Scripture Reference: Hebrews 5,6; Hebrews 11:1; Genesis 3:17-19 (AMPC); Genesis 4:2,7,8,11 (AMPC); Genesis 4:11-12 (AMPC); Genesis 4:16-19 (AMPC); Genesis 4:23-25 (AMPC); Genesis 5:26-27(AMPC); Genesis 5:29-32 (AMPC);
Genesis 6:5-10; 12; 18; 22; Genesis 8:15-22; (Genesis 9:1-3 (AMPC); Mark 4:13-19 (AMPC); Proverbs 10:22 AMPC)
Hallelujah, hallelujah. Thank you Lord that the Word that is ministered this afternoon will come in demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit. Thank you Lord that Jesus is exalted, the Father is glorified and the Holy Spirit has free reign. I thank you Lord that we have ears to hear, hearts to receive and we are ready for change. Thank you Lord, thank you lord, if you agree with this prayer you can say Amen. Hallelujah, you may be seated. Praise the Lord, hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Well, since the kids are all ready leaving, I was going to use, I’m going to use children as an example of something the Lord has been speaking to me and showing me about and uh….you know, when you’re three, four, five years old, six years old -those kids that were walking our here, they were going out, you know, they left our presence totally focused on what’s happening to them. Can I call it socially unaware of everything else that’s happening around them and to them. All they know is it’s our time to leave so this is the time go and everything else is actually irrelevant, right?
As you get a little bit older of course, you know, you become more aware of things around you and you become more aware of adult dynamics if I can call it that. Things you’re supposed to do and things you’re not supposed to do. Well uh, when you talk about someone that is a Christian, Hebrews chapter 5 and 6 talks about a baby Christian that feeds on the milk of the Word. And so then he talks about I shouldn’t be talking to you as babes but ones that are mature which means that growing is a process in the same way that a natural child’s growth is a process.
So can I describe it to you this way that: when you grow up spiritually, you grow from a person who is totally self- centred in your walk with God and you’re only aware of your dynamics of the world that is happening around you, to someone who grows up who is completely aware of all of the dynamics that is happening to you and around you with other people and a whole community and you know what your place is, you know what your function is, you know what your role is – spiritually. That means you know how to think, talk and behave like Jesus in a community of people and it becomes second nature to you to think and behave like that. It doesn’t even require a matter of discipline; it’s just something that has been trained in you. So you know uh, if you want to be a Christian like that, it requires training, it doesn’t take living. Come on now.
It’s a mistake that we think as Christians, it’s a mistake we think we can do and get away with it because we just think we can live as Christians and that’s enough to live as a born-again Christian. No, you can’t just live as a born-again Christian, for you to become a Christian that is completely spiritually involved in everything that you’re doing; aware knowing what to say, when to say and how to say it and when to react and when not to react – that requires training. So that when you’re in that environment, becomes an automatic function for you. I guess you know if you had to talk about, about people talk you know…. Psychologists and books have been written about emotional quotients or emotional awareness or emotional intelligence, you know. And they describe people that are more likely to succeed in business and in life as people who are emotionally intelligent as opposed to people who are intellectually intelligent. So that was a whole thesis on a number of books that were written 15-20 years ago where people – they did a study on people that left top schools like Harvard and Princeton and Yale and all those kind of big schools and became professionals and many of them didn’t live up to the expectation of their education. But they actually did a survey of people that did live up to the expectation and they discovered that it was people that were more intelligently or ‘in tune’ with their emotions and emotionally aware of what was happening rather than just pure intellect.
There’s no doubt that in some instances pure intellect can get a lot done and education together with intellect can get a lot done. But I’m trying to make a point to you that, that that’s something that you train yourself to do. It’s something that you as you’re growing up as a child, someone is training you or you’re training you or you get trained by friends around you because you discover that this kind of response gets this kind of reaction. And so, as you’re a child you…. and sometimes it’s happening when you are little and you don’t even know that you are developing that and as you’re developing, you are aware as a child you’re getting this kind of response and you don’t like it so you change the way you respond. And so that becomes the emotional intelligence.
I’m just trying to say to you that to become a spiritual, a spiritual Christian, requires training. It requires a response to circumstances that are happening around you that you choose to respond in a way that God has given you the ability to respond in a way that you recognize that, that is not the right response, if I respond this way, is a better response. Hello? That’s why our mandate as a ministry is to touch people that are friends. We teach people that are followers. We train people that are fanatics and we transfer to people that are father’s. So you have to first be someone who is a friend, then you become a follower, then you become a fanatic then you can become a father.
I’m not just talking now because I’m about to, I am in my message already because part of what happened to me is uh…. in preparation for the message is, the Lord has been dealing with me about a number of things and uh um, I called up Sarah at the office and I said, “Sarah have we got any transcriptions that people have transcribed my message from Jacob’s Constellation?” And she said, “Well that’s an interesting question Pastor John because we’ve been talking in the office,” because I’m on a real drive to make many of the materials that we have, that I and Pastor Sharon have preached and have taught over many years, we are on a drive to bring out many, many books, in a shorter time as possible. I’m believing God that what would have taken ten years, we are going to do in one year, really. And we have a lot of raw material because God has raised up people transcribing our messages and they’ve been happening for the last 18 months two years and we have all this database of information that we can put together to create books. Hallelujah.
It’s one of the things that God is really moving upon me strongly, that some of the changes that are happening to Pastor Sharon and I – He is elevating our profile and He is wanting us to be much more internationally known and one of the ways He’s going to do that, is through the books that we are going to write – that have been written actually many of them and some of them have just got to be put into in to an edited format.
So one of the things that I was meditating on, was what the Lord wanted me to do with Jacob’s Constellation. So, the blessing of the Father’s, the blessing of the future and the blessing of identity change. So I’ve mentioned this many times and I have ministered on it in short bursts, if you like, but I asked “have I actually preached on this message.” And so they said, “Well, we can’t find a record that you’ve actually preached on this message. You’ve had half an hour or twenty minutes of places where you’ve preached on a it or spoken about it, but it’s not something that you’ve preached on…. Other than, you preached on it in business school, you know, and so the business school teaching ran for about an hour and a half and it is in the business school.
And so, part of what I was wanting to do in my preparation to speak on Jacob’s Constellation, was I wanted to find out how much have I said and how much haven’t I said and is it necessary for me to minister it because the Lord began to put something on my heart to minister on, and it’s about fathers – Spiritual fathers, natural fathers, the spirit of the father. And so, part of what’s happening, happened to my journey in searching God on the spirit of the Father….Because we’ve done a lot of teaching in this ministry. We’ve done a lot of training on many things: financial training, prayer training, discipleship training at different levels of marriage and all kinds of different trainings on different levels: how to use your faith, how to use your faith in a world where no one else is talking faith and what I haven’t taught in church we’ve…it’s definitely in the Bible School in one form or another. Leadership Academy is basically about how to live what you know in the Word in a world that doesn’t receive you. That’s what Leadership Academy is all about.
So the Lord, ….so the one thing that’s kind of, I haven’t really spoken much about, is fathers and the spirit of a father. And so this led me to going back to Jacob’s Constellation because the initial launch pad of Jacob’s life was the blessing of the Father. The launch pad of Isaac’s life was the blessing of the Father. The mandate to be called out of a nation for all the nations of the worlds to be blessed was the calling of the Father. So I began to just pursue the Lord about this message on the father and so it led me back to Jacobs constellation. So I am at some point going to speak about Jacob’s constellation but it’s going to have a different emphasis. It’s going to have different components of this teaching that covers a much broader spectrum and I start today, started this morning in Witbank and I start with you today.
And so in my business school that I have in Institute of Commerce. The Lord gave me this revelation some years ago and I must, I must start off by saying this, I tried to look for it this morning and I thought it was in the beginning of these notes and turns out it is right at the end of my notes. But, but you know when God the Father made man – He made man in His image and there are two things that the Father has no control of, the Heavenly Father. Well, when I say no control over, there are two things the Father, Heavenly Father cannot change. He cannot change His Word. His Word is Him and He is the Word. His Son is the Word that is the manifestation of Him. Okay, so God cannot go against His Word. His Word is who He is.
So, God cannot go against His word. His word is who He is. So that’s an unchangeable thing even by God Himself, because He cannot fundamentally go against who He is, because who He is, is His word and His word is who He is. So, He cannot go against His word. It is forever, what it is. So, that’s why, when God made a covenant to Abraham, He swore by Himself, because there was no other greater to swear by, than Himself. So, His word and Himself was the only thing He could swear by, to enforce and determine and make say, “This is how the covenant will happen.” Okay.
The other thing that God determined when He made man, is there is one thing He can’t change, is that man has a freewill and a choice. So, He can come and visit man and He can present Himself to man, and He can tell man what He wants the man to do. But He cannot change man’s choice. His will is his will. That’s the way it is. So, you know, if you ask me, “Well, how do I know that?” Well, for example, in the New Testament Jesus appears to the Apostle Paul or Saul as he was then known, on the road to Damascus. And on the road to Damascus, He speaks to Saul and He says, “Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” And why, if you keep going against the goads, it will not go well with you.” So why would Jesus say, “If you keep doing this, it won’t go well with you,” when He knew what Paul’s response would be? Because it was still up to Paul. So, He presented Himself to Paul. You could argue and rightly so, that when He presented Himself to Paul He knew that Paul would make the choice because He Himself is irresistible. And you could argue that and I would not disagree with you. But He couldn’t assume that because it was still Paul’s choice. And so that’s why He says, “If you keep doing this it will not go well.” The choice was Paul’s to decide. And that’s the second thing that God cannot change, is the will of man. To do whatever you want to do, that’s your business and God cannot override that.
Kenneth Hagin has taught this and you know, there are some spiritual and biblical references to this. And he basically says, you know, “When you pray for someone, you can ask that the darkness – when you are praying for another believer or you are praying for someone who is blind and cannot see, you can pray that the blindness and the darkness is removed and that light comes to them, so that they can make the right choice. But you cannot pray that someone’s will, will be changed.” Because even God can’t do that. So, your will is a very powerful thing. Hallelujah.
So, I want to just make a comment to you, that I got some feedback from Brother Jerry via Joe McCroskey on Friday, and Brother Jerry has been away with Brother Copeland and Brother Jesse, a place called Guadalcanal. They’ve been doing a conference down there, and when he got back he immediately spoke to Joe and he said to Joe, “Get hold of John and tell John I want him to be with me and doing things with me.” He gave me some things that he has called me to him to do with him. Hallelujah. I said to you a number of years ago, that we are going to have identity change and it’s all happening right now. It’s all happening right now. Hallelujah.
And so, you know, I’ve been telling people that are close to me and I’ve been asking people to pray for….that I feel like we’re in a final push. And so, when I say we’re in a final push, some people have kind of interpreted that as a woman who’s giving birth, and you have to, you know, give delivery – so there’s the final push. And I’m not going to disagree with that but that’s not my sort of default setting when I said, “I feel we’re going for a final push here.” It’s more like, the way I can describe it to you more is, if someone is running a marathon and whatever distance you want to call it or doing a cycle of a race or whatever. If you’re running a marathon and the marathon is 42km and you have run 38km, the 38km is what gets you to the final 4km. Without the 38km you can’t run the final 4km. Do you know what I’m saying? So, you got to run 38 to get to the final 4.
I mean, there was this stage on the Tour de France in this week somewhere that I’ve been hearing stories from about, coming through about it, that all the riders have been complaining because it’s the longest stage that has ever been ridden on the Tour de France, 235km or whatever it was, and it was pan flat the whole day and they were all complaining that it was the most boring day they’ve ever had on a bicycle. You know. And so, it was a classical setup for a sprinter’s day. So, the sprinter’s day, you know. Everybody’s waiting for the last 10km, and so the last 10km they start ramping up the speed getting positioning, so you go and this is what actually happened on that particular day. They were riding a 36, 38km an hour, which for a professional race on a flat course is very slow. I wish I could, you know. But the average speed was like 38km for the day. The last 10km, the average speed is like 62km an hour. You know. The last 2 or 3km, the guys are racing at 60/65km an hour. The last 100m, the guys are riding at 70/ 72km an hour.
What I’m saying is, you can’t ramp up the intensity for the last 3 or 4km if you haven’t ridden the 200km before that. You can’t actually ride/ run the last 4km if you haven’t run 38km. And so, when I was saying, “I feel we’re in for a final push.” It’s because we’ve been running if I can put it that way or cycling. We’ve been active, we’ve been expanding energy, we’ve been doing things for quite a long time and when you’re in a race, typically in a Tour de France kind of a sprint finish on a bicycle, you know. I’ve watched on the highlights package that some of the guys have been given time bonuses against them, some of them have been… had things happen to them, because you see them actually riding and they’re pushing each other at 65km an hour on a bicycle. They’re pushing each other with their helmets and they’re nudging each other with their wrists and their elbows and their shoulders, because they’re needing to be in the right position to get to the finishing line and there’s no place for mistakes anymore.
It doesn’t matter what happened 230km ago. When you’re in the final push and your intensity is ramped up and this is what the 200km were all about is the final four. There’s not more room for mistake. You know. And if there’s someone occupying the space that you need to be in to be able to make that final push, you’ve got to make sure that you make your presence felt to make sure you have the space to push. It’s not like you’re competing against anybody else in the spirit. It’s like there are forces that want to close down the space that God has enabled you and predestined you to walk in. Your assignment is ahead of you, it’s before you. Your finishing goal is ahead of you. And so, you, it’s not like someone else is trying to fill that space in the spirit. It’s, you got to make sure that the forces that are trying to slow you down or get into or knock you off your bike, that you’ve got to be able to say, “No, I’m got my lane. I’m here. I’m going for it.” Final push –the intensity is ramped up. Hallelujah.
So that’s what I’ve been feeling. I’ve been feeling like the intensity is here. The spiritual life is here. We’re in that final push. It’s about pushing into the space into the final finish line, not the finishing line of my race and my assignment but in the finishing line of ‘this is now perfectly where God wants us to be, as a ministry, as a people, as a group.” So, if you, if you start to see me making changes in the ministry in weeks and months ahead, part of it is going to be because of what’s happening between me and Brother Jerry, part of it’s going to be because there are things that I have to be bold about and as forces are coming against me to try and knock me out of position, you know. I got to….there’s no room for mistake here. 200km ago, in terms of the Tour de France, it happened so that even on that day where there was quiet races, guys fell off the bikes. What happens, you know. 30km into the ride, everybody’s taking it easy, it’s a sunny day, there’s hardly any wind about. It’s nice, comfortable, nobody’s paying attention, no concentration required. It’s just automatic riding. 36km an hour, this is piece of cake for a pro. Not paying attention. What happens? Knocks a bike, off the bike. 36km an hour, I promise you, you get very hurt. You don’t have to be riding at 60km an hour to get hurt on a bike. At 36km an hour you do break collar bones, you do break wrists, you do get hurt, can have concussion. You can get killed at 36km an hour off a bicycle. You know. If you’re running on the road and you’re running at 10km an hour, which is a good pace to run, but if you’re running at 10km an hour you can still injure yourself. You run into the back of someone’s heel that’s running in front of you or someone comes and knocks you or there’s a confined space and you can get knocked over, knocked sideways, knocked out of your stride. You can hurt yourself. You know.
I’m reminded of what Kenneth Hagin….What happened with Kenneth Hagin is that, in his book ‘Plans, Purposes and Pursuit,’ you know, he was having a meeting with a whole bunch of ministers and one of the ministers asked him the question that, “What has happened to you Brother Hagin? You went from a nobody who was running meetings in a tent, pastor of a few churches, having a very itinerant ministry where you were ministering in small churches around America and it didn’t take very long for you to become a national figure and now you’ve become an international figure. What happened to you? What’s the secret of your success?” This is what he said. He said, “I only did what I prayed out in the Spirit. When I prayed things out in the Spirit, God showed me things and I did what He showed me, and when I did what He showed me, it brought me here. I didn’t plan to be here. This is where God brought me. But one could argue that he was cycling for 200km, 220km or running 38km and then God said to him, “Okay, now it’s time to ramp up. Run like this, do it like this, take this gel.” I’m trying to just make it practical here. Hello. You seem very quiet on me. Are you receiving? Are you sure? You may tell me, “We’re receiving Pastor John.” Cool.
So those of you who have done any part of this business course, will know that I made a very bold statement and the statement I made was that: God had a business plan and His first business plan, He failed – and He did. He failed in His first business plan, His first venture into business, because He on purpose gave the choice of the future to ‘man’. And so, God did not want Jesus to have to die on the Cross. He made it available as an option that Jesus would die on the Cross, before the foundation of the earth, if man made the wrong choice. Come on now. I mean, I know there’s a lot of doctrines that you can take any sides of this doctrine. It is interesting to me, I just love that…. I listened to a message recently from Kenneth Copeland and I got so tickled that my toes curled. Really, really, because I’ve been preaching for a long time that when you get born again, you’re born again forever and that you cannot lose your salvation, you can only just choose not to grow in Christ. And lo and behold, if he hasn’t been preaching for 50 years and then he gets to say it for the first time, I’ve ever heard him say it in a public place, where he says it. I said, “Kenneth, it’s time to catch up Brother.” I’m sure he knew that before and he believed that before, he just probably didn’t feel like he needed to say it before, but praise the Lord. It really made me feel good, you know. I mean, not that I needed any convincing, it’s just nice that when someone else who’s a father in the faith is really strong about it publicly too – anyway, so that’s just cool, you know.
So if we accept that there are two things that God cannot alter – one is His Word and the other is the choice that man has. Then we have to accept that man had a choice: not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but to eat of the tree of life instead. You accept that? So that means God’s plan to succeed in business, as I preached it then, or in life, was that He would eat of the tree of life, not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. On that basis, God’s first business plan failed. And so, in order to fix it and I’m not doing a business plan, business conversation with you today, I’m doing this just to set up what I’m about to teach you today about The Source and the Future. And the first thing that God had to do, was realise that it was in bad shape, because man had made the wrong decision. After He realised it, He had to restructure. So how did He restructure? I’m going to teach on that this afternoon. He restructured with Noah. And the last thing He had to do, was to restore. So He had to realise, He had to restructure, then He had to restore. And so, that is the story of what happened between Adam and Noah – He started something, He had to realise it wasn’t working, then He had to restructure and then He had to restore. Come on, hallelujah, praise the Lord.
So Hebrews 11:1, 1Now faith is the assurance (the confirmation, the title deed) of things we hope for…being the proof of things we do not see and [the conviction of their reality…]. In other words, we can say, now faith is, according to the Amplified Bible, now faith is perceiving as real fact what is not revealed to the senses. So here’s this world that we choose to live in. We choose to live in a world where we have an expectation and we have a hope for something that we cannot see and feel and know in our sense realm. So in other words, faith is living beyond what we can see in the senses. Faith is living beyond what’s in the natural man. So that’s why it’s important that if we teach you, we have to teach you to live beyond your emotions and beyond your senses. And so, that’s why over the last while, if you keep living according to your senses, you will elevate your life’s responses to what your senses want, and you will dull your responses to what faith says. If you increase your responses to what faith says, then you will dull your reflexes or your sensitivity to your natural senses. So, you can’t live in both at the same time. You’re either going to live according to the natural, carnal man or you’re going to live according to the spirit man. If you accept the fact that the natural man requires, as I have taught, needs and desires, but you respond to that by faith, then the faith that you live in will dominate what happens in the senses.
This is important, because Adam responded to what was in his senses. So he ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. So Adam responded to that. So when Jesus came, Jesus did not respond to His senses, He responded by faith. So when He responded by faith, He was able to say that, “I have done everything My Father told me to do, because I never responded to My senses, I responded to the faith that is in Me. And the faith that I have in the Father, is what’s driven Me to the Cross.” It was the faith in the Father and His faith in what God had for Him, that caused our salvation. I am not for one minute saying that we shouldn’t have an emotional response to things, but if your emotional response is always based on what your body wants, then your body and your emotions will create your future. If your response to your natural realm is what your faith tells you, then your faith and your soul will create a future for your body that is easy for your body to live in. Come on. And so, I put it this way: I said, “Faith is the power, released by the Father, to enforce the will of the Father, expressed through His words.” You remember I said that, many times on that one weekend. Okay?
So here I get into this part of the teaching. If you stick with me, I promise you this is a very powerful teaching; you’re going to love it; it’s going to just really energise you. Okay? Will you stick with me today? I know it’s afternoon, but I know you can handle it. Those are faith words. I’m not responding to your senses, I’m responding to my faith. So, and to Adam he said (Genesis 3 verse 17)17And to Adam He said, Because you have listened and given heed to the voice of your wife and you have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it, the ground is under a curse because of you….(Will you just make sure you understand what this scripture says? The ground is under a curse because of you. Okay?) ….in sorrow and toil shall you eat [of the fruits] of it all the days of your life. 18Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19In the sweat of your face shall you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you shall return (Genesis 3:17-19, AMPC).
So I want you to see here in this passage of scripture, is a direct relationship between the way man works with the ground. So the ground, which was producing in abundance everything Adam ever needed – it was just always there – he didn’t have to ask for it, he didn’t have to work for it, it was always there – in the Garden of Eden. Now, he’s no longer in the Garden of Eden. Now he’s got to sweat and toil for the ground to produce. Okay? That word ‘toil’ is taken from the Hebrew word, in the Amplified it says in the sweat of your face or in toil. So in verse 17 it says in sorrow and toil. In verse 19 it says and the sweat of your face – comes from the Hebrew word, it’s called iṣṣābôn, which means ‘to be in labour or in pain; hardship.’
So what was the thing that he said to the wife? “You will have labour and pain in childbirth.” Now he’s saying to the man in labour and pain you will have to work and get your living from the ground – same judgment. The root word that makes up this word in the Hebrew is a word called āṣab. So iṣ ṣābôn, āṣab and it means to fabricate or to be in pain, to be in grief; to be sorry. And it is such a thing that consumes you, so as to reflect worship. So although you are not worshipping the ground, it so consumes you in what you have to do to bring forth the produce, to live by it, that it takes up so much of your energy and your intensity, it would be the same as though you were worshipping it. Such is your grief and your pain and your labour. Okay? This is what God said to Adam – Chapter 4, verse 2. So now they have children. 2And [next] she gave birth to his brother Abel. (Cain and Abel) Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground (Genesis 4:2, AMPC). Verse 7, so in between this now they give an offering to the Lord. Cain gives vegetables and stuff that he produced from the ground and Abel brings a sheep. As I’ve taught you before, it’s not what the offering was, it was the heart condition of the individual who was bringing the offering. Okay?
So God is now on the scene and God Himself is talking to Cain: 7If you do well, will you not be accepted?… So it is very important for us to recognise that the offering represents everything he is, because God doesn’t say if you do well, will your offering be accepted, He’s saying, if you do well, you will be accepted. Because what you’re giving represents you. This is important. It’s important for our life…And if you do not do well, sin crouches at your door; its desire is for you, but you must master it (Genesis 4:7, AMPC). So God would not say to Cain you must master sin if Cain couldn’t master it. It means if He said you must master it, it means he could have mastered it. How much more that we are born-again believers with Jesus living in our heart, are we able to master sin that crouches at the door of our hearts? We can master it. And Cain said to his brother…. So God just got through speaking to him, 8And Cain said to his brother, Let us go out to the field. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him (Genesis 4:8, AMPC). Verse 11 God comes back and speaks to Cain 11And now you are cursed by reason of the earth (what’s the curse?), which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s [shed] blood from your hand.
So this is quite an amazing thing that this incident happens and the earth has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s shed blood from your hand. 12When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth [in perpetual exile, a degraded outcast]. (Genesis 4:11,12)
So, some translations say your brother’s blood cries to me from the earth. It’s an interesting thing that this is a first account of someone who gave up their life prematurely because of something that was in a brother’s heart. I want to just say this to you – that God is watching. The Holy Spirit if hovering over all the earth. And if you take this and you understand this, you will understand that every death that happens on the earth where a man’s blood is spilt by another man, God is holding an account of every act of violence like that. Absolutely true. Anyway, that’s not my message. What I want to say to you today, is that when God said to Adam, “You are going to have to labour, you are going to have to sweat and toil and it’s going to be sorrowful for you and you are going to put so much energy and effort into this, and when you yield your livelihood out of this – out of the soil – it’s going to be like it takes up so much of your life that it’s almost going to be – you feel like you’re worshipping this because it’s so interactive with what you do.” Aren’t you a little bit of a scripture in Matthew chapter six where you cannot serve two masters, cannot serve God and mammon. You will love the one and hate the other one. Why? Because when you are involved in the creation of something that actually is supposed to take care of you, it is so intense and it is so full of everything that you are – it’s almost going to be you’ll have to choose, not to worship what comes from it, but you choose to worship the God that gave you the ability to make it. You have to make that choice. Otherwise fear, fear and that sorrowfulness of all the toil you’ve had to put in to make it, will consume you and control you. It will always be at the door of your heart, and it will control your actions – but you can master it. You can master it if you choose to. I’m preaching very well.
As a result of that conversation, Cain went away, verse 16, 16So Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, which means wandering, east of Eden. (Genesis 4:16) And Cain’s wife [one of Adam’s offspring], well there were no other women to marry. So God’s instruction to man was to populate the earth. He didn’t say that you can’t, there was only one source of life. Don’t get all religious with me here. Just saying there was one source of life and as the reproduction happened, males went with females, and the males and the females had more children. Just don’t get bent out of shape about this – it’s what happened. There’s only one source of human kind. Come on man.17So Cain’s wife became pregnant and bore Enoch; and Cain built a city and named it after his son Enoch. 18To Enoch was born Irad, and Irad was the father of Mehujael, and Mehujael the father of Methusael, and Methusael the father of Lamech. 19And Lamech took two wives; the name of the one was Adah and of the other was Zillah. (Genesis 4:17-19)
Now I go to verse 23 ,23Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say; for I have slain a man [merely] for wounding me, and a young man [only] for striking and bruising me. 24If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech [will be avenged] seventy-sevenfold. 25And Adam’s wife again became pregnant, and she bore a son and called his name Seth. For God, she said, has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, for Cain slew him. (Genesis 4:23-25) So I just want to say this. God said, “If anybody tries to take Cain’s life, he will be avenged seven times of what happened to Cain.” So when Lamech killed two men, he prophesies his own judgement. He doesn’t wait for God to show up. He prophesies his own judgement and he said, “If Cain, who’s my great grandfather, my grandfather, if he had sevenfold, seventy times seven is my judgement.” So if you look in the book of Matthew, Peter comes to Jesus, and he says to Jesus, “If a man does wrong to you, how many times must we give him? How many times must we give him?” Under the Hebrew law, it was seven times. Jesus says to him, “Not seven times, seventy times seven.” What Jesus was doing was answering the judgement that Lamech placed on mankind and says, “I am reversing the curse that Lamech placed on the earth, that all levels of forgiveness will last forever, man against man, through the love of God”. Quite something hey. That’s just a side note.
So, Methuselah lived after the birth of Lamech – so this is a different – let’s bring up that slide. This is a different Lamech that we’re talking about now. Can you all see this slide?
(Pastor John refers to the following slide on screen:)
Okay. So there’s Adam and Eve, and there’s Cain and Abel, and then they had another child which was Seth. Seth was the father of Enos, Enos was the father of Cainan, who’s the father of Mahalalel, who’s the father of Jared, became the father of Enoch. So I’m just giving you a history here, because Enoch lived 365 years and then God took him and he was no more. But in the meantime, Enoch had a son by the name of Methuselah, who had a son who he named Lamech. So when I’m talking about Lamech now, I’m talking about two different Lamechs. The one Lamech was born to Cain, this Lamech was born to Seth. Okay. So I’m just showing you this, we’ll get to the next bit now. I want to read this passage of scripture to you:
26Methuselah lived after the birth of Lamech, 782 years and had other sons and daughters. 27So Methuselah lived 969 years, (Genesis 5:26,27),…. that’s as close as anybody has ever lived to a thousand years. That’s pretty cool hey. So anybody like to say to me, so if you watched the message this morning then don’t put up your hand. You know. But anybody like to say, think why he lived a thousand years? Why it wasn’t Adam that lived a thousand years? Why he’s the guy that lived the longest? Let me tell you why I believe it. Can’t prove it, it’s just my revelation. Who’s his father? Enoch. Enoch lived 365 years and then God took him. Because the Bible says he had such fellowship with God that he walked on the earth and then he was no more. Watch this space. Watch now. Enoch is having such intimate fellowship with God, that God says, “Enoch, you cannot live in this environment where the earth is cursed, not only is the earth cursed, but the strength of the earth cannot yield it’s abundance to you. So you are having such fellowship with Me that you cannot live in this environment because you are so blessed walking with Me, I cannot let you live in this cursed environment. So just come walk with me forever”.
What is it that differentiated Enoch to all the other people? It’s that Enoch, in his fellowship, understood the power of his words, understood the power of fellowship, understood the choice of eating life with God. So he never ate of the tree of life, but he was eating of the relationship of the tree of life. He was eating from the very Creator of the tree of life. He was eating life every day so the life came into life. Life could not take him into death. Hold on a minute. What happens to the son that’s living around this man? The son that’s living around this man is watching this man, hearing from this man, everything he tastes is everything that’s coming from the life between the life of the man and the life of God that is between this man and he observes his father and everything that’s happening between him and God and his father. He is observing and hearing the conversation and all the words that are coming out of his dad’s mouth. So when Methuselah takes up the image of his father, he doesn’t know how to die. Because he’s living in such life that death can’t take him. So he lives 969 years because he can’t die. Come on now. So what happens to Methuselah? Methuselah has a son called Lamech, and Lamech has a son. Lamech has a son whose name is Noah. You want to know about Noah? You should want to know about him. And all the days of Lamech were 779 years.
Okay, now I have to go back. So Methuselah lived 969 years and he died. When Lamech was 182 years old, a son was born. 29He named him Noah, saying, This one shall bring us relief and comfort from our work and the [grievous] toil of our hands due to the ground being cursed by the Lord. 30When Lamech was 182 years old, a son was born. Lamech lived after the birth of Noah 595 years and had other sons and daughters. 31So all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died. 32After Noah was 500 years old, he became the father of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. (Genesis 5:29-32) That’s quite an age to start having children. Half a millennia – and you decide to have kids. That’s quite some energy. Why do you suppose this man was so young and energetic and sprightly at 500 years old? Because he didn’t know how to die. Why did he not know how to die? Because he was the son of Lamech, who had learnt from his father Methuselah, who had learn from his father Enoch and they knew how to talk, they knew how to live in the presence of God and what he learnt from his father was, all the time, I don’t know how to die. Because life does not bring about death, life brings about life. Hallelujah. So I’m not going to, today; I’m not going to talk about the rest of the guys – Shem, Ham and Japheth – because those are the sons of Noah, and they all have a role to play in what we will talk about next time we get together. But this is just a slide to show you that all the nations of the earth come from here. In case you just ever wondered, and I’m sure you did. Do you like this slide? You do. Okay. I don’t need the slide anymore.
Genesis 6:5 5 “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination and intention of all human thinking was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth…” Remember that I said God had a business plan and he had to realise that it wasn’t working so that He could restructure, so that He could restore. Okay, so here is where it all comes in. 6 “And the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved at heart.7 So the Lord said, I will destroy, blot out, and wipe away mankind…” Restructuring begins. “…Whom I have created from the face of the ground—not only man, [but] the beasts and the creeping things and the birds of the air—for it grieves Me and makes Me regretful that I have made them.8 But Noah found grace (favour) in the eyes of the Lord.”
Why Noah? Well because of whom his father was; because he knew how to live before God. He knew how to talk before God. He knew how to live in the presence of God. He knew how to live with God. 9“This is the history of the generations of Noah. Noah was a just and righteous man, blameless in his [evil] generation.” How is it that he could be blameless in an evil generation? He was blameless because his father had taught him how to live before God and he knew God. “Noah walked [in habitual fellowship] with God.” That sounds like Enoch, doesn’t it? “He walked [in habitual fellowship] with God.10 And Noah became the father of three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” (Genesis 6:5-8)
So I’m not ready to go into all of the teaching about the father and the spirit of the father, but I have said many times in this ministry, I don’t go for this thing where, you know, I am everybody’s father. I’ve said in this church, what we receive is the spirit of the father. So I’m very happy to be to be a spiritual father to you because it’s the spirit of a spiritual father that I carry – even though you may have got born again with someone else, even though you may have actually had your early years under a different spiritual leader. In this ministry we are; I am happy to say that I embrace the spirit of a father so that I can be the life source which is what a father is – the life source and the image of life to you, which is what the Apostle Paul said, “Don’t follow me, follow me as I follow Christ.” So in other words, Paul was happy to say, that’s why he wrote and he said, you have many teachers but you don’t have many fathers. He wasn’t downplaying the role of a teacher, but he was rather saying there are not many men that are willing to take on the responsibility of the spirit of a father because the spirit of a father requires that he can say, like Paul says, “Follow me as I follow the Father, so I have become a father as I have observed living like the Father. So now you may follow this father, your spiritual father, as I follow the Father. That’s why Brother Jerry has people that say, “He’s our father.” I say that Brother Jerry is my father. Brother Jerry doesn’t buy into the same things as we buy into either. He’s got a proper; I would say him and I have the same perspective without even actually talking about it. We have the same perspective. He understands that there are many people that have got born again in many other places and had other spiritual leaders that they’ve submitted to, but he is the one man that has stood the test over generations of integrity, to say: his walk and his example of who he is in Christ has made him the father that he could be example to others to follow.
So, as life has progressed, others have said, “I see the Spirit of Christ in you, I see the Father; God the Father on you and so I receive you as my spiritual father because you’re an image to me, for me to follow.” So it’s just by the way, I’m not ready to teach on all of that yet; I’m building up to it. And when we get to talk about Father Abraham, the father of our faith and the blessing of our father, then you will understand why the Lord had me go back to teach on all of this because it’s got to go all the way back to Adam who made choices that cursed the ground. Then you had Enoch who decided to walk with God all the days of his life, who became a father to Noah who was about to change everything for the future. Read with me: 12 “And God looked upon the world and saw how degenerate, debased, and vicious it was, for all humanity had corrupted their way upon the earth and lost their true direction.”
Let me tell you, we are living in a world right now that is degenerate, it is debased, and it is vicious, and everybody has lost their true direction in live. I want to say that most Christians have lost their true direction in life because they have more of the world in them than they have of the Father in them. So they think it’s okay to just live, because you’re born again and you’re not going to hell. And then it’s okay to just get people saved and get as many people to church to get saved and so that becomes the major mission on earth because it exonerates them from having to live up and step up to become people that are actually the image of the Father. I thank God that they still doing it; that Christians are still doing a job of trying to get people saved. We should always do that; preach the gospel wherever we go – and then sometimes speak words.
Verse 18: 18 “But I will establish My covenant (promise, pledge) with you, and you shall come into the ark—you and your sons and your wife and your sons’ wives with you.” Verse 22: 22 “Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.” So God told him to do all these things and because he was a follower of God, because he was fellowshipping with God all the time, when God spoke to him and said build an ark, go get all the animals, go and do all this, go and do all of that, it became his life assignment and he had the energy and the strength and everything he needed, together with his sons to build an ark. Wow! Okay, so the rain comes. God wipes out the planet. Settles the score. He realized it, restructured it, now He’s about to restore it. “And God spoke to Noah saying…” Genesis 8:15 16 “Go forth from the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives with you.” And I’m nearly done. I’ve got 10 or 15 minutes left. Are you okay with that? Are you having fun tonight? This is good teaching right? Yeah, amen brother. 16 “Go forth from the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives with you.17 Bring forth every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and beasts and every creeping thing that creeps on the ground…” It means every creep has got hope.“…That they may breedabundantly…”, not the creep, “…On the land and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth. 18 And Noah went forth, and his wife and his sons and their wives with him [after being in the ark one year and ten days]. That’s quite something. One year and ten days. 19 “Every beast, every creeping thing, every bird—and whatever moves on the land—went forth by families out of the ark.20 And Noah built an altar to the Lord and took of every clean [four-footed] animal and of every clean fowl or bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.” (Genesis 8:15-20)
Let me tell you, this was no small exercise. There was a great deal of slaughtering going on here. A great, great deal of blood was shed here. This was literally a bloodbath. This was literally an abattoir of the highest level. Do you understand when I say to you that when he killed animals, this was a massive exercise of wholesale slaughter? I don’t know how long it took but I’d go so far as to say, it took days to kill all those animal, and make an altar, and make a sacrifice to the Lord. So a great deal of blood was shed.
21 “When the Lord smelled the pleasing odour [a scent of satisfaction to His heart]; the Lord said to Himself, I will never again…”
So I just want you to understand that this might sound really crazy to you that all this blood, and all this fire, and all this burning of flesh is a sweet-smelling fragrance to God, but it again is not about the offering, it’s about the heart that brought the offering. What is it that Cain had to master? He had to master sin that was crouching at the door of his heart. What is it that Noah was doing? He was saying, “God you still own my heart, even though this whole planet now literally belongs to me. You still own my heart.” And so he gave because God owned his heart, and that was a smell that God said, a sweet smelling fragrance.
“I will never again curse the ground because of man…”There were two curses: The one that was the ground that was cursed and there was the one that the ground would not yield its strength. So God says never again will I curse the ground because of man behaviour. “…For the imagination (the strong desire) of man’s heart is evil and wicked from his youth; neither will I ever again smite and destroy every living thing, as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seed time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” (Genesis 8:21-22)
So what has just happened with Noah? Noah has made a sacrifice to God that everything that was cursed under Adam has now been reversed. The ground is no longer cursed. Man still has a curse on him but the ground does not. This is an important distinction because it makes you understand why it is that men still work with the toil of their brow, but the earth yields its strength. Because man still lives under the curse of Adam with the sin nature but the ground has no such curse. I’d love to preach this to the Greenpeace Guys.
Genesis 9:1, 1And God pronounced a blessing upon Noah and his sons and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2And the fear of you and the dread and terror of you shall be upon every beast of the land, every bird of the air, all that creeps upon the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are delivered into your hand. 3Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you; and as I gave you the green vegetables and plants, I give you everything (Genesis 9:1-3, AMPC). This is the same blessing that God gave to Adam. He has now given that same blessing to Noah. Now we’re getting into the real good stuff. Are you ready for this? Come on, I just want you to be ready for the good stuff. Because everything I have been teaching you now is information, that is revelation too, I know, but it is information to bring about the key of the revelation. Are you ready for it? Okay, here we go !
Mark 4:13 says, 13And He (Jesus) said to them (disciples), Do you not discern and understand this parable? How then is it possible for you to discern and understand all the parables? 14The sower sows the Word. 15The ones along the path are those who have the Word sown [in their hearts], but when they hear, Satan comes at once and [by force] takes away the message which is sown in them (Mark 4:13-15, AMPC). What is Jesus talking about here? He is now saying, “This is no longer about the land that you live in; this is about the land that is in your heart. I am no longer interested in speaking to you about what the land will yield to you. I am interested in talking to you about what your spirit man can yield to you.” Hallelujah.
I’ve just got to go back and clarify one thing for you. You can forgive a man 70 x 7, but there are some things that cannot be forgiven. Even Jesus could not forgive everybody 70 x 7. Anybody like to tell me who Jesus couldn’t forgive? Judas. What was the sin that Judas did that Jesus couldn’t forgive? It wasn’t about the sin of man against man. It was the sin of Judas’ heart against God. It was a heart issue that Judas had with God and Jesus could say, “What you have done in your heart before God is something I can’t interfere with – only God can take care of that as the Father.” Otherwise Jesus would have forgiven him. I had to clarify that. The Holy Spirit made me do it this morning and He arrested me now again – He made me say that. There are some…. that man on man, we forgive 70 x 7 but there are some things that God judges of the heart that is not our business to look into, and we can’t give forgiveness for that. And this is brought out if you read the book of Hebrews, because in the book of Hebrews it talks about some things that God can’t forgive. Hallelujah.
Anyway, let me go back to this message.
13And He said to them, Do you not understand this parable?…. You can’t understand all… 14The sower sows the Word. 15The ones along the path are those who have the Word sown in their hearts, but when they hear, Satan comes at once and [by force] takes away the message which is sown in them (Mark 4:13-15, AMPC). By force – let me tell you, this is not just a gentle nudge to try and get the thing out of heart. This is when the Word is sown in your heart – the enemy brings about deliberate set of circumstances, deliberate conversations, deliberate images, deliberate thoughts, deliberate things that comes immediately to you to try and steal that Word out of your heart, because when it gets onto the soil, if your heart is not prepared for it, then it cannot be received and he immediately comes against it to steal it so that it will not produce. There are some people that have a heart condition that is so hard, that when the Word comes on it, it’s immediately, the devil comes by force and takes it away. And every time he can do it, because if he can do it one time, he can do it any other time because the ground remains hard. There is only one way that you can change the condition of your heart if your heart is that hard that the enemy comes immediately to steal the Word away. Is that you have to make a decision that you want God and then you have to start to praise Him and worship Him out of your own choice every day. And when you praise Him and worship Him out of your own choice, the Word of God says in the book of Isaiah that you will plough up the hard ground of your heart.
Bobbie Jean Merck, who you wouldn’t know about, but she was the intercessor for Kenneth Hagin and his ministry for many years; she said, there is another way to actually tell God that you want to change your heart. She actually said, one of the ways you can do it is to give money to God. Well, I happen to believe that too. Because if money is your master or a master in your life, and you give money away, it can change the condition of your heart. Because if that’s one thing that you’ve got that you can part with, say, “Lord, I am asking You – here is my sacrifice, and I’m asking You to change the condition of my heart, here’s my money.” Most people will never get to that place, because they don’t believe that their condition of their heart is that hard. So the Word just keeps getting stolen from them all the time, and they don’t actually know that they have such a heart condition. So they’re unwilling to part with their money.
I tell you what, you can test somebody. Just test somebody about this. Say, “Are you a tither ? Are you willing to tithe?”If somebody says to you, “I have been a tither, but I’ve let it go and then I picked it up again, and I let it go.” I can tell you what is happening is that the condition of their heart is in such a point where they receive the Word with joy, and then other things come and steal the Word from them. So they don’t have a hard heart, but they have a ‘poor condition heart’. But if you go and ask somebody, if you want to test what God thinks about somebody, (if they’ll tell you) but you go and test and say, “Are you a tither? Do you tithe?” I’ll tell you what, it is an immediate litmus test of someone’s heart. Because already they’re saying, “I am not willing to give my hard-earned money to God.” So the way they mask it, is to say, “I’m not willing to give it to man, because I don’t trust man.” Not recognising that God has placed man in a place of delegated authority on the earth; and like it says in Hebrews, when you tithe on earth, you give it to men, but God receives it in heaven. So if you don’t believe in the principle of tithing, well then your heart is already hard, and so you won’t give your money to get redeemed from it – a hard heart. I’m really teaching very good. So if that’s the condition, then you might as well just start to praise and worship Him and try and see if you can do that to get rid of your hard- heart condition. Because then that’s your only hope of actually receiving the Word that will change your life.
You see, in the end people, I’ve said this before. I’m not going to go and stand before Jesus one day and say, “Now Jesus, here I am. Look at how good my wife is, and look how good my children served you, and so this must be a representative of how good I was for You.” Jesus is going to say, “No, no, that has got nothing to do with it. That is just your responsibility that I gave you as a male on the earth. Show me how you have given Jesus first place in your heart, because that is what matters to the Father.” It’s not whether you are a responsible male. What matters is what you have done with Jesus in your heart – and then what part of Jesus you have lived on the earth. Like I’ve said this before, it doesn’t take a spiritual person to become rich, there are many rich people on the earth. Neither does it take a spiritual person to be responsible. There are many people with great value systems that are very responsible on the earth. Responsibility does not equal spirituality. Responsibility is a value system. Spirituality is a walk before God. Yeah, I am preaching well hey! And I don’t know why I am preaching this, but God has got it coming out of my heart in rivers this afternoon. Praise the Lord. Well Father, thank You.
Anyway, 14The sower sows the Word…16And in the same way the ones sown upon stony ground are those who, when they hear the Word, at once receive and accept and welcome it with joy (Mark 4:14,16, AMPC). “Ja, wasn’t that a good Word, praise the Lord. Yes, I’m going to do that” And it’s on stony ground and it’s here and there and a bit of everywhere and they receive it with joy and then next minute it just um, um – not so much. “How is it going with the way you are living for God?” “Well you know, I prayed a few times, I did a few things – it didn’t work out for me…” They received it with joy, but there is no real root in themselves – and so they endure for a little while, then when trouble or persecution arises on account of the Word, in other words when you make a stand for the Word of God, you will be persecuted. Spiritual circumstances will be aligned against you by the enemy. Even if that spiritual circumstance is your own thought life. Remember, I have been teaching about taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Even if it’s your own temperament and your own thought life, where the enemy does battle right here inside of you with you, right here in your thought life – it’s that kind of close – wrestling with this thing.
“Is it really God? Do you really believe it? Do you really want to do that?” This kind of wrestling. I receive it with joy for a time, but then my wrestling…. and it’s gone. Persecution will come for the Word’s sake, because it wants to take the Word out of your heart because there is a much bigger deal happening right here. It’s the whole deal since Adam – where God had to curse the earth and said, “Adam you have to labour and sweat by your brow.” And then He reversed the curse through Noah and He said, “No longer will the ground be cursed, or the animals be cursed.” Now God is coming through Jesus and He says, “The whole deal is no longer about the earth, the deal is about the soil of your heart.” It’s a principle that stems from the beginning where Adam allowed his heart to be changed and he received other words into his heart that brought out other things out of his heart, rather than God’s Words. And now God says: 17And they have no real root in themselves.…18And the ones sown among the thorns are others who hear the Word; 19Then the cares and the anxieties of the world and the distractions of this age, and the pleasure and delight and false glamour and deceitfulness of riches, and the craving and passionate desire for other things come in and choke and suffocate the Word, and it becomes fruitless (Mark 4:17-19, AMPC).
Let me tell you, these were all conditions that existed in Adam’s day and in Cain and Abel’s day and it existed in Enoch’s day. And then God said, “I’m going to bring about a man and I am going to wipe man out….I realise this is not working. I am going to restructure and now I am going to restore.” And now, Jesus is saying, “I want you to be so dominant because of the Word.” Come on now, I’m about to wrap this thing up. What does John 1 say? And the Word was with God…. 1In the beginning… and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us (John 1:1). And there were those that didn’t recognise that the Word had become flesh and dwelt amongst us – and so then this Word brought about the great light that came into the world, that the world did not recognise. He’s talking about the Word and Jesus is now speaking and He’s saying, “This thing about the soil, is about the sower who sows the Word.” He’s taking it away and He’s saying, “Now, whoever believes in Me, these people shall have eternal life, they will operate as new creatures. They will have a whole new set of rules that they can live by, not will live by, can live by.”
So Jesus prays in John 17, right before He’s about to go, He prays and He says, “Father, I am praying for these that You have given Me, but I’m not just praying for them, I’m praying for all of those that are going to come. I’m asking You Father, don’t remove them from the evil one, that You don’t take them away from the evil one, because you can’t remove the evil one from them, but I pray that they will not be affected by the evil one. The way He says it was, “I’m not praying that You remove them from the world, but that You protect them from the evil one.” That’s what it says in John 17, and He says, “Now Father, these that You have given Me, I have cleansed them and I have given them all that they need through the Word and they have become Mine and they are Yours and the glory that You have given Me, the glory is going to be theirs and Father when the Holy Spirit comes to them, He will lead them into all truth and He will be their Counsellor, He will be their Advocate. He will be the One that shows them in the way that they should go. And if you have anything, you can ask the Father anything in My name and I will give it to you.”
What’s He talking about? He’s talking about: we have a whole new creature, behold old things have passed away and all things have become new. The very life of Christ has become in us and so our part becomes the new world of earth that we must toil and live in and this is a part that Jesus says in Proverbs 10:22, 22The blessing of the Lord, it makes [truly] rich and adds no sorrow with it, [neither does toiling increase it] (Proverbs 10:22). So where do I place my energy now? Where do I walk now? I thank You Father, as it says in 2 Corinthians 15, that I thank You father that I know I am walking as a natural man, but I’m also walking as a spiritual man and in my natural man, I have all these issues that I have to deal with but as a spiritual man, I am a conqueror in Christ Jesus. My faith overcomes the world. Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world, therefore the one that is in the world can no longer dominate my life, I am no longer cursed with the curse because the One that got cursed was hanging on the tree and when He was raised from the earth after three days, the curse that was always going to be on Adam and on all the world is no longer my curse, I walk in a whole new realm of freedom.
Now I’ve got to acknowledge that if God is for me, then who can be against me? If God is for me, then who can be against me? Nobody. And so now my whole world becomes about what I sow into my heart, what I sow into my heart, because as I keep sowing into my heart, then I receive thirty- and sixty- and a hundredfold return, hallelujah. What am I getting back to me? I’m getting the Word growing in my heart – thirty, sixty and a hundred fold return, because my heart is built and designed to incubate the Word of God as a recreated creature and as the Word of God is incubating in my heart and growing and growing in my heart, my whole thought process, my whole words that come out of my mouth, my whole thinking, my whole behaviour pattern, all my habits that I form, everything starts to come into alignment with the Word of God, that is growing up out of my heart because it’s designed to incubate the Word. And as that Word grows up in me, the Word of God says, “If you believe in your heart and you speak words out of your mouth, you can tell mountains to be moved into the sea and they will go.” This is not an average Christian that can do this; this is a Christian who understands what I have just taught you.
If you haven’t been following my prayer time with me, every, any time of the day. We happen to load it at 5:30 in the morning. You can watch it anytime of the day on YouTube or on Facebook. If you haven’t been following my prayers about consecration, you need to go back and pray every one of those prayers on commitment and consecration. And I’ll tell you why, because those whole prayers are designed and spiritually inspired by the Holy Spirit to bring those prayers to you. Because every time I start, I say: “I’m speaking to you believer and I’m speaking to you disciple of the Most High God.” And I tell you on there that I’m not speaking to the average Christian. Only for five minutes every day. I have one session that ran for nearly seven minutes, but I have others that went for four minutes. Because consecration is a decision that you make and you say, “Father I’m giving my life to you and I’m committing that I’m going to put stuff in my heart that is Your Word in my heart, I’m going to put Your stuff in my heart and I’m going to let that grow up. And I’m not going to be dominated by what the ‘sense world’ tells me, I’m not going to be dominated by my thought life, I’m going to take it captive to the obedience of Christ.”
Since I preached that message to you, my life has been full of physical words that come out of my mouth, audible words that come out of my mouth. When I’m walking in my home, I’m in my car, I’m walking, I say, “Ah, where does that thought come from? I take that thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Father, I don’t know what to replace it with right now, but I ask you Holy Spirit to teach me the words that I must speak to take those words captive but I refuse to think that right now.”
I know how this works, I overcame panic attacks and depression and oppression by the enemy of God, after my father got martyred. I overcame that by taking thoughts captive like that where I’d be driving in my car and that panic attack would try and come on me and I’d phone Sharon and say, “Sharon, I feel like I’m dying and if you don’t hear from me in the next five minutes – this is where my car is on the highway.” So real was that panic attack on my life. When I recognised that it was a panic attack, I immediately started to go to work on it with the Word of God and I said, “No devil, I do not take that thought, I take that thought captive in the name of Jesus. I do not permit you to rule my emotions, I do not permit you to rule my thoughts about my future, I do not allow fear to come into my heart because of that.” I took that thought captive and then I got delivered from it! I haven’t had a panic attack in five years, praise the Lord.
“Well, you know, you’re supposed to be a spiritual man?” That doesn’t mean to say that the enemy doesn’t come and undermine you every way, I just got through telling you he does and he will come in every way to destroy your future. Why did he bring all that stuff with me? He knew that there was a place down the road where me and Brother Jerry and all these things that are happening between all of us, with us together and all the stuff that’s happening right now was going to happen and he tried to stop it. Praise Jesus, praise Jesus, praise Jesus.
See I’ve got to talk to you about some stuff that the Lord has put in my heart. I was in the Word yesterday, and I wanted to preach to you today, about, you know about Jacob’s Constellation and the more I got into it, the more I knew I couldn’t. And Sharon was out with the kids and the grandchildren yesterday – and they were going to go out for just two or three hours and they were gone for most of the day, to the point where I phoned her at like three/four o’clock and I said, “Where you?” She said, “We’re on our way home, don’t worry.” And I said, “You were only going to go for two or three hours?” And she said, “Well, we’ve been having a good time.” Well I realised later that God gave me that space that I could be with Him. When she got home she said, “So how did it go, are you ready for Jacob’s Constellation?” And I said, “I’m not preaching that.” She said, “No ways! What you been doing all day?” I said, “Funny you ask, I’ll show you.” Hallelujah.
Aren’t you glad that I spent the whole day yesterday getting before the Lord about this stuff and not just taking some notes that I knew about Jacob’s Constellation and saying, well I think I’ll preach these today. Hey, the Holy Spirit got all over me and said that I can’t start there, I’ve got to go back and I said, “Come on Lord, I want to get this thing done, I’ve got books to write.” And He said, “Ja ne! You want Me to bless what you do with your books or you want Me not to bless it?” I said, “Well if You put it that way, let me do what You say.” Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, praise the Lord, hallelujah. Stand to your feet and let’s just praise Jesus: Praise You Jesus. Praise You Jesus. Praise You Jesus. Praise You Lord. Praise Your holy name Lord. I praise Your name Jesus. Hallelujah, glory to the Most High God, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah.
Thank You Lord that You’re the One Who causes us to triumph. Hallelujah. Praise Jesus. Yes Father, now I’ve done my job today here, in Jesus’ name – and the only thing that remains is for me to pray Father, is to pray over these – your people – that this Word that I have spoken will not be stolen out of their hearts. That it will not fall on hard ground, neither will it be taken away, neither will it be received with joy and then forgotten and neither will it be choked by all the cares of this world and all the other things that your Word talks about. But I declare Father, that this Word will return thirty-, sixty- and a hundred-fold return to Your people, in their hearts, in their lives, in Jesus’ name. Hallelujah, hallelujah, glory to God.
Do you agree with that prayer? Then say Amen. And I declare that your hands will prosper this week, I declare that you will have creative thoughts. You will have God inspired things happening to you, in you and around you and you will recognise them, because this Word has broken open for you, the realm of the Spirit in Jesus’ name. Hallelujah. No weapon formed against you will prosper. I declare that the Word and the Blood of Jesus surrounds you and protects you in the name of Jesus. Hallelujah. I call you blessed, I call you be at peace in Jesus name. Amen. I say Shalom, do you accept Shalom from the Most High God? Amen.
Okay, you may go now. Thank you for being a great audience.
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TOUCH | TEACH | TRAIN | TRANSFER
