need you to obey this Covenant.” What was the first thing that He made him do? The only thing that he actually, those who live under the law still today are required to show, as a sign of Covenant, they had to be circumcised. All the men had to be circumcised, on the 8th day. Right? So, I mean, for sure, when the Covenant is established, it’s painful and, you know, it’s quite personal. But from that day, once the healing process has happened from that day to the end of your days, you will every day be reminded of Covenant. Yeah? So who is the Holy Spirit to us? Every day, He reminds us of our Covenant. Every day. Our job is to, every day, allow Him to be the Spirit of truth that circumcises our hearts. Every day. So, if I go to the next level of teaching, I’m probably going to get way beyond my time today, so I’m going to kind of pull it short for today.
I’m going to say the following to you. That as the time is getting more and more towards a momentum. Sorry, this thing is just [Pastor John fixes his mic]. It’s alright, Empie. I’ve got it here now. Thank you. So as time is getting towards the end of, and there will come a time at the end where there is no more current earth and current heaven. The Bible says there will come a time when there’s a new earth and a new heaven. It is likely that this situation that we’re living in is going to change. I don’t know when that time is going to be but if you just look at the natural earth, and the way that things are happening, if you read all of the signs that are in the Bible it can’t be too far away. You know, it can’t be too far away. So there’s a part that the Church must play. The reason Jesus came to die so that there would be a Church.
There would be a people that would look like Him, talk like Him, live like Him. Right? There would be a people that are the church. Right? And so the church has got a role to play at the end. Actually, the church has got a role to play all through everything, but the church has a role to play. And I will once again read to you the role that the church has to play because, I mean, it’s in Ephesians, it’s everywhere, but the church is supposed to be the represented Christ to all of the universe that Jesus was the One Who paid the price and entered the Covenant.
So we are an extension of Covenant people. I will admit this to you that there was a time where certainly when I was a teenager and in my twenties, certainly, there was a time when I was of the opinion that God had moved His Covenant, the Covenant that He made away from the Jewish people, and He made it now with those that are born again because we are spiritually sons of the Most High God. Whereas, the Jews, they are born into Covenant. So but as time has gone by and I’ve got to understand the Word of God more fully, I began to realize that God can never remove and take back a Covenant. So the Jewish people will always be His Covenant. That He can never change the fact that the Jews are His Covenant people. Always. But we are a Covenant people through the Blood of Jesus.
So we have a better Covenant than they have. That’s what the scripture says. We have a better Covenant. Based on better promises, we have a better Covenant. So their Covenant will exist, but we have a better Covenant. Why? Because we are sealed with the Blood of Jesus and the giving of the Holy Spirit who will constantly remind us that our Covenant is as sure as the Covenant that God made with Abraham. So, if you’re going to work with me in the next couple of weeks, I’m going to show you that and I said this to you when we were getting ready to do the vision presentation. I said this to you. Abraham did not have to go and look for resources, did he? He just had to go where God told him to go. And every day he would wake up, listen, he didn’t have a compass. He didn’t have a GPS location.
I’m giving you a pin drop to where the land is that I will send you to. Abraham didn’t have that. He left the city. He left the town, and he just started to go. I can imagine the Holy Spirit is with him, and he would get up in the day, and he would look on the horizon, and he would look this way and he would look that way and then he would look again. He said, “Well, I just think I’m going to go here.” And even in that, it would be like the Holy Spirit is on him, “Look where you need to look and I will just put it on you there. Ah, I will just know this is where I must go.” So, every day, he had a Holy Ghost GPS. He didn’t have a Garmin.
And the Holy Ghost GPS was just as far as his cattle, and his camels, and the, the human people that were with him, as far as they could move day after day. Maybe it was, you know, 20 kilometers in a day. Who knows? They got to feed them. They got to water them. They got to do whatever. And so, he had a Holy Ghost GPS leading him. He wasn’t living in him, but He was certainly living upon him. Because by faith, he was obedient. So, the Holy Spirit was now involved with Abraham, because of the Covenant that God was about to establish him. And the words that he already said, those were enough to get the Holy Spirit involved to make Abraham go where he needed to go. Hey, you know, come on now. If we have a better Covenant than that, the Holy Spirit is going to be our Helper, our Advocate, our Guide, our Lead, our Teacher, everything that we ever need.
He is living inside of us. When you wake up in the day, His GPS is telling you where to go. His GPS is going to tell you what to do. You have the Word and you have the Spirit, and He’s going to guide you and He’s going to lead you, and everything is going to be full of joy, and He will lead you with peace, and the love of God will be the fruit of everything that’s living inside of you. Covenant. Covenant. Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. I’m going to finish off here. I know you know this scripture, but I’m just setting us up for next week. Are you now excited about next week? We are going to get into lekker stuff, hey? Glory.
Deuteronomy 28 verse 1. 1 If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the world. 2 You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God: 3 Your towns and your fields will be blessed. 4 Your children and your crops will be blessed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed. 5 Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed. 6 Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed. 7 “The Lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven! (Deuteronomy 28:1-7 NLT). Does that sound like you’re all on your own trying to fight everything, do everything, make everything happen for yourself? Chase, chase, chase, chase, chase, chase.
8 “The Lord will guarantee a blessing on everything you do and will fill your storehouses with grain. The Lord your God will bless you in the land he is giving you. 9 “If you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways, the Lord will establish you as his holy people as he swore he would do. 10 Then all the nations of the world will see that you are a people claimed by the Lord, and they will stand in awe of you. 11 “The Lord will give you prosperity in the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, blessing you with many children, numerous livestock, and abundant crops. 12 The Lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them. 13 If you listen to these commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today, and if you carefully obey them, the Lord will make you the head and not the tail, and you will always be on top and never at the bottom. 14 You must not turn away from any of the commands I am giving you today, nor follow after other gods and worship them (Deuteronomy 28:8-14 NLT).
Come on. Blessings. Blessings. Blessings. Blessings. Blessings. Does that sound like blessings overtaking you? They just overtake you. “But maybe I’m not making enough confession. I’ve got to confess more before the blessings come.” Hey, you’re in Covenant with the Most High God. He said, “You are My children and you are the ones that have got My affection. I love you. You are My kids. I want to bless you. I’m not trying to hold the blessing back from you. I’m trying to bless you. You don’t have to work up what the blessing is. It’s just there.”
So you don’t have to work to make things happen. Work is just to activate the blessing. The blessing comes when you work but you don’t have to work like the world works and say your differentiation is in; how much work, how smart work, how good work, how much productivity you can do based on what someone else can do. That’s not the condition of the blessing. Wow.
So how are you going to do this? Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to walk around, and I’m going to say, “I’m blessed. I’m blessed. I’m blessed. I’m blessed everywhere I go. Where my feet go, I’m blessed. Where my hands go, I’m blessed. And I’m sending my words to go and make blessing. My words. My words are blessing relationships. My words are blessing whatever my hand puts to. My words are blessing all the productivity of everything I do, and money comes into my hands because I’m blessed. I’m blessed going out. I’m blessed coming in. I’m blessed in the city, and I’m blessed in the field. I’m blessed in my thinking, and I’m blessed in my talking. I’m blessed in my relationships. I’m blessed. The Holy Spirit is the author of everything that I’m blessing in my life because He is in me to help me. He’s from the Covenant One Maker that is Jesus. He’s here to make sure that I’m blessed, and I’m blessed, and I’m blessed, and I’m blessed. And today, I’m walking in blessing, and I’m walking in joy, and peace, and love, and kindness, and patience because the Holy Ghost is in me to make me live according to the Covenant. Whoo! I’m blessed.”
Hey, why do you want to walk around and say, “I’m moping. I feel sad today.” Hey? Hey, you might feel sad. I’ll tell you sometimes when you’re starting to get a little bit older, you’re beginning to realize, actually, there is only so many days God has allocated to you to live on the earth. So as you start to get older, you get to realize, “I’m getting closer to those days.” Because I used you earlier on, Nikao. When you’re 19, it’s like, “Hey! I’ve got so many days to live I don’t even know. Yeesh, they’re so far away. I can just do whatever I want to because I’ve got so many days.” When you get to my age, it’s like, “I know those days are not forever in the natural.” So you can wake up sometimes in the mornings, and the devil will come and lie to you and say, “You’ve wasted days.”
Only when you get over a certain age do you get to think like this because the devil wants to use… okay, I’m just going to give you this, Sharon and I were reading the scripture this week. The Bible says that even though my outward man is perishing day by day, my inward man is renewed day by day. So if you remember, years ago, I said Pastor Lynn was like the marker for me. I said, Pastor Lynn, you can’t come and tell me at 65 you’re retiring because your real value is increasing as you get older. Why? Because for all the years you’ve lived in a corrupted body, while your body was decaying and corrupting, your spirit man was renewing and getting stronger because the Holy Spirit is putting stuff into you that will last eternally, and it’s not corruptible.
So, even though your body is getting older and your energy and your productivity in the natural is decreasing, your spirit renewed man is increasing in power and capacity and capability. So, the devil wants to lie to us that as you get older, you have more wasted days and you don’t have that many productive days because you don’t have that much energy. But your energy is no longer coming from your human body. Your energy is coming out of your spirit, man, that’s renewed day by day. And the devil just wants to shut your mouth. Because if you’re a spirit man renewed day by day, older and older, you’re getting to have more revelation and more revelation that you can speak out on behalf of yourself and others and set generations and generations in order because of what’s in you. It’s Covenant talk.
Yes. My brother Paul, you know, for years, he was like anti authoritarian, until God dealt with him and said, you need to be able to submit to spiritual authority because your future depends on it. Right, Paul? You know, that revelation came later on in his life because there was a lot of stuff he had to get rid of [Paul speaks to Pastor John from the audience]. Till 60 years. It took 60 years. I wasn’t going to tell all of that, but if you gave me permission, thank you. It took 60 years for Paul to get to that place where he said, “I’m ready to give up and submit to spiritual leadership.” Because whatever his reasons, those are his reasons. He shared them with me, but it took him 60 years.
Now watch this. His body’s decaying, but the revelation that he’s received is renewed him. It gives him more power, it gives him more strength, it gives him more ability. So even though some people might look at his body and say he’s gray and, like me, lost hair. He lost it before I did. But you can look at his body and say, he doesn’t have that much. Hah. What’s coming out of him now has got more power, got more strength, more productivity, more increase because his spirit man’s renewed. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. So, that’s, applies to all these young people. When they came here, some of them 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, whatever your age is. When you got here and you’ve been here 2, 3 years, even though time might have gone past and people say you’re wasting time. No.
What’s happening in your spirit is you’re renewing your spirit. Your spirit is increasing with strength and power. And so if you will see the Covenant power that’s at work here, your Spirit man is increasing and you begin to speak, and the productivity begins to escalate. Even though some people say, “Time is going”. Your productivity is getting stronger because it’s Covenant. That’s why if we get our kids speaking Covenant talk when they’re 10, 11, 12, and then this is what the devil’s always been scared of, is to have a young generation of people that already know what they are in Christ. Who they are in Christ, what they can do in God and the church begins to speak with power. The elders of the church come and bring wisdom of revelation. The younger of the church come with a renewed energy to take revelation and to walk with it and live it out, and together, we are supposed to be Covenant people. Church, Ekklesia, glory. How about that, Church? How about this teaching here this morning? I think we’re headed for something. I think we’re headed for something grand. Praise Jesus.
And so, now, let’s take up an offering. I’m getting better at this. The Holy Spirit is reminding me. When I was in the prayer this morning, I said to the Holy Spirit, “Remind me, please.” And He did, right now. He’s guiding me. He’s my helper. Yeah and when Pastor Christi can’t help me and Empie doesn’t help me anymore. They went all quiet on me. I had to rely on the Holy Spirit. Oh, woe is me. I’m teasing, of course. Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.
You know, yesterday, I had quite a moment because it was pretty cold yesterday, and we had no food in the house, so we had to go shopping. So, we went into Checkers, and there was a young lady standing outside there, and she was selling optic fiber. So I said, “What are you doing here?” She said, “No, my boss says I’ve got to stand here today.” She says,” I’m praying for the rain.” I said, “Why?” She says, “Because when it rains, I don’t have to stand here anymore.” I said, “Okay.” So I just got chatting to her about it and I asked her how old she is. She’s 24 years old. So then Pastor Sharon had got done what we were doing, and we were about to go.
I said, “Listen, you know, we have a church just up the road here.” She says, “Yes, I know where the building is.” I said, “We have a church here. We’ve got a whole bunch of really outstanding young people. Why don’t you come and visit us in the church and come and see what God can do for you and help you in your life?” She said, “Oh, okay.” I mean, she was like, you know, I’m not committing to anything here. You know? But I’ll tell you what, I had the sense, you know. She’s lost. She needs help. How many people are so lost out there?
I mean, Sharon and I were in a situation where somebody was instructing her about something, and I had to leave her in that moment and afterwards we were driving and she said, “You know, John, I found no life in that young man. It was just death. He was just dead. There was no life in him.” Ah. I tell you what, we’ve got some things that we’ve got to talk about to the world. We have a Covenant that we’ve got to put it out there because we’ve got answers.
Come, Cobus. Won’t you all stand with me, please? Thank You, Lord. Thank You, Lord, that You have blessed us. Thank you, Lord, that You are a living, mighty God and that You’ve called us into Covenant. Our part is to just show You that we trust You with at least our tenth. And we give You our tithes and our offerings willingly, joyfully. We bless You. And we thank You, Lord, that You don’t need a reason or an excuse, it’s just in the Covenant that You bless us and bless us and bless us. We thank You for it and we receive it in Jesus’ name. And all of you say? Amen.
So, I just want to pray for you now. I pray that you will stay warm. I pray that you will have joy and peace and the love of God present in every conversation. In everything that you do and say over today, tomorrow, Tuesday, public holiday, just be blessed. Be at peace. May the peace of God guard your heart, guard your mind and keep you in that place of peace. No weapon formed against you will prosper, in Jesus’ name. And I pray that His angels have charge over you, guiding you, protecting you. And all of those people that are on leave for this holiday period and this long weekend, I pray that as they travel and come back, they will come back to us safely. No weapon formed against them prospers. His angels, the Father’s angels, has charge over them. We’ll go out of our houses and nothing will be missing. We’ll come back and we’ll be blessed coming back into our houses. Hallelujah. I declare health and healing is your portion. It’s part of our Covenant that God is our Healer. He’s our Restorer. He’s our God that blesses us with all kinds of blessings. Are you in agreement with this today? Amen. Hallelujah.
I just want to tell you; why don’t you just take this day and this weekend and speak about relationships that, you know, just relationships. Just say; I bless my relationship… So, like I’m just going to use Yatteer here, if I’m just thinking about it, I bless my relationship with Yatteer. I thank you, Lord, that it becomes everything that it needs to become as we journey going forward this week, this month, next year, everything, that our relationship is blessed. I bless it. I bless my relationship with Loutjie. I bless it that it will be everything that it needs to be. Amen. So, as you go, I just speak blessing over my relationship. I bless our relationship. Hey, Melissa? It will become everything it needs to be and go where it needs to go. Hallelujah. God’s peace is on it. God’s joy is in it. His glory is all over our relationships. Let’s talk like that! Let’s make it be powerful with our words. Our Covenant is there. Amen. Alright, bye, everybody. Be blessed.
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