James Robertson
1 October 2000 – 31 December 2000
Caution re Transcripts
The transcripts are nearly complete in draft but must still be proofread. Given that they run to over 1,100 pages it will take time for me to do this. There may therefore be minor typographic errors and errors where the transcriber misheard what I said or did not understand it. Regrettably I have used up all available Annual Leave producing this Book Set so it is likely to be a year or longer before I have time to proofread the entire set. However, Father has stated to me that He has been waiting a long time (19 years) for me to make these documents available and that He would rather I publish them now in their present form than wait for a further indeterminate period for me to proofread and publish.
This set provides a comprehensive analysis of the current spiritual dispensation and also why marriage in this age is such a mess and HOW to fix it. I therefore encourage you to read these texts allowing for the possibly of minor mis-transcription to a limited degree.
These recordings were made in 2000 at a time when I was receiving considerable revelation on diverse topics with the result that my doctrine changed substantially during and after the recording of these teachings, nevertheless the fundamental message of these teachings is sound and very important and inspired at a significant level.
Accordingly I must advise caution in reading these texts – there ARE MANY important truths but they are intermingled with significant error relating to the Name of the Almighty, the Name of Yahooshua {Jesus}, the Person of Yahooshua, the Bible and related topics that mostly do NOT impact the overall marriage teaching.
Introduction
This is the introduction to the series of tapes, from Foundation for living Christian Fellowship, entitled The Coming Tribulation. The series of teachings contained in the set, a period of time from the 1st October 2000 to the 31st December 2000, in terms of which God progressively revealed to the congregation the situation in the world today, made a very definite call for holiness and sanctification, and through the prophetic word in particular, made it very clear to us that the time of tribulation was at hand. Judgment was to be expected and we should prepare our hearts for that judgment and seek God as never before. It was also established that there were strong indications to believe that the mark of the beast was a spiritual, rather than a natural mark. This series is included at the beginning of the series, God's plan for healing marriage in the seventh millennium, in order to provide a more detailed spiritual context for this entire set of teachings, as something which God has provided to bring the Bride of Christ to a place of holiness and sanctification, for the return of the Bridegroom. I pray that you will find these teachings and encouragement in Jesus’ name.
01_01 Job and Serving God
Neil Dreyer
Job learned something that was vital. He learned something about God that he didn't know before. He saw God as he'd never seen the Lord before in his life and that’s vital. God had to deal with that man in order to show him what he needed. So often when we get converted, we've got the answers, we know it all and we go forward in our own wisdom, and in our own strength and God keeps pulling back and pulling back and pulling back, until you learn something. That it's not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, sayeth the Lord, but that's the way that it works and there is no other. And you get brought to the end of the tether and you understand that I have a misconception over time. Job was in that category.
Spiritual eyes
Listen to what he has to say in Job 42:1-6. “Then Job said to the Lord, I know that You can do all things and that no thought or purpose of Yours can be restrained or thwarted. You said to me, who is this that darkens and obscures counsel by words without knowledge. Therefore, I now see I have rashly uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me. I did not know. I had virtually said to You what You’ve said to me. Here I beseech You and I will speak. I will demand of You and You declared to me, I've heard of You only by the hearing of the ear, but now my spiritual eye sees You. Therefore, I loathe my words and abhor myself and repent in dust and in ashes.”
I have heard of You only by the hearing of the ear, but now my spiritual eyes see You, and what I see changes everything that I've ever thought and everything that I've ever desired, and everything that's burned within my heart has been changed, because now I see God. Before I saw him other than myself, I saw a lot of the things that I wanted, and the goals that I had, and the wisdom that I had, but now Lord, I understand that all these things were as nothing. They are as dust. Only what is of God abides and endures. It is only what is of God that is worthwhile. We are passing through this world but once, we will not pass again. Only what’s done in Christ shall last. That's the only work that abides and this man had to realize that he had to understand that my own understanding of the whole situation was all topsy turvy, that what I needed from the beginning was a word from God. What I needed was the wisdom of the Lord to speak into my situation so that I would know what I should be doing to achieve the greatest and the highest and the most. That's what God wants for your life and for mine. Can you say Amen to that. God wants the highest and the best for your life and mine and He aims at it all times, and then we come with our words.
And this man, Job had a total misconception. He had a failure to understand. He listened to the reasons of man. He asked questions why. It was the wisdom of this world that came over his lips, not the wisdom of God, not by inspiration of the Spirit. It arose out of his agony, it arose out of his difficulties, out of his problems, out of his own troubled thinking. These were the questions that he was asking and all the time God was sublimely going right over the top and God knew exactly where He was going and what He was about and what He wanted to achieve in this man's life. It is a wonderful thing to know that God has got a purpose for my life. Can you say Amen to that? It is a wonderful thing for you to know that God has got a purpose for your life, that it didn't happen by accident, that when He called you that day, and you heard His voice, God had a purpose, that’s why He called.
And that wasn’t the end of the calling. That was just the beginning, and He’s leading on beyond that point so that you might grow up into Him in all things and that you might know the joy that is of the Lord. Job heard God's voice and men from time immemorial have heard the voice of God, and it was when men have heard, that things have begun to happen, when men have understood what it is, the purpose of God is, that's the time when things began to happen. And even the supernatural came in through the front door and then handled power in things that they would have dreamed of before, because they understood what God was saying. It is the universal message. I want to tell you, there is no other, it’s here, it’s all here. There are many religions, but there is only one God sir, and there's only one universal message and it is this. - that Jesus Christ died for sinners, that Jesus Christ came into the world to bless you and to me, to give us eternal life and to give us power over sin and over the devil.
Universal message of God
That's why Jesus came into the world. It is the universal message of God. There is no other. Job thought he knew. He was confident in what he thought, very confident. We were at Paddy Bosman’s house yesterday. We were having a discussion, and he was saying that there was a young man that he knew years ago who was in the same line of business that he was in, and he witnessed to this young man and he took exception to it, that Paddy should have the trust to come and speak to him about Jesus Christ. And he says, the man came to my house. I invited him in. He refused to come in and he began to curse God like I'd never heard anybody cursing God before. He stood on my lower lawn and he belittled God and abraded God and made Him little and as if He was of no consequence. He had his day and he said a week later, I read his death notice in the newspaper and it was all over, there was nothing left.
All the words were just air because he'd gone on the wrong side of truth. He got on the wrong side of what God wanted and he began to do and use the wisdom of this world. And this wisdom of this world leads away from God, it doesn't lead to Him and His purposes in the fulfillment of His will. It is not of God, it is of this world. And as I say, it passes away and goes its own way. This is knowledge but knowledge of time. Yet the sum total of the wise men of our day, turn their backs on God and they become so wise that they don't need God anymore. He is out of the picture.
Yuri Gagarin went into outer space. He was the first man that ever did it. When he arrived back on earth planet, he said, I looked for God everywhere and I could not see Him and he didn't know God was all around in nature, didn't cease out there in space and Creation, didn’t cease as far as he went. Creation was there before his eyes. The handy work of God was everywhere, but he could not see, he could not understand. Our sister (Inaudible 00:07:17) has just come back from Poland. She phoned me and she said that I was going to a Pentecostal Church there and then she said something that staggered me. She said, the Polish government does not allow the Church to preach the second coming of Christ. They are not allowed to teach it, it’s out of bounds and they may not say that it is so. And yet it is one of the great facts that are coming our way. We see that that is coming. God is moving by His Spirit all over the face of the earth. Hallelujah, can you say Amen to that? God is moving. I want you to come with me to 1 Corinthians, chapter 2:1-2.
The value of Jesus
Paul’s speaking. He says, “as for myself, brethren, when I came to you, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony, evidence and mystery of the secret of God concerning what He has done through Christ for the salvation of men. In lofty words of eloquence or human philosophy and wisdom. I didn't go down that avenue because it's a dead end for I resolve to know nothing, to be acquainted with nothing, to make a display of the knowledge of nothing and to be conscious of nothing among you, except Jesus Christ, the Messiah and Him crucifying. And I passed into a state of weakness and was in fear and dread and great trembling after I'd come among you. And my language and my message were not set forth in persuasive, enticing and plausible words of wisdom, but they were in demonstration of the Holy Spirit and power that is a proof by the Spirit of the power of God operating on me and stirring in the minds of my hearers, the most holy emotions and thus persuading them.
So that your faith should not rest in the wisdom of men or human philosophy, but in the power of God. Yet when we were among the full grown, spiritually mature Christians who are ripe in understanding, we do impart a higher wisdom, that is the knowledge of the divine plan, previously hidden that it is indeed not a wisdom of this present age, nor of this world or the leaders and rulers of this age who are being brought to nothing and are doomed to pass away. But rather what we are setting forth is the wisdom of God once hidden from the human understanding and now revealed to us by God, that wisdom which God devised and decreed before the ages for our glorification, that is to lift us into the glory of His presence. Now listen, none of the rulers of this age or world perceived and recognized and understood this, for if they had they would never have crucified the Lord of Glory.”
They would have understood the value of Jesus Christ and the message that He was bringing. They would never have crucified Him. They would have Lorded him, they would have lifted Him up and glorified His name for who and what He is, for hear his wisdom. The Bible says the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord. That's the beginning. Why is that the wisdom of God? Because the wisdom of God teaches you fear, it teaches you respect, it teaches you that God is, and He cannot be trifled with.
I'm not dealing with the man down the road when I'm dealing with God. I'm not comparing myself with my neighbor. I'm dealing with Jesus, the Christ, the Son of the living God, and this is the standard of the Lord, and when any human being who is passing through this world and understands that 70 years of my allotted life span, and if by reason of strength I reach eighty, I'm going to pass away. And the place where I stood will no longer be remembered, then wisdom says, my God, where am I going? My God, what is there for me down the line? Is it oblivion I cease to exist?
Resurrection
The Bible says that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day and became the first fruits of them that slept. God promises a resurrection to all men, some to damnation, some to everlasting life, but a resurrection all men will have. And I can't go into my grave and hide away from my sins there, but they will follow me. And God will deal with them and He will eventually judge them because they are offenses against the living God. I did not fear, and I went and did my thing and I kept on doing it as if there was no God, as if there were no comebacks, as if there were no price tags on what I was doing. And God knows there's nothing that you get in this world that is for nothing. There is a price tag on absolutely everything. You pay the full price. You don't take anything for nothing. God knows that, and God wants to work in your life and in my life, those works that abide, those things that are not troubled by the passage of time.
I place a deposit in the heavenlies. My treasure is not upon the earth. My treasure is in Heaven and neither moth nor rust can corrupt, and men cannot break through and steal, where nobody can take my credit away from me because God is the guardian of my credit, and He’s got my account and He knows everything about Neil Dreyer. I remember when I was just a young man, full of myself, and I was arrogant without knowing the arrogance and the extent of the arrogance. I did not understand how far I was away from God, how far I was away from that which was right and that which was good and that which was noble and honorable.
I had no understanding of these things and then one night, God came into my life, came knocking on the door of my heart and He changed me in an instant of time, and I became a brand new creature in Christ. And suddenly I understood so many things like Job understood. I knew what was happening for the first time in my life. Up to that point of time I had the wisdom of this world and it led me astray. It led me into all kinds of experiences that were not good for me, and then suddenly I saw God, and seeing God I solved that and I understood that all of these things were empty. They were passing away as if they never were, and the things of God where the abiding things.
Paul the Apostle
The Apostle Paul had only one message. He comes to the Areopagus, this place in Athens, place of learning, the center, where people are always asking questions and putting forth new theories. And here he comes along to speak to these people in the previous chapter. The Bible says that he gave the Word of God to the people. It was God's Word the man was speaking. And the wise men of this world heard of this man and they said, we would hear what this babbler has to say. This one that stacks together some thoughts of his own, we'll hear what he's got to say. And Paul’s got to get up nwith the Areopagus and he's got to speak in the name of God. And he sets forth God and he says, when I passed by, I saw an altar to the unknown God, whom he therefore worshipped in ignorance, him declare I unto you. And he began to speak one thing, and it was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Jesus is alive. Jesus died and He rose again on the third day. This is my message, I know no other.
Wisdom
In these days, I'm seeing a lot of wisdom. I'm seeing a lot of things coming from the United States of America and there are so many ideas, so many thoughts about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. You know, there's so much, I asked the question, where is the simplicity of the Gospel? Where's it gone to? What happened? People come along and they are so (inaudible 00:15:15), they are so clever. They were clever in Paul's day. They are clever in ours. This is the most knowledgeable generation of all time. We know more than any previous generation has ever known, and with all our knowledge we've turned our backs on God. The wise men of this world say you don't need Him, you have evolved from the apes, you didn't come from the Creation of God and you need not concern yourself about these things. I want to tell you, when people start talking like that, I have one answer that comes to my mind. What of Jesus Christ? What is everything that Jesus did? And He lived, and everything that He said, what about these things? Jesus is the authority, hear His wisdom, it is found in Him.
The Bible tells us that God will make foolishness the wisdom of men. That's coming. It's on the agenda. Let me tell you it’s around the corner. When suddenly all of the things that men have built up will come to nothing. We have discovered the human genome and we can't see the handiwork of God. We don't know where He’s at, we don't know how to hear His voice, we don't how to speak to Him generally. There is a need that is in our world of God that is tremendous. You've got to be blind not to know that we’re tobogganing towards a tragedy. You've got to be blind not to understand that God and what He has said is coming to pass before your eyes. We need the Lord, we need His wisdom and the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.
The wisest thing that I've ever done in my life was when I got down on my knees, in the city of Pretoria, in the foyer and with all my heart I said, God forgive me, God, cleanse me from all my sin, give me another chance. Lord, tell me, teach me how to live my life differently, because the way that I'm living my life now, the way that I'm living this one is heading toward tragedy, I can see it. Scales were taken off my eyes and you know, I saw Neil Dreyer, and I saw my God and the comparison was tremendous. I was right out of my depth and I understood there’s only One that can save me. My arrogance must go out through the door, my self-sufficiency must go out through the door. And with everything that I've got, I'm going to say God, I need You, I need Your touch upon my life, I need You to work within me the things that I cannot work myself. Can you say Amen to that?
Conclusion
I want you to close your eyes. Jesus, Jesus. I've been preaching. It’s not what I've been saying that's important, it's what the Spirit of God has been saying to you. What have you picked up here this morning? What did God zero in on as I was speaking to you? This is a matter between you and the Lord. It's personal, but I know that God's been speaking from the beginning of the service and God’s been challenging us. Folks, we've got to take God into account. You've got to take into account what God wants. You've got to seek Him and find Him so that He might direct us as a body, and direct us as individuals and families, so that God's will can be done in our lives. This is what's needed.
I want you to reach out toward the Lord, as you're sitting there this morning, for your need. You know what God's called you to. Cry to God for that thing. Ask Him, Lord, work in my life these things, You know I can’t do it for myself. You can’t it for yourself. God can, only God can. Allow the Lord to work in your life. Allow Him to work this morning, right there as you're sitting in your seat and say, Lord, here am I, You know me, You know the date of my birth, You know the time of my departure from this world, You know everything in between. Oh God, help me to fill in the things of the Lord, to do the most that I can. At least the furtherest that I can. Anoint me by Your Spirit, Lord. Use me for Your glory. Direct my steps oh God, because I dare not walk alone. I don't know the way. I don't have the answers. Only You do. Oh God, bless me.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we come to You in the lovely name of Jesus as a congregation this morning and we need you desperately, Lord. We need everything that You can give, and oh God, we know that they’re on tap, that You said in Your word that You will anoint by Your Spirit, that You will show signs and wonders and mighty deeds of the Holy Ghost. You said that in Your Word, Heavenly Father, we come to You and we pray (inaudible 00:20:14) prayer here this morning. We are standing together, Lord. It’s not just Pastor Dreyer, it’s Pastor Dreyer and the people. We’re asking, oh God, that You will work out Your will in this congregation, in these lives. Lord, do things that are all together different, we pray, and Lord, we'll give You the glory and the praise and the honor as we see people being changed, as we see people being reached, as we see the name of God being glorified in our suburbs. Lord, in Jesus name, pour out Your Spirit. We pray that no evil force will be able to stay it, oh God, but that it will flow like a mighty river, oh God, accomplishing Your will. Do it, Lord, we pray, and we'll give You the praise, the glory and the honor because You are our God. Thank you Lord, in Jesus name. Amen.
James Robertson
The Lord told me, yesterday in fact, that He wanted this message taped and shared with others, so we've taped it and there will be copies available for those who want it. But He just gave me during Neil's message, just a passage of Scripture and it's important that you understand the context. Yesterday was the first day of the days of awe, the awesome days, and the ninth of October is the Day of Atonement. From that, we go onto the Feast of Tabernacles, and in God's calendar those are very, very important days in any year, but they are particularly important days right now. The days of awe are the days that you are given at the end of the year to get your life right with God. And that is the message that the Lord gave to Neil today. It's really important that you understand that. God is saying now, not tomorrow, not next week, is the time to get your life right with Him because He is about to do a great thing on the earth. Those of you who have got Bibles just turn with me to Matthew 24 please. And I'm sure you're familiar with Matthew 24. I'm not going to read the whole passage, but I want to take you to verse 9, and the next few verses.
“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My Name's sake, and then many will be offended, will betray one another and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many, and because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold, but he who endures to the end, shall be saved, and this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come.”
And then the next passage goes on to speak of the abomination of desolation in the temple. There is much happening that you may or may not be aware of, there are threats of bomb attacks in Jerusalem right now, there are all sorts of things happening in the world that are not widely known, many of which speak to the fulfillment of those prophecies.
And while I would be the last to say with absolute certainty that we are now on the very threshold of the fulfillment with those prophecies, I truly believe with all my heart that we are indeed at that point. I believe that the message that Neil brought to us very profoundly confirms that that which was prayed before the meeting, the words that were brought in the meeting before the message, confirmed that to me. And I really, really encourage everybody here. You're not here by accident. You're not here just because you kind of thought, well maybe I’d pitch up today. You are here because God has a very, very, very important message for you today. Today, there is a trite saying in the world, today's the first day of the rest of your life, but today is the first day of the rest of your service to Jesus Christ. Today is the day where you have an opportunity at the beginning of the days of all, leading up to the Day of Atonement in just over a week's time to make a decision?
Will you do what God has called you to do? There's not a person in this room who doesn't know what God has called them to do. The question is, are you in a place that I've just come out of? I have just come out of two, three-day fasts seeking to get my life right because I realized there was much that the Lord had called me to do, that I had been slack and not faithful in performing. The question of the Lord to each one of us today is, will you lay down your life, starting now and do all that He’s called you to do no matter what the cost? Will you stop putting your job first, will you stop putting your interests first, will you stop putting your hobbies first, will you stop even putting your family first. Will you do what He's told you to do?
Some of you have been called to go and preach the Gospel elsewhere in the world. Some of you have been called to ministries that are so out of line with what our understanding can believe that God has called you to do, that you’re scared to share it with anybody. But God is saying to you, today, will you lay down your life and go and do what I've called you to do because My ways are not your ways, My thoughts are not your thoughts, My thoughts are higher than your thoughts, beyond anything that you can ask or imagine, and I have a plan and a purpose for you. Will you do what I've called you to do today, says the Lord, because you are a vital part of the plan and I don't have time anymore to mess around with unfaithful people, or with disobedient people. I'm calling you today to do what I have for you to do. And that is the Word of the Lord for every one of us this morning.
So I would really encourage you, and with Neil's consent, that anybody who has received that message this morning, anybody who is convicted of that message, Neil, if you're in agreement, if they could perhaps just come forward and just pray for them. So if there is anybody who wants to just make a resolute, no turning back commitment to go and do whatever it is that right now you know is in your heart, that God has called you to do. Are you prepared to say, I have to resign my job tomorrow, I will resign my job tomorrow. If I have to step out in faith and do whatever I have to do in order to accomplish that which God has called me to do, no matter how big and how wide and how deep it seems to you, He will take you. But He is looking for people who, like Isaiah will say, here I am, send me. So if there's anybody here who wants to respond to that, please if you'd just come to the front and perhaps Neil, and perhaps myself can just pray briefly for you.
Community Church is a Pentecostal Church that believes the Gospel is the most important message for this and any other generation. I was therefore surprised to read a poster put out by the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the day of the Christian Church is numbered. I do not believe that there is any power that can annul what Christ alone could do, and that this message of redemption must be declared to the ends of the earth. To this end, we are producing these tapes for distribution free of charge. If this has been a blessing to you, please assist us by passing it on. Thank you for your cooperation. God bless you.
If you have listened to this tape and it has made an impact upon your life and you realize your need, may I pray for you that Jesus Christ may enter your life and bring about the changes that are necessary? In Jesus' name, I pray that God will move by His Spirit upon your life, that your whole future shall be coloured by the fact that Jesus is alive and that He's alive and triumphant in your life. May God bless you and use you for His glory, for we need every mouth, we need every effort to bring the message across to those that stand in desperate need. God bless you. Amen.
Foundation for Living Community Church meets at the South African Vroue Federasie Hall, Jack Hendon Street, Pretoria North. It is pastored by Neil Dreyer, an Apostle of God, who can be contacted on 012 808 1650. Meetings are each Sunday, 09h30 in the morning at the SAVF hall. Should you be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, banking account details are as follows. Account name: NJ Dreyer, Bank: First National Bank, Branch: Silverton, Account Number: 51030119874, Branch Code: 25084500. You are free to copy these tapes without restriction and to distribute them as widely as you feel led. Please remember only that each of us is called to account on the Day of Judgment for what we do with the Word of God. Should you require additional copies of this tape, please contact me, James Robertson, on Johannesburg, that’s 011 791 2327, or cell phone 083 251 0644, or fax 011-791 5004 or email jamesr@infodoor.co.za, and we will make arrangements to get copies of this tape to you. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen.
01_02 Job and Sanctify Yourselves
Neil Dreyer -- 8 October 2000
I want you to come with me to the book of Hebrews 10th Chapter. Hebrews Chapter 10. I am reading from the 11th verse of Hebrews Chapter 10. We'll take it from the 8th verse. The Lord speaking, says, “sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you do not desire, nor were you pleased with them, although the Lord required them to be made. Then He said, ‘here am I, I've come to do Your will.’ He sets aside the first to establish the second and by that will we’ve been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again, and again, He offers the same sacrifices which can never take away sins, but when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time, He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
Notice the language there. He says He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. It’s a continuous process that has been done. “’This is the Covenant I will make with them. After that time, says the Lord, I will put My laws in their hearts, and I will write them in their minds’. Then He adds, ‘their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more,’ and where these have been forgiven there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. Therefore, brothers , since we have confidence to enter into the most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and a living way, opening up for us through the curtain that is His body. And since we have a great high Priest over the House of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart, in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for He who promised is faithful. Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Let us not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another and all the more, as you see the day approaching. He says, if we deliberately keep on sinning after we've received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, only a fearful experience, expectation of judgment and a raging fire that will consume the enemies.”
In another translation, it says our Father God is a consuming fire. Then come to chapter 12. He says there, verse 18. "You have not come to the mountain that can be touched and that is burning with fire to darkness, gloom and storm; to a trumpet blast or to such a voice speaking words that those who heard it begged that no further word be spoken to them, because they could not bear that was commanded, if even an animal touched the mountain it was stoned. The sight was so terrifying that Moses said, I am trembling with fear. But you have come to Mount Zion to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You've come to thousands upon thousands of Angels in joyful assembly, to the Church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven. You've come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus, the mediator of the new Covenant and to the sprinkling of the blood that speaks better things than the blood of Abel. So, see to it that you do not refuse him who speaks. If they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth , how much less shall we, if we turn away from Him who warns us from Heaven? At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised once more, I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” The words “once more” indicate the moving of what can be shaken, that is created things, so that what cannot be shaken may remain. “Therefore, since we are receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably, with reverence and awful fear for our God is a consuming fire. “
Heavenly father, we worship You and magnify Your lovely name this morning for the fullness of Your work, for the fullness of Your provision, oh God. Heavenly Father, just as in the world, You established everything it was necessary for us to maintain, generation after generation so that it is self-contained. (Inaudible 00:05:19) and You made everything possible for the maintenance of spiritual life and that entered into Your presence, oh God, (inaudible 00:05:30)). We bless You, we magnify Your name. You left nothing undone, no stone unturned, every provision has been made long before we knew it was there You placed it there and You waited for us to discover, oh God, in Your presence, in Your mercy, we bless You that You've done that for us in (inaudible 00:05:49) through Jesus Christ, our Lord and nothing, nothing shall be able to be taken away from us for God guarantees it (inaudible 00:06:00). We ask, oh God that You will bless Your (inaudible 00:06:05) and that we might hear and that we might rejoice in You and magnify Your name. Thank You, Father, in that lovely name we ask it, praising You because You hear us in that name. Amen.
Two encounters
We have just read about two encounters with the living God, two encounters that were terrifying to the people involved. We hear that the first account was taking place at Mount Sinai when the mountain shook and there was fire on the mountain, and the place trembled and the people cried out to God and said "God, stop speaking to us because we can't bear the voice that we're hearing." And I believe that Moses also cried out with the people. They were terrified at the presence of the living God. In God is Holy, in God is awesome, God is all powerful. He is bigger than our biggest big, and we must understand that. We are dealing with a living God, an almighty God. You're not dealing with a man down the road. We're dealing with God and with God (inaudible 00:07:08). And so, Moses and the people of Israel cried out and said, "Please Lord, withhold Your hand because we can't bear the glory."
And then we hear of another account that takes place after the resurrection of Jesus Christ and this takes place in the Heavens. This is not on the earth any longer, I want to tell you that the same awe and terror paves the way. Throughout the whole of the Bible there is active obedience toward the living God. This willingness to bow down to His Glory and to give Him all the honor and the praise that is due unto His name, so that we stand in awe of Him at all times. There is no familiarity with God in the whole of the Bible. Whenever there was an epiphany, when God appeared on the earth, the people that saw Him trembled and were afraid, and some of them were sick for a period of time after having seen this majestic sight. And they walked away from it different people because they understood who they were dealing with. And many times, in the world there are people that have no inkling whatsoever who it is that they're dealing with, they don't understand Him, they've never seen Him, and so they have their own minds view of what God is. And it is a human view, and it is limited by the humanity of the people that are beholding Him.
God is big
God is bigger than our biggest imagination. We can't understand it at all, and I'm so concerned nowadays at the familiarity that I'm seeing all around me towards God, even amongst the religious people, a familiarity so that we bring God to a position where He is equal with us, and we can speak to Him as we do to our friends around the corner. God cannot be trifled with. He is Almighty. The Bible tells us here that we must enter into His presence and we must do so with a pure heart, with a heart that's been cleansed by sprinkling. We must have a conscience that is purged before we enter into the presence of God. That is a prerequisite, because God cannot tolerate sin and sin cannot come close to God.
There are many people that ridicule God. There are many people who make God small in their times, in their talking and in their thinking, and they boast of great things, and this is very fearful ground. It is terrible ground to be on. It is dangerous territory, not only for the person who's talking that way about God, but terrible for the people who are hearing it as well, because they are impressed by it. It seems to be so strong and so powerful and the person seems to have such definite ideas that he must be a strong person, but I'll tell you this, who is it that runs when the Glory of God is revealed? Who is it when the Glory of God begins to praise forth, who will be the one that finds out and says mountains, cover us and hide us from Him that sits upon the Throne and His Glory? Who is it that runs?
I'll tell you, it will be the profane. It will be the people that have treated God lightly. You can only treat God Almighty lightly at a distance, if the distance is the distance of sin. It is sin that blinds the eyes of men to the Glory of God so they don’t understand who it is that they’re working with and who it is they’re talking about, the language that they use you would think that God doesn’t hear it, that there’s no book that’s recording every deed and every word that men are speaking. They think that they can say what they say with liberty, without any context, I can say what I like because I am so strong in my own ability, in my own thinking and in my own mind. I’m strong, I don’t need God. Who is it that walks into a consuming fire? Who is it that walks into the Holiness of God Almighty? Who is it? There are many that will walk more quietly into Gods presence without bowing their heads. They are the ignorant ones. They are the fools that the Bible speaks about. They think that God is nothing. And they've got an idea that is wrong, an idea that is from the Devil, not from God. They don't understand that the Lord is greater than what they think, and they're not giving Him the honor that is due unto His name.
Come close to God
When we come into His presence, we come with reverential fear. Fear is the birth place of faith, let me tell you that, the fire of God is the birth place of faith. It's when we come close to Him that we begin to see what He is, who He is and what He's capable of. In order for you to come close to God, out of the fire, and no man wants to come near to God because we don't want to be exposed by the presence of this Holy One. We don't want God to see deep into our hearts and what's going on in our minds all the time. If God looks inside and He sees, and He beholds the sin, and He know that my sins have separated me from God, that's the thing that stands in the way, the only thing that is in the way of my sin, my pride, my arrogance, my belief in myself and not my belief in God. I need to come to the point where I am walking with Him on His terms, and He understands that I'm doing it from my heart, and He knows that it's real and it's sincere.
I must come before Him with a true heart, but He says, come to Me. It is necessary for me to come to the fire in order to be saved. I've got to be there. The fire must burn, the fire must reveal me for who I am in the sight of God, not in the sight of my neighbour, in the sight of God Almighty, who am I? What am I? Where am I going? What are my goals? What are my ambitions? What are the things that are the driving forces in my life? What are they? How can they have anything to do with God Almighty? How (inaudible 00:13:16) How much of God is there in my life? This is the question that we need to be settled in order for you to find out. I need you to come to the fire, and He says that it must be burned, (inaudible 00:13:33), He left a mark on me that I will remember until the day that I die. He taught me a lesson that I will never forget because I understood, suddenly I understood I am dealing with God here. I'm dealing with what He wants from my life and I understood that I was out of line, and that's a terrible realization.
You know the profane person that is mentioned in the Bible, he is evil. The Bible says that he sold his birth right for a paddle of porridge. It wasn't important. That's why he said it wasn't important, (inaudible 00:14:14). He didn't understand we need the might of Christ to keep us walking in the path that God wants us to go. We need the might of Christ and we need to renew it daily. We need to come before Him every day, bow down and say My Lord, what do you want? What is it in my life that You want to focus on? What do You want to do? What do You want to get rid of in my life? What do You want to do? I said to you on a previous occasion that there's one experience of being born-again, but there are many conversions and God leads you on in different paths so that you might grow.
Faith
And Esau came to the time when what his (inaudible 00:14:53) was more important than what He asked him. And so many Christians out here, are not here, and they act here, and they put it here, but God wants it here and He wants it here, in the heart and in the mind. He wants us to walk with Him, according to His precepts, and according to His Commandments. He says, I'll write them on their minds and in their hearts by My Spirit, I'll do that so that they can walk with Me and abide to the shadow of the Almighty. The Bible says this, that if I have faith as a mustard seed, I'll be able to tell a mountain to move, and it will move. What will it be, my brother, when I enter into the (inaudible 00:15:34) of all because I have delighted in Christ and (inaudible 00:15:37) in the fullness of faith? What is the fullness of faith that God is speaking about? There are different kinds of faith, there is little faith, there is great faith, there is much faith, and there is no faith. All of these are things that happen within the hearts and the minds of the people.
Some come before God with no faith and nothing happens (inaudible 00:16:05). He's got to believe God and who God is. He must believe in the honesty and (inaudible 00:16:11). If God says that thing, that's what He means. That's the basis of our faith. If God says it, I believe it. That's what I am. There are people who come before God and great things have happened as a result, in the fullness of the assurance of faith where I am assured. You remember what Jesus said to His disciples. He was talking about the woman that gave birth to a child, that she had agony until the child was born, and when the child was born, she had much joy because the child was reborn to her. She doesn't forget the anguish. If God is (inaudible 00:16:50) Ask in My name, and it shall be given by My Father and He shall (inaudible 00:16:59) I’m making it possible for you, I am sitting by my Father at the right hand, the Majesty on high to fulfil what (inaudible 00:17:09) talks about, this fullness here, the Kingdom of Holiness of God (inaudible 00:17:13) - (00:17:25) And you can come before my Father and you can ask Him, and He will bless you and work within your life those things that are from above.
I think of the man Abraham, how that man was told by God to go in the country that he knew not and being obedient he went, not knowing, he didn't know (inaudible 00:17:47) -(00:17:53) that's the first time that I'm really believing, when I don't know anymore, when I can't believe the truth with my mind and I rely entirely on God, that's the first sign that I'm believing and that's why he came away from everything that he knew, into the area where he didn't know. He never saw it coming (inaudible 00:18:14)- (00:18:18) was going, and God saw the man (inaudible 00:18:20) - (00:18:26) see, and wherever you put the soles of your foot I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to reward you because you have full assurance of faith, you have believed Me, you trusted Me completely, and I say to you beloved (inaudible 00:18:41) - (00:18:57) that you might know this blessing that I'm offering, the world is (inaudible 00:19:05). The world needs it today. We don't need the ideas of men, we don't need the wisdom of men, I can tell you. We need the wisdom of God. We need all to move in the nation. We were talking in Cape Town yesterday morning and we were saying that there's such filth flowing into the world as never before, and I said (inaudible 00:19:26) that we allowed the sin to come into the world, is not the biggest sin. The biggest sin that there is, is that we condone it, (inaudible00:19:38) - (00:19:45) We're doing the right thing for the first time. Beloved you've got to be mad to think what we are doing is right. (inaudible 00:19:53) - (00:20:09) but what people are doing.
Perilous signs shall come because men will be lovers of their own selves more than lovers of God and he gives you a list of things that are happening today all around us. You can hear it in the news, you can see it in the newspaper. It's happening and it's man made. It comes through man, by the devil, in opposition to the living God. Do we need the assurance, that full assurance of faith? We need it. (inaudible 00:20:34) You need it, I need it, the Church of God needs it. We need to step up to each other, not into the old, we've got to step over, we've got to breach this thing and we've got to step into the Holiest of all into what is our right, into what is our rightful claim, (inaudible 00:21:00). What do you think of yourself this morning? When we say, enter into the presence of God, how do we enter? Measuring with the fullness that a child has.
I remember my father died in his 80's. My mother died in her 60's. My Dad (Inaudible 00:21:23) - (00:21:36) And he said my son, I long for the day when you put your (inaudible 00:21:42) - (00:21:46) I want to invite you and when you come to God with the full assurance of a child, (inaudible 00:21:52) - (00:22:17) to be in a position where I can come before God and say Lord, I'm asking for this and I truly believe that I am going to get it because Jesus gave it to me. Can you say Amen to that? That's what God wants for you and that's what God wants for me. I must make a confession. I just borrowed somebody else's Bible here. I left the mic at home so we couldn't tape the sermon. I left my Bible at home so I can't preach. Anyway, praise the Lord.
Prayer
Heavenly Father, we come to You in the lovely name of Jesus and we worship You. We bless Your lovely name, oh God, because You've got such things for us that eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart the things God had prepared for them, and lovingly called according to His purposes. I thank You Lord that You've done that, that You've made a way for us, oh God, to walk in, a way to walk in and experience the path with You, You've made it possible through Jesus Christ and we worship You, oh Lord. If this is what You want to give us, oh God, in Jesus name we need it. Heavenly Father help us to take it in installments, everything that's there, every table is full. Father help us to help ourselves as we pray Lord in the fullness that you invest. We thank you Lord for the message You've given us. Repeat with me, and we're standing on the threshold of something much bigger that's coming, we've been hearing sounds of the (inaudible 00:24:00) - (00:24:14) and we understand the times are vitally important at this time. Guide us oh God, we pray, that we will reach as far as we can (inaudible 00:24:25) and do as much as we can do by Your grace oh God, (inaudible 00:24:31) - (00:24:40) ordinary people. (inaudible 00:24:43) - (00:24:54) that Jesus may be brought (inaudible 00:24:56) - (00:25:03) In Jesus name. Thank You, Lord. Amen.
On Wednesday there will be a sermon meeting here as usual. The one in (inaudible 00:25:40) Park, has moved to Sunday night. There'll be the dedication of the organ soon. Birthdays, the 9th. Is the 9th your age? Many happy returns of the day. May God bless you. We ask to pray for Eddie and Lienie. Lienie is a sick lady. Pray for Paddy. He has an aortic aneurism. Pray for Aunty Muriel, for sister Els, for Paul and our sister. The other couple that come here, their mother is not well. We are going to go see them after the service this morning. Pray for the Van Der Heevers. She has heart trouble. Pray for the coming dedication service that God will bless it and use it for His glory.
Next week, tea duty will be Mavis's team. You see the sign up there, Kerrin Sher. I've got stuff in the boot of my car, sister, that I want to give to you, and anything that you can bring along to assist, like toiletries, soap, tissues, that kind of thing, please do, they can use it. Okay, will you take the plant in for us. Praise the Lord.
James Robertson
I just want to share something with you in the light of Neil's message. The Lord has taken me on a series of three days fasts, so I've been eating for seven days, fasting for three days, and I've just come off the third fast this morning. Then I fasted sleep as well last night. I got to bed at about 3-4 o'clock this morning. At 10 o'clock last night I was led to tune in to CNN. I hardly ever watch television. You may or may not have seen the papers. The Prime Minister of Israel has given the Palestinians until tomorrow to stop the hostilities otherwise he is cancelling all peace processes. At 2 o'clock this morning I tuned into CNN again. Moments before that, the United Nations security councilor passed a vote, fourteen in favor condemning Israel and United States had abstained, and it is very uncommon for the United States to abstain. You may not be aware of the heart of the issue. The heart of the issue is the Muslims have taken operation of the Temple Mount, massive mosques in the basis of Solomon’s temple, and for the last two years they've been progressively preventing the Jews from coming to the temple. It has reached the point now where they are even seeking to prevent the Jews coming to the (inaudible 00:29:04).
So, what you read in the press about Ariel Sharon visiting the Temple Mount is a complete smokescreen of the enemy. What we're facing here is a situation where Satan has been seeking to deny the Jews access to the Temple. Again, you may not be aware, some years ago, a red heifer was born for the first time in something like two or three thousand years. So, for the first time it is actually possible for a Levite to be sanctified for temple service, because for something like two or three thousand years, there has not been a red heifer. You may also not be aware that after the Covenant had been found, all the temple literature had been found. God is moving in this situation, and the Jews are looking for the return of the Messiah imminently, and they're looking for the signs for the reconstruction of the temple.
So, you have a massive conflict here in the spiritual realm that the Jews have been standing for all these thousands of years, for the reconstruction of the temple, on the Temple Mount. And right now, where they see the fulfillment of that, they see the red heifer, they see other things coming to pass, they see the signs of the times Neil was referring to. And suddenly it seems to be slipping out of their grasp. There are now five mosques apparently on the Temple Mount, and the Jews have been virtually prevented from accessing it. I believe in my spirit that there is every reason - and I brought through some documents - I think I actually put them in Neil's car, there are a number of prophecies which suggest that the war of God would start on the 28th and the 29th of September. I think I shared that with you last week. The hostilities began at that date. I think there's strong reason for us to believe that all-out war is going to break out in Israel tomorrow. There is a very profound reason for it to be tomorrow because tomorrow is the Day of Atonement, and that is a very significant day in Gods calendar. It ties in again with what Neil is saying, we are at the very brink of judgment. I would hesitate to say with certainty that we are absolutely at the doors of the tribulation, but it does seem that way to me. I was on the internet last night, just looking at what various people are saying, and there is a broad consensus that around about the next couple of weeks, something dramatic is foretold by Scripture.
There are different opinions. Some people are looking to the rapture, some people are looking to the tribulation, some people are looking to the war of God, some people are looking at other things but everybody, virtually without exception, is looking to something to happen in the next couple of weeks. The great day of the feast of Tabernacles is the 24th of October. That is another very significant day in God's calendar. So, I would really urge everybody here today, Neil’s message is a message of great importance today. It's a message which deals with what God requires of us. We can no longer play games with God, we can no longer pursue our idle interpretations of the Word of God and twist the Word of God as I've seen in so many of these in things, to try and make the Word of God say what we want it to say or what we don't want it to say. But I would council everybody here, be prepared for what looks to me like all out warfare.
Last night they were deploying tanks throughout Israel, in areas in Jerusalem where there haven't been tanks in something like 12 years. They airlifted troops onto the Lebanese border. The Israeli troops were taken hostage yesterday. So, President Bill Clinton cancelled all his appointments last night in order to devote all his attention to it. The banner on CNN is ‘crisis in the Middle East’. I believe there are strong reasons that if it is not tomorrow, within days, but I believe there are strong reasons to believe tomorrow we will see a declaration of war. I believe we will see that flare up into quite possibly the third world war. But whatever it is, it will be massive conflict and recognize also that there is turmoil in Yugoslavia at the moment.
Yugoslavia is part of the heritage of Gog and Magog. Gog and Magog are two of the descendants of Noah who moved North into Russia, Yugoslavia and that area. So, it is no coincidence that what is happening in Russia right now. So, whatever happens, and it's not possible for us to know precisely what's going to happen, but I think we must expect great turmoil and with that, we must expect the other side of what Neil was talking about. We are going to see great judgment around the world for the flippant and presumptuous manner in which many, many people in the Body of Christ have treated God. I really believe that the cup is about to overflow, and everybody here should really be searching their hearts. There is nothing more important to date. As of this moment at 30 minutes past 10, on the 8th of October, year 2000, there is nothing more important than getting your life right with God, getting as close to God as you possibly can, because if you want to walk through the furnace the way Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did, if you want to go into the den with the lions and have the mouths of the lions stopped up by the Angels, you had better be in right standing with God, and you had better be in the place that Neil was talking about. If you are being trite and flippant about your relationship with God, you better believe you're not going to stand in the judgment which is (inaudible 00:34:57).
The Community Church is a Pentecostal Church that believes the Gospel is the most important message for this and any other generation. I was therefore surprised to read a poster put up by the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the day of the Christian Church is numbered. I do not believe that there is any power that can annul what Christ alone could do and that this message of redemption must be declared to the ends of the earth. To this end, we are producing these tapes for distribution free of charge. If this one has been a blessing to you please assist us by passing it on. We thank you for your cooperation. God bless you. If you have listened to this tape and it has made an impact upon your life and you realize your need may I pray for you that Jesus Christ may enter your life and bring about the changes that are necessary. In Jesus' name, I pray that God will move by His Spirit upon your life, that your whole future shall be coloured by the fact that Jesus is alive and that He's alive and triumphant in your life. May God bless you and use you for His glory, for we need every mouth, and we need every effort to bring the message across to those that stand in desperate need. God bless you. Amen.
Foundation for Living Community Church meets at the South African Vroue Federasie hall, Jack Hendon Street, Pretoria North. It is pastored by Neil Dreyer, an Apostle of God, who can be contacted on 012 808 1650. Meetings are every Sunday at 09h30 in the morning at the SAVF hall. Should you be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, banking account details are as follows. Account name: NJ Dreyer, Bank: First National Bank, Branch: Silverton, Account Number: 51030119874, Branch Code: 25084500. You are free to copy these tapes without restriction and to distribute them as widely as you feel led. Please remember only that each of us is called to account on the Day of Judgment for what we do with the Word of God. Should you require additional copies of this tape, please contact me, James Robertson on Johannesburg, that’s 011 791 2327 or cell phone 083 251 0644 or fax 011 791 5004 or email jamesr@infodoor.co.za and we will make arrangements to get copies of this tape to you. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen.
01_02 Things that need to be dealt with in the Earth
Neil Dreyer
The things that need to be dealt with in the earth. It says here, " Romans Chapter 1, verse 28, "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil mindedness, whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to Seraphs, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who knowing the righteous judgment of God that those who practice such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but also approve of those who practice them." My word, what a list. What a list of things that destroy and break down, that hurt, that have sharp edges. What a list of things, and every one of them comes into the world through men, through people like you and me. What a tremendous state of affairs. If a Holy God should allow this to continue without rebate, without any turning aside on it, what tremendous things would result to this world? What monstrosities would we create? What terrible things?
Destroying our beautiful world
I said to you last week when I spoke to you, that God doesn't have to lift a finger to destroy the world, all he need do is leave it to man. If he left it to men, they'd do the job all by themselves. We are busy doing it. We're destroying this beautiful world on which we're living, and greed is the master of the world. People want more and more and more, and the world cannot sustain it. The world cannot give what men are demanding. The world is not big enough. It's become too small to meet the rapacious needs of men, and too small to accommodate us. We've become too important in our own thinking, because we've left God out of it. It has been said that if man neglects God, it's not long before he begins to play God, and we're doing it. Come again with me to 2 Peter 3 and 3-13. Here Paul is writing to Timothy and he says, "knowing this first, that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts.” I believe that you've got to be blind if you don't know that we are tobogganing toward disaster. You've got to be blind if you see around you the signs of the times. You've got to be totally blind. We're heading for the biggest struggle the world has ever faced. God warned us. God told us. He said, if sin prevails upon the earth, this is going to be the result, the soul of that sin shall die. It will come to an end.
And here God is saying, these people are doing these things, they mock. It says, “knowing this first. the scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying where is the promise of His coming, but since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of Creation. So, this way, they willingly forget that by the Word of God, the Heavens were of old and the Earth standing out of the water and in the water by which the world that then existed, perished, being flooded with water, but the Heavens and the Earth which now exist are kept in store by the same word, reserved for fire until the day of judgment and tradition of ungodly men. But Beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord, one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise as some count slackness, but He's long suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, both the Earth and the works that are therein will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness?”
This is the other side of the coin. Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God because of which the Heavens will be dissolved being on fire, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Therefore beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace without spot and blameless, and account that the long suffering of the Lord is salvation. That's also our beloved, Paul, who, according to the wisdom given to him, has written. They say, mocking me, where is the promise of His coming? This is the most gigantic event in world history. It is paralleled only by the first advent of Jesus Christ. It is the most important thing that's facing us right now. Jesus Christ is coming back again.
He asked the question, when I return, will I find the faith in the Earth? Will I find faithful people that are worshiping Me, because of all the things that are coming upon the Earth, all the temptations, all the trials, all the difficulties, because of all these things, who will be serving Me in the end? For what He says, he that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved. These are the things that are facing us right now, beloved, and we need to understand where we stand. We need to understand where we stand. Jesus, in Matthew 24, deals with this period of time very dramatically. He has tremendous things to say to this generation, to you sitting in your seat here this morning. Jesus has a message for you, for these times in which you are. What you should be doing and what you should not be doing are recorded there for your benefit and for mine. So, I want you to come with me to Matthew 24, if you will right now.
End Times
Matthew 24, speaking of end times, "Blessed be the name of the Lord which made the Heavens and the Earth, and He's well able to keep them from total annihilation." He's able to do it, He's got the power. Can you imagine what power will be unleashed when the elements begin to melt with a fervent heat, and the Heavens roll up like a scroll, and things begin to dissolve all around you? Can you imagine what power there is that will have to bring that pass. And beloved, that's the power of Almighty God. It's the power of God that can go into reverse. It's the same power that can heal, it's the same power that can give life where death is reigning. It's the same power, and God wants us to understand it. He's saying to you and to me this morning, I've got the power. Jesus, in all power in Heaven and Earth has given unto me, and because that is in my hands, I command you to go in My name and make disciples of all nations. Go and work on My behalf. Put aside the other things that hinder, the things that get in the way, set your goals, and achieve them by the grace of God. Do it God's way, because the power is there, it's there.
To many of us it's latent, it's hanging in the air over our heads, and God is saying, where are the people that are asking for it? Where are the people that are believing for it? For there were great forces unleashed in the Earth and there were great powers that are there from God to oppose them. Can you say Amen to that. God wants us to oppose everything that the devil is doing, and if the devil is mighty, our God is mightier. He's more powerful by far in anything that the devil can do. Jesus speaks in Matthew 24, they come to Him, “His disciples come to Him.” It says, “Jesus went out and departed from the temple and His disciples came to Him to show Him the buildings of the temple. Jesus said to them, "Do you not see all these things? Assuredly, I say unto you, that not one stone will be left upon another that shall not be thrown down." And as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately,” understand that. “They came to Him privately, saying, tell us.” Jesus speaks in Matthew 24, almost entirely to believers. “Now, He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately saying, tell us, three things. When will these things be? The throwing down to the temple, and what will be the sign of Your coming, the second thing, and the end of the age.” Three things. That's what Jesus Christ is answering in Matthew 24. So, they say, tell us, we want to know. He's not talking to the world here, He's talking to the disciples. He's talking to you and to me. And so, they say, “tell us, when shall these things be? What shall be the sign of Your coming at the end of the age?”
Only Matthew mentions this, the end of the age. The others don't, other gospels, that is. This was a private discussion between believers, the leader speaking to His disciples in which He follows and giving them instructions, believers only. And He says this, He says His disciples came to him. Matthew 24, from the world point of view, is not discussed. There are only a few verses that Jesus gives to the worldview. He's giving it from the Christian's point of view, the Christian's perspective. This can be seen as I've said from the language. In verse 4, he says, "Take heed that no one deceives you, My believers." Verse 5, "And you shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled. Nation shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There'll be famines and pestilences and there will be earthquakes in diverse places. These things are all happening around you right now. You're in the midst of them. It's not something that you have to look forward to, it's happening every single day.”
We know that we've got a crisis on our hands in the Middle East. This is predicted. The Middle East will be the flash point for the last World war, the Armageddon war, the consummation of the tribulation, as I see it. That's going to come. And things are moving into gear to bring them to pass, and God is orchestrating it. God says, I'm going to do it because I'm going to have the final say in the world, I'm going to be the one that says the last word. So, in verse 9, he says, "Then they will deliver you to tribulation and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake." In the 10th verse, He says, "Many will be offended." That's believers. Many believers will be offended because iniquity shall abound, and it says they shall betray one another. In verse 12, He says, "Because lawlessness will abound, the love of many,” that is Christian, “the love of many for God, will grow cold.”
These are all signs of what's going to happen. Tell me something. Do you think that Christianity is flourishing in the world? Or do you believe that Christianity is growing cold? Do you believe that there are many that were serving God at one time that are not serving Him today? If you look at statistics about Church attendance in America and in England, you'll find that there's been a dramatic drop, tremendously. People have turned aside from the faith. That doesn't mean to say that God's not working and bringing others in, but I'm telling you that that's happened. In verse 13, He says, “but he, that endures to the end, shall be saved.” And the only end that is mentioned in Matthew, is the end of the age. And it says he that endures to the end, that is the end of the age, he shall be saved. That one shall be secure in the hands of God. Verse 14, "And this Gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, and then the end will come. After this has been done, after the Gospel has been preached, the end will come."
Verse 21, "For then, there will be great tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world, until this time, nor ever shall be." Verse 27 says, "Unless those days are shortened, no flesh will be saved, believers and unbelievers alike. And for the elect sake, those days shall be shortened, the tribulation will reach such heights as to threaten all life on earth, animal or otherwise, so that no flesh will be able to survive." Beloved, what we're doing to our world is leading there. The ozone layer has opened wider now than it has ever done before. People are being warned to stay out of the sun because this causes cancer. And the ozone layer is growing. We've got an ice cap melt that's going on right now and this is causing floods in the world. We've got things happening today in the cosmic region that are terrible. People are being faced with tremendous things. People, there is trouble everywhere. There are many Christians that are paying for the Christianity right now with their lives. Many of them. It's happening, and we need to understand that these are all the signs of the times that we're living in. And unless those days be shortened, no flesh should be saved.
Verse 23, "Then if anyone says to you, here is Christ, or there is Christ, do not believe it." Verse 26 says this, "If they say, look, He's in the desert, do not go out or look where He is in the inner chambers, do not believe it, for as the lightning comes from the eastern fascist through the west, so also shall the coming of the Son of Man be.” That is tremendously spectacular. If you stand outside, particularly on an evening and watch the lightning flash from the east to the west, let me tell you something, that's spectacular. Jesus says, that's how I'm going to be coming. Every eye shall see Me, it will be spectacular, it will be a tremendous occurrence that's going to take place, not just the suddenness beloved, that He's talking of here, but the visual is strongly stated, so that the secret aspect is refuted. You can't do something like that in a hole in the corner.
The coming of Jesus Christ
The only time in Matthew 24 that Jesus addresses the world point of view is found in 37 to 40. "But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be, for as the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving marriage, until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be." That history is going to repeat itself again. There's going to be a generation that will not listen. They will not hear anything of the Gospel. Noah preached the Word. They didn't listen to the Word. They stood aside from the Word. They wouldn't have the Word. Do you understand? And that's the reason why they were taken by surprise, because they were not ready, they didn't listen to the Word of God. We've got to prepare ourselves for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
What is being emphasized here is the suddenness with which destruction comes upon all who were not prepared, who knew not, not the suddenness with which the believers are saying. The evil were removed, for when the flood was over, the believers were the only ones that were left. They had gone through the flood, they were not taken out of it, but were taken safely through it. So, to emphasize the suddenness of this destruction, Jesus said in verse 40, "Them too will be in the field, the one will be taken, the other, left. Two women will be grinding at the middle, one will be taken and the other, left." Verse 42 says, "Watch therefore, for you do not know when the Lord cometh." Luke 31 and 34 says, "And take heed to yourselves, that your heart's been not weighted down with carousing, drunkenness, and the cares of this world and that day come up on you unexpectedly." 40, "Will come as a snare on all those who dwell on the face of the earth, wherefore, pray always that you may be worthy to escape these things that will come to pass and to stand before the Lord." Mathew 24 and 12 says, "And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will wax cold."
Their experience will test them. These people are going through fire, they're standing for Christ under tremendous pressure. And if you are going to stand with Christ, you're going to stand under tremendous pressure. You're going to know forces coming against you that are tremendous. Satan knows that his time is short, and he wants to destroy everything that pertains to Jesus Christ. So, we must stand. The way of escape is the Rapture. Why does Jesus instruct believers on how to go through the tribulation if they are not going to be part of the tribulation? He speaks to them, and tells them over and over again, these things are going to happen to you. So, beloved, I don't believe that we are going to be taken out of it, I believe that we're going to have to go through it. Revelations 7, 13 to 14 says, "Then one of the elders answered to me, "who were these arrayed in white robes and where did they come from?" And he said to him, "sir, they knowest." So, he said to me, these are the ones who come out of the great tribulation." That's according to the new King James version, "and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb."
Verse 17 says, "For the Lord, who is in the midst of those will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, tears caused by suffering, abuse, and even death by persecution." That's what Jesus Christ is going to do. The final salvation. You see, the Bible says that we're not going to escape trouble, we're going to go through it, and that's going to be the final test of our Christian faith. Where do we stand? Do we really love Jesus Christ? It says in Matthew 24, 29 and 31, listen to this, "Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from Heaven, and the powers of Heaven will be shaken.” That's the last stages of the tribulation. “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in Heaven, and then all the tribes of the Earth will mourn, all unbelievers. They will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of Heaven, and with power and great glory, and He will send His Angels with a great sound of the trumpet and they will gather these elect from the four wings of Heaven to the other."
But the message of Matthew 24 is given unto us, and we might go according to it. Praise the name of the Lord. Jesus Christ is going to come to restore everything upon the Earth. He is going to do it. That's within His power. Do you remember how, years ago, there was a man, Elijah, who was God's prophet? God's anointing was upon the man, and there was this Syrian King, who was opposing Israel, and every time he set a trap for the Israelite King, the Prophet told the King in his bedchamber what was being discussed in the other quarters. And the Syrian king came to the point where he was grieved and he said, "listen here, which of you counselors with whom I'm discussing keeps on telling the King of Israel the things that I'm discussing in secret?" And they said, "no, not one of us, there's nobody doing that, but he's got a prophet, he's got a man who hears from Heaven, a man who knows he's God, and everything that you say here, he just records it to his King." And the king said, "get that man at any price, I want him. And he sends an entire army to come and capture this man, Elijah.
And Elijah is in Dothan, and Dothan was to have been the end of the road. It was to have been the place where he would end it all. And so, they go to bed that night, and the next morning when they wake up, his servant looks out through the window and gets the shock of his life. He doesn't understand why it is, because how important is he really, because he sees all around, every window that he looks through, he sees glinting spears. There's a huge army on the mountains, all around. And the man is horrified. This is the end. He grabs his head and he says, "this is the end, there's nothing more that we can do. And I want to tell you on our own, there's nothing more that we can do, there's nothing that we've got that the world needs." Let me tell you, it's what we've got, that of Jesus Christ that the world needs, not what we've got. It's not your ability, it's your availability that God wants. That's the thing that counts. And this man comes to the point where he says, "what can we do, what shall we do with the words that he uses, what shall we do. We are hopeless, we are outnumbered, there's nothing we can do."
The prophet of God prays, and he says, "God, open his eyes, let him see, let him see what is there, that which is just outside the sight of the natural man. Let him see what there is. Let him see the resources of God. Let him see how big they are." And suddenly God opens that man's eyes and he is amazed. All around the mountains, there is a great host of the army of the living God. I wonder what they look like. I think he was awe inspired because suddenly he sees they're not surrounded, but the Syrian army is surrounded. They're not at a disadvantage, the army that's opposing them is at a disadvantage because God is in the thing. And beloved, the devil wants to destroy this world. He wants to destroy everything that God ever made, and God is on the other side and He's saying it will never be, I yet have chosen Jerusalem, it is the city of the Great King. He will sit there, that's why God will preserve it. Jesus is coming, He's going to stand up on the Mount of Olives and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof.
General Allenby was a geologist before he went to the first World War and was in Palestine. And as a geologist he forbade any building on the Mount of Olives because there's an actual fissure running through, and it can crack at any time. And the Bible says that when Jesus returns, he will stand on the Mount of Olives and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof, and there shall be a great valley there. God is going to change the Geography of the world. It's going to come. There are going to be tremendous things in the offing, and there are fearful things that are going to happen in the offing, but beloved, there are more wonderful things that are coming, Hallelujah. God is going to pour out of His Spirit and the time is now. The time is ready, the time is for us to reach out and touch the hand of God, so that the power might flow into your life, into your home, into your circle, in the area where you're working, so that the words you speak would have power such as it's never had, so that your testimony will count like it has never done before, and you can pray for the sick and God will give healing for you.
These things are in the offing. Oh God, open the eyes of the Church. Oh God, open our eyes that we may see, that we may understand all these resources that God has given to us, so that we may begin to use the store house of God Almighty, that we may begin to use what He has provided. The difficulty is that we're not using it. It's lying there. It's not being used. God wants us to use it. He wants us to get up as an army. Remember Ezekiel, how there was the valley of the dry bones. Do you remember? Remember Brother Oliphant preaching on the valley of the dry bones. He says God said, "Bones, come through his (inaudible 00:27:01)" And bones began to move. And the one bone came through his bone, they knew exactly where they had to go, oh Hallelujah. They knew where they belonged. It was thousands of bones, but each one you exactly to which body it belonged, and eventually there was a whole skeleton army lying there, and God says to the servants of God, (inaudible 00:27:29)
James Robertson
As we were praying at the beginning of the meeting, the Lord gave me a word, but just before I give you that word, and you really need to hear this in the context of the message that Neil has just brought. I shared with you last Sunday, that I've been on three thee-day fasts and I'd been up the previous night and I'd been searching the internet just to see what the Body of Christ was saying about the fulfillment of the end times. And I shared with you too, that there was a broad consensus that people were expecting things to happen, and I believe many of us are discerned in the Spirit that this is so. But, what I saw on the Internet, and it's something that I think is known to most of us, is that the vast majority, and I do mean the vast majority of the Body of Christ is expecting the Rapture to take place before the Tribulation, and there are very few people who are prepared to have the boldness to do what our Brother did this morning and stand up in a pulpit and say, we're going through the tribulation.
We are not going to go out of here hearing some happy clappy little goodbye world sort of thing before the rubber hits the road. The rubber is going to hit the road, and we're going to be on the road, and if we're not careful, we're going to be under the rubber, not on top of the rubber. And I really believe that one of the things that the Lord is really, really challenging every one of us about in this place today, is not just to take the Gospel of Salvation of the Lord Jesus Christ to the world, but to take the truth of what Neil has preached today to the Body of Christ, because understand that if you think that you are going to be out of here in the twinkling of an eye before things get rough, you are not going to be in the place that you need to be to overcome to the end. And it is time that the Body of Christ is told the truth.
The Community Church is a Pentecostal Church that believes the Gospel is the most important message for this and any other generation. I was therefore surprised to read a poster put up by the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the day of the Christian Church is numbered. I do not believe that there is any power that can annul what Christ alone could do and that this message of redemption must be declared to the ends of the earth. To this end, we are producing these tapes for distribution free of charge. If this one has been a blessing to you please assist us by passing it on. We thank you for your cooperation. God bless you. If you have listened to this tape and it has made an impact upon your life and you realize your need may I pray for you that Jesus Christ may enter your life and bring about the changes that are necessary. In Jesus' name, I pray that God will move by His Spirit upon your life, that your whole future shall be coloured by the fact that Jesus is alive and that He's alive and triumphant in your life. May God bless you and use you for His glory, for we need every mouth, and we need every effort to bring the message across to those that stand in desperate need. God bless you. Amen.
Foundation for Living Community Church meets at the South African Vroue Federasie hall, Jack Hendon Street, Pretoria North. It is pastored by Neil Dreyer, an Apostle of God, who can be contacted on 012 808 1650. Meetings are every Sunday at 09h30 in the morning at the SAVF hall. Should you be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, banking account details are as follows. Account name: NJ Dreyer, Bank: First National Bank, Branch: Silverton, Account Number: 51030119874, Branch Code: 25084500. You are free to copy these tapes without restriction and to distribute them as widely as you feel led. Please remember only that each of us is called to account on the Day of Judgment for what we do with the Word of God. Should you require additional copies of this tape, please contact me, James Robertson on Johannesburg, that’s 011 791 2327 or cell phone 083 251 0644 or fax 011 791 5004 or email jamesr@infodoor.co.za and we will make arrangements to get copies of this tape to you. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen.
01_04 Abundance in Famine – Outpouring of the Holy Spirit
Neil Dreyer
This is a special occasion for her. It's dedication time, and she's here as a mother. She's come for her children. There's something that she's looking for from the hands of God. She's saying, Oh God bless my children. God do something in their lives that will be lasting, that will be enduring. I want this life to count. I want it to be blessed and to be a blessing. That's why she's here. She's asking God to come in, and there are very heavy responsibilities resting on her shoulders this morning. She knows what I'm talking about, big responsibilities. She's making big decisions folks. And here we are, as a Church, and we can be drawn in to her battles in to her pains, in to her difficulties, they are to be part with us. And we are to share with her. She reminds me of another lady that I'm going to be speaking about a little later in the sermon this morning.
Famine
I want you to come with me to the book of Genesis, and we'll read from the 26th chapter. Genesis 26, the first 12 verses will do. It will suffice for my text. Genesis 26 1:12. "I rejoice in the Lord, my God." I'm so glad to be with you this morning, so glad to be able to bring this Word because it lies heavily upon my heart. It says then, "there was a famine in the land besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelek, king of the Philistines and Gerar, and the Lord appeared unto him and said, "Go not down into Egypt, dwell in the land which I shall tell thee of. So, journey in this land, and I will be with thee and will bless thee, for unto thee and unto thy seed I will give all these countries and I will perform the oath which I swear Abraham thy father. And I will make thy seed to multiply as the stars of Heaven, and will give unto thy seed all these countries, and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my Commandments, my statutes and my laws," and Isaac dwelt in Gerar."
And remember the place asked him of his wife. Now let's go on to verse 12. "And then Isaac sowed him that land. And the seeds in the same year hundredfold, and the Lord blessed it." I want you to notice, it says in there that there was a famine in the land, besides the first famine which was in the days of Abraham. So, Isaac was in a state of famine. In the state of famine, God says, I want you to stay in this country. Don't go looking for food elsewhere, stay in the famine. Then God goes further. "He says, if you stay in the land, if you will obey me, I'll give you the land, but what I want you to do is, I want you to sow. I want you to sow in famine." It's a very strange request, that someone should sow in famine. "Isaac did that, and when he did it, God blessed him. God began to move in his life in brand new ways, in ways that he'd never seen before."
The Lord was moving by His Spirit, and the minute God begins to move by His Spirit, everything is absolutely different. Everything becomes new, everything becomes a possibility, not a hindrance. It's not a stumbling stone, it's a stepping stone. As soon as God begins to move, you'll begin to have an insight you didn't have before and you’ll see the opportunities for what they are, God-given. They're coming into your life to enrich you, coming into your life to bless you, not to rob you, not to take away from you. Sowing in famines is against all logic, it is opposite to what most would expect and should expect. The result he got flowed out of an act of faith. Faith is not always logical, but faith is always daring. Faith believes God in the most difficult situations. In the most difficult circumstances, it says I can't, but I know one who can, I know that my God can do anything but fail, I know that my God is able to meet every need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus, according to my budget, God can do it. The Lord is able to meet every need when we trust Him.
I ask you a question. Who sows precious seed in famine? Wouldn't it be folly? Wouldn't it be better to wait for better conditions, when the rain is falling, to plant your seed? Many wait for ideal situations to arise. They want perfect situations, and they live lives of desperate and quiet desperation. They don't rise to the challenges of faith, they want to remain on safe ground for all the days of their lives. Humanity is trying to make everything safe. We want to remove the risk out of everything, we want certainties. All of them must be certainties. We're afraid of risks, we're afraid of that area into which we must move if we're going to have faith. And certainty says, keep the seed, it can feed you. Don't be a fool, don't waste it in the ground. Keep it, don't risk. This is the fear of most people. We're afraid of risk, and so we try and protect everything that we can. Should we stick to what is certain, beloved? Should we, or should we venture out with God?
What do you say? Do we venture out with God or do we stick with what is certain? You know sometimes famine is the only way that God can get us to move, to take us out of the situation where we are, to take us away from security, and lead us to prayer. It leads us to seeking His face. When you are uncertain and when you've got problems on your mind, then you begin to dig deep into your resources, and you begin to find out what your resources really are. What can I trust? What can I hold on to? What can help me in these circumstances? What prayers arise out of trouble, my friend, what prayers arise out of agony of spirit? What depths we go to, and what heights we climb to reaching out. We've got to do it because we know that we're desperate. And so, we reach beyond ourselves, and we come closer to God than at any other time, because we're seeking Him and because we're in famine and we're feeling it. We're being scorched by the heat and we know that we're in trouble. I believe that famine creates anxiety, tension, it leads to deep emotion, it brings need, reaching deep to make contact.
God’s cause
Desperation is not a bad thing, it is a good thing, oh to God, that the Church of Jesus Christ would become desperate instead of being satisfied with the situation and sitting back with ease and doing nothing. We've got to get to the place where we are desperate, and I'll tell you this, God will make us desperate in this country. God will do it because God's got a cause that is bigger than what you are, bigger than South Africa, and bigger than the world. It's God's cause, and God wants it to go forward, and if the Lord moves us and He stirs up our nest, then it will be right, and we'll have to go with Him. Famine can be an instrument in God's hand, to bring us to faith, because we have no other options. Then it is a time of opportunity, of growth, of expansion, of reaching further, of higher experience of new things to finding God there, where we've never found Him before. You will never, beloved, come to full faith until you come to full commitment, until you reach that point where you're giving your all.
Genesis 26 1-12, "Isaac sowed his seed, he committed himself to all that he had." Everything that he had, he committed to result, he was looking for a result, the result the God spoke about. That's what he wanted. And so, he was prepared to commit everything material to that one result. God is going to bless me in this land. It was not a gamble and it was not a throw of the dice. This is faith, this is confidence, this is assurance in God. It's not blind faith that we're trusting. We're looking beyond these things. The world will give us many opinions, but this is trusting God implicitly. The record shows this morning that those folks, those ones who have taken the biggest risks are the ones that have produced the biggest results. They've tackled things that were way above themselves, and yet they believed, and because they believed, God met them. They didn't have the goods within themselves. They didn't. They had to rely on God for everything, but when they committed themselves, God met them at every point of their need, and they were victorious. They were the overcomers. They won through because they happen to believe, and they happen to trust.
Faith
In Hebrews 11 and 8, the Bible says by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out into a place that he should afterward receive as an inheritance. And he went, not knowing where he was going or what might befall him. He didn't know what was going to happen. He risked his family, he lost everything that he had, he didn’t know what kind of animosity he was going to meet out there. He had no idea. He didn't know what kind of people were out there. He did not know whether they were the enemies or friends. He didn't know. But God said, I want you to go into the unknown. And when he went into the unknown, he had to do one thing. He had to trust God, because there was nothing else that he could trust in. It was the Lord. And so, he went.
And the Bible says in the 12th verse, "Therefore from one man, and him as good as day, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude innumerable as the sands of the sea shore." And God gave him families upon families, right down to generations of time. You're part of the family of Abraham. So am I. We're children of faith. God has given him families in every nation of the earth. They are there and they worship God, and it was because of Abraham. He believed. Against hope, he believed, and God gave him an answer that has been a blessing to this day.
He obeyed the prompting of faith, he listened to God's still, small voice and it worked. Hallelujah. Moses led the whole nation of Israel out of security and the provisions of Egypt into the desert without a map, without a compass and no hotels on the way, no taps. He went, trusting God. Surely, that man must have seen that the odds were stacked against him. How do you take a nation into the desert without having farms out there? How do you make provision for them? Where do you find the food, where do you find the water? All of these questions must have come to him, and I think that's one of the reasons why initially, his knees buckled beneath him. He said send someone else, God, I can't go, I don't have the goods. God said, go with Me, and I will show you My power, I will reveal My hand to you. And God did it wonderfully, because he trusted. Wonderful things came into his life, wonderful experiences of the mercy and the love of God, they came to him in floods. And he was blessed and was a different man afterwards. He came out of the desert different to the man that went into desert, let me tell you that.
God blessed the man, and God showed him His power. Praise the name of the Lord. What a risk he took. What a challenge, what a responsibility, what an ask to ask of a man. What a thing. You see, someone must always lead where others can follow, but who dares lead. Most stand back and say, “send someone else God, it's not for me.” The Lord calls you to witness, you say, let somebody else do the witnessing Lord, I'm not a witness. Lord, I can't speak, I'm like Moses, I stutter, I can't do it, Lord. And God hears that coming from His children time and again. When there's a challenge, they say, I can't do it, Lord. And God is saying, I know you can't do it, I didn't ask you to do it. I didn't ask you for your ability, I asked you for availability. I want you to do what I'm saying, that's what I want. I don't want you to have the goods, I'll give them to you. I will provide.
What is the anointing of the Spirit of God for then? If it's not for this very thing, to make up the lack that you know and the lack that I know, you can't wait until you've got all the knowledge before you open your mouth to speak. It's in speaking that you learn your lessons and you learn while you're teaching. James 1 and 2 says, "Count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing this is the sign, the extending of your faith work of patience, but their patience have the perfect work that you may be perfect and entire." That word, ‘temptations’, is adversity. So, it reads like this, count it all joy when you fall into different kinds of adversity. When you've got things opposing you, when they challenge your faith, this is a challenge to your faith that James is talking about. He says, when your faith is challenged, rejoice, because then your faith is extended when it is challenged.
How many times have you spoken to someone of another religion and you were afraid to open your mouth less they proved you wrong? And so, you keep silence, and you hold your peace. And you had your faith tested by adversity, by opposition, and you didn't take the bait, you didn't use it for God. My word, God is able, he says, "Do not think in that hour what thee shall say, for it shall be given to you in that hour." And Steven was the first one to use it, and the Bible says they could not withstand the wisdom and the power by which He spoke. My word, he didn't have to go and think about answers, God gave them to him. And they were adequate. The answers of God are always adequate. Can I hear an Amen? I hear a dead silence, I don't hear very much. Praise God, we bless You Lord and magnify Your name, we exalt You. Amen.
It is here that God starts with us, where we have believing faith, believing beyond trial. Famine comes to every life. It comes to every household, when things are thin on the ground and you know that you're battling, you don't have the resources that you need, and you don't have the facilities that you need, and so you're battling. It's not easy. It's not easy to start a Church, let me tell you that. You don't have facilities and you don't have what you need to do it. It's a difficult situation, but here, famine comes to every life. It comes to the prophets home. It comes to the Christians home. Nobody is exempt, and once knocked on the prophets door, because the prophet had died, and inevitably, problems came flooding through the door, and they were financial difficulties.
And the woman, the mother, was in dire straits because the creditors wanted their money. What they were prepared to do was to sell any assets that she had. The only assets she had were her two boys. And this woman tried everything in her power for her children. She pleaded as only a mother can plead. She wanted belief. She knew that these children had grown up in a godly home. They had been filled with the truth of God's Word, they were assets to the Kingdom of God and now they were going to be buried, they would be slaves, they wouldn't have an opinion, and they wouldn't have a right. They wouldn't be able to speak to anybody who has never given them permission to do so. They couldn't speak their religion or their faith. They had to do what the master said because he had the power of life and death over them. Once they were sold, that was it, it was the end, there was no recourse, and the mother knew it. They broke her heart, I'm sure, and she began to look for an answer somewhere, anywhere and the prophet died. There were values there, there was spiritual potential there, and this loss would have been the greatest loss of all.
Elijah
And Elijah, the prophet knew the father, the Bible tells me that. And probably he knew the family as well, so he was acquainted with what was going on here. And he meets a woman and she appeals, as I said, as only a mother can appeal, “please, is there anything that you can do prophet?” He's a prophet, he is not a financier, he's not a banker, he doesn't carry a roll of notes in his back pocket. He prophesies, that's his function. She comes to the prophet and says, “help me,” and the prophet is led by the Spirit of God. I know that for sure. How do I know it? Because his advice worked. Hallelujah. And when it works, that's God. And he says, what have you got in the house? And she says, I've got a pot of oil. And you can hear the writer. Do you know what it says? I've got a pot of oil, but what's that in my problem? How's that going to solve my difficulty? How's it going to meet my need, prophet of God? He said to the girl, “borrow vessels from your neighbors, borrow not a few, get as many as you can.” Underline it. Christian, as many as you can. Get as many pots as you can, because God fills pots, and he says he gets the pots.
And she goes and find pots everywhere, and she brings them to her house, and he says, “now what I want you to do is, I want you to take your single pot of oil, and I want you to pour it from one pot to the next, and you set aside that which is full.” Listen to the faith of this man of God. You set aside that which is full. And the woman takes her pot, and she pours, and this pot gets filled and this one's not empty. And she goes to the next one and she pours, and this one is filled and this one's not empty.
Beloved, God needs pots. He needs receptacles. He needs something in which to pour His blessings. He's looking for the pots to come from you and me. We are the pots. We are the ones that need to be filled. We are the ones that need to overflow. Can you say Amen to that? We need to be in a position where God can flow through us so the oil will not cease. The woman kept pouring, and the Bible says, is there not yet another pot and the son says, we have no other pot, and the oil ceased. The minute that everything that she brought, everything that she'd had faith for was filled, the oil stopped flowing. I say this - if God could miraculously fill two pots from one, He could fill a thousand pots from one. It's not a bigger miracle, it's exactly the same. It's within His scope. This woman came to the end of her resources, she was in famine, she'd lost everything and was about to lose the two sons that she had left, and she was in trouble. And you know what, God gave her a little pot because we're so aware of our loss and we're so aware of our emptiness and our vulnerability when we're in famine, we know what our problem is so very well.
We can describe it in detail to anybody we know so well. We know what the difficulties are, yes, but if you meet this need, then there's this one, and this one telescopes into that one, and that creates that difficulty, and I can't do this because of this. We know all the difficulties. Somebody said, we mustn't tell God how big our problems are, we must tell our problems how big our God is. We must let him know that God is almighty, that He can do anything but fail. And so, God gives her a pot, something that she can focus on. It's the mercy of God. The Bible says, when evil comes in like a flood, then lift up your eyes and look for the standard of God. The Lord will raise up a standard against the evil one. God will do that. Look for the standard, it's there. Look for the pot, look for the thing that God's given you, the thing that He's put into your hands, the thing that you can do. Look for that and use it.
Moses, what's that in your hand? A stick. Use it. Madam, what have you got? Use it. Use what God gives you. Joshua, what have you got in your hand? I’ve got a mandrel. Strike the water, it works. How do you open water with a mandrel? If you take a cloak and strike the water, what do you think is going to happen? You get a wet cloak. When you do it, then God tells you the river opens. Praise the Lord. What shall I do for you? You see, that's the problem. The evidence that we see is there. We have proof of our needs. We see it large because it's real, and then we need help. And what a wonderful thing it is when someone comes aside to help you. When you get cooperation from people, what a blessing that is. You feel bigger. When somebody shows concern for you as an individual, you know what that does for you? You're right down at the bottom there, and somebody comes and says, brother, I know, I'm praying for you, I've been praying for you all along the line, I've been asking God to bless you. What a blessing it is. That's mercy.
And the Lord says that we must uphold one another, doesn't it? He says, we must love one another fervently, out of a pure heart. Doesn't the Bible say that? What a blessing it is to have that kind of support. We need someone else's eyes sometimes, eyes to be able to see. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians, 10 and 13, "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation, will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it, that you may be able to endure, that you may be able to push through." It says, "I will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able." In other words, you will not fail. You will not register failures. You will register successes, as long as you've got faith, as long as you trust me.
God will provide an Elijah. He will provide a pot, something to look for. So, this one did that, and God blessed her mightily. As you fill the vessels on the day of Pentecost, oh God, fill the vessels again, oh God, stir Your Church, get Your people on their feet, God, get them moving. Heavenly father move by Your Spirit. You said, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, that was before the last day. God, we're there, it's time for an outpouring of the Spirit of God. Can you say Amen to that? It's time beloved. It's time we need it. The world needs it more than we do. We need a move of the Spirit of God, so that we don't move in our own strength. It is a faith position with God that we need. Your presence causes the sensation on the day of Pentecost. It wasn't Peter, my friend or James or John, it was what God did. It was a move of the Spirit of God that brought the response.
End of the End Times
When this was noised abroad, the people came running. And when God begins to move, it's different. It's not just a sermon, it's not just words. God is speaking, and people know it. Some things have got to be different. And God wants to move by His Spirit in a different way. It is time for the outpouring of Your Spirit, for we're at the end of the End Times. Matthew 24 tells us of the Church taking the world on and winning through. Now is the time to serve God, beloved brother and sister. This Gospel must be preached in the world for a witness, and the witness will have to be with power. And I say, oh God, bring the people that will bring the pots, and bring the pots full of oil, oh Lord. Do it for us. It's what You can do, not what I can do, it's what God can do. And I say, Lord, do it by Your grace. The time is now. To move in the Spirit of God means power, it means wisdom, it means knowledge, it means courage, and it means everything that we need. God puts it there, and suddenly we're moving on a different plane altogether.
The demon world will stand back aghast, as Jesus Christ takes up His rightful place in the world and does that which is right in His sight. The Bible says they were all filled with the Spirit, and they were filled with that which was Godly. They were filled with it. What came out of him was Godly, it was anointed by the Spirit of God because it was born of God. Praise the Lord. Those people waited and they obeyed. We need to be in the move of God, beloved, moving with it. It wasn't Abraham, Moses or Elijah, it was God. It happens when it is taken out of human hands and people know, dis die Here die. This is God that's moving here. When God is definitely needed, then faith is easy, and anything can happen. One thing leads to another. God just brings it to pass. He brings it to you because you're ready for it. He brings it to you because you can handle it, He brings it to you because you want it, because it's not a problem to you or a nuisance to you, but you want it. You want to serve God, you want to do it His way.
In closing the sermon, I want to make some other statements quickly. There is a vital ministry that is to come according to God's Word, vital to the end times. It is the Elijah Ministry. In Malachi 4 and 5 - 6, God says, "Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and the vatful day of the Lord." And I believe that's now. This is the vatful day of the Lord. Now. And He will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers, less I come and smite the earth with a curse. This is a vital mighty ministry, to avert this worldwide disaster that God should curse the earth. It's the breaking up of homes, through adultery, through neglect, through lack of love, through lack of responsibility, without association between people. It is out-of-contact families, dysfunctional families, and they are in the preponderance. They grow it all the time. It's happening. We're seeing it happening all around us. Family break-up is a common present day phenomenal, it's happening.
In Luke, the Bible says, in the 1st chapter, in the 17th verse, "He will go before him in the spirit and the power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just." Listen, it adds this, "to make ready a people prepared for the Lord," which is again, a vital ministry and a powerful ministry, "to prepare a people for the coming of the Lord, so that they might be ready"
The Community Church is a Pentecostal Church that believes the Gospel is the most important message for this and any other generation. I was therefore surprised to read a poster put up by the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the day of the Christian Church is numbered. I do not believe that there is any power that can annul what Christ alone could do and that this message of redemption must be declared to the ends of the earth. To this end, we are producing these tapes for distribution free of charge. If this one has been a blessing to you please assist us by passing it on. We thank you for your cooperation. God bless you. If you have listened to this tape and it has made an impact upon your life and you realize your need may I pray for you that Jesus Christ may enter your life and bring about the changes that are necessary. In Jesus' name, I pray that God will move by His Spirit upon your life, that your whole future shall be coloured by the fact that Jesus is alive and that He's alive and triumphant in your life. May God bless you and use you for His glory, for we need every mouth, and we need every effort to bring the message across to those that stand in desperate need. God bless you. Amen.
James Robertson
Foundation for Living Community Church meets at the South African Vroue Federasie hall, Jack Hendon Street, Pretoria North. It is pastored by Neil Dreyer, an Apostle of God, who can be contacted on 012 808 1650. Meetings are every Sunday at 09h30 in the morning at the SAVF hall. Should you be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, banking account details are as follows. Account name: NJ Dreyer, Bank: First National Bank, Branch: Silverton, Account Number: 51030119874, Branch Code: 25084500. You are free to copy these tapes without restriction and to distribute them as widely as you feel led. Please remember only that each of us is called to account on the Day of Judgment for what we do with the Word of God. Should you require additional copies of this tape, please contact me, James Robertson on Johannesburg, that’s 011 791 2327 or cell phone 083 251 0644 or fax 011 791 5004 or email jamesr@infodoor.co.za and we will make arrangements to get copies of this tape to you. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen.
01_05 Do you love like Jesus loves?
James Robertson
Greetings in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have a message for you, which has certainly challenged me, and I believe it will challenge you. Many of you are aware that over the last forty days or so, I’ve been on a four, three-day fasts, the most recent of which came to an end on Tuesday. And in that period, I've been seeking to draw closer to the Lord amongst other things. On this last fast the Lord really started to challenge me on love, on the love of Jesus, the love that Jesus has for us, and you really need to get this book, 'Lord, teach me how to love', by Creflo Dollar. And Ingrid will tell you, I normally read a book of this size in about an hour and a half/two hours. It's probably taken me about five or six hours so far, and I’m only halfway through. I’ve been incredibly, incredibly challenged by that. And the Scripture that sort of came to my heart just before I got up, and everything that I have to say today, because some of what I'm going to say is going to sound, if you take it wrong, quite harsh, but I'm preaching to myself as much as to anybody else. And it's really something that I believe that the Lord wants to tackle.
Christian - true of false
The Churches are (inaudible 00:01:44) right now and this passage in Revelation 2, which in the new King James has the subtitle 'The loveless Church.' "Nevertheless, I have this against you that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you are fallen, repent and do the first works or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lamp stand from its place unless you repent." And the Lord has really been dealing with me in the last couple of weeks in terms of just how far I’ve fallen from that first love, just how far I've fallen from that place where it was never difficult to get up at five o'clock in the morning and seek his face. It was never difficult to do whatever He wanted me to do. And the message that the Lord has given me, which stands quite startling, but I believe it's incredibly profound, is Christian, true or false.
And I believe the Lord would challenge each one of us this morning to ask yourself, Christian, true or false? We turn to Acts chapter 11 verses 25 to 27. "Then Barnabas departed for Tarsus to seek Saul and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So, it was for a whole year they assembled with the Church and taught a great many people and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. And in these days a prophet came from Jerusalem to Antioch.” And my understanding of the word 'Christian' is that it's derived from the Greek, it relates to the word Christos, and it refers to little Christ-like ones, and my understanding of what was happening in Antioch in those days, is that the Spirit was moving powerfully. People were getting healed, people were getting saved, and people were getting delivered. And the question that I believe the Lord asked me, and I believe it's a question that each one of us have to answer, is if we call ourselves Christians, and if we truly are little Christ-like ones. When was the last time someone was healed as your shadow passed by? When was the last time blind eyes were opened when you laid hands on somebody? When was the last time a crippled man leapt and praised God after you’d prayed for him?
Being Christ-like
My brothers and sisters, the answer I have to give the Lord is never. And how do I presume to appropriate the name of Christ. Yes, I'm saved by His grace, yes, his Spirit dwells in me, but how dare I presume to call myself a little Christ-like one. But I believe the Lord wants to challenge each one of us with that today. Do you dwell in Christ? Do we dwell in Christ? Are we so full of Christ that He overflows out of us so that the world sees Christ and not James, or Peter, or whoever? Why are we so full of ourselves that there’s so little room for Him? We don't have the right to appropriate His name as a label. It is a gift. It is something that people see in us. It is for unbelievers to determine whether we are Christ-like, not for us to appropriate His name.
And as I pondered this in the last week or two, the thing that has just been hitting me and hitting me is the difference is love. And about a week or so ago, I said Lord, I don't think I even understand what is meant by love the way you describe it. Yes, I know what it says in 1 Corinthians 13, yes, I know what the Word of God says, but do I actually know in my spirit, in my heart what love is. Do I actually walk the love of Jesus Christ? And the answer was no. I don't think I even begin to understand it. And as I read this book, I've read sort of one or two pages and just being convicted and said, Lord, I don’t know how to love the way Jesus loved. And if we started at a very straight forward point, Deuteronomy chapter 6 verses 4 & 5, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength."
And in Matthew 22, 36 – 40, Jesus confirmed that. Somebody came to Him and said “Teacher, what is the great Commandment of the law? Jesus said to him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and the great Commandment and the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two Commandments hang all, not some, all the law and the prophets." If we do not profoundly have a revelation of God's love and what it is and walk in it, we cannot keep the Commandments. We actually are as clanging cymbals, without any substance as Christians, if we do not have a profound revelation of what Jesus is saying there, when He says to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, all your soul and all your strength, and it's very easy to get carnal and say, oh Jesus, how much I love you.
There is even a song that's going around in many charismatic circles at the moment, which I think must grieve the Lord terribly. 'Jesus, do you know how much I love you?' I mean, what an insult. The mighty God knows the thoughts of our hearts and we presume to ask Him if He knows how much we love Him. We don't know ourselves how little we love Him.
John 5 verses 42 to 44, "but I know you that you do not have the love of God in you." I really have to receive that and we each have to listen to what Jesus is saying, because Jesus is not speaking to people who are far off from us. "I've come in My Father's name and you do not receive Me. If another comes in his own name, him you will receive. How can you believe who receives honor from another, but do not seek the honor that comes from the only God?" And just how often does God send somebody to us and we don't receive Him because He doesn't conform. Today, if an unknown prophet comes into the midst of the average assembly and seeks to prophesize in the name of God, the Church will not receive him. The vast majority of assemblies will ask for his credentials and tell him that once he has fellowshipped there for six months, then perhaps they will permit him to speak in public. And when they do that, they reject Him who sent them.
1 John 2, 3 to 11, "And by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His Commandments. He who says, I know Him and does not keep His Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him." When you get a revelation on what that verse is saying it's like a really solid slap with a very large piece of wet fish. It really is profound. If I look at my own life over the last few years, "by this, we know that we know Him. If we keep His Commandments, he who says, I know Him and does not keep his Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him.” How many times have we half done what we know the Word requires of it? How many times has He spoken to us by that still quiet voice and we've said no Lord, not now, later or whatever? But whoever keeps His Word, truly the love of God is perfected in him, by this we know that we are in Him.
Walking like Jesus
It comes back to what I said at the opening. It doesn't help to have Jesus in us. We must be in Christ to the point where He has so encompassed us, that we are able to keep His Commandments. He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked, just as Jesus walked. Again, do we presume to label ourselves Christians or can the world in fact see Christ in us. Brethren, I write no new Commandment to you, but an old Commandment which you've had from the beginning. The old Commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning. Again, a new Commandment I write to you of which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. He who says he is in the light and hates his brother is in darkness until now. And again, how many of us can truly say that we do not have unresolved differences and disputes with old school friends, with old army colleagues, with business associates, with family members.
I wrote a whole list after I read this. "He who loves his brother abides in the light and there is no cause for stumbling in him, but he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness and does not know where he is going because the darkness has blinded his eyes." And I was saying, Lord help me, I can’t hear Your voice as well as I used to, and then I had to admit that I got angry with people, I've been offended with people. I still don't know how to make right with some of those people, but I will not know where I'm going until I have, nor will you. Creflo Dollar makes an extremely important point. Your obedience to the Word of God and the Spirit of God is the measure of your love of God. You cannot say you love God if you're not doing what you know to do out of this Book. I'm not saying the things you don't know to do, but where you've read a passage of Scripture and you've been convicted, if you don't put that into practice in your life, how can you say, I love God?
Where the Spirit of God has spoken to you and told you to do something, whether it's to make restitution with somebody you've wronged, or whether it's to go and make right with somebody that you've wronged, if you don't do it, then your love is growing cold. Obedience delayed is partial obedience. It's disobedience and it's not love. I just printed out a poster that I made for myself and I thought it might help some of you as well. I've only done ten, so if each cluster of people could share. It's just some thoughts out of a series of tapes on faithfulness that I started listening to led by the Spirit of God on my first pass about 35, 40 days ago. And that too just really, really rocked me. The heading at the top here, 'why is He relevant?' And what that means is, when you come before the Judgment seat of Christ, you will be confronted with the things that you have done, that you ought not to have done, and the things that you have not done, that you ought to have done.
And at that moment, as you stand before the Almighty God, why, will be irrelevant. But Lord, I had a sore toe, Lord, I had flu, Lord, you know how much that person swore at me, Lord, whatever, will count for nothing. The worst that can happen will be 'depart from me thou worker of inequity, I never knew you.' Those Scriptures are written to believers, they're not written to unbelievers. It’s fearsome. And there are many others there and I'm not presuming to say that they all apply to you, but they're just headlines that I wrote down as I was going through that document and realizing just how faithless I had become in my service of God.
Something else that's really, really rocked me this week because we've been walking by faith for many years, and certainly in the last four years, we've never gone without food on the table. We've gone through some really, really testing times in large measure as a result of our own disobedience and our own sin as the Lord has taken us through various trials, but a very challenging verse, because we hear so much about the faith walk in this age, and I'm sure most of us listened to many teachings on faith and consider ourselves as to be people who walk by faith. Galatians 5, verse 6, "For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision, nor uncircumcision avails anything but faith working through love."
Without love
In other words, without love, faith is powerless. Faith cannot work without love. And again, these are old truths that one can listen to and say, yeah, but I've read that Scripture dozens of times, I know about that. But if you do what I've been doing recently and read these Scriptures and say, Lord, show me what's wrong in my life. I had to admit my faith was being made powerless by my lack of love. And I would ask each one of you to challenge yourselves on that. And again, I've done another little poster here from 1 Corinthians 13. Thanks, my girl, you can hand this one out as well. I mean I just thought since I'd done them, I'd bring them for you and please use them as you see fit. "Though I speak with tongues of men and of Angels but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing."
Without love we’re nothing. We have no standing before God. If we act in Jesus' name without love, it’s startling. "And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned but have not love, it profits me nothing. Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in inequity but rejoices in the truth. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, love never fails." And one of the tragedies of the world in which we live now, is the world would have us believe that love is a transitory thing. People fall into love and out of love. They may fall into lust and out of lust, but God's love never fails.
When a man and woman have loved, they can never not love. They may be confused, they may be distracted, but they can never cease loving except in extreme cases of treachery. And we don’t walk that, well I don't walk that. "And the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things, there is no law." And again deeply, deeply challenging Scriptures. I would like to go on and continue and consider a few practical aspects. Just out of some things that have really come to my attention again in the last few days, and things which were racing through my head last night thinking about this message.
John 15, 12 to 15, "This is My Commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this than, to lay down one's life for His Friends. You are My Friends." ‘If’, one of the smallest words in the English language and perhaps one of the biggest words in the Bible. "You’re my Friends, if you do whatever I command you." There it is again. If you love God, you will do His Commandments. "No longer will I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing, but I've called you Friends, for all things that I heard from My Father and I've made known to you."
And certainly, we've seen in this congregation in the last few weeks that the Lord has been speaking to us at some length about the things which are to come to pass shortly. He's doing that because He regards us as Friends. It’s so vital that we love Him, so vital that we obey Him, so vital that we do what we know He’s calling us to do with the truths that He’s given us. Perhaps you can turn with me to 1 Peter, Chapter 2 to 1 Peter Chapter 3, or in fact if you like, even to chapter 4, 19. I think it might be one of the most challenging passages of Scripture that each one of us need to confront in the days to come, because it speaks of submission to governance, it speaks of submission to mask it, it speaks of wives submission to husbands.
I'm just going to lift out a couple of verses. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I would encourage you to go away and meditate on this in the light of this message. 1 Peter 2, 13, "Therefore, submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king of supreme or to governors, as to those who are sent by Him for the punishment of evil doers and the praise of those who do good." And so, it goes on. Verse 18, "Servants be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh, for this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently, but when you do good and suffer if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that you should follow His steps, who committed no sin, nor is deceit found in His mouth. And when He was reviled, did not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously, who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree that we having died to sin and might live for righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed. "
And we so readily claim the last part of that verse 24, "by His stripes we are healed," but do we recognize that when He was reviled, He did not revile in return, that He suffered in silence even though every blow was unrighteous, every blow was unmerited and yet we are so quick, and I speak for myself, again, I can't speak for you, but I just speak for myself. I respond so easily to a false accusation or an insult or something like that. It carries on and I'm not going to pick up the whole passage, but 1 Peter 3 verse 1, "wives, likewise be submissive to your own husbands," and this is a startling Scripture. It's one that really hit home a few weeks ago. Wives, likewise, like what? Like Jesus. Submit to your husbands in what? In everything. Ephesians 5, 22 I think it is. "Wives submit to your husbands in everything," whether your husband is righteous or whether your husband is unrighteous, submit to your husband, like Jesus submitted to the Pharisees and the high priests. “That some may be won out of conduct of their wives.”
It's an awesome Scripture for any woman who's married to an unbeliever, and it's a salutary warning for any woman who thinks of marrying an unbeliever. It requires that you lay down your life for that man in whatever way it comes to. And so, we go on. I'm not going to go all the way down. Verse 7 makes it very clear that the husband has an obligation to take his wife under his covering and to take the blows on her account to protect her in the same way that Jesus took the blows for us.
Again, it's this concept of a love that we don't understand. And so we go in verse 12, “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and His ears are open to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, and who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good, but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you are blessed and do not be afraid of their threats, will be troubled.” We go onto chapter 4, “Beloved do not think it's strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as though some strange thing happened to you but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.”
Judgement
Verse 17, “For the time has come for judgment to begin at the House of God and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the Gospel of God?” And I have to say to you that I have no doubt the judgment is about to begin with the House of God. We've heard of the coming tribulation. We've seen the evidence of the war that's building in the Middle East, that we need to understand that the judgment that will come on the world, will come first on the Church. We will be convicted of our sins, we will have to deal with the things that are wrong in our lives. It's not a pleasant thought. We need to get our lives right with God. We need to come to that place of love, where it is us in Christ, not just Christ in us. We need to come to that place where we can lay our lives down for the sake of the Gospel and count it an honor and a privilege to do that.
When I was in the Holocaust museum in Jerusalem in about June 1996 - The Holocaust museum is where the Israeli’s commemorate the holocaust, Bergen Belsen, Treblinka, all of those absolutely terrible atrocities that were committed against the Jews by people who call themselves Christians, incidentally. And at that same trip I was speaking at two conferences, and I have a slide at the end of my presentations with a cross on it, and I prayed about it and I said, Lord, do you want me to take the slide out? I don't want to offend this Jewish audience. He said, no, leave it, I want you to apologize to them for what has been done to them in the name of Jesus Christ. So, two conferences in Tel Aviv in 1996, I got up and at the end I said, I want to apologize to you, Jesus Christ was a Jew and the things that have been done to the Jews in the name of Jesus Christ are not right. And I ask you to forgive me.
It was an incredibly moving experience for me and what was even more astounding for me, there was a number of elderly Jewish men who came up to me afterwards and said, we can't tell you how much that means to us. Brothers and sisters, God is asking us to lay down our lives for our brothers in Christ, and for the Jews and for the unbelievers.
The Final Quest
I just want to close by reading three brief passages out of three books, which have touched me enormously on this subject. I don’t know how many of you have come across this book, ‘The Final Quest’ by Rick Joyner. If you haven't, I would strongly encourage you to get it and read it. The five prophetic visions where Joyner was taken up into Heaven, he comes before the judgment seat of Christ and it's a serious, serious wake up call to the Church. But I just want to read one little passage. This is where Joyner has come to the throne itself. He's before the Lord Jesus Christ. He's been through the judgment and he's discovered how little of his life he's actually led for Christ.
And Jesus offers him a cup. "I then looked back at the Lord and was astonished to see tears in His eyes, He had wiped the tears away from every eye here except His own. As a tear ran down His cheek, He caught it in His hands and He then offered it to me. This is My cup; will you drink it with Me. There was no way I could refuse Him. As the Lord continued to look at me, I began to feel His great love. Even as foul as I was, He still loved me. As undeserving as I was, He wanted me to be close to Him and then He said, I love all of these…this is now in Heaven…I love all of these with the love that you cannot understand. I also love all who are supposed to be here but did not come. I have left the 99 to go after the one who was lost. My shepherds would not leave the one to go after the 99 who are still lost. I came to save the lost. Will you share My heart to go to save the lost? Will you help Me to fill this room? Will you help to fill these thrones and every other seat in this hall? Will you take up this quest to bring joy to heaven? To Me and to My Father, this judgment is for My own household and My own house is not full. The last battle will not be over until My house is full. Only then will it be time for us to redeem the earth and remove the evil from My Creation. If you drink my cup, you will love the lost the way that I love them.
Sergei Kourdakov
Every time I read that passage and it's some three years, I think, since I first read that, it just really strikes me how wrapped up I get in the cares of this world and how little I devote myself to the things of the Kingdom. How little I devote myself to bringing souls to salvation. How little I devote myself to sharing the truth that the Lord has given me as He seeks to restore the Church towards truth. I then want to read a short passage from this book, which I read about two years ago. It is called Sergei, an Afrikaans book, it's a translation from English but I don’t have the translation so bear with me. I'm going to read it in Afrikaans.
It's the biography of a young man called Sergei Kourdakov. His father was a General in the Russian army in the Second World War, his mother was a Christian. They were murdered shortly after the war, I think when Stalin took over. I'm not sure of the details. He grew up in an orphanage. He was extremely talented. He came to be one of the top recruits at the Russian naval military academy up in northeastern Soviet Russia. He went on to become the leader of the Communist Youth League in that city. He was then recruited by the KGB along with something like 20 other young men, all exceptionally good athletes, extremely fit, extremely strong to put down, what the KGB had identified as the greatest single threat to communism, those people that they called believers. Those people who were spiritual Christians who just would not bow the knee to the communist God.
This young man eventually came to salvation and I will tell you a bit more about that in a moment. But he came to salvation through the life testimony of two Christian women. The first was a young girl of about 16, who they found at a home Church meeting of about 10 or 15 people. The group got bigger than this, who were meeting clandestinely in a house. They stripped her naked and they beat her with their bare hands until the flesh fell from her back. The next day they went into her place of employment and they told them that she was a Christian and she lost her job. A week later they went to break up another home cell meeting and she was there. They couldn't understand it. She said, I love Jesus so much I can’t not be here, and they let her go. They couldn't understand.
A few days later they went to another meeting and I just want him to read a page from that. They're just about to break in.
By die deur het ons ‘n oomblik bly staan, my man het gewag vir my teken, skielik het ek geskreu, nou die stooktog het begin, die deur was opgesluit, opsugtelig dat hulle ons nie verwag het nie en ons het ingebars. Soos die spioen gese het was daar 15 of 16 verlowiges teenwoordig, almal styf teen mekaar gedruk in die klein reimte. Ons het hulle in die middle van die gebed getrap. (Inaudible 00:34:23) het ‘n Bybel by haar gelowige gegryp en dit stukkend geskeur. Een van die vroue het uitgeroep, hoekom doen jy dit? Dit was ‘n hartseer diep kreet, maar het Vladimir geiriteer sodat hy haar reg in die gesig geslaan het. Dit was ‘n professionele goed gemukde hou wat enige man sou verpletter. Wat nog te se ‘n klein tingerige vroutjie. Sy het terug geval teen die ander gelowiges en op die vloer neer gesak, haar gesig bebloed. Gille het die lug deur gevlieg toe my man haar in die werk gespring het. Ek het die hefboompie aan my knuppel gedruk en dit op sy kortste gestel sodat dit meer bruikbaar was in daardie klein vertrekkie. Knuppels and feiste was reeds aan die werk en die geskreeu van die gelowiges was genoeg om jou oordromme te laat bars. Sommige het uit vrees gegil en anders van pyn.
Ek het ‘n ou vrou naby die muur gesien, vrees op haar gesig, haar lippe bewend in gebed. As gevolg van die lewaai kon ek nie hoor wat sy se nie maar haar gebed het my biesend gemaak. Ek het ‘n paar tree vorentoe geneem en my knuppel gelig om haar te slaan. Sy het my raak gesien, gereed om te slaan en hard opgebid, ek het ‘n oomblik gekalm, meer uit nuskierigheid as uit enige iets anders. Terwyl my arm in die lug was, gereed om my knuppel op haar meerlose hoof neer te bring het ek haar woorde gehoor, 'God, vergewe hierdie jong man, wys hom die ware dag, open sy oe en hulp hom, vergewe hom Liewe Vader.' Ek was stom geslaan. Hoekom bid sy nie vir hulp vir haarself nie. Sy is die een wat aan stons geslaan gaan word. Ek was woedend dat sy, 'n onbekende vrou vir my Sergei Kourdakov, leier van die Kommuniste Jeug Liege moes bid. In 'n vlag van woede het ek my knuppel stywer gegruip en klaar gemaak om dit teen haar kop te slaan. Ek sou haar met al my mag geslaan, genoeg om haar dood dit maak.
Ek het begin swaai en toe gebeur 'n einardige ding, ek kan dit nie verduidelik nie. Iemand het my gewigte gegruip en dit terug gedruk. Ek was verbaas, dit het seer gemaak. Dit was nie my verbeelding nie, dit was 'n werklikke drukking op my gewig tot dit seer gemaak het. Ek het gedink dis dalk n gelowige en omdraai om te slaan maar daar was niemand nie, ek het weer gekyk. Niemand kon my arm gegryp het nie en tog het ek dit gevoel. Dit was nog steeds seer. Ek het geskok, bly staan, die bloed het na my kop gevloei en ek het warm geword terwyl vrees oor my gespoel het. Dit was bokant my denke, dit was verwarrant, onwerklik en toe het ek alles vergeet. Ek het my knuppel laat val en uitgehardloop met 'n warm bluisende gevoel in my gesig en bloed kloppend in my kop. Trane het my wange begin afloop.
Do we love enough to pray for somebody who's about to crush our skulls and not think of ourselves? That young man subsequently jumped ship in the Pacific Ocean, five miles off Vancouver in the middle of a massive storm. By the grace of God, miraculously, he should have died of exposure within minutes, but he was washed up on the shore of Vancouver and came to salvation and shared his testimony. God alone knows how many people's lives have been touched by those two women who loved Jesus so much that they obeyed His Commandments to love their enemies, to do good to them that hate them. Are we ready to do that?
Evil in the world
If the worst things that some people are speculating as being about to happen in this world really do happen, if the rumors about the concentration camps near Kokstad, the gas chambers and the ovens designed to kill 3000 people a day are true, if the rumors about the concentration camp in the Eastrand near Nigel in an old disused mine with similar capacity are true, if the rumors about the 45 concentration camps in the United States are true, if the rumors about a United Nation plan to annihilate two thirds of the world's population are true, the spirit that was behind the Union of Soviet socialist republics, the spirit that was behind the Gestapo is about to break loose on this world.
Creflo Dollar
Will you love your enemies the way Jesus did? Or will you retreat into self-pity and self-centeredness. I've got one last passage that I want to read and then I’m done. And it comes very much closer to home. This is from Creflo Dollar's book, "Lord, teach me how to love", and I strongly encourage you to see if you can get hold of it. They do have offices near us if you can't get hold of it elsewhere. He’s entitled it 'Covering others with love'. He says, I like this translation of 1 Corinthians 13, it, “love does not rejoice in injustice and unrighteousness, but rejoices when right and truth prevail. Love bears up under anything and everything that comes, is ever ready to believe the best of every person. It hopes and has faith under all circumstances, and it endures everything without weakening.” That's verse 6 and 7 from the amplified.
He says, I have known preachers who've fallen into sin, one of them had to check himself into an institution. He was shocked to see me the first time I went to visit him. He was so sure that, like many others I had only come to hurt him more with words of condemnation. He actually asked me to leave, but I refused. I had already predetermined that we would have Communion together that day, so I found a cracker and some juice, then I sat down with him to make a covenant agreement with him. I grabbed his face and said, I promise to love you forever and if you should die, I'll see to it that your wife is taken care of and that your children get a first-class education. I will not leave you, no matter what you do. I love you unconditionally.
He was so moved by the level of God's compassion, by the fact that God would actually send someone to convey His love at such a time that he was blown away. We both cried. I still cry every time we get together because I think, what if I killed him with my words and actions? Where would he be today? Now this man of God is whole. He made a complete recovery and is even more anointed now than he was before. There is no greater joy than seeing people climb out of a pit of despair and press on to higher levels of spirituality. That's the way God meant it to be. That's the end of my message. All that leaves me to say is I believe the Lord is challenging every one of us here today to step up to that measure of love, which is the fullness of the man, Christ Jesus, to set aside everything to do with self, to set aside all our preconceived notions and to love as we have never loved before. To love the lost, not just the lost outside the Church, but the lost inside the Church who are so deceived in so many areas.
Those people who think that being a Christian is a Sunday School picnic, they don't realize that they will have to endure great persecution and tribulation for their faith. Do we love them enough to tell them the truth, no matter what they do to us? To love our enemies if they persecute us, even if we confronted that angry young man who has the capacity to utterly smash our faces in in his rage against our faith, say Father, forgive him, love him, save him. Are we prepared to reach out to those in the faith who have fallen, and love them unconditionally and pick them up?
Prayer
Father, I just bring this message before You now. I pray Lord, that above all things, if there be anything that I've said, which is not of You that You will blow it away right now by Your Spirit, that it will find no root, that all it is of You would take root in the hearts of those who've heard me and it will bring forth, Lord, abundant fruit. Father, my cry today for myself, and for all those who hear me is teach us to love like Jesus loved and not to count the cost. Dear father, in the name of Jesus, I ask You to pour out Your Spirit upon those people right now. I ask You to fill us to overflowing with the glory and compassion of Your Spirit. Cleanse us of our unrighteousness, cleanse us of our self-centeredness and let us see people the way You see them Lord God. Let us know Your will in every situation. Let us experience Your heart in every situation. Let us be vessels for Your love. Let us be vessels for Your faith, bind us in Christ Jesus. Let us come to the place where there is so little of us and so much of Jesus that the world says, look, there is a Christian.
Father take us out to this place of mediocrity where the world cannot see any difference between us and the unbelievers. Take us out of this place of compromise where the unbelievers are better able to tell us what's wrong with our lives than we are. Take us into a place where Jesus is everything in our lives. Father, Abba, Daddy, we cannot do it in our own strength, we cannot do it in our own ability, all we can say to You is Daddy, in the name of Yahooshua, Your Son, crucify our flesh, destroy self-centeredness, self-righteousness and self-confidence, and everything that has anything to do with self, let us be crucified this day with the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's go out of this place truly new creatures in Christ. Father, we ask You by Your Spirit to convict us of our sin, to convict us of anything that You've called us to do that we've left undone, and everything You've told us not to do that we've done.
We ask You to convict us of our willful disobedience and our negligence and just our plain carelessness. Father, in the name of Jesus, forgive us, Lord. We are not worthy to come before Your throne, but we come nonetheless by faith in the saving grace and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for You have said we could come boldly before the throne of Christ, and we ask You today, Father in the name of Jesus for grace to serve You, for grace to love the way Jesus loves, and loved, when he walked this Earth, for grace to love the way those two women in impoverished circumstances in Soviet Russia, enemies, that the leader of the Communist Youth League jumped ship to find the God that they knew. Lord, take us, bend us, break us, use us, fill us with Your love today. Let us never be the same, let us never think the same, deliver us from our obsession with the things of the world, for our obsession with our own comforts and our own cares and what people think of us, and our cardinal secular activities.
Take us Lord Jesus and hold us in Your arms and infuse us with Your love that we are changed forever. Please don't stop. Show us everything that has to change. We yield ourselves to You right now, Lord God. Let me just say Father, into Your hands we commend our spirits, our hearts, our minds, our souls, our bodies and all that we have, our families, our children, our houses, our cars, every material thing that we have we would give it to You, Lord. None of these things are any worth, save the love of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Lord, He gave everything that we might be saved, and we give You everything that we might be saved and that we might save others. Lord, today we commit ourselves to lay our treasure in Heaven and no longer to lay our treasure on earth. Let us not squander the few precious years that You've given us on this earth concerning ourselves with cardinal things but let us concern ourselves with that which is written in Your Book concerning us. Let us concern ourselves with that which You will say to us on that great day.
Lord, our desire is to be found to have been faithful servants, not to be told, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. Praise You, Jesus. Praise you Lord. Just stand and just receive from Him. He just wants to pour out His Spirit on you, every one of you, just stand. Lord, pour out Your Spirit upon Your people now. Fill us Lord, fill up the fire of Your Spirit, burn out the gross, burn out the char, the furnace, by Your Holy anointing, cleanse us Lord Jesus. And Jesus, I just want to say how sorry I am for all the times I disobeyed You. I'm going to say how sorry I am for all the times I've responded in a sense and in anger, for all the times that the people around me have seen Your great name brought into distribute by my conduct because I've not walked it. Father, I repent of that right now in Jesus' name. I ask You to forgive me.
I ask You to cleanse me with Your blood, I turn around and I choose to return to my first love as never before, not by might, not by power, but by Your Spirit. For I am unable, in my own strength, so much as to love myself, let alone to love my enemies, but by Your Spirit all things are possible. Nothing is impossible with You. Thank You Jesus for loving us, thank You Jesus for dying for us, thank You Jesus that soon You will return for us. Amen.
The Community Church is a Pentecostal Church that believes the Gospel is the most important message for this and any other generation. I was therefore surprised to read a poster put up by the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the day of the Christian Church is numbered. I do not believe that there is any power that can annul what Christ alone could do and that this message of redemption must be declared to the ends of the earth. To this end, we are producing these tapes for distribution free of charge. If this one has been a blessing to you please assist us by passing it on. We thank you for your cooperation. God bless you. If you have listened to this tape and it has made an impact upon your life and you realize your need may I pray for you that Jesus Christ may enter your life and bring about the changes that are necessary. In Jesus' name, I pray that God will move by His Spirit upon your life, that your whole future shall be colored by the fact that Jesus is alive and that He's alive and triumphant in your life. May God bless you and use you for His glory, for we need every mouth, and we need every effort to bring the message across to those that stand in desperate need. God bless you. Amen.
Foundation for Living Community Church meets at the South African Vroue Federasie hall, Jack Hendon Street, Pretoria North. It is pastored by Neil Dreyer, an Apostle of God, who can be contacted on 012 808 1650. Meetings are every Sunday at 09h30 in the morning at the SAVF hall. Should you be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, banking account details are as follows. Account name: NJ Dreyer, Bank: First National Bank, Branch: Silverton, Account Number: 51030119874, Branch Code: 25084500. You are free to copy these tapes without restriction and to distribute them as widely as you feel led. Please remember only that each of us is called to account on the Day of Judgment for what we do with the Word of God. Should you require additional copies of this tape, please contact me, James Robertson on Johannesburg, that’s 011 791 2327 or cell phone 083 251 0644 or fax 011 791 5004 or email jamesr@infodoor.co.za and we will make arrangements to get copies of this tape to you. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen.
01_07 What brings Jesus Joy
Neil Dreyer
If we're in the place where God wants us to be, we're going to take advantage of it. You could witness to somebody by speaking to them. Better still, you can speak and give a tract. Better still, if you’re being blessed by a message, give them a tape, an audio tape. Take them, distribute them. We need to reach out, folks, we need to be active in this outreach, and God can bless us in it. So, please, if you ask my brother for tapes, he'll give you tapes. Is that right, brother? That's perfectly right. I want you to come with me to the Gospel of St. Luke, the 10th Chapter, and we'll read the first 12 verses together. With desire, have I desired to preach this message to you this morning, Luke chapter 10 verses 1 to 12, Jesus says in the previous chapter, He ends it by saying, "no man, having put his hand to the plough looking back is worthy of the Kingdom of God? When you start ploughing, determine that you're going to plough to the end of the furrow. Without looking back because you're not worthy, if you regret beginning that ploughing. God wants you to do it whole heartedly, no man builds a tower, except he sits down first of all and counts the costs. He wants us to count the costs."
And then He goes, and it says, "after these things, the Lord appointed other seventy also, and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place whether He, Himself would come." Here's planning here. Do you see it? Jesus plans. He says, "You go ahead into every village and to every town. Prepare it, I'm coming." So, they go ahead, they preach there, Jesus comes along, and he finds the right audience, it's organization.
Here Christ is working with the 70, "therefore said He unto them, the harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few. Pray thee, therefore the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth laborers into His harvest. Go your ways. Behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves, carry neither spurs, nor script, nor shoes and salute no man by the way. And into whatsoever house she enters first say, peace be to this house. And if the son of peace be there, then your peace shall rest upon it, if not, it shall turn to you again. And in the same house, remain eating and drinking such things as they give, for the laborer is worthy of his hire. Go not from house to house, and into whatsoever city you enter, and they receive you, eat such things as I said before you. And heal the sick that are there and say unto them, the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you. But into whatsoever city you enter, and they receive you not, go your ways, out into the streets of the same and say, even the very dust of the city which cleaveth on us, we do wipe off against you notwithstanding. Be ye sure of this, but the Kingdom of God is come nigh unto you, but I say unto you that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom and Gomorrah."
The Joy of the Lord Jesus Christ
So, Lord, we worship You and we pray that You will bless the preaching of this word, in Jesus’ name. Amen. I've entitled it, ‘The Joy of the Lord Jesus Christ.’ What were the things that made Jesus happy? You're very aware of the things that make you happy. You know what kind of news you like to hear and what kind of news you don't like to hear, but what was it that made Jesus the son of God glad? What rejoiced His heart? What were the things that were important to Him, as the Son of God? These are the things that we need to look into just a little. In Romans 5 and 12, the Scripture sets forth a scenario for what we are about to say.
Born in sin
It says this in Romans 5 and 12, "wherefore, as by one man," this is tremendous, as by one man, sin entered the world, and the result is tremendous, death by sin." It comes from one man, and result is death by sin. Listen. "So, death passed upon all men." It's tremendously wide. "It goes from generation to generation, from the cradle to the grave. It affects every person that breathes, and it came into the world through one door, through one man." Staggering. What kind of man must this man, Adam, have been, that he could have such a tremendous effect on his generation and every succeeding generation that followed? His action was vital. God put tremendous things in this man's hands. He handled tremendous power, otherwise this could never have happened. "So, death passed upon all men for that all of sin." This statement is clear, and the result is as plain as the nose on your face. It affects you and it affects your children, it affects all your relatives, and everybody that you know. There's not a single human being that's not affected by it.
And here, it's not just a matter of being born in sin, he says, we are all born in sin, but we are not sinners. We are born that way, but we are not sinners. We are sinners when we start committing sin. And he says, from the time of understanding, we have all sinned and come short of the glory of God. The little ones that can understand, comes to the age of understanding, and the older ones, everybody, we are all tainted, we are all touched by the same thing, we have the same virus, we're in the same difficulties. And then you come to the 15th verse and listen to this, "But not as the offense, so also is the free gift, for if through the offense of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God and the gift of grace, which is by one Man, Jesus Christ, have abounded unto all men. Have abounded that overflow." This grace will overflow to all men, every man that's ever been condemned.
Jesus Christ has got something to say, this one Man that came into our world to redeem the world, to do a tremendous work for all of humanity. Some people say, well, I had nothing to do with Adam. I wasn't there. That's true, but neither did you have anything to do with Calvary and the death of Jesus Christ. It was free, absolutely free. He did it for you. You didn't have to do a thing, you just had to believe it. He did all the suffering, and you get all the benefits. Blessed be the name of Jesus the Christ. Worship Him. Adam had the seed of life within him, and he passed on this life to all. It was a tainted life, it was a corrupted life, and the Bible gives us a result. The result was a curse. It says it passed this on to all of us, a curse of weakness and of failure. We did it over and over and over again in his footsteps.
In Genesis 3 in 17, "Cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shall thy eat of it all the days of thy life." And this is the first mention of limited life, isn't it? In the day that thou leaders spare of, thou shalt surely die, yet it is. All the days of thy life, as long as you shall live, but you will not live forever, for as long as you will live, the death sentence was passed and yet it was carried up. That was the result of original sin. Sin is like AIDS, beloved. You might deny its power over your life, but if you have it, you cannot deny the evidence, and not one of us can deny the evidence of what God's Word is saying, for all of us have sinned and come short of the glory of God. We are tempted by it, it's within us, it's in our genes, if you like. It comes out of us.
I said to a black man one time, we're not sinners because we commit sin, we are sinners, that's why we sin. It's natural and we're all in that category. We are sinners. But humanity paid a much bigger price by inheritance than just this life. By faith, we have a relationship, and that relationship is a powerful relationship. If you don't have faith, you don't have the power, you've lost it. And Adam was cut off from God. That was the tragedy. From that moment onward, he was on his own and he was vulnerable. He was susceptible to everything that the devil could throw at him, because he was outside the protection of God, and when we step outside the protection of God, we lose power, we lose power with God, and we've lost this thing that will give us victory in life, that will enable us to overcome. We lose these things. Cut off from God, we are nothing, we are nobodies. We are destined for annihilation and we deserve it, and we have no right to anything more.
Unity with God
So, we lose standing, we lose position, we lose authority, we lose power, and union with God, that only faith can bring. When we have this unity with God and this liberty to come to Him and say, my Father, and I know that I'm His son, I can put my knees under His table, and I will not be rebuked. I've got a place, I belong. As Pretorius said, it's not the long prayers. All you need to do is talk to Jesus, and it's enough. When the soul cries out to God, when we're sometimes in agony before Him and we say, oh God, I need You more than words can ever tell, you don't have to pray for hours, but when you say that and you mean it, God knows it. It registers with Him, He knows that you are sincere. He was vulnerable without protection from his own weakness, and when man is not under control, he becomes out of control. He doesn't have control any more. He's like the alcoholic who thinks that he's in control of his habits and of his life, but the truth is that the habit controls him and controls his life. It is a make-believe world that he has when he thinks he's in control. He's not making the choices, he's under control, and he's a victim.
Without God, man is bound in a prison unto his own weakness, ineffective through his inability, the lack of ability to trust, to know his God. He does not have the faith that can bring change in vital situations. And with the alcoholic, the very first drink was the one that set the pattern for the rest of his life. He didn't know that he was falling into a trap, but it was a death trap. And he didn't know it. He walked into it with his eyes wide open, and man does it time and again, and, again and again. He doesn't know why things are going wrong in his life. He doesn't understand why things just don't come right and he doesn't understand that sin has separated him from God, from the source of life, from the source of blessing. And he's walking alone, and he thinks he's making the decisions. It's a dream world, it is a fantasy world, a world where reality does not exist. The lie is, I am managing, I am doing all right, you better believe me, and all the time he's failing, hand over fist.
Foothold for Satan
This gave Satan the first toehold in the world. It was through the weakness of man. Sin entered through one door, the weakness of man. The rhinovirus is the one that causes flu, and they say the rhinovirus has as a secret. You come to a normal cell and he begins to tickle it, and suddenly that cell which is meant to defend you against the rhinovirus opens to the rhinovirus because he thinks he's friendly. The rhinovirus goes in, and the minute it's inside, it begins to multiply at a furious rate, until eventually he bursts the whole cell, and the cell is fatally wounded. And then he spreads throughout your body and he ravages you for weeks. They say he stops just as suddenly as he began. But if he continued, nobody would survive, it would be your end. But he destroys the cells that he inhabits, and the devil inhabits the human being, and he sent to destroy him. He’ll destroy him and bring him to nothing. The devil has nothing to do with you except in order to take from you and to destroy you. Sin always robs of power because the sinner loses the confidence to come to God and liberty is the casualty.
Conscience keeps him away from God because he says, I've got no right. How many people don't think like that? I've got no right to come to God, I must first of all put my life right, then I can come to God. That's a fantasy. You will never do it. Only God can change your life. Only God can put you on the right track, and you need to walk with Him every step of the way and then God will bless you and use you. Sin always robs of power because the sinner loses the confidence to come to God, their own thoughts. The Bible says either condemn or justify them, and many condemn themselves before God. Conscience does that, and this is through Jesus Christ from his Father's throne. This is why He came to the earth. This is why He was willing to go to Calvary all the way. For this joy that was set before Him, the prospect of doing this, of being this, of being the victim in your place and mine, of being the sacrifice of God, for the joy that was set before Him to do this.
Jesus came to the world. This is what drew Him. Jesus wanted to come. In Hebrews 10, 6 to 7, the Bible says, "In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast no pleasure. Then said I, lo, I come." In the volume of the book, it is written of me, to do Thy will, oh God, to obey with my whole life in living and in dying on behalf of all humanity, to do on their behalf what they're unable to do and give themselves. I'll do it for them, I will be the perfect man in their stead, I will be the spotless lamb of God, I'll be sinless. For their sakes, I'll keep myself pure. For their sakes I'll be everything that God's law requires. What gives Jesus joy? Not the glory. Satan wanted the glory. He said, I will be like the most high, I will establish my throne in the sights of the north. And from thence, he fell. He wanted the glory. Jesus doesn’t want it. He didn't come here for that reason. He came to die.
Free from sin
Listen to this heart this morning. In John 12, 27 to 28. He says, "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say, what shall I choose? Father, save me from this hour." Is that what he wanted? Save me from this hour. "But for this course, came I unto this hour. Father glorify Thy name." You take the glory, that's all I want to do. I want to glorify You and I want You to save people, don't save me, save them by my death, Lord. Do that. This is why I am here. Bring glory to yourself by my death. Christ came to this hour for this course, and He made this hour, your hour and mine. This was the hour of our triumph, it was the hour of His death, but it was the hour of our triumph over the devil. Over all these forces, here is the victory. It's Jesus dying on the Cross of Calvary for you, for everything that you've ever done in the whole of your life, the things that you brush about, the things that you're ashamed of, Jesus died for every one of them. He made it possible for you to live past it, beyond it, above it. He made it possible so that you never have to go back there again and say, Lord, I'm sorry. Once, it's forgiven, it's forgotten as if it never was, and you're sinless because the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son cleanses us from all sin. Isn't that a marvelous statement?
From all sin, I'm free, from everything that binds me. Praise His Holy name. In Zephaniah 3 and 17, the Bible says this, "The Lord thy God that is in the midst of thee is mighty. He will save, He will rejoice over thee with joy, He will rest in his love, He will joy over thee with singing." Can you imagine Jesus singing about Eustace, Jesus singing about Neil Dreyer? What would Jesus sing? Choruses? What would Jesus sing? He is going to sing triumphantly. Say, this is my trophy, Father, this is what I brought to You. Take a look, he's pure, he's clean as the German snow, there's not a mark on him the devil can't do a thing with him. Isn't God wonderful? Praise His Holy name. He is so good. This joy is the result of Christ's saving His people. You'll remember the momentous words as He died, he says, "it is finished." Oh Hallelujah, it's not the end of a nightmare, it’s the beginning of a glorious truth. It is over, sin is defeated, the devil is defeated. And this marks the end of slavery and bondage for you and for me. It is restoring what has been lost, and squandered and neglected.
The people say, does each generation of kids get the music it deserves? The answer is no, but it gets the music that defines it, the music that tells you what they are, what they're after. Yes, this is what it tells you. You listen to the music today and here is what it says. And this is what the youngsters are looking for. It has been said that we get the politicians and the children that we deserve. And the Bible says, "We reap what we sow." This is what Christ came to deliver us from, the consequences. He came to deliver us from the consequences of our own behavior, so that we don't have to pay the price from giving out just desserts. Jesus set us free from this. So, this is a new era, a new beginning, the dawning of a new day. Opportunity from God once again knocks at humanity’s' door, and says, you can't live your life over, but you can live it differently. Jesus makes that possible.
Hebrews 12 and 1 to 2, "Wherefore, seeing that we are also surrounded about by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside the weight and the sin that does so easily beset us, let us run with patience the race that is set before us, this new beginning. Looking unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the Cross despising the shame, and He sat down at the right end of the throne of God." Where's His dignity? Do you know how important your dignity is to you? Do you know what happens if somebody slights you or somebody insults you? What kind of reaction do you get? What happens in your mind and your heart? Jesus Christ embraced the Cross, and what He did, how He overcame it was He despised it, He despised the shame. He couldn't turn in one way or the other from the will of God. Ego didn't get in the way, and ego can’t get in the way of you and me when we are doing God's service. We don't have the right. Man crucified Him, but God raised Him and put Him at His right hand, accepted, honored and glorified. Was this His joy, is this what He wanted?
I say no, the Cross was. We are the representative in Heaven, beloved. And He has wounds in His hands, His feet, and in His side. We've got a representative there, a high priest familiar with our weaknesses, who understands. He prevails for us, on His merit, not ours. He comes before God on what He's done for us, not what we've done for ourselves. Christ did that. He did it for you and for me. Do you understand why I love it, why I want to serve Him? Amen. And from this position, Jesus Christ pours out His Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit
In John 7 and 39 it says, "But this spake ye of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given because Jesus Christ was not yet glorified." When Jesus Christ was glorified, He was ascended to the right hand of the majesty on high. When the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost, they knew that Jesus had arrived there. Do you understand? That was the sign for the outpouring of the Holy Ghost. So, we rejoice in the Lord. Why did He do it?
I want you to read with me now, Luke chapter 10, verses 17 to 24. Here's His vision, "And the 72 returned again with joy saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through Thy name. And He said unto them, Behold, I saw Satan falling, Satan has lightning fall from Heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread upon serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall by any means hurt you. Notwithstanding in this, rejoice, not that the spirits are subject unto you, but rather rejoice because your names are written in Heaven. In that hour, Jesus rejoiced in Spirit. And listen what pleases Him. And He said, I thank thee, oh Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, that Thou hath hid these things from the wise and the prudent and has revealed them unto babes, even so Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight. All things are delivered to Me and My Father and no man knows who the Son is, but the Father, and who the Father is, but the Son, and to Him to who the Son will reveal Him. And He turned to His disciples and said, privately, blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see, for I tell you that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see and have not seen them. And to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard that."
Forgiveness
Have you heard, have you seen? Are you amongst the mighty and the wise, or are you amongst the humble? I'm so glad that I'm not a big man. I'm so glad that I'm enough of a child to accept Jesus Christ. I thank God and I thank God for the things that mine eyes have seen, and mine ears have heard. I thank God for the understanding that He's given me. I was praying the other day. I walk when I pray, and there's somebody that has done me a lot of harm, and I thought to myself. I was praying for the person, I don't pray against people, I ask God to have His will in their lives. I was praying for this person - God bless this person, save his soul, changes his outlook, make him different. And the Lord brought a thought to me. I've never been able to understand what Jesus meant when He said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. Because they knew what they were doing. They did it with malice and aforethought. They wanted to kill Him, they wanted to put Him aside, and He knew it, and yet He says, forgive them, they don't know what they're doing.
What did He mean? You see, before I got saved, I was a different man altogether to the man that emerged from the city hall when Christ came into his life. I saw things altogether differently. I saw it from God's perspective. Before, I saw it from the world's perspective. I only understood the world's perspective, not God's. And then God came into my life and I saw the world from His perspective, and it's a different perspective. And the man who doesn't see it from God's perspective is really not responsible for his behavior, because he doesn't understand, and that's what Jesus was saying. They don't understand what they're doing, because they can’t see it from God's point of view, they've been blinded, the devil has blinded their life. And I can't claim benefit. I can't say that it was the cleverness of my decision that would save my soul. It was the grace of God.
And if the grace of God saved my soul, beloved, then I must have the similar grace to this person who has harmed me, because he doesn't understand what he's doing, and he doesn't know God. And I can’t expect him to behave in a Godly way. He doesn't know how, he's never learnt, he's never been so privileged as I have, because I've learned it from my Father's hand. Blessed be His holy name. So, Jesus was glad.
In Luke 8 and 1, it says, "And it came to pass afterwards, that He went throughout every city and village, preaching and showing the glad tidings of the Kingdom of God, and the twelve were with him." They shared the same vision, they were on the same mission, they were doing the same thing. They took it from Jesus, and they carried it forward. That's what's going to happen amongst us. We've got to take it from Jesus and carry it forward. And this makes Jesus glad. The glad tidings of the kingdom, these are the things that filled His life. Jesus wasn't thinking of having a mansion. He didn’t want to become a multimillionaire, those weren't His interests. It was the Kingdom of God. He was sold out entirely to that Kingdom.
Renewing your mind
All right, I want to ask you a question. Do you think that madness is a blessed release from reality? I want to say to you no, it is torment. In Mark 5 and 1, it says, "and they came over into the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasene’s." That was part of Christ's strategy. He was reaching out to villages across the seas. He had to reach somebody. There was somebody there that needed Him, and so He comes over the sea in the boat with His disciples. The 2nd verse says, "And when they came out of the ship, immediately,” as by prearrangement, “immediately, they went out unto them, out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit." It was a prearranged meeting. Jesus said, for this purpose have I come into the world, here is one of the purposes. Verse 3, "This man had been dwelling among the tombs, and no man could bind him, no, not with chains, he broke chains in pieces so that no man could chain him."
In verse 5, it says, "And always," listen to it, listen to this tragedy, "and always, night and day, without variation, without change, the same pattern, day after day, after dreary day, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs crying and cutting himself with stones. When he saw Jesus, he came, and he worshipped Him and bowed at His feet." One power inferior bowing before the superior power of God. He recognized Him. The mad man recognized what sane people often don’t see. They understood who Jesus was. In their madness, they knew. And sane men looked past and they don’t understand, don’t know who He is. Always, day and night, night and day, all the time, he gave himself entirely to what was in his deranged mind, what he thought was profitable, but is was mindless, it was thoughtless. It was going nowhere, and he was going in circles with his life, with the precious days of his life, achieving absolutely nothing. Amounting to nothing. All the effort didn’t mean this. He gave himself to it, entirely, more definitely than most people give to making a fortune.
It has been said that men ruin their health making a fortune, and then they spend a fortune trying to regain their health. They go around in circles. And here was this man doing this, achieving nothing, giving his life trivial pursuit, his life, meaningless. Many normal people are on this treadmill of life, I want to tell you. They give themselves avidly to things that have no benefit and think this is success. What the mad man was doing, filled his mind, it occupied him. It filled his days and nights. Was this vision? Was this what God intended for him? No, I tell you, this was Satan's work. It’s diabolic. It's tragic. It's theft. It's taking away from a man that could be profitable to him and his values have gone down the tube.
The devil does that every time fellows. He doesn't want you to succeed. He doesn't want you to walk with God. I tell you that no one will ever get the victory over Satan and the weakness he brings until he recognizes who is behind the behavior. If you keep on making excuses, friend, for the life that you're living, you're never going to arrive where God wants you to be. You've got to recognize who it is responsible for the things that we are thinking and the things that we're doing, so that we can deal with it. And if we don't recognize Satan's hand, we'll never defeat him, he will always have his hand on your shoulder. Evil that destroys a life while holding our promises that never can be fulfilled. It is a mist, a mirage, and a dream of delusion. We need help to separate imagination from reality.
Jesus Christ said in John 10 and 10, "The thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy, I am come that ye might have life and that ye might have it more abundantly." The amazing thing is that the madman was so deluded that he was doing what he wanted to. It was a choice, but it was a choice that was made under pressure from spiritual forces that he didn't understand. Romans 12 and 2 says, "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may be able to prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." The renewing of the mind is changing your value system, it's coming over to God side, it's getting your perspectives on you, your life and God right. The madman does all the time what he wanted to do, and somehow it made twisted sense of nonsense. It was weird, but to him, it made him somehow, and so he kept on doing it.
Here, there are no limitations, all is acceptable, it can be done. I've heard this voice, I've heard the person talking to someone that doesn't exist, rebuking, and fighting. I've seen a grown woman go to a tap and begin to wash her dress while it is upon her. You say this is not rational. No, it's not, but it's tragic. I've heard this voice, it is a mockery of sanity. This man's satisfaction came from torturing himself, destruction was in his paths. He was his own nemesis and his own victim. If you keep doing what you want to, does that always satisfy? If you have no restrictions, are you really free, are you best left alone to go your way?
In Mark 5 and 15, "and they came to Jesus, the people of the village of Diadora, and they see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion sitting in cloth and in his right mind, and they were afraid." Amazing. They begged Jesus to leave their coasts, they were amazed. And the world is afraid of people who are in their right minds. They don’t want to hear it. They don’t want to know that they're wrong. They don’t want anybody to tell them that. Leave me, I want to cut myself and torture myself in the tombs. I want to do my own thing. Leave me, even if it's irrational, I want to do it.
What do you fear in life? What peace have you got? What assurance, beloved? That's vital. Before we left Boksburg, I met a man. He was talking to me. He was an alcoholic, rehabilitated. And there was a man in the same town, and this fellow could drink. He had the constitution of a horse. My friend said to me that I used to buy a can of wine every weekend, and he would sit on the carpet in my wife's house and I would drink until I was unconscious. And that men would sit there drinking, drinking, drinking long after I passed out. And do you know that men really believe that the man who can take drink like that, that is a real man? Do you believe it? It's something worthy to be admired? I say its lunacy, crazy. What are you giving it for, what are you doing it for? Oh beloved, we need the Lord.
Let's bow our heads in prayer before the Lord, shall we. Heavenly father, we come to You in the lovely name of Jesus, and we worship You, and oh God, we so desperately want to be in our right mind when it comes to the things of God. Lord, we want to be, as they say in Afrikaans, by ons positiewe. We want to make the choices, Lord. We don’t to have things that are more powerful than what we are, beings that are more powerful than what we are, making the decisions. Oh God, bring us to that point, we pray, where we will decide by the light of the Word of God, that which is right and then put our backs into it, oh God, and say, this is where I stand, these are the things that I stand for, it's non-negotiable, I stand here, like Martin Luther when he said, "here I stand sir, help me God I can do no other." In Jesus' name, guide us by your Spirit, Lord, as a congregation, as individuals, guide us oh God. There's a world out there that is in the same position as the madman of Diadora was in. People, madly going after pleasure without thinking, Lord. Heavenly Father, in Jesus name, help us to be a force for You in this place among our friends, among our family, Lord, help us, I pray. In Jesus' name that You may be exalted and worshiped, oh Lord, blessed be Your name. Amen.
The Community Church is a Pentecostal Church that believes the Gospel is the most important message for this and any other generation. I was therefore surprised to read a poster put up by the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the day of the Christian Church is numbered. I do not believe that there is any power that can annul what Christ alone could do and that this message of redemption must be declared to the ends of the earth. To this end, we are producing these tapes for distribution free of charge. If this one has been a blessing to you please assist us by passing it on. We thank you for your cooperation. God bless you. If you have listened to this tape and it has made an impact upon your life and you realize your need may I pray for you that Jesus Christ may enter your life and bring about the changes that are necessary. In Jesus' name, I pray that God will move by His Spirit upon your life, that your whole future shall be colored by the fact that Jesus is alive and that He's alive and triumphant in your life. May God bless you and use you for His glory, for we need every mouth, and we need every effort to bring the message across to those that stand in desperate need. God bless you. Amen.
Foundation for Living Community Church meets at the South African Vroue Federasie hall, Jack Hendon Street, Pretoria North. It is pastored by Neil Dreyer, an Apostle of God, who can be contacted on 012 808 1650. Meetings are every Sunday at 09h30 in the morning at the SAVF hall. Should you be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, banking account details are as follows. Account name: NJ Dreyer, Bank: First National Bank, Branch: Silverton, Account Number: 51030119874, Branch Code: 25084500. You are free to copy these tapes without restriction and to distribute them as widely as you feel led. Please remember only that each of us is called to account on the Day of Judgment for what we do with the Word of God. Should you require additional copies of this tape, please contact me, James Robertson on Johannesburg, that’s 011 791 2327 or cell phone 083 251 0644 or fax 011 791 5004 or email jamesr@infodoor.co.za and we will make arrangements to get copies of this tape to you. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen.
01_09 Who is the Good Samaritan?
Chris McIntyre
I want to thank Pastor Neil for this opportunity today. This is the first time I've done this, but I'm trusting the Lord that it's going to be great. The funny thing is I've been thinking about this for quite some time, and a couple of months ago, Pastor Neil came to me, and said to me, why don’t you try preaching one Sunday. And it was a bit of a revelation to me. So, I said yes, I've been thinking about it, and I went away, and I thought about it for quite some time and eventually one Sunday I said to Pastor Neil, I’m ready, I want to go for it. And he said that his wife was saying during that week that she was asking him, when is Chris going to do something? So, I believe this is anointing today. I want to thank God for the ability that I have, what He's given me. Sometimes you just have to break down and say, Lord, I'm worthy of this. Wonderful.
The Bible
Some people call this a book, a normal book. They have it in their book shelf, they never read it, but it’s there. It’s some high spiritual meaning in their life, but they didn't really know what it's all about. Some people have these big coffee table versions, they date back from 18th century, and they're worth a lot of money. They put them on their table for everybody to see, but what does it help if it’s not read. This is not a book people, this is the Living Word. The Word that was here before time, the Word that was made flesh in Jesus Christ. It has anointing to it, it's living. Have you ever felt when you're sad, when you're worried, you open the book and, boom, a verse comes to you, it jumps off the page, it's living, it speaks right into your situation, and it touches your heart? And you say, wow God, thank You, thank You for uplifting me, for giving me enough courage, and for giving me enough ability to go through the next day.
It's happened to me many times. Sometimes when I'm happy and I'm joyful and I've just got this exhilarating joy, and I open the Word and I fall down on the ground and I say, God, thank You Lord. And sometimes I have tears in my eyes, just to know how much God loves me, because His Words speak directly into your soul.
Anyway, today I'm going to tell you a little bit about this Book, the Book with a capital B. Does anybody know where the middle point of the Book is? It's just a little bit of mathematics to get the thing going a bit. The middle of this Book is Psalm 118. To be more specific, the middle of the Book is Psalm 118 verse 8, 1188. Isn't it just a coincidence that before page 1188, there are 1188 verses, and after Psalms 118 verse 8, there are another 1188 verses? I don't know. Because Moses was born in1520 BC, he died 1400, he lived for 120 years, and he wrote the first 5 books of the Bible. The last book was written around about 100AD. Now that gives you about 1600 years in which this book was written. Some of the writers didn't even know that other people were writing their passages before this was all put together, and that's an amazing Word of God. If we look at more figures, we can talk about 40, we can talk about 3, we can talk about 2, and we can talk about Moses. Moses lived for 120 years, 40, 40, 40. 40 in the courts of Egypt, 40 in the deserts as a shepherd, and 40 years leading the Israelites out of Egypt.
Then you talk about King's, over a 40-year period, 3 kings, 3 prophets. 40, 40, 40 - 120 years. There are a lot of things that we don’t understand that will be revealed to us one day.
The meaning of life
Some people want to know what is the meaning of life? If we go to the Word and we go to Acts 17, 25 - 27, "Many of you served by human hands as they lack anything for He Himself who gives life and death and all things to all people, and He made from one common origin, one source, one blood, all nations of men to settle on the face of the earth, having definitely determined their allotted periods of time, their fixed boundaries of their habitation, their settlements, their lands and a boat, so that they should seek God in the hope that they might feel after Him and find Him, although He's not far from each one of us." That hits you hard. Everybody is always trying to find what's the meaning of life. But here it is. The meaning of life is to find God, to find Him and love Him.
The Good Samaritan
Today, I'm going to talk on Luke 10, 29, and it's the story about the Good Samaritan. Everybody knows the story of the Good Samaritan, but hopefully I'm going to give you another view point on the good Samaritan that maybe you haven't thought about. Jesus, over here, was talking to the lawyer, and this guy was trying to catch Him out and he asked Him, who is your neighbor? So, Jesus gave him this little parable. Jesus, taking him up, replied, "A certain man was going down from Jerusalem, down to Jericho and he fell amongst the robbers who stripped him of his clothes and belongings, and beat him and went their way unconcernedly, leaving him half dead as it happened. Now, by coincidence, a certain priest was going down along that road. When he saw him, he passed him by on the other side. A Levite likewise came down to the place and saw him and passed him by on the other side of the road, but a certain Samaritan, as he was traveling along, came down to where he was, and when he saw him, he was moved with pity and sympathy for him. And he went to him and dressed his wounds pouring on them oil and wine. Then he set him on his own beast and brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day, he took out 2 Dinar and gave them to the innkeeper saying, take care of him and whatever more you spend, I, myself will repay you when I return."
And then he carries on and he says, "and which three of these do you think provided neighbor to him? And he answered the one who showed pity and mercy on him. And Jesus said to him, go and do likewise." Now, this story about who is your neighbor. It's a person near, yes, it’s a person who you've got bonds of humanity with, that's also true. But the Pharisees in those days use that term 'neighbor' very exclusively because it was the people who were really religious in their way of thinking, who really kept to the mosaic laws, and who did not break them. Those were the neighbors. This was actually quite an insult to that person whom Jesus was talking to, because they couldn't even get the word 'Samaritan' over their lips. There was quite a thing between them. So, that was a bit of a controversial issue to this bright chap that Jesus was talking to. So, let's go back and we'll break it down.
First, I'd just like to pray, Lord Jesus Christ, I humble myself before You this morning, I humble myself before the people this morning as a sinner, oh Lord, I'm a sinner, there's no two ways about it, but I know Lord that when I repent, when I come to You and I say sorry God, for the things I've done, You forgive me, You want my slate clean, oh Lord. And I thank You Jesus for that, I thank You God that I'm a child of Yours. I can stand here and say, Lord, I'm not worthy, but Jesus Christ died for me and shed His blood so that I may be in Heaven one day. And I say, thank You Lord for that. Amen.
Alright, let's take it from the beginning. Jesus replied, a certain man was going from Jerusalem down to Jericho. Now what did he do.? He was going from Jerusalem. Jerusalem was a holy city. It is still the holy city of three major religions, which is Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Now, he was going down, literally, it does mean he was going down because Jericho is about 10 kilometers away, and it’s a drop of 3300 feet, which is about a kilometer, so it's quite a long drop all the way down to Jericho, and it's a windy road and there are a lot of places for thieves to hide in ambush. It was well known for that in that time. If you look at it from a point of view of imagery, he's backsliding this guy, he's going from a holy place to a worldly place. He's backsliding. This guy is going backwards. What happens when you go backwards? You get into debt, you rely on yourself, you rely on your own abilities, instead of relying on God. James is saying last night, tithe, give the first 10% to God because it's His money, but what happens is you keep it because you need it for your tyres, you need it for this, you need it for that. God is not interested in that. He's interested in, do you follow His Word or not.
Anyway, this guy was backsliding. What happens when you backslide? You start taking drugs, you fall into debt, you start drinking, and you start doing all these funny things. What happens? The devil gets a hold of you. Why? Because he is in the world, and you've become part of the world. And what happened was, this guy was backsliding he fell amongst the robbers. What happens is, those people, they clean you out, and then they leave you. This guy here was left half dead, naked, no money, no nothing. He was left there. That's what happens when we backslide. Now it's not really difficult to understand why he was left half dead and naked, because it's only the work of Satan that can do that. Our God clothes us, our God feeds us, our God is an awesome God.
Now, by coincidence a certain priest was going down along the road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Now the priest could not touch this guy. He didn't want to get his hands dirty, it was ceremonially unclean if you touched this man. So, he had to look the other way and pass by. Likewise, the Levite, but he at least looked a bit, he was a bit lower than the priest. He was the caretaker of the sanctuaries and he looked after the priests. And he looked and then 'I'd better not,’ and walked on. Why do these people walk by? First of all, the priests denied Jesus Christ as their personal Savior. The only way to the Father is through Jesus Christ. It’s what He says in the Word. He did not believe in Jesus Christ. In fact, they were opposed to Jesus Christ, they're the people that put Him on the cross. Likewise, with the Levite, they could not believe. Their morals, their dogma, and their whole religious law was so strong that they had to do what does right in the mosaic law otherwise they were not partakers.
But what did they do? They worshipped with a heartless way of worship, and its without sympathy and love - that kind of worship. It's just, you do what you have to do every day, to stick with the law. That's not what God is all about. God accepts us for who we are. Jesus Christ accepts us for who we are, we all are sinners. I will never not be a sinner. I've got a damaged nature, which I have to try and shed all the time. You have to say, oh Lord, I'm sorry for doing that, please help me. Help me again. And God, what does He do? He steps in again and He says, son, don't worry about it, do not do it again. And you try not to do it again, but you might do it again, but it doesn't matter, as long as in your heart, you feel, please Lord, don’t let me do it again, let me try harder and you really try harder.
Oil and Wine
Now the Samaritan comes along. So, he was a traveler they say. The Samaritan was traveling along when he saw him, and he was moved with pity and sympathy for him. We know that the Samaritans and the Jews didn't mix. We know that from the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4 verse 9, where God was at the well, and Jesus Christ was at the well, and the Samaritan asked him, why are you asking a Samaritan woman for water? So, there was a little bit of a thing going on between these two people. But he was moved by sympathy and pity. Now isn't that the heart of God, of Jesus Christ? He came down from Heaven to us, with sympathy and with love to help us, to help us get to Heaven any way, by shedding his blood. Further on, it says, and he went to him and dressed up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Oil is a symbol of the Holy Spirit. It always has been right throughout the Bible, anointing of the Holy Spirit, always did it with oil, anointed Kings, whatever. Wine, what is wine? Wine is a symbol of Jesus Christ's blood shed on the Cross, the partakers of communion, that's why we do it. So, who is this man, the Samaritan? He poured on oil and wine and he set him on his own and brought him to an inn and took care of him.
And the next day, he took out 2 Dinar and gave it to the Innkeeper. Now when we've checked the 2 Dinar, we go back to Matthew 20. Matthew 20 verse 1, it says, "For the Kingdom of Heaven is like the owner of an estate who went out in the morning along with the dawn to hire workman for his vineyard. And after agreeing with the laborers for a Dinar a day, he sent them into his vineyard." So, what did he do? Over here, he made a wages fee of 1 Dinar a day for their wages. If we go now to 2 Peter 3, 8, it says, "Nevertheless, do not let this one fact escape you, beloved, that with the Lord, one day is a thousand years, and a thousand years is one day." Now if we go back, he says to him, "And the next day he took out 2 Dinar, two days wages and he gave it to the Innkeeper and said, take care of him and whatever more you spend, I myself will repay you when I return.”
So, we're looking at 2 Dinar, we're looking at two days wages, we're looking at two thousand years. So, what did He pay for us? He died on the Cross, He paid the ultimate price for us for two days, two thousand years. If we look at John 4, 40, we will see that it says, "so when the Samaritan arrived, they asked him to remain with him, and he did stay there two days. Then many more believed and adhered and relied on him because of his personal message, what he himself said, and they told the woman, now, when we no longer believe trust of faith just because what you have said, for we have heard Him ourselves personally, and know that He truly is the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ.
But after these 2 days, Jesus went on from there into Galilee. Although He, Himself declared that a prophet has no honor in his own country. So, what we've seen here is that Jesus Christ left after two days and two days from the time is almost up at the moment. So, we have to go down to John 2 verse 1, "and on the third day, there was a wedding in Canaan, in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.” Okay so the two thousand years are up, so, why on the third day is the wedding? Well, the wedding is on the third day, that gives us an extra day, which is an extra thousand years.
The Bottomless Pit
And if we go to Revelations 20, 1 - 3, oops, we are treading on very thin ice here, we're going to Revelations, it's quite a touchy subject. And if you don’t know where it is, it's just before the hot cover. And then we go to 1 to 3, "Then I saw an Angel descending from Heaven and he was holding the key of the Abyss, the bottomless Pit and a great chain was in his hand. And he gripped and overpowered the dragon, that old serpent in Primeval Times, who is the devil and Satan and securely bound him for a thousand years. Then he hauled him into the Abyss, the bottomless Pit, and closed it, and sealed it above him so that he should no longer lead astray and deceive the nations until the thousand years were at end. After that, he must be liberated for a short time."
Jesus’ coming
Verse 4, "Then I saw a throne, sitting on them were those whom authority to act as judges and to pass sentences were entrusted. I also saw the souls of those who had been slain with axes, beheaded for their witnessing to Jesus, and for preaching and testifying the Word of God, and who had refused to pay a homepage to the beast or his statue, and had not accepted his mark or permitted it to be stamped on their forehead, or on their hands. And they lived again and ruled with Jesus Christ, the Messiah, a thousand years." If you go a little bit further, it tells you about the wedding afterwards. If you look at Revelations 22, 12 it says, "And behold, I am coming soon and I shall bring My wages and rewards with Me to repay, render to each one of us, just what his own actions and his own work merit."
So, what happened is Jesus is going to bring back the portion of the wages that each one will receive after two days, just like the Samaritan is going to bring back to the innkeeper anything extra which he has paid. If we go to Isaiah 6, 1 to 3, "Come and let us return to the Lord, for He has torn so that He may heal us, and He has stricken, so that He may bind us up. After two days, He will receive us, quicken us, give us life and on the third day, He will raise us up that we may live before Him. Let us know and recognize Him, acquainted with and understand Him, let us be zealous to know the Lord. His going forth is prepared and certain as dawn, and He will come to us as the heavy rain, the latter rain that waters the earth. So, on the third day, we will live before Him."
Exodus 19, 10, and the Lord says to Moses, "Go and sanctify the people, set them apart for today and tomorrow, and let them wash their clothes, and be ready by the third day, for the third day, The Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people." It might not be Mount of Sinai, but it will be the Mount of Olives, and that is also predicted in Revelations. Strange how in the Bible, it’s a puzzle that all puzzles back to the same thing. It's strange how three days, two days, all these days have a certain meaning and they all come back to one thing, the second Coming of Jesus Christ. Joshua 3, "Joshua rose early in the morning and they moved from Shittim and came to Jordan, he and all the Israelites, and lodged there before passing over to the exodus. After three days, the officers went to the camp commanding the people, when you see the Ark of the Covenant, the Lord your God being born, by the Levitical priests, set out from where you are and follow it. Yet, a space must be kept between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Come not near it, that you may be able to see the Ark, know the way you must go, for you have not passed this way before."
What does this implicate? It's implicates the Baptism. The Jews were Baptized, it was a Baptismal thing going through Jordan into the Promised land. And it's about two thousand years since Jesus Christ was baptized in that same river, not too far away from where these people passed through. Then I would like to go to Luke 13, 32, it says, "And he said to them, go and tell that sly, crafty fox, skulking and cowardly, behold, I drive out demons and perform healings today and tomorrow. And on the third day, I finish and complete my course. But nevertheless, I must continue on my way today and tomorrow and the day after that, for it will never do for a prophet to be destroyed away from Jerusalem." So, what did he say in the two thousand years, the day after today and tomorrow? He will drive out demons.
Demon Possessed
Now, if we go back to Mark 5, 13 we will see that is the story about the guy called Legion, when Jesus crossed the sea to get away from the people, He came to Garcenes, and there was a man there who was chained, and he was beating himself. He was possessed by demons and they were shaking and screaming, and he was beating, bruising and cutting himself with stones. He recognized Jesus. He said Lord, leave me alone, leave me. It wasn’t him that recognized Jesus, it was the spirit inside that recognized Jesus and they wanted to stay in him. From verse 12, "And the demons begged him, send us into those hogs, that we may go in them. So, he gave them permission, and unclean spirits came out of the man and entered into the hogs and the herd, and numbering about two thousand, they rushed headlong down a steep slope and into the sea and drowned in the sea.”
There again, the number two thousand, I feel that it's once again, God's divine Book of wisdom here that predicts two thousand, and two thousand years of the Holy Spirit in the world, and that we, as Christians have got the power to do all these things, drive out demons, and heal people, only because God has given us that for two thousand years. Then, if can we go back to the first miracle that God did in John 2, 1, "And on the third day they were at a wedding in Canaan of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus was also invited with His disciples to the wedding. And when the wine was all gone, the mother of Jesus said to Him, they have no more wine. Jesus said to her, dear woman, what is that, that you told Me? My time and hour has not come yet." So, what happened here was Jesus changed the water from the ceremonial water jars into wine.
Cleansing and purifying
Why did he do this? Well, it was another simplification. That was the old way of cleaning yourself, purifying yourself before you came into the temple. You would wash yourself with water, wash your feet and your hands. Now, what did God do? He actually did away with that to a certain extent. He did not take anything away from the Old Testament, but by changing the water into wine, what did He do? It's the ceremony cleansing of the water now changed to the wine, the Blood of Christ, we are cleaned through the blood of Christ if we believe in Jesus Christ as our personal Savior. Matthew 28, 19 and 20 says, "Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I've commanded you. And behold, I am with you all the days, perpetually, uniformly and on every occasion to the very close and consummation of the age."
What is Jesus telling us? He's telling us that He will never ever leave us. We, as Christians, as it is written, will yet have to face a number of things for our faith, but it's a small price to pay really, because if you look once more, and that's Romans 8, 35 onwards, it says, "Who shall separate us from Christ's love? Shall suffering and affliction and tribulation, calamity, distress, persecution or hunger or destitution or peril or sword? Even as it is written for Thy sake, we are put to death all day long, and we are regarded as counted as sheep for the slaughter. Yet admit all things, we are more than conquerors and gain a surprising victory through Him who loves us, for I am persuaded beyond doubt, I'm sure that neither death nor life, nor Angels, nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all Creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."
So, people, what I'm saying today is, although the time is near, the time of the second coming of Christ has never been so right. The signs are here. We don't have to fear because nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus. And everybody must have that in their hearts imprinted, in their minds, that God is an awesome God, and our flesh is flesh, it’s going to pass away, but God's love will never pass away. And I long for the day to see Christ in the clouds, and all these people here to be together for all eternity, and that's my message. Thank you.
The Community Church is a Pentecostal Church that believes the Gospel is the most important message for this and any other generation. I was therefore surprised to read a poster put up by the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the day of the Christian Church is numbered. I do not believe that there is any power that can annul what Christ alone could do and that this message of redemption must be declared to the ends of the earth. To this end, we are producing these tapes for distribution free of charge. If this one has been a blessing to you please assist us by passing it on. We thank you for your cooperation. God bless you. If you have listened to this tape and it has made an impact upon your life and you realize your need may I pray for you that Jesus Christ may enter your life and bring about the changes that are necessary. In Jesus' name, I pray that God will move by His Spirit upon your life, that your whole future shall be colored by the fact that Jesus is alive and that He's alive and triumphant in your life. May God bless you and use you for His glory, for we need every mouth, and we need every effort to bring the message across to those that stand in desperate need. God bless you. Amen.
Foundation for Living Community Church meets at the South African Vroue Federasie hall, Jack Hendon Street, Pretoria North. It is pastored by Neil Dreyer, an Apostle of God, who can be contacted on 012 808 1650. Meetings are every Sunday at 09h30 in the morning at the SAVF hall. Should you be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, banking account details are as follows. Account name: NJ Dreyer, Bank: First National Bank, Branch: Silverton, Account Number: 51030119874, Branch Code: 25084500. You are free to copy these tapes without restriction and to distribute them as widely as you feel led. Please remember only that each of us is called to account on the Day of Judgment for what we do with the Word of God. Should you require additional copies of this tape, please contact me, James Robertson on Johannesburg, that’s 011 791 2327 or cell phone 083 251 0644 or fax 011 791 5004 or email jamesr@infodoor.co.za and we will make arrangements to get copies of this tape to you. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen.
01_10 You must be Born-Again – God cannot compromise with sin
Neil Dreyer
We love You Lord. We worship Your lovely name. We magnify You. We know our inadequacy, oh God, when it comes to the worship of the living God. We don't have enough vocabulary Lord, we don't have enough poetry within us. We don't have enough glory to express it. But oh Lord, we feel it. We feel it, and we magnify Your name this morning, and we say we love You. We love You Lord and we want to serve You with all of our hearts. Lord, we want to hold back nothing, all that we are and all that we have we want to dedicate to You this day, oh God, and say take it all. It belongs to You. It is Yours, Yours, and Yours alone. We will serve no foreign gods, we will serve no one else but the living God. And we worship You and magnify Your name. And Lord You want us to do that. You want us to worship You, to acknowledge none other for oh God, why should we seek for the living among the dead?
And Oh Lord why should we go to those that have a familiar spirit when we can go straight to the throne room of God. We thank You Lord and worship You, that You've made a way for us to walk in time and right into eternity, and it is a sure way. It is the King's highway. And oh Lord, we thank You that Christ secured it for us on the Cross of Calvary. He made it ours. And Lord, we bless You and magnify Your name for everything that You've given us so graciously and so wonderfully. Lord, we worship and praise Thy holy name and say to You that we love You and adore You. And oh God, walk with us all of the way right through life, Lord, we pray and oh God, that we shall experience what David experienced so long ago. "Ye, though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for Thou art with me." Blessed be the name of the Lord. Praise Him, praise Him all ye people and give glory unto His name. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I love You, Lord.
Bless you this morning oh God. And we thank You for Your presence with us. Lord, it is precious, precious, precious to us to feel the touch of God upon our lives, to know the impulse of Your will as You move in one direction and another. Thank You Lord that You take time with us, that You are our shepherd Lord, and we are the sheep of Your pasture because You made us that. We thank You Lord that You made us Your own responsibility. We bless You for it and magnify Your name. For Lord, wherever I go in this world, there is no place that I can go where God is not. I thank You lord, that wherever we go, whether it'd be in Heaven or on earth, You are there. Always there. And Lord, we thank You that You've known our paths. From the time that we began to walk with You, You knew exactly where we were, and who we were. And Lord we bless You for this. We pray this morning, oh God, that You undertake for us around Your Word, that You will glorify Your name in all things, that Lord we may rejoice because of what God does further in this service, in Jesus' name, we ask it, praising You because You hear us. Amen.
Aren't you grateful for our organist? Every time the organ opens its mighty voice, I say Amen. Aren't you glad for our guitarist who strums away every Sunday? Amen. Aren’t you glad for our song leader who leads us in the worship of the Lord every Sunday? Amen. Aren't you glad to God for you? Yes. Amen. God's been good to us and God's done wonderful things in our lives and God's got wonderful plans for our lives. Do you remember the sermon of last Sunday? My brother Chris over there in the back. What a blessing that was to us. I see Naomi is not here this morning, but she was mightily blessed last Sunday. I was going to suggest to her that she takes one of the tapes that my brother's got here. You’ve got that tape, have you? Now listen, there are tapes that our brothers are making regularly every week. You know Christians go around with tracts and they give tracts to people. My brother is offering a service and I don't believe that it's right that he should pay for the service. I think it's right that the Church should pay for the service. Can you say amen to that. But I do believe that we can take the tracts, or instead of taking tracts, take a tape of a sermon, and give the tape to somebody. Testify. Open your mouth. Pretoria North needs to know that we are here. How will they ever know if you don't tell them? Isn't that right? People don't just come to Church, they are brought to Church.
The workings of the Spirit
We were in a meeting on Saturday morning that was such a blessing to me. I want to tell you, it was tremendous. I saw the workings of the Spirit of God and that's a precious sight. I saw it happening in an elderly woman's life as she sat there and listened, reduced to tears, until she came to Christ and then the peace of God flooded her soul. That's a wonderful thing. That's a miracle and God is still performing miracles. Can you say amen to that? Amen. God loves you. Can you say it? God loves me. God loves me with an everlasting love. Amen. And I love the Lord. Tell him, I love you, Lord. Raise your hands, I love you, Lord. I worship you. I love you Jesus. I magnify Your name. I want to serve You all the days of my life. Nothing else will satisfy. Nothing else can meet the need. Just You, Lord, just You. Thank You, Jesus.
Nicodemus
I want you to come with me this morning. The Gospel of St John, will you? Let's read it together. I'm going to take three passages of Scripture this morning. John Chapter 3, verse 1 and then verses 3-7. The Bible says there, "There was a man of the pharisees named Nicodemus a ruler of the Jews." Let's take the next verse. "The same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that Thou art the teacher that comes from God, for no man can do these miracles that Thou do, except that God be with Him" That should've been enough. What Jesus Christ was doing, should have been enough for Nicodemus. But he comes and tells Jesus what he knows about what Jesus is doing, and yet it's not enough for him. How often it is that need hides away behind religion. We can be so religious and miss God. And Nicodemus was religious, and he was missing God. And Jesus had to say to him, except you were born again, Nicodemus, you will never see the Kingdom of God. In spite of your religion, in spite of going to the synagogue every Saturday, you are lost, and you need to know a way to walk in. You need to be able to walk with Me through your life with Me. You need to share it with Me. You need Me to look into you and to show you what I'm really seeing there.
Born-again
We need the Lord. And so, Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. Take a look at the third verse, "Jesus answered and said unto him, “verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said unto Him, “how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “verily, verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again.”" You see how many times Jesus says born again. He repeats it over and over and over, and God does that in His work. He doesn't make one isolated statement. He says it over and over and over again. That's Jesus. You go through the Word of God and you find out what He is saying over and over and over again. He makes it very plain so that you can make no mistake about it. It's there. I don't believe in building a doctrine on one verse of Scripture. You do it on the whole of Scripture. It either supports it or it doesn't, and so this man came to Jesus by night.
I want you now to come with me to Psalm 22. I want to read the first few verses there. Psalm 22 hear what happens here. It involves the same Christ, years between, but it's the same Christ. It's the statement of Jesus on the Cross. He says, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Why art Thou so far from helping Me and from the words of My roaring, Oh My God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not, and in the night season I am not silent. I keep asking You, I keep coming before You and You say to a man that needs to be born again, you must be born again. What Father do You say to me? What hope do You hold out to me? Here I am facing the Cross and what is the answer of Heaven. Father take this cup away from Me if it be possible, nevertheless, not My will be done, but thy will be done,” and not a sound comes from the Throne of God. Not one word. God doesn't step in to stop it. He allows it and He doesn't answer the prayer because there was no other way. Jesus had to go the way of the Cross.
And then I want you to come to me to Revelations chapter 19, and I'm reading from the 11th verse there so that we can get the whole picture, John is speaking, and he says, "I saw Heaven open and behold a white horse, and He that sat upon him was called faithful and true. And in righteousness". Listen to this, "in righteousness doth He judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire and on His head were many crowns and He had a name written that no man knew, but He Himself and He was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, His own blood and He's name is called the Word of God. And the armies which art in Heaven followed Him upon white horses clothed in fine linen, white and clean, and out of His mouth there was a sharp sword that with that He should smite the nation's and He shall rule them with a rod of iron, and He treadeth the wine press of the fierceness and the rock of the Almighty God and He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written King of Kings and Lord of Lords," and I say, Hallelujah. It is not there but it should be there. Hallelujah. Amen. He's coming.
I ask you, what has the Christ of Revelations got to do with the Christ of Psalm 22. What has the Christ of Revelations got to do with the Christ of John Chapter 3,"You must be born again." I want to tell you He's got everything to do with it. Everything. He had everything to do with your salvation. He has everything to do with the world plan that He has, the thing that God's been working at from the beginning of time. God wants to establish a Kingdom upon earth. Do you know that? God wants to do it, but it will be a Kingdom wherein dwelleth righteousness and nothing they maketh it a lie or maketh it an offense shall enter in there. They won’t have the right. God will hold the rights to entry. He reserves the right. And God says in order to have the rights, ye must be born-again. You must come in line with My thinking and My way of working with My plan for the world. You must come in line with it so that you can serve together with Me.
“Ye Must”
And so, I have entitled the sermon this morning, "Ye must". Nicodemus is referred to as a certain man, but really, he could be any man. For this call is universal. It's to all men everywhere. He could rightly be called Mr. Whomsoever. For if it applies to him, it applies particularly to others. I want to say that applies particularly to you. And so, this morning I want you to take away Nicodemus’ name there and put your name there. Then it becomes intensely personal, then God is speaking to you directly from His Word. He's saying to you, wherever you are, Peter, James or John, you must be born-again. It is an imperative. There are no alternatives to it. There's no alternative to salvation. You have it or you don't. It is part of your life or it's not part of your life. Your name is recorded in the Lamb's Book of Life, or it's not there and God wants us to know that. God is dealing with the situation and He's dealing with it in His holiness.
We must be born-again, but why? That's a very good question. Nicodemus asked "how". That's also a very good question. How does this thing happen? How does a person get there? What is involved on my part? What do I have to do in order to be born-again? Because Jesus says, you must be born again. It is an imperative. Something you've got to do, something that must be coming out of your life towards God. It's got to be there. And God wants you to understand that it is that which only you can do. You must do your part and if everybody understood that question, everybody would be asking that one question, "how." How does this happen? How does it come to me? Why must I be born-again? What is involved in such a decision? Anyone who is satisfied with his life as it has been from youth does not see the need. And because he does not see the need, he is satisfied with what the position is. He will not change because he cannot change. He sees only one thing and he is seeing it from his own perspective and not God's perspective. He doesn't understand what is required of him in relationship to God, and that's one of the first things that the Spirit of God does in the individual.
I believe Nicodemus came to Jesus that night because the Spirit of God was moving him. The Spirit of God made him aware of the need. And when we are aware of need, we seek for answers. The Bible says, "They, that are whole don't need a position." You don't go to the doctor when you're healthy. You go to the doctor when you're sick, when you have a need, then you want the doctor, and it doesn't take you long to find him when you really are sick. And so, if you're satisfied with your life, you don't see the need for change. In Mathew 12 and 13. The Bible says this, "He that is not with Me is against Me." Christ's statement, "and he that gathereth not with Me, scaterreth abroad." There are only two choices, you're either with Him, or you're against Him. You're either reaping with Him or you're scattering abroad, away from Him. One of the two. You don't have a middle fence here, you don't have a middle course.
Two choices
There are only two choices, and God wants us to understand that as well. Anyone who qualifies for change needs to know this, that there are two aspects that come into focus here. Two things. There is that which you've got to do, but there is that which only God Almighty can do. You can't touch it. You can’t change it, only God can do it, and that's where the grace of God comes in. The Lord wants to be gracious to every person that has a need for change in his life. If you realize it, if you know that I am a sinner, if you know that I've done things in my life that don't add up to what God wants, then you need the cleansing. Then you need God to do something in your life for you. When the Lord says you must be born-again, that is a personal impeditive. You must. You must realize the need for it. You're not just a bystander to events that take place apart from you. It must touch you. You don't meet the need yourself, but beloved you recognize that there is a need. That's the first thing. I can’t create the need, but I can realize that there is a need in my life and the Bible tells me that each of us has a conscience. Each one of us is in the position where we have all come short of the glory of God. Some realize it, some don’t.
I've spoken to many people, you know, and I found many times that people will admit to you freely that, I have sinned. They will tell you that I'm not perfect, I've made my mistakes, I've done wrong things in my life, but that's not conviction. That's not what the Spirit is doing. When the Spirit of God convicts of sin, my friend, you tremble in the presence of God. When the Spirit begins to convict of sin, there's one thing that you need more than anything else and that's reconciliation and you know I've got to find it. I've got to find God somewhere in this situation that I'm in, because I don't know the answers on my own. You don't meet the need, but you recognize the need.
Seek the Lord
In Isaiah 55 and 6, Bible says, "Seek ye the Lord, while He may be found, call ye upon Him while He is near." Isaiah 26, and 9 says "with my soul have I desired Thee in Thy might, Ye with my spirit within me, will I seek Ye early. For when the judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the earth will learn righteousness." People seeking God with their soul, with their spirit, there's an involvement here. I need God. Have you ever felt it? I need God, not just as a name, not just as someone that I say a fast prayer to, but I need God for who He is and what He is. I need God for the changes that He alone can bring about in my life. I need God to work within me so that I can be the clay and He can be the potter. That's what I need. I need God to do this in my life. These are the things. This is your need. This is your decision. It is God's call to your need, He focuses it by the Spirit. He makes it clear to you. This is it. This is what you need.
In John 3, 5, the Bible says, "unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom." But the Lord goes on by saying this in the eighth verse, "The wind bloweth where it listeth and though can hearest the sound thereof, but cannot tell them, whether it cometh or goeth. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit.” You can't put your finger on that one. That's nothing that arises from you. The Spirit bloweth where he will like the wind. It is invisible. You can't see it, but you can see the impact of it. You can see the result of it. It happens in you and then the evidence becomes obvious, there's the fruit that flows out of your life. Any person that's born-again is a changed person. Can you say amen to that?
The light is transformed because Christ enters in. The Spirit does this and the Spirit alone. You cannot. You don't know how in this area, this is the realm of the Spirit and I say to you this morning, as Christ was formed in the womb by the Spirit, so must Christ be born by us by that same Spirit. He bears Christ within you. It's the nature of Christ that comes into the child of God. You must be born-again, not just for your salvation, but to serve the greater purposes of God. The same Spirit that brought forth order out of chaos, is the Spirit that is in work in the world today. It’s that Spirit that we need to follow. Now we are either this morning, part of God's solution, or we are part of the problem of our world. One of the two. Again, I say to you, there's no middle course. You're either part of the problem or part of the solution. The choices that men make are vital. That is why the Bible says this, the Angels rejoice in Heaven over every sinner that repents. Why do they rejoice? What is it that they rejoice about? It puts Him on another road altogether. There's a transformation that takes place. He is serving another purpose. He has seen God's cause upon the earth.
Jesus said, " Go ye into all the world and make disciples of all nations." What I'm looking for is changed men and women. I'm looking for people who've met with God, because people that meet with God speak for God. People that need God and live for God. Something starts coming out of their lives again and they are different, then they can change the world. The Bible says, "Ye are the salt of the earth. If the salt has lost its flavor, where shall it be salted?" It needs to have its influence in the world to change the world. That's what you're there for. God didn’t just save you just to save your soul. God saved you to be an example in the world out there and to speak for Him, to stand for the things that are right against the things that are wrong, to seek the establishment of God's kingdom and not Satan's kingdom.
The ruler of the world
Martin Luther prayed, and he said, "Punish us, we pray Thee, but be not silent toward us. Show us, Oh God". He was crying to God, and he says, "I want you to punish us". Beloved that's a fearsome prayer. For what if God hears and answers that prayer. What will you do? What will happen in your life? But let me go further. What if God does not answer that prayer and He allows us to continue in our sin without stopping us, without saying one word to us. Where would the world be going to? What would we be supporting? Would we be supporting the holiness of God or the purposes of God, or would we be serving the purpose of another? I believe we would be serving the purpose of someone else who is malign, someone whom Jesus Christ referred to as a killer and a thief, who does not come but to kill and destroy. This is his purpose with the world. He doesn't own one square inch of the world’s territory for God made it, but he's claiming it.
He's claiming it and multitudes upon the multitudes are giving it to him. They’re surrendering it to the devil so that he can use it and do with it what he wants to. You can see the decline that’s going on in our world. It's tobogganing down, and it's gaining speed all the time. We're heading for tremendous difficulties between people because we've sold out Jesus Christ to another one, and we're allowing him to rule in our world. Someone said, Christ would have lost my soul if He had not refused to compromise with me. Christ can’t afford to compromise. God cannot afford to compromise.
Just recently I had a very interesting discussion with a professor of history. He wants to write a book on General Louis Botha. This is his next project. I spoke to him. I respect the man's Christianity. He's a lovely man. I met him at a wedding. I preached at my niece's wedding and I heard this voice behind me at the reception, a very deep voice, and he slipped a piece of cardboard into my hand and slipped away. I looked this way, and he was gone. When I looked up, he was walking towards his table. He told me his name. He said, “I've been a family friend for years.” I met him. I went to see him. He said to me, “Pastor Dreyer I would love you to be my pastor.” But he is a Dutch Reformed elder. And so, I made another appointment to see him again and I went and spoke to him. He said, “help me.” I said, “with what?” He said, “I cannot reconcile the God of love of the New Testament, with the God that instructed Israel to destroy completely, people, men, women and children and even the animals. I can't reconcile that cruelty with the love of God. Help me on it.”
And a thought struck me very forcibly. Can God afford to compromise with sin? If God compromises with sin, He is an accessory before the fact. He's agreeing with it. God must judge it, otherwise He's not holy any longer, otherwise He's not true any longer. And He is allowing the stage to the devil, to have and do what he wants to do with our world, with your life, with my life, with our futures. He's doing that.
Take a look at Romans chapter 2. I quoted this to the professor. It says this, from the 5th verse through to the 16th, "But after the hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds." God has always done that. He has rendered to every man according to his deeds. God assesses you by what you're doing, by what you're allowing into your life. God accesses you by that. Nothing else. It's not words, it's what you are. It's what's coming out of you.
This is what God is seeing, and so He says, He accesses men by their worth, "who will render to every man according to his deeds, to them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honor in mortality and eternal life, but unto them that are contentious and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doith evil of the Jew first and also of the Gentile, but glory, honor and peace to every man that worketh good to the Jew first, and also to the gentile. For there is no respect of persons with God, for as many as have sinned without the law, shall also perish without the law. And as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the Lord shall be justified. For when the gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things containing the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness and their thought the meanwhile accusing, or else excusing one another in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to My Gospel."
For Christ or against Christ
God says, it's up to the individual. I believe that everybody in history has had the opportunity of turning. I believe that every person has had the right to say no or to say yes. It's all in the decisions that we make, and God assesses us according to our judgments. If we don't want the Kingdom of God, we want the Kingdom of darkness. If we are not for Christ, we are against Him. We are reposing Him, and we want another kingdom in a world that suits our lifestyle. And our lifestyle is crooked, and our lifestyle is out of the way, but we want it. The adulterer doesn't want the Commandment that says, "thou shalt not commit adultery," the thief doesn't want the Commandment that says "thou shalt not steal," it cuts against his way of life, and so he chooses it and God says, if you choose it, I'll give it to you. You will have it and you will not see the Kingdom of God because in the Kingdom, nothing that is of unrighteousness will enter in there. Nothing. God will keep it pure. If he didn't do it, the same process will start again as what's been happening in our world.
If men went to the moon and established a colony there, it would not be long before we had the first murder, as you've had in Genesis. It wouldn't be long before you would have the first committing of adultery, but it would be there because man takes within what he is. And he proliferates everything around him. If God's going to have a pure Kingdom, He's got to have out of that Kingdom everything that is impure. He's got to have it. Otherwise the process will start all over again and we will do there what we've done in our world, and we will be in the same position again. God can't have that.
Romans 3 and 9 - 20 says this, "What then, are we better than they? No, in no ways, for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin. As it is written, there is none righteous. No, not one. There is none that understand it, there is none that seeketh after God, they've all gone out of the way, they've all together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no not one. Their throat is an open sepulcher, with their tongues they use deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood, destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace have they not known, there is no fear of God before their eyes, now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God, therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin."
God says, nobody will be justified in My sight. Who will be justified, that thou may be justified when thou speakest, that God may be justified, and all the world will keep silent? There will not be one person that will ever be able to come to God and say, You judged Me unjustly, not one side. The Lord will say, I've got it on record. Jesus Christ said, in that I will not judge you, but this Word that I've given you, will judge you. You've got it, it's on your shelf. It tells you everything about yourself, about who you are and what you are and everything that God thinks about it. It tells you all of that, and beloved, we must take heed to what the Word has to say, because it is for you and it is for me. God will have to judge the world, or else man will destroy it all on his own. God does not want the world destroyed because He made it in the fullness thereof. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and they that dwell therein, they belong to God and He's the Good Shepherd, and He wants to preserve it. He wants to keep it. He wants the new Heavens and the new Earth to dwell in righteousness. God wants that. He wants it. And folks, we're either working with God toward that end, or we're working against God toward that end.
Listen to me. Hear me this morning. I'm saying that to you this morning. We are either working towards this end with God, or we are working against this end with God. The choices that you make decide what kind of Kingdom there is going to be in this world. It has been said that we deserve the children and the politicians we get. It's our choice. We choose these things, but all the time God wants to bless. Listen to this. Ephesians 2 and 1, He says, "And you hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience." God has quickened you. He said, that's my answer. I'll give you life, I'll breathe into you if you want it, by Calvary, by the death of My Son, I'll give you a second chance, I'll give you a new chance. Do you want it? Do you want God, and do you want His cause? Do you want His Kingdom to be established upon the Earth in righteousness?
Sowing and reaping
Galatians 6 and 7, "Be not deceived, God is not mocked for whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap, for ye that soweth of the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption, but he that soweth of the Spirit, shall of the Spirit breathe life everlasting." Conversion doesn't take place outside any individuals realm of choice. God will not convert anyone independent of their will. You do the sowing and you reap the crop. The point of conversion is the realization of a way that must be walked. I must walk my walk with God. I must make my decision together with Him so that He can work in my life the things that I cannot work myself. The Bible says in John 3 and 16, listen to it, "for God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life," and that word ‘world’ is cosmos. He's not talking about people of the world. He's talking about the physical world, the birds, and the bees, and the trees, and the grass. God so loved that world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life in the world that God's going to preserve, in the new heavens and the new earth.
God's going to do that and so you're marked for it. He marks you and you become His. God speaks to Israel and He says, "and thou becamest Mine." You became mine, my wife. Do you understand? Beloved, God wants to bless you and God wants to make you a blessing in the world, but there's a fight we're involved in. We fight not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, and wicked spirits. The rulers of the darkness of this world, spiritual wickedness in high places. These are the things that we're fighting against. Understand it. It's not a picnic, and God needs a testimony that's powerful in the world. God needs you to stand against these things. Beloved, if we do not have indignation against sin, it's not the sign of a poor spirit, it's showing an unlikeness with Christ. Jesus was indignant with the world and we need to get indignant with this world, because it's trying to rob God of His rights and it's robbing people of God's right in their lives.
We're fighting a war, and are you aware of it? Do you understand the things that are at stake, the things that are happening right around you, right now as you sit in your seat? God is looking for those who will put on the whole armor of God, who say, here I stand, like Martin Luther did, here I stand, so help me God, I can do no wrong, I don't have a choice. As I said to you, I was listening to a lady speaking on Saturday morning, it was a tremendous meeting, I want to tell you, and she was saying, how that the new age wants to push Christianity right off the agenda of the Church. (inaudible 46:23.01) They want to hear, but they don't want to hear the truth and beloved, the Gospel is being curbed on every side in this country. It's happening now. You may not tell a man that he's a sinner. That's where we're heading. You may not tell people that homosexuality is wrong. You may not tell them that they're an adulterer. You may not tell them that. You can be taken to court for it. Let me tell you, it's happening. We're being squeezed from every side so that we can't say what's the truth in this country anymore. If you do, you can be in trouble.
Beloved, we need to pray and above all we need to be dedicated, so we know where we stand and what we're about. Amen.
Let's close our eyes. Heavenly father, I come to You in the lovely name of Jesus and You know what I thought about this message before I ever preached it. It was a burden on my heart oh God, and oh Lord, I've delivered it. It has not been easy, but I have delivered it. And I pray, oh God, that You will undertake for each one of us, that Lord, we will see clearly before us what the choices really are, and Heavenly Father, every time Christ will come up trumps for us. Let it be so Lord, we pray, that every time it shall be that we choose the Lord and His way, you asked Peter to do it, you asked John to do it. (inaudible 48:11.04) call it by its name. We won't use scientific words Lord, it makes it sound better. We will call it by the name that the Bible calls it by. Sin. And sin will not enter the Kingdom of God. We are asking oh God, that You will teach us then, that so shall we walk, that we may walk onto well pleasing. In Christ's name we ask it. Thank You because You hear us. Amen. We have the communion here this morning. The Bible speaks about the dedication that we have toward the Lord.
He says, "name this that I declare unto you, I praise you not that you come together not for the better but for the worse. There must be differences among you for I received of the Lord, that which also I delivered unto you that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread and when He'd given thanks, He'd break it and say, take it, eat it, this is My Body, which is broken for you. Do this in remembrance of Me. After the same manner also, He took the cup and said, this is the new cup of the New Testament in My blood, this do ye often, and as you drink it in remembrance of Me, for as often as you eat this bread and drink of this cup, be sure the Lord's death, until He come, whosoever therefore shall eat this bread and drink, this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord, but let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup, so that he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, drinketh unto damnation unto himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you (inaudible 50:16.14) We invite you to join with us in this Holy Communion (inaudible 50:43.04) - (53:26.12)
The Community Church is a Pentecostal Church that believes the Gospel is the most important message for this and any other generation. I was therefore surprised to read a poster put up by the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the day of the Christian Church is numbered. I do not believe that there is any power that can annul what Christ alone could do and that this message of redemption must be declared to the ends of the earth. To this end, we are producing these tapes for distribution free of charge. If this one has been a blessing to you please assist us by passing it on. We thank you for your cooperation. God bless you. If you have listened to this tape and it has made an impact upon your life and you realize your need may I pray for you that Jesus Christ may enter your life and bring about the changes that are necessary. In Jesus' name, I pray that God will move by His Spirit upon your life, that your whole future shall be colored by the fact that Jesus is alive and that He's alive and triumphant in your life. May God bless you and use you for His glory, for we need every mouth, and we need every effort to bring the message across to those that stand in desperate need. God bless you. Amen.
Foundation for Living Community Church meets at the South African Vroue Federasie hall, Jack Hendon Street, Pretoria North. It is pastored by Neil Dreyer, an Apostle of God, who can be contacted on 012 808 1650. Meetings are every Sunday at 09h30 in the morning at the SAVF hall. Should you be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, banking account details are as follows. Account name: NJ Dreyer, Bank: First National Bank, Branch: Silverton, Account Number: 51030119874, Branch Code: 25084500. You are free to copy these tapes without restriction and to distribute them as widely as you feel led. Please remember only that each of us is called to account on the Day of Judgment for what we do with the Word of God. Should you require additional copies of this tape, please contact me, James Robertson on Johannesburg, that’s 011 791 2327 or cell phone 083 251 0644 or fax 011 791 5004 or email jamesr@infodoor.co.za and we will make arrangements to get copies of this tape to you. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen.
01_11 Spiritual Warfare Prayers
James Robertson -- 9 December 2000
This tape was prepared on the 9th of December 2000. It contains a series of prayers for the congregation of Foundation for Living Church in Pretoria North, to pray over Pretoria North and the country. The context of these prayers is that the Lord has indicated that is a particular Demonic principality that is operating over the geographic location where we are meeting, and that in order for the Lord's purpose to be accomplished in Pretoria North, and in fact in the country of South Africa and in the world, it is necessary for this principality and power to be broken at this stage. In order to break it, it is necessary that as a congregation collectively, and individually, we offer up a concerted prayer on a regular basis and intercession against this principality. In order to equip the members of the congregation for this warfare, I have prepared this tape which includes some Scriptures setting out the basis of what is contained in this tape, and then a series of prayers which I would ask you to pray and agree when you listen to the tape, and to pray that on a regular basis in Jesus’ name.
Spiritual warfare
A few Scriptures, 2 Corinthians 10, 3-6, " For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled." So, we see here that the war in which we are engaged in, is not a carnal fleshly war, it is a spiritual war and that the weapons of our warfare are also not physical, they are mighty in God for pulling down of strongholds, casting down of arguments and casting down every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. We are going to be focusing our attention on pulling down strongholds over the SAVF hall and the immediate vicinity over Pretoria North, over Pretoria, over Gauteng, over South Africa, over Africa and over the world.
1 Timothy 1, 17-19, " Now to the King, eternal, immortal invisible to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory for ever and ever Amen. This charge I commit to you, my son Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made concerning you that by them you may wage the good warfare, having faith in a good conscience which some, having rejected concerning the faith, have suffered shipwreck." And so, we see that it is scriptural for us to wage warfare. It is necessary that we have faith, and a good conscience, which means that we examine ourselves before God and deal with anything in our hearts and any sin that God requires us to deal with at this time. You should examine yourself carefully and see part of this process of being able to seek holiness and sanctification in your own life, which would equip you to be more effective as an intercessor for the congregation, for the area and for the world to intercede and wage warfare against Satan, without going before God first and searching your heart and seeking to make right with God. To deal with sin is something that you should be weary of doing.
Ephesians 6, 10-18, " Finally, My brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all, to stand, stand therefore having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness and having shod your feet with the preparation of the Gospel of peace. Above all taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication of Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints."
Romans 8, 35-39, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written for your sake, we are killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep to the slaughter . Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, 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." We see from the passage in Ephesians that the armor is truth, and righteousness, and salvation, and faith, and we see that in fighting this warfare there will be tribulation, distress, persecution and so forth, but that we are not dealing with things of this life, we are dealing with things of this life to come, and that at the end of the day, if we are obedient and we do what God has called us to do, nothing will separate us from the love of God.
Colossians 1,16, "For by Him all things were created that are in Heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through Him for Him." And we see here that there are four levels of Angelic rulership over the earth, thrones, dominions, principalities and powers, and there are two categories of these. There are those that are serving the living God, and there are those that are serving Satan. We will be praying in a few moments to tear down the principalities, powers, thrones and dominions that are operating over the areas that we are dealing with. To place this in a broader context, Revelations 20, 1-3, "Then I saw an Angel descending from Heaven. He was holding the key of The Abyss, the Bottomless Pit, and a great chain was in his hand, and he gripped and overpowered the dragon, that old serpent of prime evil times, who is the devil and Satan, and securely bound him for a thousand years. Then he hurled him in The Abyss, the Bottomless Pit and closed it, and sealed it above him that so he should no longer lead astray, deceive and seduce the nations until the thousand years were at an end. After that he must be liberated for a short time.”
The Time of Tribulation
So, we see that at the end of the age, Satan, and as I understand it, that includes all his cohorts, Demons and fallen Angels, will be cast into The Pit for a thousand years, and then the Kingdom of Righteousness will come on the earth in the millennium reign of Christ on earth. Now, as we've seen in the teachings over the last two months or so, the time of tribulation is at hand and the fulfillment of Matthew 24, in that area is at hand, and therefore we understand that the time when Satan will be cast into The Pit for a thousand years, is fast approaching. But we also understand that God has given the authority over the earth to mankind. Mankind sinned and gave that authority to Satan. Jesus came back, or Jesus came and died on the Cross, and He took that authority back, and we read in the Scripture that Jesus says that all authority in Heaven and earth has been given unto Him, and He then charged us to go forth and to do the work that He was sending us to do. So only men and God speaking through men by His Holy Spirit, have the authority over Satan and casting him into The Pit. Therefore for Satan to be cast into The Pit for a thousand years, it is necessary for us as believers to join in agreement to tear down the principalities, powers, thrones and dominions that are operating over this world and cast them into The Pit, and to ask the Father to send His mighty warring Angels to give effect to our prayer, in order that victory may be achieved and that Satan may be cast into The Pit, and that peace may come upon the earth in the spiritual realm.
So, with that context, I'm going to go through a series of prayers based on the Scriptures that I've just read to you and would ask you to listen prayerfully and to pray along with the tape to release and to align your heart with what is being said and to agree with it. And I would ask you to do this on a regular basis in the days ahead. We have a very serious responsibility in this congregation to intercede for this particular location where God has seen fit to situate our meeting place. And it's important that we recognize that as was mentioned on the 3rd of December, there are a large number of congregations on the same city block and in the immediate vicinity. The fact that God has found it necessary to establish another congregation on the same piece of territory, indicates that the spiritual warfare that is found in that area is not being seen to completion. We therefore are called to pick up the battle wherever it might be at this moment in time, and to take it, and to see it through to completion. And we're required to overcome to the end.
So, I'd ask you to pray with me. Firstly, based on Ephesians 6, verses 10-18, we will put on the whole armor of God, and I'll just pray through that. We will then ask the Father, in the name of the Son to cover ourselves, the congregation and the leadership, and so forth, with the blood of Jesus so that we are safe from Demonic attack. We will then systematically tear down the principalities, powers, thrones and dominions that are operating over the area, over the country and over the world. It's important to understand that there is a force of prayer which has to be generated. We read in Daniel that Daniel prayed, interceded and fasted for three weeks before the Angel was able to get through to him, and in the interim was warring with the Prince of Persia. So, again it is scriptural to understand that, we can’t just pray a prayer like this once against the massive principalities and powers of darkness that are operating over this world and expect them all to be cast into The Pit. We have to raise up a concerted voice of intercession in harmony and unity to tear these things down, and we must do that for as long as the Lord requires us to do it.
Keep praying
My understanding is we must keep praying these prayers until we know that Satan has been cast into The Pit for a 1000 years. My understanding of that is something of the order of 3/3 and a half years in the future. So, we need to start praying this. We need to start praying it over the meeting place, we need to start praying this prayer over our individual homes. Ingrid and I have been led to the Lord to pray more or less as I am about to pray for something, of the order of two nearly 2 years now. The picture that we have is that as each congregation prays continually into the darkness over the earth, they slowly are rolling back the darkness, they are pulling down the principalities and powers immediately over the geographic location where they are, and it’s like opening out a dome of light over that location, and slowly as more and more is pulled into the opening that we create, the whole of Satan's kingdom will crumble. And as more and more people around the world pray this basic prayer on a consistent basis, these little domes of light over the places of prayer focus. will get bigger, and they will start to join together. Eventually we will see the darkness rolling back, and eventually at the end, the entire kingdom of Satan will collapse and be cast into The Pit.
So, it is important that we should run and not grow weary, and that we should keep interceding in this, even if the Lord moves you onto another congregation, it is important that you keep praying this prayer. Not only for the SAVF hall and the location where we are currently situated, but for your house where you live, or any new congregation the Lord may take you to. He will require you, when He does move you, to share this teaching and this information with them if they're not aware of it, and to pray it over that area. So, this truth needs to be spread out now across the world so that more and more believers can start systematically tearing these things down.
Prayers
Father we come to You in the name of Jesus, and we put on the whole armor of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers and the rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Father we commit today, in the name of Jesus, to come against these things on a consistent basis and to tear them down over the SAVF hall in Pretoria North, and over our country and over the world, In Jesus' name. Therefore, Father, in the name of Jesus we take up the whole armor of God that we may be able to withstand in the evil day, and when we have done all, to stand. We gird our waists with the belt of truth, having put it on, and we put on the breastplate of righteousness. We put on the shoes which are the preparation of the Gospel of peace, and we take the shield of faith with which we will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. We take the helmet of salvation and we put it on our heads, and we take the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.
Father, we ask You in the name of Jesus to strengthen truth in our lives, to strengthen the preparation of the Gospel of peace in our lives, to strengthen righteousness, holiness and sanctification in our lives, to give us a revelation that Jesus Christ is our righteousness. Father, to strengthen our faith, to nourish our faith, and that our faith may grow. To implant and to establish the truth of salvation in our lives, that helmet will protect our thoughts in everything we do. We ask You Father, in the name of Jesus to anoint us to read your Word, we ask You to open Your Word to us such as we have never seen it open before. We ask You to engraft and implant in our hearts the truth of Your Word and the Scriptures that we need to know, and to have written on the tablet of our heart for the purpose of what You've called us to do for this warfare. And Father we ask You to teach us to use the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God in every situation to cut through the darkness of this present age. And Father we ask You in the name of Jesus, by Your Holy Spirit to give us utterance in prayer at all times without ceasing. To pray by the Spirit that we may be watchful, with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints for the deliverance of this world from the powers of Satan, in Jesus' name.
Father I ask You now, in the name of Jesus, and I would ask each one of you to, as you pray just to put in the names of your own family and to see your family covered by the blood of Jesus. It is important that you understand that the blood of Jesus is the sign and the mark of the Covenant that we have with God. The blood of Jesus was shed at the Cross, voluntarily by Jesus Christ to purchase our redemption, and it is that blood that has given us the right and the authority to use Jesus' name. It is that blood that protects us and shields us from the works of the enemy, and it is up to us to claim the blood and to plead the blood over every situation in order that we may be safe to conduct this warfare.
Father we come to You now in the name of Jesus and we plead the blood over families, over our congregation, the leadership, over every believer in Pretoria North, over the SAVF Hall and SAVF Property, in the name of Jesus. Father I just thank You now, in the name of Jesus, that You cover every member of my immediate and extended family with the blood of Jesus, from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet. I thank You that You cover Neil Dreyer and Louise, and their family with the blood of Jesus from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet, Father their children and their grandchildren, all cousins, uncles and aunts, nephews and nieces, covered with the blood of Jesus from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet. Father, I ask You to cover the entire congregation of Foundation for Living Church and their families and relatives, with the blood of Jesus from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet, in Jesus' Name.
Father I ask You to cover every believer in Pretoria North with the blood of Jesus from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet. I ask You to cover every believer in South Africa with the blood of Jesus from the top their heads to the soles of their feet. I ask You to cover every believer on this planet with the blood of Jesus from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet, in Jesus' Name. I ask You to cover the SAVF Hall in Pretoria North, Jack Hendon Street with the blood of Jesus, the walls, the floors, the ceiling, the roof, the doors, the windows, the window frames, the door posts and the lintels covered with the blood of Jesus. I ask You Father to cover the entire SAVF Property with the blood of Jesus in Jesus' Name.
Father, we thank You that the blood of Jesus is against Satan and we plead the blood over all of these things, and we thank You for the blood. We thank You for the safekeeping of the blood. We thank You for the blood covenant we have with You Father, cut in the blood of Jesus, cut in the flesh of Jesus, with the blood flowing down the Cross onto the mercy seat, and we thank You for mighty deliverance. We thank You that we come before You, not in our own trusting or in our own righteousness, but in Jesus Christ who is our righteousness. We thank You that we come before You in the authority of the name of Jesus, the name above all names, the name at which every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Father we thank You, that as believers, bought with the blood, covered with the blood, we have the authority to come against these principalities, powers, thrones and dominions and tear them down, in Jesus' name.
And Father we thank You that Jesus is coming soon. We thank You that peace is coming on the earth soon. We thank You that soon this world will be free of Satan and his Demons and fallen angels, in the Name of Jesus. We praise you for that Father. We glorify Your Holy name, we worship You, Lord and God, Savior and King. Father, we ask You that You bring the people that You want into the FFR congregation in Jesus' name, and we ask You to take anybody that You don’t want, out. We ask You to open doors that no man may close, and close doors that no man my open. We pray Father that You will keep any agent of Satan, any witch or warlock, Satanist or any other servant of Satan, from coming into that meeting place, from coming into the congregation, in Jesus' name.
"Have I not called you," says the Lord. "I've called every one of you," says the Lord. "I've established you, and I have planted you in this place for a season to do the work I have called you to do. Therefore, be bold and very courageous," says the Lord, "step out now and tear down Mine enemies, tear them down and cast them into The Pit, for I am coming soon," says the Lord. "But victory must be won. All My enemies must be put as a footstool under My feet, and I have called you, and I have established you and I have anointed you to do the work. You are the souls in My army, you are the soldiers whose spiritual authority is required to deliver and set this world free and take back all that the enemy has stolen. So be bold and very courageous." That ends the Word of the Lord.
Father, we come to You in the name of Jesus and we just come in unity, harmony and agreement to take authority over the principalities, powers, thrones and dominions that are operating over this world and to tear them down and to cast them into The Pit for a thousand years, in Jesus' name. I come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over the South African Vroue Federasie Hall in the block, north of Station Street, bounded on the west by Jack Hendon Street, and the east by Eeufees Road in Pretoria North. We come against any principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over that hall, in the name of Jesus we bind you, we tear you down and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years, in Jesus' name. We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over that property, in the name of Jesus, we bind you, we tear you down and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand year, in the name of Yahooshua. We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over that city block, in the name of Jesus, we bind you, we tear you down and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years, in Jesus' name.
We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over the immediate suburban area of the SAVF hall, in the name of Jesus, we bind you, we tear you down, and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years, in the name of Yahooshua. We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over Pretoria North, in the name of Yahooshua, we bind you, we tear you down and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years, in Jesus' name. We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over the city of Pretoria, in the name of Yahooshua, we bind you, we tear you down and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years. We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over the province of Gauteng and in the name of Yahooshua, we bind you, we tear you down, and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years, in Jesus' Name. We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over the Old Transvaal Province, and in the name of Yahooshua, we bind you, we tear you down and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years, in Jesus' Name.
We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over the Republic of South Africa, and in the name of Yahooshua, we bind you, we tear you down and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years, in Jesus' Name. We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over Southern Africa in the name of Yahooshua, we bind you, we tear you down and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years, in Jesus' Name. We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over the continent of Africa, in the name of Yahooshua, we bind you, we tear you down and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years. We come against every principality, power and dominion that is operating over Planet Earth, in the name of Yahooshua, we bind you, we tear you down, and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years, in Jesus' Name.
Satan, we come against you in the name of Jesus, and we declare that the Word of God states that on the appointed day, the Father will send one of his mighty warring Angels, to bind you and chain you, and cast you into The Pit for a thousand years. And Father, we thank You now, in the name of Jesus, that that day is close at hand and we thank You Father, in the name of Jesus, that You will send Your mighty warring Angels to bind Satan, to chain him and to cast him into The Bottomless Pit for a thousand years, in Jesus' name. Father, we ask in the name of Jesus that You will send Your mighty warring Angels to bind and tear down any principality, power, throne and dominion that we have named and cast them into The Pit for a thousand years, in Jesus' Name. We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over Neil Dreyer, in the name of Jesus, we bind you, we tear you down and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years. And Father, in the name of Jesus, we speak now that everything that is holding back Neil Dreyer's ministry as an apostle to reach out and touch the nations, is torn down and broken down now.
Father, we thank You that You have anointed him, and You've called him to go forth to the nations as You've appointed, and we thank You Father that You release him and that You open every door that needs to be opened and close every door that needs to be closed in Jesus' name. We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over the Dreyer family, in the name of Jesus, we bind you, we tear you down, and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years. We come against every principality, power, throne and dominion that is operating over the Dreyer family residence, in the name of Jesus we bind you, we tear you down, and we cast you into The Pit for a thousand years in Jesus' name.
Father we praise You, we worship You, we glorify Your Holy name. Father, we thank You for mighty deliverance in our congregation, in the area of Pretoria North and in the world at large. Father, we thank You that the day is coming when we will no longer be harassed and persecuted by Satan. The day is coming when peace will come on earth in Jesus' name, and we praise You for that, we glorify You for that, we give you all the honor and all the glory. We thank You Father that You have given us the opportunity to intercede for this world, to be Your servants, and we ask You Father to help us to be faithful to the end, to overcome to the end, not to grow weary and to give up. Father it is our desire to be found to be faithful servants at the end of this age, and for that reason we ask You to judge us severely and correct us harshly that we may serve You more perfectly.
We ask You Father in the name of Jesus, to reveal the level of our present deception and what You require of us to do about it. We ask You Father to show us everything in our lives that You want us to deal with, everything that You want us to change, that we may come to a place of holiness and sanctification, that we may be vessels for honor in Your house, in Jesus' Name. And we worship You, and we praise You and we Glorify Your holy name, in Jesus' name.
This prayer was recorded by James Robertson on the morning of Sunday, the 10th of December, the year 2000. Should you have any queries and need to contact me, I can be contacted on Johannesburg (011) 791 2327 or my cell phone is 083 251 6644, fax number (011) 791 5004, email jamesr@infodoor.co.za. In case you don’t have Neil Dreyer's phone number, he can be contacted on (012) 808 1650. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Savior of the world. Amen
01_12 -Words and Prophetic Words, etc.
Dutch Kinnear
I want You to do more than that. Go to one another and tell one another that. Will you do that? Just tell them. God bless you, my darling. Praise God. Praise the Lord. Amen. Oh God, we praise Your lovely name, worship You, we exalt You Jesus, we magnify Your name and adore You. Lord, we bless You, we worship You, we adore You and magnify Your lovely name. We thank You, oh God, that You opened our eyes, that we may behold the glory of the Lord, that we may understand who it is that we're dealing with. Lord, we thank You. You are the son of the living God and You came and touched lives. You came and sought us when we weren't looking for You, and You found us when we didn’t want You Lord. Oh God, we worship You and magnify Your name, for such grace we have never encountered. Lord, we know that grace was what made it possible for us to find You, Lord. Oh God, because You were looking for us long before that time, blessed be Your holy name because You've been so good, so merciful, so kind. Thank You Lord. You did for us what no one else could do. You made us into new people oh Lord, changed us in an instant of time by Your divine grace. We bless You and exalt You oh God. We magnify Your lovely name. Praise the Lord. Oh, my soul and all that is within me. Blessed be His name. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. We worship Thee. Praise His name.
What shall it be said Lord, If I move in a brand-new direction? Shall I first consult with You? Shall I ask You the way that I must go. Shall I seek advice from the sons of men whose breath is in their nostrils or shall it be that men shall seek my face and seek me for the direction that I go? For I say to you, I bless you in the direction in which I go. Those that walk with me in that direction shall naturally be blessed. There shall be a fallout of the blessings of the Lord on every side, for I say to you at this time, even in the History of the world, it is more vital than ever before, says the Lord, even for Mine own to take hold of My Word and do according to what I've said. It is vital that you understand what is written, for did I not say unto (inaudible 14:00.07)long ago, the (inaudible 14:01.14) not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.
I say to you in this time, it is vital that Mine own should understand what it is they've spoken, what I have said, so that they might be directed and governed by it, and that it might be a compass around them, sayeth the Lord. That which keeps and that which blesses, I say to you, abide ye within My Word for by the Word shall men be judged, by the Word shall their needs be assessed, I say to you, even by the Word which I have given. Therefore, stand by it, for it is a precious lamp unto your feet, that ye should not stumble, that ye might walk in the light and not be in the dark, that you might understand. For I say to you, they that be in the world and lean to the wisdom of men, walk in darkness and they do not understand, that I say blessed are your ears for thy hear and your eyes for they see, for there is understanding in the hearing and seeing of the Word. Know that I blessed, sayeth the Lord, and that I use it for My glory.
And watch it lift the eyes of men from off the Earth from which they came. What shall it be that lifts their eyes to the Heavens and the things that I have in store for them, that My Word, it shall be a ladder, sayeth the Lord, that ye shall walk up on? And as ye claim what My Word says, so My Word becomes powerful within your life. I say to you things begin to flow through you that were not there before, because you understand and you're walking in the light. And I say to you, My Word is a director, My Word is a directive from My throne, and it worketh within the sons of men and within their hearts that they may know that tis, the way of the world, is not the way of My God and the wisdom of the world is not the wisdom of the Word of My Lord. And they may understand that here is wisdom, even in this Word that I've given. Therefore, say I unto thee, take the Word, for it will lift your eyes even to those goals that are before and those things that must be accomplished, for My Word must find fulfillment, I say unto thee.
The things that I promised must find fulfillment, and I say to you that the generation that is, is a generation that is seeing the end times and seeing the things that are coming upon the face of the Earth. That generation needs no Word of God to understand the direction that I'm going in, and the direction that the History of the world is going in. It is in My Word. It is recorded, I say unto You. Therefore, take heed unto it as a light that shineth in the dark place and walk in the light thereof that you do not stumble, so shall you walk with Me and know this. I shall walk with you, even the light of that Word that I have given. Jesus, we worship Thee, we bless Thy name, we exalt Thee and magnify Thy name. Lord, in Jesus' name, we come before You, the congregation, we say Lord, here is our life, here we are.
We say, Lord, we understand that there is no alternative to God, no feasible alternative to God, Your will is paramount, and Your Word is definitive. We need to hold to that Word with everything that's within us, oh God. In Jesus’ name, strengthen every person here this morning, anointed by the Holy Ghost, oh God, we pray that oh Lord, we'll see things in a different way even as the Spirit of God reveals the will of God to each one of us. Lord, there are ministries here that need to be carried out. I pray in Jesus' name, that the day of sitting at the backseat is past, but the day of stepping forward to do the work of the Lord has come. Lord, if we have the urgency of the Spirit upon us, then Lord we will understand and we'll know within ourselves now that the pace has quickened, oh God, and that the time is short. We ask You in Jesus' name to guide and to direct, and we'll give You all the glory and the praise, and the honor. Thank You lord. In Jesus' name. Amen. We bless the Lord and magnify His name for His goodness and His mercy.
Hurtful words
It's so good to see every one of you and to share with you on this lovely occasion, these things that are happening around us. We praise God. He's got a Word prepared for us. Brother Dutch is going to bring the word for us this morning that God has laid on his heart. Are You ready? Amen. Praise the Lord. God bless you my brother. Let me ask you a question, to start off. When last did any of us proclaim the Word, not to the nations, to our neighbor? I think a few of us realize the power of words. In the secular society, we use it to transfer knowledge, ideas, and it's the basis of our communication. And as kids, we chanted, ‘sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me,’ couldn't be more wrong, because that's so wrong. We have this movement in the world today against physical violence. Now, me personally, I believe a good chop behind the ear is the best psychology for a child that's getting out of whack. But you know, on the surface, it's commendable, we're not allowed to chastise our children, and a child may not be caned.
Just recently, I've read about children who have taken their parents to court because they gave them a hiding. People who use violence are supposed to be barbaric, but I think the physical bully is no worse than the verbal bully. In all the (inaudible 30:49.23) against violence, we've forgotten the (inaudible 30:53.23) damage that words can do. We don't see it as damaging because the effects are not immediately visible, but they slowly manifest themselves like a cancer damage, and the damage is often worse than a violent act. How many lives have been destroyed by parents and teachers with careless words to young people? We call them stupid and dumb. And we would go to school, and children who don't have nice clothes, or parents don't have a nice car, they make fun of them, and we don't realize the deep wounds we make in the psyche of people.
In Matthew 5, 22 we read, "But I say to you that everyone who continues to be angry with his brother or harbors incidentally," this is from the amplified Bible, "who harbors malice, enmity of heart against him, shall be liable and be unable to escape the punishment imposed by the court. And whoever speaks contemptuously and insultingly to his brother, shall be reliable and unable to escape the punishment imposed by this religion. And whoever says, 'you cursed fool, you empty headed idiot' to his brother, shall be liable and unable to escape the hell of fire." I think all of us at some time, have seen the helpless predicament of the verbally inefficient being criticized by the verbally proficient. Words that cut the flesh from our souls, words that destroy the sprit, that lay waste to our hopes and dreams, and permanently damage the delicate fabric of our personalities. So, also can they be used to lift people up, to raise them above their circumstances and see the glorious vision of God. I believe one of the greatest things in life today is to see life as it is, and not as it should be.
See the Glory of God
We should see the glory of God in everything, we should see His shred of purpose in anything that happened to our lives. And I just recently have begun to experience this. We've had a terrible two weeks, my wife and I, all sorts of calamities have hit us, but strangely enough, not once was I worried, not once was concerned. People couldn't understand that I was so laid back, but you see, I know Who's on my side. It’s that simple. We should manifest this love of God in our lives and in our actions. We should see the potential of people, and not their circumstances. We should act, believing that we can and are making a difference. We should be bold, declaring who and what we are. And most of all, we call ourselves Christians. We must be careful not to smudge the good name of Jesus Christ by what we do and what we say. And all too often we fall down on that. It has been said that the pen is mightier than the sword, and that's very true. It is true because words give birth to every deed that has ever been committed.
If you look at the great things that have happened in life and the bad things that have happened in life, History all started in the imagination, but we articulated it with the word. They've changed lives, forced people to get involved in noble deeds, giving people pity and compassion. Words are the stimulus that launch dreams, destinies and noble causes. Words are the weft and woof of everything that is good or bad in our society. The Bible often talks about words and names, and their importance. Just as an example, Ibram became Abraham, which means father of many. God thought it was so important that he changed his name, and that word, just the word 'Abraham', meant so much. It was a Word of God that created the universe and all that's in it, and He created it out of nothing with words.
The Creation
In Genesis 1, 3 we read, "And God said, let there be light, and there was light." Words. He just spoke them. "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God." John, Chapter 1, 1. Hebrews 11, 3, "By faith, we understand that the words were framed by the Word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible." Our words are either destructive or creative. They have an effect on everybody around us and on ourselves. Careless words can be so damaging. Modern doctors and psychologists are only now beginning to understand what the Bible has been talking about for 2000 years, how important words are. In James 3 verse 2, we read, "For we stumble in many things. If anyone does not stumble in word, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle the whole body.” Words are the cause of our blessings and our curses. Words are the causes of people to be broken down and people to be lifted up? Words were the start of great things.
Using your words
A mature person is one who is able to control his words. This of course, does not justify those who find it easy to say nothing, who parade their lack of purpose or opinion as being the strong, silent type. You've met them, I'm sure. I'm thinking about this, but they don't say a thing, because if they do, they'll just put their foot in it. Our life reflects what's on our mind or our imagination. That's where all our actions in words start, in our mind, and they come through in the word. Our thoughts and words are also influenced by our associations. They're negative or positive. The good, they are either on God's business or in Satan business. Understand this. There is no middle ground. You can’t just withdraw. It’s this or that. This is manifested and influenced by our marriages, what we say, how we say it, and when we say it? Just to give you an idea, you look at your wife and you say to her, my dear, when I look into your face, time stands still. I could always say you've got a face that stops a clock. Now I don't know which one will get me anywhere, but what I'm trying to say is that it's the way you use the words that is very important.
Unless we protect ourselves with the Word and allow the Holy Spirit to strengthen us, count our words, or sparingly use them, we will get into a lot of trouble. Words are so easily uttered and so insignificant. Sometimes they can have a catastrophic effects and consequences, physically and emotionally, beyond anything we can think. I'd like to just relate one silly little episode during the Second World War. The Americans had dropped the first bomb, I think it was Hiroshima. They then sent an ultimatum to the Japanese high command and they said, surrender. The Japanese wrote back, and they used a word called 'moshimutsu.' I hope I've got it right. What it means in Japanese is ‘no’, ‘maybe’. When the American translators got that, they looked at this and they said, look, we know in Japanese this means no. One of the colleagues said no, it could be maybe, you know how they are phonetical. And it's just from that one word that the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki. Over 100,000 people died just because of the wrong understanding of that word.
Just recently, in South Africa, there was a young couple that went on a murder spree. I think they murdered something like five people. When the young lady was asked, why did you do it? She said, he told me he loved me. That word was so important to her that she became a criminal, and murdered people, just to get that from him. Our words come from our heart and divulge the very intent of our thinking. They also reflect the power of the person who's speaking them, and I think we've all experienced that. Many times, people say something, ah, it’s just Pete, forget about it, or hey, that's Koos, you'd better listen. The Roman Centurion in Matthew 8 verse 8 understood the power of the word and the person who was speaking when he told Jesus, just to speak, and my servant will get well. He understood that. We must remember that when we speak, we should be speaking in the power of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We shouldn't just use words so idly.
In Proverbs 18, 21, we read death and life are in the power of the tongue, and we can commit suicide with this thing. We can do it, and I think I've done it many times, it's my biggest problem. In Romans 7, "Yet in all these things, we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." In Mark 11, 23, "For assuredly, I say unto you, whoever says to this mountain, be removed and be cast to the sea, and does not doubt that in his heart, but believes in his heart that these things he says will come to pass, will have whatever he says." When we speak, we must have a clear objective, and this is so important. We mustn’t just idly talk or babble. Think, count your words, and use them purposefully. Just think for a moment, when we read the Bible and we try to interpret it, we look at the words that are used, changes have been made in the course of Christianity by some man seeing the true meaning of those words, and the whole thing changes. Whether the word says 'or', or 'they', or 'You', or 'us', it makes such a difference. Many prayers, I believe go astray today because we muddle in the words we use, we just sort of go on and get it over with.
We should shoot it clearly, like someone shooting at a target, and point your words directly and clearly on what you want. We must also speak what's in line with the Word of God, not just talk. In Psalm 19 verse 14, we read, "Let the words of my mouth and the limitation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer." Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, oh Lord. I think if all of us thought of that little verse before we opened our mouths, we wouldn't talk so much, because we'd begin to think of just what are we saying. We must learn to use the words and 'the' word for the purpose the Lord God almighty intended. We're supposed to speak about our fantastic God, and how many of us do? We are admonished to rejoice in the Lord and pray without ceasing, and yet whenever I've spoken about this, I've met resistance, because I'm told you can't do that at work, or when you go play sports, or you can’t do it here…
It's like we have to take this word and just set aside little times for it, Sundays for two hours at night, or one hour we spend in the quiet time of the morning, and the rest of the time we've got to jump into the world. Paul said it many times - I will speak in and out of season. People keep on telling me, you have to find an opportunity. That's not what the Bible says, and I'm just simple and I'm pretty stupid, so I just go with what it says. We have to learn that. We have to learn to understand because so often we interpret it to suit our own means, or what happens is, we go on a tangent and we only look at this one aspect of the Bible. We must be a calming influence in our environment. I once heard it as we must be an anti-septic in our environment. We must be the symbol of truth. We must be the leaders in thought, action and the Word of truth. And most importantly, we need to know our Lord intimately and to articulate who and what He is.
I have heard on talk shows, and if you listen, you'll see some of these TV shows in America, let me tell you something, when one of our people, a Christian, meets a Satanist, or an atheist, they eat us for breakfast. They wipe the floor with us. Why? Because we don't know our Lord properly. We haven't read enough about Him, we haven't talked enough about Him. We're not ready for it because they make fools of us. They use catchphrases that we struggle with. We don't know what to do. We must defend Jesus at all times without (inaudible 00:46:15.28). In Matthew 12, 26, "But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give an account of it on the Day of judgment." It frightens the pants off me, because I know all the idle words I have spoken. We always talk about the last word that a person has. They're normally very important, dying words, before the person dies, they say something. I just want to give you Jesus Christ as a reminder.
Speak about Jesus
Matthew 28, 19 to 20, "Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." And I'll ask you a metaphorical question. When last did we do that? I think last time I preached out, I said you mustn't take too serious what I say, because normally I'm preaching to myself, and I ask myself that question, when last did I do that? When you look at the environment of a Church, you find you'll get the people who do the manual work and those that go out and do the Evangelizing, and you get the preacher. Now the funny thing is, we expect the preacher's faith to carry us through. Are you with me here? When we go on some new project, we want to do something. The faith of the congregation is with a preacher. We expect his faith to carry us through. And then you get the people who are very happy to do the busy work, wash the floors, wash the dishes, bake the cakes, but don't ask me to talk to a stranger about Jesus.
Do you know what I'm talking about? ‘Don't ask me.’ That's not their bag, but it is our bag. It's everybody's job, because we're too busy. We run off and work at the bazaar, so now we're doing something good or we are collecting for something, but we have to speak to people about it otherwise we are wasting our time. They must hear and know the Word. That Word that is in this wonderful Book has got to be spoken to everybody around us. I think you all know the power of that Word, and the lives its changed. It is vital that these things, like the bazaars, the feeding schemes, it needs to be done, there's no question about it, they are vital to the Church, but not at the expense of preaching the Word. People will often offer to do all the manual workers as long as you don't ask them to Evangelize. We have to learn to do the practical things that Jesus did, to tell people about God, to live your sermon without fear, to walk with your feet on the ground, to pray continually, and most of all, and this is a warning to us Pentecostal Churches, we must be very careful that our exuberance does not become a hinderance to other people.
I've been in a situation where I've invited somebody to a Church. He vowed never to go there again, it was crazy. Just be sure that exuberance does not chase people away. In short, as Paul said, "We must become all things to all people so that we can spread the Word of God." And just a little aside, when we believe -all of us here are believers - we must ask ourselves this question, and I think this is key to what I've been speaking about this morning. Why do we believe? And if we look at it, we'll find we got it from our parents, we went to Church when we were kids, it's our environment, we lived in a small town, everybody went to Church, and everybody believed. We got it from our society and environment. Now, these are the things that cause us to believe, but with respect, it's not good enough, because we have to look at our reasons for believing. Our reason.
And there, we talk about internalizing the Word of God, and experiencing the change in our lives, in our thinking, the supernatural experience of the Holy Spirit, the intimacy with Jesus Christ and the Word. When the reason is in place, when the reason is there, it's not just because of what we exalt from other people, but it's a deep-seated reason, we know now why, and we can then maybe meet the standard. Revelations 12, 11, also from the amplified, "And they overcame, conquered him by the means of the blood of the Lamb and by the utterance of their testimony, for they did not love and cling to life, even when faced with death, holding their lives cheap, until they had to die for the witnessing." And I just asked how many of us would be in that position and die for our witnessing. It's a question we must ask ourselves over and over and over. We cannot pay lip service to God. It's got to be meaningful and it must be something that comes from the heart. Life changing. May the grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you now and forever more. Amen.
Oh Father, Lord God Almighty, we've gathered here this morning, Lord as sinners, acknowledging that You are our God, our Father and Our Creator, and we are but Your creatures who humble ourselves in humility and worship and praise You. Amen. We rejoice in the Lord and magnify His name for His goodness and His mercy.
You've heard what our brother has been saying this morning. A vital message. I want to say to you that we've been speaking to you for some time now about the tape ministry, these cassettes. My brother James has made this beautiful album here. Take a look at it. There are all those sermons in there. These are for distribution.
James
These sets of eight tapes basically from the days of the Lord telling us to come here and bring tape recorders. There's a number of sets here. If there are not enough sets there, I'll make more. There's no charge for them. The only requirement is the Word of God, and it really does show that the Lord has brought a whole lot of things today, which are prophetic words and (inaudible 54:59.26). These things are for your own education with the Body of God at large. This has been prepared specifically with the mind to giving to other Christian leaders. So, if you know a pastor or somebody, somewhere, and the Lord knows you in your heart, give them this, because the bulk of the Church is not in touch with the message that needs to be preached to (inaudible 55:24.15) The only reason its free is to spread the Gospel. If you want to get donations, that's fine but it's between you and the Lord.
Then there are two other tapes there, the message that Neil preached on the 3rd of December, “You must be born again,” and “God cannot compromise with sin.” That is essentially an Evangelistic message. There are about ten copies of that tape at the back there. The idea is that you can take that and as Neil said, you can give it out essentially as a Gospel tape. There is a brief message of salvation at the end. There are contacts for Neil. So, it’s a self-contained message. You can give them your tape and they can listen to it as the Lord leads, and it’s a very powerful testimony of salvation. Again, take what’s there. If you need more, just give me a shout. You're free to make as many copies of all of these tapes as you want. So, those of you who don’t want to take a full set of tapes, or whether it’s a specific message that has really struck you, there are a couple of copies of each of the individual messages that stand alone in a little library case. You can take that as an individual one. There are a number of copies of last week's message, I've got a special tape for you, but there are copies of that as well for any of the other family or friends that were here.
Prayers
And then what I said, was it last week or the week before, about Spiritual warfare? This building, this city block is under a major Demonic Satanic principality power over the whole of Pretoria North. The fulcrum of Satan's power over this entire geographic area is settled above this area. That’s why there are so many Churches here. But the Church has not been diligent in tearing down those principalities and power. And basically, (inaudible 57:32.02) for nearly 2 and a half years. I've got some experience in mining engineering and if you're going to mine an old body like a diamond (inaudible 57:44.04) you go from underneath, you drill a fan shaped hole, you blast it and then it collapses, you blast again, and it collapses. So, on this tape, there's about ten copies of this tape, it’s called Spiritual warfare over Pretoria North with regular prayer. I would encourage each family to take this tape, listen to it, pray until you've got the context of the prayer, and then start saying that prayer every night when you intercede.
So, pray first of all, over this geographic location, perhaps secondly over Neil and his Ministry, pray thirdly over your house, your family, and your problems. And basically, it's like that diamond pipe, it’s firing shots up into the Spirit realm and slowly tearing this thing down. The more we tear down, the more the individual families and the individual congregations will overlap until eventually Satan's cohorts can be cast into The Pit for a thousand years.
If I may, just take one more minute, while I'm at it, very interesting in terms of Dutch's message today. My brother in law is out from the States, and my Ministry is called End Time Issues, and he gets emails from me from time to time. And he said to me, I really need to sit down with you and hear in more detail what your interpretation of Scripture in that area. So, we took him to the airport this morning and I was expanding my understanding of where we are at. And as he got out of the car, he said, what about the mark of the beast. And we've been hearing about microchips and what have you, and I've been wrestling with this. It just hit me this morning, and I said to Ingrid coming back from the airport, what I'm seeing more and more, and Neil touched on it the other day, that you're not even going to be able to tell people that they're sinners. That's in a big way up here. I've been ministering over the Internet to people in the States who have been persecuted in a serious fashion for their faith, and the FBI are monitoring them. They basically are getting into a place where they're completely in bondage. They're telling their neighbors not to speak to them.
I was invited to apply for the position for a million rand a year remuneration a few weeks ago, and on my CV, I've got that I'm a believer. They phoned me up and they said most people don't put that on their CV. I said I'm a committed Christian, it's important to me, it doesn't affect my work in the sense of the quality of the work that I do. They wanted to meet with me on Saturday, and Saturday is the true Sabbath, and I don’t work on Saturdays. They never came back to me. The point about that is what we are moving into, and I'm sure that after Dutch's message I'm almost 100% certain the mark of the beast is on the forehead and it's on the hand. What do You do with the hand? You communicate contractually the word that comes through your mouth or comes out of your mouth. I think that the mark of the beast is actually whether you are willing to speak the Word of God and acknowledge Jesus Christ in any situation. If you will not, if you will bow to Satan and you would bow to the world and deny your faith, if you're prepared to teach, fine, I could have had that job, I was one of three candidates, for a million Rand a year, chief executive of twenty-five companies.
All I had to do was take that paragraph at the bottom of my CV and zip my lips on that subject when I spoke to that person, and that's more and more the case. If we are prepared to compromise, we're accepting the mark of the beast. If we are not prepared to compromise, if we are we willing to put on our CV's, to put on our company letterhead, if we have our own companies, Jesus Christ is Lord, the Word of Christ says, if you will acknowledge Me before men, I will acknowledge you before the Father, but if you will not do that, if you will keep quiet, if the world can’t see that you're any different to the rest of them, and they discover by accident after they've known you for 3 years that you're a Christian, you’re accepting, I think, the mark of the beast. You are silencing what's in your heart, you're preventing it from coming out of your mouth and you're not righting the contraction.
There's more and more situations coming. It's getting more and more tense in the United States, for example, there are emotions (inaudible 02:25.00) court. They want to move any teaching with regards to morality in sex education in schools. In other words, they now want to teach sex in school as a subject that you practice, and they want to remove all reference to abstinence or anything else. It's just another biological subject, it's a bodily function that you perform with whoever you can find to perform with, and the reason they want to remove it is because they claim it's religion, and constitution now presents religion. And the thing that struck me, is the day is going to come, where, if you're a teacher in the United States, a Christian, you're either going to have to, when you apply for a job, say, I'm sorry, I cannot compromise on that, that is fornication and adultery, I cannot teach sex education without telling people about adultery and fornication, which means they will probably not get a job.
And the thing that struck me this morning is if you don't have a job, you can't buy. So, if you are not prepared to compromise with the world, if you're not prepared to say I cannot teach sex education without morality, I cannot do this, I cannot do that, I cannot be a business on my own account without acknowledging Jesus Christ as Lord, if you do that, you're going to find it harder and harder to get a job, to keep the job, to be in business, but if you compromise, I think you might just be (inaudible 01:03:57.20) and you need to understand that. Tribulation is upon us. Judgement is upon us. We cannot play games with God anymore. We cannot dabble at words anymore.
Witnessing
I'm sorry, but I’m really overflowing at the moment. Ingrid's son (inaudible 01:04:14.18) has been through absolute hell. His natural father was an alcoholic all his life. He came home blind drunk, and he got to a point where he was so demonized that Ingrid and the children slept behind locked doors for two months before God finally took her out of that marriage. She got custody, but he was seeing him every second week. He was just going down, the bloodline was so strong, the influence was so strong, he was getting all his father's demons. They were manifesting and he was becoming rebellious, he was becoming absolutely insufferable. In June, July this year, we were getting absolutely desperate. We said Father, we cannot handle this anymore, whatever we do, however we pray, he's just going down the slope. You've got to do something, it’s been six weeks since he started this. That was the beginning of August, September. Since September, October, November, that child has changed. You would not believe it was the same child. He didn’t want to help around the house, he didn’t want to do anything. On Thursday, he said to me, James, I'll paint the roof of the house. No asking or anything. He got one of his friends, and they've been up there in the sun rubbing the roof down. It's a painted roof, and it's hard, hard work and he's going for it. He's committed.
I am so blessed, I'm bubbling over, I've got to give the glory to God. I have to say to you, it doesn’t matter how bad it is, whether it’s your children, your staff, whatever, God is able, but we have to pray right. We have not because we ask not and we (inaudible 01:06:08.05) we have to pray the will of God. We've got to stop telling God the answer to our problems. All we say is Father, we don’t know what to do. And the minute we stop telling God what to do, that child's life is turned around. We've got to do it. He's been doing absolute miracles in our own lives.
He brought a guy across our paths just over a week ago. A youngster, 30 years old, Scott. We picked him up two months ago hitchhiking. He got picked up and we ministered to him. He went back. The Lord took me all the way to Pretoria (inaudible 01:06:49.18) just come back to the Lord. He's living in our servants room. He's been through absolute hell. And yesterday, I was ministering to him and sharing with him because (inaudible 1:07:02.26). He started with a bag of (inaudible 01:07:04.06) drunk. At the age of about 5, his mother divorced his father. There is whole bunch of stuff about his birth, she had a hysterectomy and he got blamed for it, etc. At the age of 8, she remarried, and this guy she married used to come home drunk and say, 'you're good for nothing, you're a thief, you're a liar, you're this, you're that.' And yesterday I was ministering to him and he said to me, James, he must have said that to me at least 100 times. I said to him in the name of Jesus, you're not a liar, you're not a thief, you're created in the light of God. And the change in that man's life just with that Revelation, we prayed and (inaubiele01:07:55.12). And last night I went to see him at about 10 o'clock, just before I went to bed. He said, the Word is coming alive to me like I've never experienced.
God is so good people. He is so good, but we have to understand the power of words. That guy has still got a lot to go through, he's addicted to drugs, he's addicted to cough mixture, he's been homosexually raped, you name it, it’s happened to him. He's a lovely gentle guy, and God has got such a calling on his side. His entire life has been absolutely distorted and destroyed all those years. We have to understand His word. Amen.
The Community Church is a Pentecostal Church that believes the Gospel is the most important message for this and any other generation. I was therefore surprised to read a poster put up by the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the day of the Christian Church is numbered. I do not believe that there is any power that can annul what Christ alone could do and that this message of redemption must be declared to the ends of the earth. To this end, we are producing these tapes for distribution free of charge. If this one has been a blessing to You please assist us by passing it on. We thank You for Your cooperation. God bless You. If You have listened to this tape and it has made an impact upon Your life and You realize Your need may I pray for You that Jesus Christ may enter Your life and bring about the changes that are necessary. In Jesus' name, I pray that God will move by His Spirit upon Your life, that Your whole future shall be colored by the fact that Jesus is alive and that He's alive and triumphant in Your life. May God bless You and use You for His glory, for we need every mouth, and we need every effort to bring the message across to those that stand in desperate need. God bless You. Amen.
Foundation for Living Community Church meets at the South African Vroue Federasie hall, Jack Hendon Street, Pretoria North. It is pastored by Neil Dreyer, an Apostle of God, who can be contacted on 012 808 1650. Meetings are every Sunday at 09h30 in the morning at the SAVF hall. Should You be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, banking account details are as follows. Account name: NJ Dreyer, Bank: First National Bank, Branch: Silverton, Account Number: 51030119874, Branch Code: 25084500. You are free to copy these tapes without restriction and to distribute them as widely as You feel led. Please remember only that each of us is called to account on the Day of Judgment for what we do with the Word of God. Should You require additional copies of this tape, please contact me, James Robertson on Johannesburg, that’s 011 791 2327 or cell phone 083 251 0644 or fax 011 791 5004 or email jamesr@infodoor.co.za and we will make arrangements to get copies of this tape to You. May the Lord bless You and keep You and make His face to shine upon You, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen.
01_13 The Gift of God
Neil Dreyer
Let me speak to you this morning on the gift of God. The gift of God is light, that which came into the world, to change the world forever. It will never be the same. I've got two Scriptures, take a look with me in Genesis, chapter 1, the first few verses, and then we'll go to John, chapter 1, the first 5 verses. "In the beginning," whenever that was, "it was God that created the Heavens and the Earth. And the Earth was without form and void and darkness was upon the face of the deep. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, 'let there be light.' And because He said it, there was light. It came to the world." Then if you come with me to John, chapter 1, the first 5 verses. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God, all things were made by Him," his personality, "and without Him, was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men, and the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."
Heavenly Father, we worship and magnify Your glorious name this morning. We thank You for the inestimable gift of Jesus Christ, for what He brought with Him. Jesus is the light of the world, and He lighteth the soul and the life of every member that has cometh into the world. We worship You and magnify Your name. And Lord, this morning we want to say, You're the gift of God to us, the greatest Christmas present we've ever received. We bless You and magnify Your name. When You came, You brought eternal life with You, You brought the mercy and the love and the justice and the things of God with You. We thank You Lord, and then You brought them into our lives because You came in, the light that lighteth the soul of every man that cometh into the world. Thank You, Lord. In Jesus' name.
Three major events
I want to ask you this morning, if you could ask God for anything this morning, what would it be? I suppose it depends on how old you are. Youngsters would ask for one thing, others would ask for many things. But what would you cherish? What would you think would be the most important of all? There are three major events in the world, and not one of them is being carried by the History of the world. It is being shelled. It’s being put on the back burner. It's not that important in the eyes of the world. These three things are the Creation, with man as the prime creation of God. The second is the fall of that man and the realization of universal sin, and its nature. And the third, is the redemption of man, and that includes the final reign of Jesus Christ upon the Earth. The present world system opposes all three. It says, they're not necessary, that they're outdated. It argues that man evolved, thus making Creation an unnecessarily fiction. God didn't make us, we just grew, like topsy, we just grew up, God wasn't involved.
And the first thing that the world does is remove God from His world. The world takes Him out of touch with His world and says, you've got no right here, when all the time we're squatters on God's territory. We have no right upon one square inch of this world except God gives us the right. And the Kingdom that is coming, God gives us the right and He alone gives entry or says any are forbidden. It is God. It is His world. It is the things that He has created. Secondly, the world argues that evolution logically results in the thought that man is not fallen at all but rather is moving steadily towards perfection without any of (inaudible 04:40.03) part, we just need be what we are, and ultimately, we'll be right and there'll be nothing wrong and our world will be a wonderful place. We are just evolved there. That's the second thought that they have about what God has got to say.
And that, in a sense, thirdly, makes man his own redeemer, we save ourselves. God has got nothing to do with it. I can bypass the Cross, I don't have to go that way at all, repentance is not a necessity in my life. God is not necessary. But I say to you this morning, what of God, what of sin in the world? Our technology can be murderous, and it can't be denied that there are those that are willing to use it, that there is the desire to overcome and to conquer. What of greed, what of immorality? Are these part of that perfection we're talking about? Is this for the development that God wants?
Mankind
Listen to your news, listen to the radio, listen to the television and tell me, is this the perfection that man is heading for? There is very little difference. Down the ages, one thing is predominant. Man keeps failing, man keeps falling short, and man can't stand the highest standards. Are these all part of that perfection? The Bible teaches that there is something radically wrong with the world, and the Internet just tells us how widespread it is as it feeds the desires of men. And this is the real reality. This is what we are facing. The world itself is neither good nor bad. Man is problem. He is the reason why things go wrong in this world. God made it perfect. There was nothing wrong with it. The truth is that it is not so rosy a picture as men present. In fact, the world is in dire trouble. And the question arises, what can save the world? What can save mankind from himself? God says, "I am necessary, I am needed in every life, there is no life that is complete except I play a part there, except I can speak into the situation and give My wisdom and the benefit of what I know."
Men cannot make it on their own. God knows it. He says it over and over and over again. Each one of us needs a God. Each one of us need a living God, one who can point the way for us to go. Blessed be His Holy name. God is needed. And intent is always revealed by priorities, and there is never more so than in the Bible. God has made this a priority. In fact, this is what the Bible is all about, about change, about renewal, about a new life, a new possibility, and a second chance. This is what the Bible is, and which of us don't need it? How many of us have faced situations in our life that we wish we could excise, or just take out and we move as if it never happened, because it brings a blush to the face. And we understand that we've come short, every one of us does. Not one of us is perfect. We know it. Perfection for man on his own terms is a myth. The Bible tells us that change, and renewal is needed.
Light in the darkness
In Creation, the very first thing, the priority that God did, was to bring order out of chaos, light out of darkness. These were the things that He was involved with. God separated what was functional from what was useless, what was wrong, from what was right. He cut a path right through this order. Darkness covers disorganization, it covers these things. And God says it's got to be removed so that people may see the light, and being the light is understanding the situation as it really is. He made a declaration of intent and purpose, and then He acted on it, and God gave an answer, and what was the answer that God gave? I want to tell you this morning. The only enemy that darkness has got, is light. In the absence of light, it reigns supreme, it rules, and people walk in darkness and they don't know that the light is there. They don't understand the difference between right and wrong. And there is a standard in the world today that is akin to madness in my opinion. People come to conclusions and have ideas and have values that are so way out, that you can’t understand it, and you can’t comprehend it. People do and say the most amazing things. Light is the only enemy the dark has. Only light can challenge the dark for supremacy. Only right can conquer wrong. Only God can conquer Satan, beloved, not the wisdom of a man bent on going on his own way.
On our own, we are no match. Darkness will swallow the world. In spite of the United Nations and in spite of everything that man says can be done, we don't find answers for the problems of our world. So, God gave light, and that was the perfect answer. In Genesis 1 and 2, the Bible says darkness was upon the face of the deep, it covers it, it is there, it is upon covering like a blanket. And darkness reigns supreme in the absence of light, as it always does, then it is supreme, and people go that way. But light is always the nemesis of the dark. Darkness reign only until the Word of God came. The Bible says, "and God said, "Let there be light, and there was light."" The instant light came, in that same instance the darkness could not reign, in fact, it could no longer exist. It went. There was the battle that ensued. Their battle was joined.
Billy Graham, in one of his crusades organized with the people that each person that came into the auditorium was issued with a match and something to strike it on. And they were told that at a certain time, they would be instructed to light their matches in unison. And just before the order was given, all the lights in the auditorium were doused, and pitch darkness reigned. Then the instruction came - light your match. Thousands upon thousands of people each lit a little match and the light illuminated that stadium as if the lights were on. God is the Light of the world, and every one of us is a particle of that light. And as we carry light, so the light comes to the world. Jesus is a reality, but He needs to be declared. The ends of the Earth need to know about Him, and need to know what He brought with Him, and what He's offering. The world needs to know that that there are alternatives to what's happening in our world. It doesn't have to be like this. We don't have to have the kinds of things we're having, there are other possibilities with God, and He wants us to know that, He wants us labelled for it, and He wants us to know and act on it.
The Word said, carries the meaning of challenge, and God challenged the darkness, and because He challenged it, it went. And when we challenge it, it goes. It's got to go out of the world. We've got to open our mouths and we've got to speak and let the world know. There is a natural light that owes its existence to natural causes, and the Bible tells me this, that it was only on the fourth day that the sun and the moon and the stars were placed in orbit, on the fourth day. But in the beginning, God said, “let there be light.” It was a different light, it was the light that came by the Spirit of God, moving upon the face of the waters. It is a spiritual thing, it is embodied in a person, it is real, it is wonderful, and it is the truth. And that's what God wants the world to know because the truth can save our world. Only the truth can do it. The lies will never save our world. The light God commanded, came into the world through the Holy Spirit operating on the Word of God in the beginning. It was the Word that overcame. That light was the greatest gifts of God's Creation, so that we can walk in it all the days of our lives.
Power display
In Genesis 1 and 2, the Bible says this, "And the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the waters." That was a power display. Don't forget it. It was a power display. The Spirit was involved. And when the day of Pentecost came and God said, the light is going to break upon the world, it came by the Holy Spirit, and it will only come by the Holy Spirit. There is no other source for it. We must be empowered from on high. We must handle the power of God, otherwise nothing is going to happen. What comes from me and what comes from you naturally will not change our world, but what God puts through it will change the world. It has the power to do so and God wants us to know, God wants us to act on it, and to take it as from His hand. The battle between dark and light, right and wrong has continued ever since.
Avast divide including man, there is a chasm, but on the other side there is light. There is a choice that we can make. We can walk in the light or we can walk in the darkness. When we were born, we were born into this arena. The battle is with and about us, about the minds of men. The battles aren't fought on the front line of the battle field, they are fought here in the minds and the hearts of men. Their allegiance and their dedication are what they give themselves to, what they stand for, and what they tell the world about themselves. These are the things that are important. We were born into it. The battle between dark and light, right and wrong became our battlefield. We are all involved. We are either for or we're against. We have taken sides. We do this every day in the decisions that we make. There are some for, or we decide against. We are either with, or we are against. There is no neutrality in this war. We either win or we lose. And the world is either forfeit or it is won. We either promote or we oppose.
The Word
And God moved on your behalf and mine when He sent His Son into the world. 2000 years ago, in the beginning, right at that moment when the Spirit moved on the waters, in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. "All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was the life and the life was the light of men, and the light shines in the darkness and the darkness comprehended it not." The amplified version gives that last rendering, "for the darkness has never overpowered it, put it out or has not absorbed it, has not appropriated it, isn't perceptive to it. The darkness has never overcome it." Not once. It's always been victorious. What God put in place has never failed. It remains the answer for the world and for mankind. It is the greatest cause, the greatest challenge that there is that can face your life. It is the greatest thing that you can do if you serve the Lord, to divide the purely temporal from the eternal, to be light bearers for God against darkness wherever we find it and to know the difference, to tell the truth because we believe in the truth, because we believe that it is the only truth with people walking in truth that can save the world. It's this.
This is the answer. If I stand for it, if I do not give place and give ground to the darkness but am myself enlightened with the light that lightens the soul of every man that cometh into the world, that darkness shall be banished from the world and the hearts of men forever. It will go because it has no right here. We've come to the time where there is, I believe, no more time to run, for where will we run too? We have to stand. There is no longer any place to hide because the truth is going to come out. There is tremendous pressure in the world today for people to bring out what they are and who they are. You can't hide away. It's becoming more and more of a pattern. This difference between the right and the wrong. It's being exposed and I believe that that's the hand and the handiwork of God. There is only one thing that is logical in my mind and that is that we must go God's way. In Joel 3 and 14, the Bible says, "Multitudes in the Valley of decision for the day of the Lord is near in the Valley of decision."
Choices
You and I are making decisions that affect eternity every moment of the day of our lives, and the world is deciding about light and darkness right now. The dividing lines are made clearly drawn as mankind decides where they stand. Only God's light can banish the darkness and dry it out of the hearts of men from Jesus Christ, the Light of the world. This, I believe is God's greatest gift to mankind and He has placed it in the hands of those willing to use it and to walk in the light of it. The apostle Paul advises you and me in 2 Corinthians 6 and 1 - 2, "we then, as workers together with Him, beseech you also, that you receive not the grace of God in vain, for He said, I have heard Thee in the time accepted and in the day of salvation have I suckered thee. Behold now is the accepted time. Behold now is the day of salvation."
And Micah 6 and 8 says this, "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God, He hath showed thee." God doesn't leave us in the dark about our priorities. Your priorities are in your hands, you make the decisions. God influences and God speaks, but you make the decisions. You decide where you will stand, and you can't hide it any longer. We are not heading for perfection as men through evolution, from what we are to what we must be. That's not happening. The only perfection that there is beloved, is through the blood of Jesus Christ into the Kingdom that He is about to establish. That's it. That's where perfection lies. We're either moving to the Kingdom or we're not. We are either in line or we are not. Our lives are that which God wants to preserve in His Kingdom and His Kingdom is holiness unto the Lord and the lives that God wants to preserve, are the ones that are in line with that concept. Nothing else. The standards of the world will be left out forever. They will not come into His Kingdom. They've got no right there. God is a holy God. Our God is a consuming fire. He doesn't allow, so He burns it up. He destroys it.
Take a look at the life of Jesus. Watch what He was. He came into the world so that God may know what the standard is, so that we may know what God is like. Jesus declared God unto the world. It's that Jesus that's coming back. Nothing has changed. Just as He was, so will He be? What He was against, He's still against, what He is for, or was for, He still is for. It's exactly the same. Nothing has changed. If we want to walk with Him, we must change, not Him. We must. We must come blind with the standards that He's given us in this Book, and He says, “in that day, I will not judge you, the Word that I've given you will judge you.” You've got it in your pocket. You've got it on the shelf. It's speaking whether you read it or not, it's speaking about you. It's handling your situation. It's telling the world and that's how God is going to do it.
So, this morning, I'm sorry that I haven't really preached a Christmas service to you. Normally I preach Christmas services and I enjoy doing so, but this morning I haven't preached you one like that. I preached God's gift to you. That's God's gift. The real gift of God.
Heavenly father, we come to You in the lovely name of Jesus and we worship You and we magnify Your lovely name. We exalt You because You're our God beside whom there is none other. And Lord, we worship You and adore You and we give You glory and majesty and praise, and Lord, bless our fellowship in the years to come, I pray, bless this group of people, meet their needs, oh God. And glorify Your name in every life, we love them in the Lord. And heavenly Father I ask that You would just work your work in them, because those are precious in Christ's name. Amen.
The Community Church is a Pentecostal Church that believes the Gospel is the most important message for this and any other generation. I was therefore surprised to read a poster put up by the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the day of the Christian Church is numbered. I do not believe that there is any power that can annul what Christ alone could do and that this message of redemption must be declared to the ends of the earth. To this end, we are producing these tapes for distribution free of charge. If this one has been a blessing to you please assist us by passing it on. We thank you for your cooperation. God bless you. If you have listened to this tape and it has made an impact upon your life and you realize your need may I pray for you that Jesus Christ may enter your life and bring about the changes that are necessary. In Jesus' name, I pray that God will move by His Spirit upon your life, that your whole future shall be colored by the fact that Jesus is alive and that He's alive and triumphant in your life. May God bless you and use you for His glory, for we need every mouth, and we need every effort to bring the message across to those that stand in desperate need. God bless you. Amen.
Foundation for Living Community Church meets at the South African Vroue Federasie hall, Jack Hendon Street, Pretoria North. It is pastored by Neil Dreyer, an Apostle of God, who can be contacted on 012 808 1650. Meetings are every Sunday at 09h30 in the morning at the SAVF hall. Should you be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, banking account details are as follows. Account name: NJ Dreyer, Bank: First National Bank, Branch: Silverton, Account Number: 51030119874, Branch Code: 25084500. You are free to copy these tapes without restriction and to distribute them as widely as you feel led. Please remember only that each of us is called to account on the Day of Judgment for what we do with the Word of God. Should you require additional copies of this tape, please contact me, James Robertson on Johannesburg, that’s 011 791 2327 or cell phone 083 251 0644 or fax 011 791 5004 or email jamesr@infodoor.co.za and we will make arrangements to get copies of this tape to you. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen.
01_14 The Wrath of God for the Church
James Robertson
The Lord has given me what certainly is the most difficult message I've ever given and it's quite possibly the most difficult message that you've ever heard, but it's for the beginning of the year 2001. So, before we start, I just want to ask you to join with me in prayer. Father, we come to You in the name of Jesus. Lord, I bring this word before You. I ask for Your anointing and Your action on everything that is uttered. I ask that everything that is according to Your will and according to Your Word will find deep roots in the hearts of those who hear this message, but that if I utter anything that is not according to Your perfect will and Your perfect word, that You will blow it away in Jesus' name. Father, I ask that You will send Your mighty Angels to encamp all who hear this message, to bind and silence any spirit that would seek to interfere with the receiving of this message. I ask You to cover all here with the blood of Jesus from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet. I ask You to cover anybody who is related to them with the blood of Jesus. And Father, I ask that You will make the way, that You will speak to us through Your Word today, and that You will guide us and prepare us for that which is to come, in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.
Just to give you a little bit of context to this message. As you know, I shared with you a few weeks ago that the Lord had given me this project. I just brought it to show you that's the project. It's 96 teaching facts, including that proof that I handed out here from this congregation, plus the set I did a year ago on judgment in this life, plus 55 tapes on healing marriage and how to experience heaven in marriage, plus another 15 tapes from another ministry on deliverance, which the Lord led me to put all together on Thursday last week. It’s entitled, "Gods plan for healing marriage in the seventh millennium." However, you look at it, we are now into the seventh millennium, seven thousand years from the Creation of Adam and Eve. Whether it started - some people reckon it started on the Tabernacle's 1996, other people reckoned it happened on other dates, but the latest that I've heard anybody say it's going to start, is tomorrow. And there's no scriptural reason why it should be tomorrow because tomorrow is not significant in God calendars as a day that God has appointed. It's not Tabernacles, it's not Passover, and it's not any of the feasts in Scripture.
But however, we look at it, we are now into the tenth millennium, and so those things which are prophesied for the seventh millennium are coming to pass, and I'm here to tell you that God has been extending grace and extending grace, and grace is no more, in terms of the sin that has to be dealt with. Now we've heard the messages that have been building up that Neil has been preaching, and I'm going to recap a couple of points out of that, and then I'm going to take you further. I'm going to take you through the headlines of what God has shown me, why wrath is going to be poured out on the Church right now, and thereafter on the world, and what we need to do as believers, to respond to the judgment that is now upon the earth, in order that we may overcome to the end. Because if we do not know why the judgment is coming and the tribulation and how to respond to it, we will be inadequately equipped. And the reason this message is so significant, and I was impressed that this thing had to be finished yesterday, we couriered a pack, it's also on the CD, that (inaudible 00:03:39) digital CD's and that was couriered off with about 10 CD's and a set of tapes to the United States yesterday. Another set to Malawi, another CD to Singapore and God-willing in the next few days, another pack to London.
Judgement and tribulation
What's significant is that the lead into that whole message, is what has been preached here over the last three months. And the sense that I have, and I say this in all humility, is that there are not many people around the world who are listening attentively to what the Spirit of God is saying in the season, because of the Words that the Spirit is bringing now is very, very firm. Many people would say they're harsh. Many people would say God can't speak that way, but we've seen repeatedly in the words that have been brought over the last few months that God is calling us to holiness and sanctification. So, the title of my message given by the Spirit of God is, "The Wrath of God for the Church - why judgement is coming on the Church today." And I want to start off very briefly by talking a little bit about how judgment comes and what tribulation is. I then want to go on to the heart of the message. I've printed out all the Scriptures that apply to the message. Therefore, I'm not going to read them all in detail. You can take them away with you and God-willing, next Sunday I'll have copies of the tape for you.
So, let me just take it from there. 1 Peter 4, 17 and 18, "the time has come for judgment to begin at the House of God. And if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the Gospel of God." Now if the righteous one is scarcely saved, where will the ungodly and the sinner appear? Now, just focus on two points there. Judgment begins at the House of God. It doesn't end with the House of God. God cannot judge the ungodly and the unrighteous and those who have never accepted Jesus Christ, until He has judged those who believe. Those of us who accept that this is the Holy Spirit inspired Word of God, must be subject to harsher judgment than those who have never believed it. So, God has to judge the Church before He can judge the world. Before Satan can be cast into The Pit, God must sanctify His Church. He must sort out the wheat and the chaff, the goats and the sheep, the wheat and the (inaudible 00:05:53) That is where we're at now, the sifting and the refining. We've been praying for years now, Lord, send Your fire and the fire is upon us.
Yahweh
Just before I go any further, I've mentioned the name Yahweh, and you've probably heard me use it before and I just want to read what's in this document in front of you. The word, Yahweh, I'm going to use it throughout the rest of this teaching as far as I remember, to reflect the fact that the correct translation of the Hebrew word generally translated, ‘the Lord’, and you read it in your Bibles in little capitals, and in many others is in fact the word Yahweh. Yahweh is the proper name for our God, and it appears 6,828 times in the Old Testament. (inaudible 00:06:36) says, Lord, the divine name Yahweh. W-H-Y-H is the correct Hebrew rendition. It appears only in the Bible. It's precise meaning is much debated. God chose it as His personal name by which He related specifically to His chosen or covenant people. In other words, by way of analogy, I've got here, my name is James, but my designation is husband, and for Ingrid to constantly call me husband, rather than James is very impersonal, and I guess most men would get pretty upset with their wives, and wives vice versa if their husband always said wife, rather than Anne or Jane or whatever the case may be.
So, we don't get into the full relationship with the Lord God Almighty with Yahweh God, if we only refer to Him as the Lord. A bit of a sting in the tail there, is that the word, 'the Lord', is the correct English translation of the word 'Baal'. It's a bit of the sting. Okay. (inaudible 00:07:37) interference with what goes on in this world, has got us to use the correct English translation of the Hebrew word, Baal, to reflect the Lord God. Yahweh is His name. It is untranslatable. He is Yahweh in every language, in all times and in all seasons. Just as a matter of interest, the correct translation, or the correct word for Jesus, bearing in mind for those of you who don't know it, the New Testament was not written in Greek, it was written in Aramaic. It was then translated into Greek, the Aramaic scripts still exist in the far east, but must people have been led to believe that it's Greek. Jesus is the Greek rendition of Yahooshua and is a derivative of Yahweh. So, we see the relationship between the Lord God, Yahweh and His Son Yahooshua.
So, I just wanted to make that point because the season is coming where God will no longer wink at our ignorance. We need to start to know His name if we want to come into that place where the Lord God and Yahooshua are so real to me that nothing else is more real. We can't come into that place unless we can speak to Him with His personal name that He has given us. So, if you turn over, continuing with understanding judgment, Revelations 12, verses 9 to 11, "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, who deceives the whole world. He was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Then I heard a loud voice saying in Heaven, now salvation and strength and the Kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ has come for the accuser of our brethren who accused them before our God, night and day has been crossed out. And they overcame him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony."
The roarin lion
The broad context of that is this is where we're heading. We're heading to the day when Satan is going to be finally cast into The Pit and locked away for 1000 years. And I think that's in Revelations chapter 19, but I want you to see two things about that verse in Scripture. That is written present tense. It's not something that happened previously. It's something that's going to happen in a couple of years’ time as I best understand it. Now he is before the throne of God, night and day accusing, or if you want to put it into terms as we understand, prosecuting the brethren. So, I want you to get that, because I want to paint a picture of a courtroom, because we're talking about judgment and we need to understand how judgement works. Take a look at 1 Peter 5, 8 and 9, "Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour, resist steadfast in the faith, knowing that the same sufferings are experienced by your brother living in the world."
Now we hear a lot about Satan is like a roaring lion. He's not really a roaring lion, he is more dangerous than a roaring lion, let me tell you, but the key verse, the keyword in that Scripture for today is whom he may, it's permissive. He can't touch the hair on your head without it be the Fathers will. We read in Matthew, not one (inaudible 00:10:58) falls to the ground but apart from Jesus speaking, apart from the Father's will. Satan cannot steal from you. He cannot do anything in your life. He cannot cause you to become ill. He cannot cause you to become poor. He cannot cause you to do anything, save the Father permits it. We don't necessarily want to get our teeth into it, but we need to get our teeth into it, what is ahead. 1 John 2, 1 to 7, "My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin, and if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins and not for ours only, but also for the whole world. Now by this we know that we know Him if we keep His Commandments. He who says I know Him and does not keep His Commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps His Word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. Brethren, by this we know that we're in Him. He who says he abides in Him or to himself or walks just as He walks. Brethren, I write no new Commandment unto you, but an old Commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old Commandment is the word which you have heard from the beginning."
And there are a couple of points in that passage that I want you to see. First of all, Jesus is the advocate. So now we're painting a picture of judgment and I have a prosecutor which is Satan, and I have an advocate. What does an advocate do in a courtroom? He pleads the defendant's case. He pleads his client’s case. In a criminal case, the prosecutor acts for the state in bringing the accusations and the appealing’s of judgement against the offender, and the advocate pleads either to prove the innocence with mitigation of sentence. So, we have Jesus, the advocate, who brings the Cross and brings the sacrifices of Calvary and the blood of the Cross in mitigation of sentence. However, we read elsewhere in Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10 that we cannot rely on that if we sin.
The other thing we see is that we know we love God if we keep His Commandments, and also that the word that John was bringing there is an old Commandment, the word that we've heard from the beginning. It's the Word we've heard since the beginning of Genesis, not just the Word that we've heard since the beginning of Matthew. And that's very important because the message that I'm going to bring you, or I'm in the process of bringing you, is that the Church today is breaking every one of the ten Commandments, willfully and knowledgeably because they have had their eyes closed to the Word of God, and that is at the heart of the judgment that is now upon this earth. So, we now see, and I want you to have a picture of the judgement order of the throne when you turn over with me to the next page. And I want to give you a couple of cameos out of Scripture to help you to understand what happens before the judgment seat.
The judgement seat of God
What's happening right now as we speak before the judgment seat of God, 1 Kings 22, 19 to 23, this is the situation just before Ahab was killed in battle. And Micaiah, the prophet said, "Therefore, hear the Word of Yahweh, I saw Yahweh sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by on his right hand and on his left. And Yahweh said, who will persuade Ahab to go up that he may fall at Ramothgilead? So, one has taken this manner, and one has taken that manner, and the Spirit came forward, and stood before Yahweh and said, I will persuade him. Yahweh said to him, in what way? So, he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And Yahweh said, you shall persuade him, and also prevail also. Go out and do so. Therefore look, Yahweh has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these prophets of yours, and Yahweh has declared disaster against you."
Ahab and Jezebel
Now that is happening in fulfilment of an earlier prophecy in terms of which it was said, that Jezebel, the dogs would lick the blood of Ahab and they would eat Jezebel and there would be nothing left of her. And following on from that we see God bringing judgement on Ahab and Jezebel through an intervention where He opens a door to certain of Satan’s demons, to actually intervene in the life of Ahab and Jezebel because of their continuous work of sin. If you read the whole of Ahab and Jezebel's story behind that, you will see that Elijah calls down fire from Heaven to devour and sacrifice 450 prophets of Baal who were slain. Jezebel then sought to destroy Elijah. Ahab in the meantime, in between all of this, repented in sackcloth and ashes. God repented of His prophecy to destroy Ahab, and Ahab went back into his willful ways. We see the whole life of Jezebel and Ahab. And Jezebel is a type and a shadow of the Jezebel spirit, which is very dominant in the western world. It's been dominant in the Church that has come out of Rome, and it is very dominant and very assertive, particularly in the modern Charismatic Churches. And Jezebel, is, if you like, a shadow and a type wife of Satan.
And you see that also to a point in Revelations where Jezebel is referred to as a harlot. So, we need to look at that in the context of what's happening in this age. If we go into the (inaudible 00:16:30) in Job chapter 1, verses 6 to 12, "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Yahweh, and Satan also came among them." Now the Sons of God is a poor translation. I think it refers to the Spirit Creations and that includes all the Angels and Angelic beings and the Demons, etc. "And Yahweh said to Satan, from where do you come? So, Satan answered Yahweh and said, from going to and fro in the earth, and from walking back and forth on it."
Now I’ll just take you back to 1 Peter 5, 8 where we read that Satan runs around like a roaring lion, and so we said he goes back to and fro on the earth. “And then Yahweh said to Satan, have you considered my servant Job? There is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil. So, Satan answered Yahweh and said, does Job fear God for nothing. Have you not made a hedge around him, and around his household and around all that he has on every side? You have blessed the work of his hands, and his position has increased in the land. Now, stretch out your hand and touch all that he has, and he will surely curse you to your face. So, Yahweh said to Satan, behold, all that he has is in your power; do not lay a hand on this person. So, Satan went out in the presence of Yahweh."
Job and his wife
Now I’ll draw your attention. This ties back to the first message that's on that series of tapes that Neil preached about Job. And it's important that you see, because this passage of teachings is from that teaching at the beginning, I think it was October, through to this teaching today and represents a passage that God has given us. It's a package that he wants to give to the Church as a whole. So, we see there the judgment seat again. We see Satan involved in a discussion with God before anything can happen to Job. Satan then goes out and he takes everything, Job's children, his possessions, his cattle, his sheep, his camels, the whole shooting match. Jos is left destitute. And then in Job chapter 2, verses 1 to 9, again, there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Yahweh and Satan came also among them to present himself before Yahweh in verse 7. "So, Satan went out in the presence of Yahweh and struck Job with painful boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, and he took him a potsherd to scrape himself with while he sat in the midst of the ashes. And his wife said to him, do you still hold fast your integrity? Curse God and die."
What we see there is before Satan could touch Job physically, he had to go back before the throne of God. Then what I also want you to see, and this is really important in terms of the teaching for the prevalent in the Church today, is that Job's wife was unscathed throughout this whole process. She was under her husband's covering and notwithstanding the fact that she got really close to being a bit blasphemous at that point, she was under his covering. She did not get touched personally throughout the entire episode. Women need to understand that if they submit to their husbands, if they are in complete submission to their husbands in everything, Ephesians 5, I think it's 23 says, and they are told in 1 Peter, 3, 1, “submit like Christ submitted to those who crucified Him, in absolutely everything.” A woman who is in complete submission to her husband will not be touched by the devil, unless she gets out from under her husband's covering, or if the sin in her life is at such a magnitude that God actually has to discipline her husband to a point where he then has to discipline the wife.
And we need to understand that because the power of marriage lies in that hierarchy of accountability, a woman who is in complete submission to her husband in everything, will be completely sheltered, and she can intercede for her husband and lift him up and do all sorts of things. This is part of the revelation of what God's been giving us on these tapes that I've been recording. Why was Satan permitted to attack Job? We must understand Satan has also been learning. Job is supposedly the oldest book in the Bible. It's the oldest account. So, what we're actually reading about there is before Satan knew a whole lot of the stuff that I'm talking about today, Satan was still learning. He didn't know what his boundaries were. He thought he couldn't touch Job until the Father said to him, have you considered my servant Job? He is in your hand. Why was he in Satan's hand? Job 3, 25 is part of the answer. "For the thing I greatly feared has come upon me and what I dreaded has happened to me."
If we read in the first 2 chapters of Job, we read that Job was offering sacrifices in case his children had sinned. So out of fear, reactive, preventative, lack of faith, fear, which is Satan the devil, Job was saying because he wasn't coming to God, and Satan was saying, I know I've sinned, please forgive me. He was saying, maybe my sons have sinned, and I'm scared that they might have, and here he said he actually greatly feared that he would lose everything. So that gave Satan a legal right to attack him. Job 29, 18 to 22 very specifically, but the whole of Job 29, which Neil picked up in his message says - this is Job speaking, verse 18, "then I said, I shall die in my nest and I shall multiply my days as the sand." Job had forgotten at that point before the judgment came on him, that he was actually completely dependent on God. He was exalting himself and he was foretelling in his opinion where he would stand, so fear and pride, two of the biggest things that will open the door to Satan to kill and destroy. If we just turn over.
Commandments
What is the basis of judgment? The whole of Pretoria is judgement, but if you read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, there's a whole lot of Historical account. And the crux of the matter is there are some limited passages in those five books which actually set out the Torah of the fundamentals of God's law. And those are the 10 Commandments, plus certain passages in Leviticus 18 and 20 which deal with sexual sin and things like that. Certain other passages deal with uncleanness, which are a shadow and type of what we have today and a whole lot of sacrifices. We have to understand that Jesus came as the spotless Lamb in fulfillment of the animal sacrifices which are set out particularly in Leviticus, but we need to get to the basis on which Satan can come before the throne of judgment. And it's important to understand that the critical components of Torah all appear twice.
So, you get the 10 Commandments in Exodus chapter 20, and you get them almost verbatim again in Deuteronomy, chapter 5. You get the laws concerning sexual sin in Leviticus 18, and you get them almost verbatim again in Leviticus chapter 20. Some of them are repeated, I think it's in Deuteronomy 31 or 32. So here's the first occurrence, and this is Exodus 20 verses 1 to 23, the account of what was on those tablets of stone that God gave to Moses. But I'm not going to read those. I'm going to flip straight over to the next sheet, which is Deuteronomy chapter 5. And I want to read that to you because I want to lift out some key points there. This one, this is now Moses recapping what happens on the night. "Moses called all of Israel and said to them, hear O Israel, the statutes and judgments. So here we find the judgements again which I speak of today, that you may learn them, and be careful to observe them. Yahweh our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. Yahweh did not make the covenant with our fathers, but with us, those who are here today, all of us who are alive. Yahweh talked with you face to face on the mountain from the midst of the fire. I stood between Yahweh and you at that time to declare to you the word of Yahweh, for you were afraid because of the fire and you did not go up the mountain."
Now the first thing is this is the only time in the whole of Scripture, barring a couple of incidents in Jesus' life, where the Father spoke from a cloud. This is the only instance in which Yahweh got to appear to a mass of people in a flame of fire. So, this is a pretty significant passage of Scripture and we need to recognize that what is said here is profoundly important in the sight of God. Now I did insert here, two passages from Matthew chapter 22 and here, verse 37. "You shall love Yahweh, your God with all Your heart, all your soul, with all your mind. This is the first and greatest Commandment." And the way I see it, the first four of the ten Commandments are summed up in, "You shall love Yahweh, your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind." So, if I carry on, "I'm Yahweh, your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the House of bondage, you shall have no other gods before me."
The first Commandment, "you shall not make for yourself any carved image." The second Commandment. I'm not going to read all the bits in between, you can follow that yourself. "You shall not take the name of your God in vain." The third Commandment, "observe the Sabbath Day to keep it holy." The fourth Commandment. And he goes into a lot of detail about the Sabbath Day. "Six days, you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of Yahweh your God, on it you shall not do any work." I just want to bring out another of these little pieces that we need to know to understand what's going on in the age today. Sunday is the first day of the week. It always has been the first day of the week. Saturday is the seventh day of the week. Saturday always has been and always will be God's Sabbath. Sunday is the day of the Son. It is the day of the worship of the Son. It was introduced into the Christian Church in about 315AD by the council of Trent, in order to distance the Christian gentile Church from its Jewish heritage and a whole lot of other heresies were introduced between 300 and 600AD by the Roman Church through the Pope. This was even before the Pope, when the so-called emperor of the Roman Empire and also the head of the Church in a titular and in fact in a legislative capacity.
And I believe, and I'm in contact with more and more people who are observing the true Sabbath as Saturday for Sabbath observant Christian. These are greater and (inaudible 00:27:17) where the Spirit is saying, keep the Sabbath. It's not a legalistic thing, but it's a case that the Lord is saying, if you truly love Me, honor My day, and that's another area where the Church is, in many areas, not in line with what God is saying. And then I want to go on and introduce Matthew 29 verse 39, "you shall love your neighbor as yourself." And the remaining 6 of the 10 Commandments all deal with our relationships with our neighbors. And that came through very strongly in the place of worship just now. "Love Your neighbor as Jesus has loved you." The fifth Commandment, "honor your father and your mother." Six, "you shall not murder." Seven, "you shall not commit adultery." Eight, "you shall not steal." Nine, "you shall not be a false witness against your neighbor." And ten, "you shall not covet your neighbor's wife and you shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, his manservant, his maid servant, his ox, his donkey or anything that is your neighbors.”
These words “(inaudible 00:28:15) in the mountain from the midst of the fire, the cloud and the thick darkness, with a loud voice, and he added no more. And he wrote them on two tablets of stone and gave them to me.” I'll ask you two things about that passage. First thing he said, this is Moses speaking. He added no more. Secondly, he wrote them on tablets of stone. Stone is unchanging. Stone speaks of things which don't change. So, the ten Commandments have never ever been modified or changed. They remain just as profoundly important today as they were when Moses received them from God on the tablets of stone, as God saw fit to come down on Mount Horeb and speak them to the people of Israel. And it goes on, verse 29, this is Yahweh speaking, "oh that they had such a heart in them, they would fear me and always keep all my Commandments, that it might be well with them and their children forever."
Obeying God’s Commandments
There's no limit on those ten Commandments. But what is important to understand is that if we observe those ten Commandments, it will go well with us and our children forever. And what I want you to see in the context of what I've shared earlier about the judgement seat, is in so far as it's not going well with us, it's because we are breaking to a greater or less extent one or more of those commodities. Therefore, Satan is able to obtain judgment against us. So, if we are ill, if we have lack, if there's anything wrong in our lives, we need to see it in this context, because if we were fully honoring in the vein of keeping the 10 Commandments, there could be no judgment and it would go well. And it's important that you understand. I wrote this about a year ago. It's called, "Poverty in the Church of Jesus Christ." This has some contributory factors towards holiness, sanctification and circumcision of the heart. And that's a digest of things that God has been showing me over the last six or seven years. But the important thing about it is God has given us judgement in order to enable us to come to a place of holiness and sanctification. So, if something goes wrong in your life…
I'm an engineer and I kind of got into this by accident, because when I came back to the Lord in 1993, after being terribly backslidden and on the point of physical and spiritual death, and well on my way to hell, I realized since then that my life hasn't been my own. I should have been in hell seven years ago, and He reached down and pulled me out of it. As an engineer, I really threw myself into the Word, and things kept going wrong and I kept saying Lord, why. And he kept giving me answers and a lot of the answers were in conflict with what the Church was telling me. I was going for counseling. I was trying to save my marriage, which didn't happen. Eventually I had to say goodbye, in a sense, but the woman that I've loved for 25 years turned her back on Jesus and went to hell. I have to tell you, that is a shocking experience. To see somebody that you've loved for 25 years lose their salvation.
Salvation
So, don't tell me people can't lose their salvation. I've seen people lose their salvation and it's a horrible experience. But in that process, I was asking God. I kept getting answers and that's the digest of what's in that document, but there's not time to go through all of that today. I want to take you then to Matthew 5, verses 17 to 20. This is Jesus speaking. "Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfil, until earth and Heaven pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law." This is speaking about (inaudible 00:32:03) five or seven Hebrew words translated law in the English. There is the Torah, which is the written Word of God, which is the five books of Moses. Then there's the Psalms and the Proverbs, which are all part of the law. There's the prophets, which I assume would include the New Testament, and then there's the oral. As I understand it, Jesus is speaking about the Torah. He's not speaking about the oral law, and so forth, He is speaking about these 10 Commandments, and certain other passages of the books of Moses.
"Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these Commandments and teaches men so, shall be called least in the Kingdom of Heaven. But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the Kingdom of Heaven. For I say to you that unless righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of Heaven." (inaudible 00:32:57) get to the point of sharing with you just a few other headlines where we are breaking these laws today in ignorance, because that's what we've been taught, and our fathers were taught before us. Matthew 7, verses 12 to 15 different. "Therefore, whatever you want Me to do to you, do also to them for this is the law and the prophets, enter by the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. And there are many who go in by it, because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life and there are few who find it."
We need to really be aware that Jesus himself says that few would find life and the 10 Commandments are the key to life. Matthew 22 verses 36 to 40, "Teacher what is the greatest Commandment in the Lord? Jesus said to him, you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, all your soul with all your mind. This is the first and great Commandment and the second is, you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two hang all the law and the prophets." And finally, Luke 24, verses 42 to 45 we see that Jesus speaks of himself as fulfilling the Law of Moses and the prophets. So, Jesus in a very real sense is the law. If you turn over to me...I want to pose the question to you. Where are we now? And I want to read to you Isaiah chapter 4, verses 6 to 2 in reverse order, and it will become evident to you in a minute why I read it in reverse order. it's all speaking about the same period of time. It's a progression.
"There will be a tabernacle for shade in the daytime from the heat for a place of refuge and for a shelter from storm and rain." Preceding that, so that's the end result. This is now the new Jerusalem returns. Verse 5, preceding that, "then Yahweh will create above every dwelling place in Mount Zion, and upon her assemblies a cloud and smoke by day, and the shining of the flaming fire by night, for over all the glory, there will be a covering. Verse 4, "when the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and purged the blood of Jerusalem from her midst, by the spirit of judgement and by the spirit of burning."
Spiritual death
And I say to you today, before the throne of God, by the Spirit of God that we are now coming into that time. The spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning has come upon the earth, and we will see this more and more. I had an instance recently when I was ministering telephonically to somebody. He'd been having a lot of problems. He had a vision in which the Lord Jesus appeared to him. There was a lump, and he showed him his marital bed, and there was a lump under the sheets, and the Lord said, “take away the cover”, and under the cover was a rotting carcass of a woman. The Lord said that it’s your wife. She was spiritually dead. She'd lost her salvation, she had blasphemed the Holy Spirit and she had got into rebellion against the Word of God. The Lord said to me today the day is a hand, where people will wake up and find that their husband or their wife has died and is spiritually dead. They will be joined to somebody who no longer has the hope of life, because of what is coming.
And I made this point a couple of weeks ago, and I'm now profoundly convinced of it. The Word of God says, "lean not on your own understanding, look not to the things that are seen, but look to the things that are unseen." 6000 years ago, we dealt with things that were seen. In Moses' day, everything was seen, everything was an animal, and uncleanness was an animal. It was given to us as a shadow of the types, so that as mankind grew to maturity in this age, we would have the metaphors with which to see in the spiritual realm. I profoundly submit to you today that the great tribulation and the judgment that is at hand is spiritual. If we run around looking for physical marks of beasts, or if we run around looking for physical manifestations of judgment, we will be missing it. It will like that man that I spoke to on the phone the other day. If we look with the eyes of our spirit, we will see rotting, stinking, spiritual corpses all around the world.
Revelations says, "A third of mankind is slain here and a third is slain there." Spiritual death is come upon the world and it is about to come upon the world far more severely than we can comprehend the impossible. I was talking to somebody just a few weeks ago, commenting at the dinner here. I was chatting to Norman, and we were talking about a few of these things and he said the Bosman family have been in the ministry for three generations. And Norman was saying, in the entire period, they've seen more tribulation, more loss, more illness in the body of Christ in the last two years than in all the previous years. And we're in that period, and we are going to see much more in the days ahead. We are coming into a situation, and I was chatting to somebody else. He's been serving the Lord for 30/40/50 years. He said we've seen more really prominent people who have moved strongly with God throughout their lives, backslide into extravagant sin in the last couple of years, than he's ever seen. We are in the process where people who are complacent, or people who think they stand, are going to fall, because that’s the age we're in.
If we look behind us and see the slackness which God has tolerated in the Church before and we extrapolate that into the future, we will go horribly, horribly, horribly wrong. Verse 3, "And it shall come to pass that he who is left in Zion and remains in Jerusalem will be called holy, everyone who's recorded among the living in Jerusalem." Verse 2, and remember, I'm working backwards, but this is all dealing with essentially the same period of time. "In that day, the branch of Yahweh shall be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and appealing for those of Israel who have escaped." Now, Israel, which we know is the shadow and the type of the Church many people claim, and I believe this to be the case, but Zion and Jerusalem speak of the true spiritual Church, and Babylon in Revelations speaks of the Carnal Church, the Church that is, if you like, in bed with the world. There are other interpretations, and remember that the Jews say, what I believe is a very profound statement, they refer to the 17 facets of the Torah's (inaudible 00:39:44)
In other words, there is not a passage of Scripture which God cannot reveal to you 70 different ways, depending on what He's speaking to you about. So, we take superficial interpretation of Scripture, but I believe one of the dimensions of Zion and Jerusalem is those who will overcome to the end, those who will be part of the bride of Christ, those who will dwell in the new Jerusalem, those who would be sheep and not goats, those who will be wheat, and not (inaudible 00:40:17) and those who will be wise virgins and not foolish virgins. The Bible is full of injunctions that the vast majority of the men who have ever walked this Earth will spend eternity, not in Heaven, but in hell. And this is speaking about that remnant who will overcome.
Hell breaking loose
My time is running out. I just want to go very briefly through the headlines and God-willing maybe on another occasion, we can go into some more of these in a bit more detail. Let’s just run through the 10 commandments. You shall have no other gods before me. I was going to share things that are on my heart, most of which are going to rock your socks, rattle your cages and shake your paradigm, but that's the message that God has told me to give you today. These are things, and I'm not going to say anything today lightly, I'm not going to say anything that God has not been dealing with me about in most instances for years, at the very least for months. I'm finishing today my eighth 3-day fast in 3 and a half/4 months, and something, I can’t tell you what, but I can just tell you that I have an immense awareness that something is about to break. My sense is very strong that judgment should have started in real grand measure at the Feast of Tabernacles this year. But because the Church is so ignorant of God's times and God's peace, He's given us until the end of 2000, the 1st of January 2001 because that is a day that even mankind in their ignorance knows it to be the beginning of the new millennium.
Even if you want to get into an argument. It was 2000 the last year of the 6th millennium or the first year of the 7th millennium. I truly believe something of immense magnitude is about to break on the Earth, maybe even tonight, but it's not going to be visible. What the Lord showed me, what the spirit of Yahweh showed me as I was reading in Matthew, Mark, and Luke over the last few weeks, the number of times Jesus said, go and tell no man. Have you ever thought about that? Jesus healed the lepers and the blind man. He said, don't tell anybody I healed you. He never publicized, and it’s like that today. Out there in the world, God is not telling anybody. He's only telling those who have ears to listen and eyes to see. But I really believe that if you were to stand on the right hand of God at midnight tonight, and look around the earth, by the Spirit of God, I'm telling you, all hell is going to break loose. You're going to see spiritual carnage of a magnitude, that right now we can't believe is possible. Those of us who survive the next couple of years are going to look back and say, my God, how did I survive, how did I get through? And we're going to see people that we knew, that we loved who have fallen by the wayside, and lost their salvation. I want to say that to you with great sincerity.
You shall have no other gods before me, let's just work through this. Now, I'm taking this purely from the point of view, why is the Church today breaking the 10 Commandments and why is judgment coming on the Church? And I'm just going to give you headlines. I could talk for a day on each one of these points probably. You shall have no other gods before me. Most Christians today have their pastor, or their denomination as a god before Yahweh. How many people, when you tell them you're a Christian, the first thing they ask you is, where do you fellowship? And if you don't give them the right answer, they kind of write you off. So, if you're a 7th day Adventist, or a Mormon or a Jehovah's witness or whatever (and I'm picking those deliberately) and you happen to be a true believer, I have to say to you, in the last 3 years, God has rattled my cage on this thing like you can’t believe, because there are true believers in every one of those groupings. Whether they're the predominant or whether they're a minority, it doesn't matter, there are people there who would have personal relationships have God. But because we put a label on them, and we don't look to see if they have a relationship with Jesus...
A divine appointment
I received a sincere rebuke from the Lord about five years ago. He arranged a divine appointment with a Muslim woman who started telling me about the love of her god. And I thought, my God, she's talking to me about my God. Now I'm not talking about the Muslims who are into serious idol worship and all the rest, I'm talking about a specific woman who has a deep personal relationship with the same God that I have. She doesn't know His name, and because of what the Christian Church has done over the centuries, she has a great difficulty in believing that Yahooshua, Jesus, could possibly be He who is foretold in the five books of Moses, which the Muslims, I have to tell you, hold in much greater reverence than the average Christian does. People are getting stoned to death by Muslims and (inaudible 00:46:05) in Cape Town for breaking what's in the first five books of the Bible. And then the Christians are going and persecuting them. They're just doing what the Torah tells them to do. It's prominent world leaders - God before God.
Church
I got to a point where somebody asked me, what Church do you belong to? I say, I belong to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, because that's the point. You shall not make for yourself any carved image - maybe a bit of a debatable one in this age - but we've got photographs, we've got videos, and we've got all sorts of things. And the vast majority of people are sucked into one or other form of idolatry. There are very few people that I know of in this age who have not got a burning desire for something, and I'm preaching to myself here, please understand. The Lord has been dealing with me on a number of issues, recently, and one of them is this thing about I can’t get my mind totally focused on Jesus in praise and worship. I do sometimes, but sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I'm thinking about other things. And the Lord has been saying to me, you've been into all sorts of things, you've lusted after all sorts of things, why can’t you think about Jesus with a passion and the desire that you've lusted after things in the world. And I have to say to you, if we can't come to praise and worship and be completely lost in our worship of God, without any other thought intruding, about the catering afterwards or anything, we have to ask ourselves, whether we have, (inaudible 00:48:37) remembering we're talking about spiritual types and shadows of things.
Do not take the name of Yahweh in vain
You shall not take the name of Yahweh, your God in vain. Well, I kind of opened with that. I'm not going to be gentle with this one because it's a really rough one. If you're using the name of the Lord, which is Baal, to speak about God, I think you're not actually honoring that Commandment. And we can go into other things, but I'm just going to give you a heads-up. Observe the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Now, that’s another start, and we can get into a whole debate and I've got into debates with various people about why we're under grace, and we're not under law, and why we can't just keep Sunday instead of Saturday. And there's a passage in Corinthians dealing with new believers in the gentile Church which relaxes the Commandments. So, I'm not saying this from a legalistic point of view, I'm just saying what's on my heart, and that is if we truly want to observe the Sabbath Day to keep it holy, we should. And it goes beyond that.
We have in the Bible a whole lot of holy days, and the thing that struck me this week, I've been engaged in some correspondence with a couple of major ministries on email. They should have responded to me this weekend and they didn't, because the matter was quite pressing, because everybody's closed, and they've all gone away. But now the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of Passover and the other holy days in God's calendar, everybody is working. I'm just presenting to you from a perspective of, we celebrate the day of the birth of the Son of God, which is the 25th of December, and we don't celebrate the great day of the Feast of Tabernacles, which by broad consensus of those that understand Scripture, is the day that Jesus was born on. In the process, we lose sight of God's calendar and the things that affect Him. So, those are the things about, you shall love Yahweh your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your our mind. The second, you shall love your father and your mother.
Families
And again, this is something that the Lord really convicted me of a month or two ago. In Bible times, families live together as an extended family. A young child grew up. As a teenager, he was involved around the business of the family. When he got to about the age of 20, he would marry. He would bring his bride to live in his father's house. From the age of 20 - 30, he would progressively take over the running of the family business, or the family farm, or whatever it was. At about the age of 30, his father would now be about 50 to 60 years old and could retire from the day to day running of the family business, leaving his son to run the family business, while the father became the elderly, and concerned himself of the affairs of the community, with the state and with judging. And he would also be a mentor and a guide to his son as his son grew. The grandparents would help with raising of the children. The men would marry a girl in the world that are virgins. In Deuteronomy 22, it refers specifically to girl of 12 and a half years old. Mary was by most accounts somewhere between 12 and a half and 14 years old when she gave birth to Jesus. That girl would come into her father in laws house, still immature, and she would be schooled by her husband's mother in the ways of being a housewife, and in ways of raising the children. The children would be raised by the parents and the grandparents collectively.
Honor your father and mother
But the thing about that, in the context of the fifth Commandment, honor your father and your mother, is we take our elderly and we shut them off, and I’m guilty of this. I actually don't know how to fix this particular one because my mother is in a frail care environment where she now needs constant nursing, and I don't have the infrastructure to substitute for that. But we ship our elderly off to die out of hands, if you want to put it crudely. We don't honor our mother and our father by pushing them off there, and it goes (inaudible 00:52:43) rebellion. I think we see that with teenagers. The vast majority of children don't know other than how to be rebellious and to answer back. They're encouraged to answer back and give snappy replies. There's a whole bunch of Scriptures which say that if you curse your mother and your father, your lamp will be put out.
You shall not murder
Six, you shall not murder. Abortions are right in the world today, and a full portion of the Church is condoning it. We are not applying the Word of God with regards to murder. God said to Noah long before Moses, "If man sheds the blood of man by the hand of man, shall his life be taken." Yet we let them live and they carry on and they murder and rape. Nowhere ever, has God done away with the death penalty. In fact, Paul himself before the judge seat, I think it's in (inaudible 00:53:43) says, "If I have done anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die." So, Jesus didn't do away with the death penalty for capital sins.
You shall not steal
You shall not steal. I don't even think we need to go into that one. Stealing is absolutely wrong. Stealing is taking anything that doesn't belong to you, just picking up something on the side of the road that somebody has dropped, if you don't seek to restore it to the person that's lost it, to the more overt things, through to the way many Churches take up the offering. There's nothing in the Bible, and please I'm not getting into anybody here. The way Neil takes up the offering is very circumspect compared to most Churches, which leave you a bunch of Scriptures and basically beat you until you feel absolutely guilty to put into the offering. The only thing you'll find in Scripture with regards to an offering is a box next to the door with a hole drilled in it. Anything else, reading the Scripture and getting somebody to come up and in innocence, beat the congregation over the head, if you're not telling them all the truth and they're all in lack and what have you, because you're not preaching the truth to them, I think you could call that stealing.
You shall not bear false witness
You shall not bare false witness against your neighbor. That comes down to this whole thing of words. It comes down to lying, it comes down to white lies, it comes down to jokes, and it comes down to a whole bunch of things. How many people can honestly say that in the last twelve months, they have not said something which was untrue, and which is somebody's (inaudible 00:55:29) I'm guilty. I keep finding myself cracking little jokes and then I realize, gee whiz, if I really have revelation of what words mean, I wouldn’t want that to happen.
You shall not covet
And then ten, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. You shall not desire your neighbor's house, his field, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox or donkey or anything that's your neighbors. It’s very difficult in this age because just about everything that’s advertised or everything that's in advertised, is about instilling a culture of covetousness and are used today in particular, and are driven by this thing of the bigger, the better and the glossier, and what have you… But I have to say to you again, a large portion of the Church is also driven by the bigger and a better meeting place, assembly, (inaudible 00:56:25) pastor and whatever the case may be. As I say, there’s some of these that I could go on to in a lot more detail.
I just want to bring one last sting in the tail and then I'm done. I deliberately left out the first verse of Isaiah 4, but it has immense bearing, for what I said earlier about people dying. I'm just going to read a couple of translations of Isaiah 4, 1, New King James. "In that day, seven women", and I want you to recognize I read you the other 6 verses of Isaiah 4, first. We 're talking about this age. "That day, seven women shall take hold of one man, saying we will eat our own food and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by your name to take away our reproach." The NIV. "In that day seven women will take hold of one man and say, we will eat our own food and provide our own clothes, only let us be called by your name, take away our disgrace." King James, "In that day, seven women shall take hold of one man, saying we will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel, only let us be called by thy name to take away our reproach." And the living Bible, which normally I wouldn't use, because it's really got an enormous amount of inaccuracy, but I just felt impressed this morning to look at it. "At that time so few men will be left alive, but seven women will fight over each of them and say, let us all marry you, we will finish our own food and clothing, only let us be called by your name, so that we won't be mocked as old maids."
The sanctification of marriage
And what I'm saying to you, and this is a particular caution to the men, on two fronts. Isaiah 4, 1 tells us that there will be seven times the number of women as men in Zion, Jerusalem that (inaudible 00:58:20)believes at the end of the age. Men are very much more likely to fall away in what is about to happen and what is already happening, than women.(inaudible 00:58:31) the final question is visions report that there are far more women engaged in the battle than there are men. There are reports that there are far more women in Heaven on thrones than there are men. Men, for the most part, are so caught up in the carnality of the world, the competition, the lust and so forth. As we read there, seven times more women will qualify to be part of Zion than men. We need be aware of that. The congress of that, is that women are going to have a hard time finding the throne. What you see as a consequence of that, leads into a whole discussion about how we don’t understand the full holiness and sanctification of marriage.
We're talking about Jesus returning for a spotless bride, and that’s why this set of types the Lord led me to prepare is so paramount, because it deals with preparing the bride. And what we are talking about now is the beginning, maybe not quite the beginning, but an intensification of the preparation. Yahweh, God the Father is not going to permit his Son to return to marry the Church in its present form. It has to be sanctified, and we need to understand that until marriage in this age is sanctified, the Church will not be sanctified. Yahweh showed me in the Passover this year in a series of messages, Deuteronomy 22 is absolutely explicit, the act of marriage in the Bible is sexual intercourse with a virgin. Anything else, except with a widow is adultery unless that woman has clearly and explicitly been committed to be divorced by God, and generally that can only happen if her husband was going to hell without a return ticket. In other words, he was beyond redemption. Everything else is adultery.
Divorce
Somewhere between 60 and 70% of all marriages in the body of Christ today, will end in divorce and in remarriage. And I say to you, by the Spirit of God, the vast majority of those people are living in adultery. We know recently of an instance, a man who married a divorced woman, he was an elder in the Church, apparently a lovely man of God. He was dead within 6 months and the Word of God was that he was involved in adultery. I ministered to somebody else, a year or two ago who had lost everything, gone bankrupt in six months after marrying a divorced woman. Those are people who are really causing (inaudible 01:00:57) so they've been in the forefront of judgment in that area, but I need to say to you, it is coming like a flood on the Earth, the judgment for adultery. God said to me in March, April, just before Passover, every man and every women who's sexually joined themselves to somebody, who's not living with them today as husband or wife, and who in turn, has gone and sexually joined themselves to somebody who's not living with them, as husband and wife, is spiritually… Because in Genesis 2, 24 it says, "for this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife, and the two shall become one spiritual bond."
And I say that to you from profound personal experience. I had to break the One Flesh Bond that nearly destroyed me six years ago. Every man and woman in that state, is spiritually one with every Satanist, every witch, every warlock, and every wizard on this planet. So, Satan has a spiritual hotline into the heart and the body of Christ of every person who's living in adultery or has been in adultery and (inaudible 01:02:02) which is the vast majority of the Church today. And so, God is calling us to a level of holiness and sanctification, which in our current understanding of the practices of the Word of God, we can't really comprehend, but I say to you that we're going to have to comprehend that in the days ahead. I have no doubt that those who will lay aside every (inaudible 01:02:35) and seek holiness and sanctification to do right in the sight of God, no matter what the cost, will overcome and endure to the end, but those who stick their little tongue in the river of God and continue to play footsie-footsie, hold hands with the devil, and hold on to those things which are in the defiance with the Word of God, hold on to the traditions of the elders.
We don't, for the most part, understand how far the Church consciously and deliberately departed from the ordinances of Torah between 300 and 600 AD, when they were deliberately distancing themselves from the Jewish heritage. We need to return to our roots. We need to return to the vine that we have grafted into. If we do not, we will be burned with fire. That's the end of my message.
The Community Church is a Pentecostal Church that believes the Gospel is the most important message for this and any other generation. I was therefore surprised to read a poster put up by the Mail and Guardian newspaper that the day of the Christian Church is numbered. I do not believe that there is any power that can annul what Christ alone could do and that this message of redemption must be declared to the ends of the earth. To this end, we are producing these tapes for distribution free of charge. If this one has been a blessing to you please assist us by passing it on. We thank you for your cooperation. God bless you. If you have listened to this tape and it has made an impact upon your life and you realize your need may I pray for you that Jesus Christ may enter your life and bring about the changes that are necessary. In Jesus' name, I pray that God will move by His Spirit upon your life, that your whole future shall be colored by the fact that Jesus is alive and that He's alive and triumphant in your life. May God bless you and use you for His glory, for we need every mouth, and we need every effort to bring the message across to those that stand in desperate need. God bless you. Amen.
Foundation for Living Community Church meets at the South African Vroue Federasie hall, Jack Hendon Street, Pretoria North. It is pastored by Neil Dreyer, an Apostle of God, who can be contacted on 012 808 1650. Meetings are every Sunday at 09h30 in the morning at the SAVF hall. Should you be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, banking account details are as follows. Account name: NJ Dreyer, Bank: First National Bank, Branch: Silverton, Account Number: 51030119874, Branch Code: 25084500. You are free to copy these tapes without restriction and to distribute them as widely as you feel led. Please remember only that each of us is called to account on the Day of Judgment for what we do with the Word of God. Should you require additional copies of this tape, please contact me, James Robertson on Johannesburg, that’s 011 791 2327 or cell phone 083 251 0644 or fax 011 791 5004 or email jamesr@infodoor.co.za and we will make arrangements to get copies of this tape to you. May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Lord of Lords and King of kings. Amen.
01_16a The Wrath of God for Adultery – Part 1
James Robertson
Morning everyone. Neil asked me to continue with what I was preaching on last week, so that's what I'm going to do. In a moment, I'll hand out, as I did last week, a set of Scriptures, because it's rather a lengthy message that the Lord has given me again today. But again, as with the message last week, it's not something that can be broken into pieces. I have to say to you that today's message is even more challenging than last week's message, and it’s going to challenge every one of us. It’s going to challenge me in bringing it, and it's going to challenge you in hearing because this is really getting to the heart of some of the issues that are facing the Church in this time of tribulation. So, before I bring any more, can I just ask you to bow with me and lets bring just bring this word before the Lord. Father, we come to You in the name of Yahooshua. We bring this word before You now. Father, I just pray that You open every one of the hearts to receive all that is in this message that is of You. Father, that should there be anything that is not according to Your perfect will and Your perfect Word, that You will just blow it away. Thank You Father, that Your Angels encamp around to protect us, thank You that no word informed against us shall prosper. Thank You that You cover every person listening to this message with the blood of Jesus from the top of their heads to the soles of their feet, and that You cover the entire environment where we are with the blood of Jesus, that no agent of Satan can in any way, interfere with that which You would have us hear from Your Word today. In Jesus' name. Amen.
Adultery
Before I forget, there's one copy of the transcription of last week's message at the back there for those of you who want and there are tapes as well. I only realized when I was doing the transcription last week, that I'd left out completely in the recap, the 7th Commandment, “Thou shall not commit adultery”. And I realized, as I was preparing this message, that that was by the Spirit of God that He wanted to deal with that particular subject separately today. So, my message today and a continuation of last week's message for those of you who weren't here, which was entitled "The wrath of God for the Church, why judgement is coming on the Church today," which was a message essentially which God said to us that the Church is currently in this age, breaking every one of the 10 Commandments willfully, and to a point knowingly, and that judgment would come on the Church for that reason. The message today is the judgment for adultery.
In presenting this message, I will present you with some background to understand how God actually defines adultery in the spiritual sense. I would ask you not to page ahead as last week because if you do, you will kind of get ahead of what I’m saying and that may make things more difficult. Before I go into that, one aspect is perhaps evidence, or perhaps not in the context of the message that I brought last week. I presented one dimension, and you remember I referred to the multiple dimensions of Torah and of Scripture. I've presented one dimension of how Satan operates. Clearly, I wasn't dealing with all these dimensions and there's a very obvious other dimension, and that is the way in which, through demonic interferences, Satan tries to trap us into lies, he traps us into false doctrine and so on and so forth. But my objective last week was not really to deal with that. Satan, in that whole situation is playing a dual role. On the one hand, he's fermenting unrest in the Church, if you like, with lies and what have you. And on the other hand, that you saw last week, he's coming before the throne of judgement and saying, ah ha, look, I caught them out, I want judgement against them.
Judgement
So, it's a very complex subject and not one that we can deal with as quickly as that. And just as an aside, I mentioned the book last week "Poverty in the Church of Jesus Christ", which is a whole sort of diagnostic catalogue of things which, in my experience, have led to loss in the lives of believers, I will put it at the back of the list. If anybody would like a copy, just fill your name in and I'll bring a copy for you next week. Ok, let's get back to the judgement for adultery, and I need to make one other point here. Judgement in this life is mercy from God. Many people, in my experience in the Church today, don't want to talk about judgment, and if you start talking to them about judgment, they kind of get offended and they think you’re trying to be ugly to them. But we need to understand judgment in this day. Judgment in this life is grace and mercy from God. We can either have judgment now in this life and pay the price for our sin now, or we can live the life of comfort and not face judgment in this life. In this, we will be judged at the end of our lives when we come before the judgment seat of Christ, and we will pay a much dearer price in terms of the part in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone or whatever the case may be. And possibly in the extreme lose our salvation.
So, this process that we talked about last week is not something that is as unpleasant as it may be to be judged in this life. It is mercy and it is grace, if we receive it as such and we see that it provides us with a means to change the way we conduct our lives in this life. If we don’t, if we become offended when God judges us, we just keep sin upon sin. 2 Corinthians 5, 9 to 11, "Therefore, we make it our aim whether present or absent to be well pleasing to Him, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body according to what he has done whether good or bad, knowing therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men that we are well known to God and I also trust a well-known in your consciousness.” And one of the things that has struck me in the last couple of years, because the Lord has been dealing with me on a subject of judgment now for about 4/5 years. We went through a whole court case 3 years ago where we experienced a trial. We were defending, or in fact we were the plaintiffs in a civil court action for breach of contract against us. And so, we got a very firsthand experience of what the judgment process is about and that made this whole thing a lot more alive to us.
What I find is that the majority of Christians don't know this terror of the Lord. They don't have a fear of the judgement seat of Christ. That is one of the pivotal factors behind what I was teaching on last week. The reason there is so much error in what the Church practices and preaches today is simply because the majority of Christians have not got a revelation that the day will come where they will stand on the own before the judgment seat of Christ, and a decision will be taken with regards to their future destiny. Most people do not have a revelation that they can lose their salvation. Most do not have a revelation that they can have a part in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone. I'll touch on that again later, but I need to make the point. Revelations 21, 8 refers to the part in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone. So, it is possible to go to hell for Eternity, but as I understand that it is also possible to spend a period of time in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone, which is the cleansing and it is paying the price of sin that is not dealt with in this life.
So, the judgment seat of Christ is an awful place, a place full of awe. We should be reverently fearful of the judgment seat of Christ, because we must all stand before that judgment seat one day and we must all give account to every word that we have spoken, every deed that we have done, and whether we've done what God called us to do. And I've been, as I mentioned to you previously, over the last few months, the Lord has been dealing with me very severely since October this year, around a variety of these issues in terms of things that I was leaving undone. And part of what I was leaving undone relates to what’s in this message. So, I bring this message to you with a revelation of the awesomeness of the judgment seat of Christ and how awful the call of this message is today.
So, in the last message, we went through the whole judgment process and we went through headlines of how each of the 10 Commandments has been broken through greater or lesser extent by some or a large portion of the Church today. And I'm not going to go through that because I'm acutely aware of the time constraints. We went to Exodus 20, Deuteronomy 5 and we looked at all of that. And as I say, I only noticed when I was transcribing, and it only really hit me when I was preparing this message that somehow, I completely missed the 7th Commandment, you shall not commit adultery.
Adultery is destroying lives
I don't want to say to you today, and this is the subject that I've been praying into for years, so I don't take any of the statements I'm going to make today, lightly. Adultery is probably destroying more lives in and outside the body of Christ, than any other single sin today. There are probably more souls in hell today as a consequence of sexual sin than anything else. There are probably more believers in the body of Christ who are going to have an awful shock on the day of judgment as a consequences of adultery, than and in other area. And it's important to understand, Jesus' ministry began with a miracle at a wedding and it ends with a miracle of the marriage supper of the lamb. So, God has been restoring over the last 500 years since Luther and the reformation, the truth of the faith, and the last truth that He's restoring as I mentioned briefly with those tapes that I showed you last week, is the truth about marriage. Because until the Church has been cleansed in that area, the bridegroom cannot return to a spotless bride.
And we see in 2 Peter 3, 14, one of the number of verses which speaks of this, "therefore beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace without spot and blameless.” The Church cannot be without spot while two thirds of all marriages in the Christian faith are ending in divorce and remarriage. The majority of them are ending in divorce for reasons which are not scriptural. (inaudible 00:11:36)the other people who divorced, who God permitted to be divorced, but generally after a very testing period. There are others who just wake up one day and say, I don't like your face anymore, and they get divorced and they think it's acceptable, and it’s not. I'll show you why, as I go through.
So, let's look at what is the judgement for adultery, and it's summed up very succinctly in 1 Corinthians 6 verses 9 and 10, "Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomizers, nor thieves, nor coveters, nor drunkards, nor violence, nor extortioners will inherit the Kingdom of God." And that's pretty crystal clear. We need to be clear what these things are that we need to see. I just want to give you a few examples, and the Lord has been taking us on a journey over a number of years to be able to give this message today.
I think I mentioned this last week, I heard recently, the case of an elder in the congregation, very well loved and well respected, he married a divorced woman who was dead within six months. The Word of God was that he was an adulterer. We ministered personally to a man about three years ago who went bankrupt within six months of marrying a divorced woman. On a less dramatic note, we minister quite regularly to people who are in permanent financial lack, simply because their house is divided, because the wife is not an agreement with the husband, there's strife in the home and I'll show you more later how that allows the devil to kill, steal and destroy in a marital situation.
By contrast, we administered in another situation where a woman had come to salvation about 5, 6 years ago, and had been living in the sight of God in adultery for 20 years. And basically, she experienced no discomfort until God took her out of the marriage and then in a period of 8 hours of prophetic ministry, revealed that she had been seduced. She'd lost her virginity under hypnosis and she had absolutely no recollection of it, but in the sight of God, she was married to the man who took her virginity under hypnosis. Now, that is really shocking stuff in the sense of the understanding of a lot of these subjects.
Proverbs 7 verses 1, 5 and 27, "My son, keep My words and treasure My commands within you, that they may keep you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who splatters with her words." And then Proverbs 7 goes on with a whole account of this adulteress wife who seduces this young man. Verse 27, "Her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death." So, we should be under no illusion, the judgment for adultery is very severe indeed. It's not something to trifle with and it is not something that we should be wishy washy in our understanding of what Scripture says. Therefore, forgive me for being very robust in terms of what I'm going to share with you today, but it’s time that the Church comes out of the closet and owns what adultery is and starts dealing with adultery, because those people who do not hear the truth in this life, are going to pay a terrible price as we've just heard.
Pornea
Matthew 99 in the new King James, Jesus speaking, "And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife except for sexual immorality and marries another, commits adultery and whoever marries her, who is divorced, commits adultery." As I said, over 60 - 70% of all marriages in the body of Christ are ending in divorce, and the vast majority of them are covered by that verse of Scripture. Matthew 19, 9, this is now the King James, which lifts this out a little bit more clearly, "And I say unto you, whoever shall put away his wife except it be for fornication," the Greek word is 'pornea, "and shall marry another, committeth adultery. And who so ever marrieth her which is put away, doth commit adultery." So, fornication and adultery are all derivatives of the same concept, but let's take it a little bit further. (inaudible 00:15:49) defines the word, pornea, as illicit sexual intercourse and metaphorically, the worship of idols. And the more detailed explanations is there in the text I’ve given you.
What you've seen through our Scripture is the act of sexual immorality and the act of spiritual immorality are almost interchangeably used, the same words are used. God speaks of the adultery of Israel and He speaks of adultery in marriage. And it comes back to this principle. Everything in our relationship with God is the shadow and a type of the relationship between husband and wife, and vice versa. So, it's important to understand that Jesus, when He spoke of pornea, He was speaking not only of straight forward obvious sexual immorality, He was also speaking of spiritual immorality.
I was divorced on the basis of persistent spiritual sins over 25 years, and when the Lord told me to get divorced, I didn't even understand what I'm sharing with you now. I just knew that God told me to get divorced, and it was only subsequently, that I came to understand why I had to get out when He told me to get out, because I was on the brink of being destroyed spiritually myself. So, pornea is something which is devastatingly terrible. It’s not something where you wake up one morning and you look at the person in the bed next to you and say, I don't like your face, I think God's just told me to get divorced. Revelations 21, 8 "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the Lake which burns with Fire and Brimstone,” which is the second death. “And I just want to digress there a moment. It’s something that most Christians don’t see, a little bit about all liars. So, the next time you tell a joke which involves an untruth, just remember the number of minutes you might spend in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone as a result of that. We will be judged for every idle word that we speak.
Putting away and divorce
So, we need to understand that anything that is a lie, anything you’re potentially lying about, if we don't repent of it… I've been through a serious cleansing processes just as I shared briefly last week, but the sexually immoral, Revelation 21, 8 in the King James version refers to whoremungers, the Greek word is 'pornos', which is a variation of pornea, and it speaks of the same thing. Its sexual or spiritual adultery. Malachi 2 verses 13 to 16, which most of you are probably familiar with, to go to a lesser extent, but I want to read it from the King James because the King James makes a very important distinction. Sorry, I missed that in Matthew 19, 9 at the top of the page. In the King James, it refers to putting away, not divorce, and I'll come back to that now.
"And this you have done again, covering the alter of the Lord, Yahweh, with tears, with weeping and with crying out so much that he regarded not the offering anymore, will receive it with good will at your hand. If you say, wherefore, because Yahweh have been witnessed between he and the wife of thy youth has been (inaudible 00:19:04) treacherously, yet he shewed thy companion and the wife of thy Covenant and did not He make one, yet had He the residue of the Spirit and wherefor one, that He might seek a godly seed, therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth, for Yahweh the God of Israel sayeth that He hateth putting away for one covereth violence with his garment, said Yahweh of hope. Therefore, take heed to your spirit that you deal not treacherously."
Now, there is an enormous difference between putting away and divorce. In virtually every modern translation of the Bible, it uses the word divorce, instead of putting away. The vast majority of what we call divorce today, is putting away. Jesus, in Matthew 19 was addressing specifically the moral climate that we have in the world today. Prostitution was right, fornication in Pagan Rome and Pagan Greece was absolutely right. All these abominable practices that we condone and accept in the world today were right in Jesus' day as well. Caligula was the emperor of the Rome just after Jesus' death and some of you may have seen him, if you've ever been overseas, and seen the adverts for the movie 'Caligula' which had the most vile practices in. And those practices are prevalent today particularly in the spiritual sense.
Spiritual death
So, what God is saying here is he hates putting away. He accepts that a marital partner will reach a place of pornea, which is irredeemable, that they will lose their salvation and go to hell, and under those circumstances, he will permit divorce. Putting away is just throwing yourself out of the house for no reason. It’s very simple. And pornea, adultery, putting away, they're all the same thing, it’s a spiritual thing, and I hope in the next few minutes to make that alive to you. Adultery is a spiritual state. It's not just a physical act, it is an irreversible spiritual state. Well, not totally irreversible. It can be reversed with the correct repentance and the correct prayers. But see also that pornea, adultery is treachery. See the number of times the word 'treachery is used there. A digression, but it’s an important digression because it is fundamental for understanding what the Word of God says, with regards to the issue of divorce, adultery etcetera.
There is a condition of irreversible spiritual death for a born-again believer, and there are two passages here, Hebrews 6, 4 to 8 which says, "It is impossible for those who were once enlightened and close to the heavenly gift and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit." Verse 6, "If they fall away to renew them again to repentance since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God and put Him into an open chain." Hebrews 10, 24 to 31 and I'll just pick up again a couple of verses, "For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sin but a certain fearful expectation of judgement and theory indignation, which will devour the adversaries." And certainly, in my experience… I cried out to the Lord in '95 about the level of divorce and He started to open the words for me around these areas. I've seen the extent to which people in the body of Christ don't want to confront the truth that we're talking about today. They don’t have a fearful revelation of those passages in Hebrews 6 and 10.
I had this situation, where shortly after I'd moved out and started the divorce proceedings against my ex-wife, I was praying for her, and the Lord said to me, Hebrew 6 applies, (inaudible 00:23:05) And that is a terrible experience, but it's very real. We need to understand, that is the basis on which God permits divorce. It's a person who has come to salvation and lost their salvation irrevocably. If they were married before either of them came to salvation, then the party who has come to salvation is required by Scripture to the lay down their life until death for the salvation of their other spouse, unless that other spouse reaches a point where they lose salvation or come to a point where either they've lost salvation, or they've committed the unpardonable sin and they can no longer come to salvation. One of the things that people need to understand is if you join yourself to an unbeliever, if you've joined yourself to somebody who's doubtful in the faith, you're committed to them for life except in the most extreme set of circumstances.
The last Scripture, which again many Christians seem to take lightly in this day, Jesus is speaking, "Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven them, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven them. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come." And what I've observed over the years is that the most powerful spiritual force available to mankind on this Earth is a husband and wife who are in absolute perfect unity, harmony and agreement. The Word of God is very clear that whatsoever we agree on Earth, will be granted in Heaven. And because of the husband and wife becoming One Flesh in marriage, if they come into complete harmony, it’s the same prayer coming out of two mouths, and that is one of the most powerful instruments available to God on this Earth. That is why Satan hates marriage so much and one of reasons there is so much deception and so much error around the area of marriage today.
So, again in some of what I'm going to share with you today, you are going to be seriously confronted relative to what you have believed the Word of God says in some of these areas. I ask you, if anything rises up inside you, please take authority over it. I know of one man of God who blasphemed the Holy Spirit in his reaction to some of these truths, and I know several instances where this has happened, because Satan has got such a strong hold in the Church in some of these areas. Let’s look at the specific definition of adultery, one of many in Scripture, Leviticus 18, 20, "Moreover, you shall not lie carnally with your neighbor's wife to defile yourself with her." Deuteronomy 22, 22, "If a man is found lying with a woman married to a husband, then both of them shall die, the man that lay with the woman and the woman. So, you should put away the evil from Israel." Again, it’s very specific. Adultery is a man lying with a woman who's married to another man, having sexual intercourse.
What is a wife
So, lets understand what is a wife, because this is where we start to get serious confusion in the body of Christ today. What is the wife and what is marriage? Let’s look first of all at Deuteronomy 22 verses 28 and 29, "If a man finds a young woman who's a virgin, who is not betrothed and seizes her and lies with her, and are they are found out, then the man who lays with her shall give to the young woman's father 50 shekels of silver and she shall be his wife, because he has humbled her, he shall not be permitted to," this is from the New King James, "put away for all his days." There is no other requirement in Scripture for marriage except that the man takes the woman's virginity, and I'll come back to that in a moment. The taking of vows and everything else are incidental and they're supplementary. The minute a man takes a woman's virginity, that is the act of marriage.
Deuteronomy 22, 13 to 21, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but it makes it very clear indeed. It basically says that if a man comes to marry a woman, and on his wedding night, he discovers that she's not a virgin, then she is a harlot and needs to be put to death. However, if she brings a false accusation, again, we see that he may not divorce her all his days. And there is whole lot of other circumstantial stuff round about the evidence of virginity etcetera. We don't have time to go into there but understand that the basis to the sentence of death on this young woman is simply that she purported to be a virgin and therefore marriageable, and on the night of the wedding, she was found not to be a virgin and she was taken outside, and she was stoned to death on the lack of the evidence of the blood loss of her virginity.
It’s that harsh. So, we need to understand that if a woman is a virgin, she's not married. If she's lost her virginity, she is either married, if she's living with a man that she lost her virginity to, and she's only had one man. If she is a widow, and her first husband has died, she's permitted to remarry, otherwise baring (inaudible 00:28:45).04] which I'll get to into a moment, she's a harlot and she will be subject to the death penalty on the Day of judgment. If she's divorced by the Spirit of God for Scriptural reasons, the Word of God is completely void in terms of what it says, concerning that situation. However, we know from our own experience in ministry that God does permit marriage, remarriage for women who are truly divorced in His sight. But there is no Scriptural guidance as to on what basis. So, we have to turn to the Spirit of God. We have to go to Him, and we have to trust totally on His leading. We have to put out pieces, we have to do whatever we have to do to make absolutely sure if we're planning to marry a woman who's not a virgin, that it's spiritually safe to marry her. So, we can replace the word 'marry' or 'marriage' in the Scriptures with the word 'sexual intercourse with a virgin'. Now, I understand that's a little bit provocative to some people, but that is what the word 'marriage' in Scripture means.
Virginity
A wife is a woman who lives with the man she gave her virginity to. It's as simple as that. Anything other than that is embellishment, it is not at the heart of the situation. So, the consequence of that is there is no such thing as a one-night stand. There can be an accidental marriage, but there is no such thing as a one-night stand. The majority of the Church today will tell you that you got a little bit over excited in the back of the car and she lost her virginity. Well just go and repent and God will bring the right person across your path. Folks, it is not like that. If that’s what happens, you are married. That’s the way it is. And if a woman goes and then joins herself to somebody else, she will find herself classified in the courtroom of God as a harlot, whether she did it naively or whether she did it because her pastor told her it was ok. The people that we ministered about, that i mentioned earlier, the man who died, and the man who went bankrupt, both had been told by the Church that it was safe to marry. And there is another whole discussion there about the judgment that comes with people who give false council like that. If the Church understood the consequences of something like that, there would be a lot less hate speech to express judgment in areas like that.
The next page, the definition of a virgin...I'm not going to go into that in a lot of detail. But there are a couple of points there. The virgin that is referred to is a girl at puberty. The girl comes into the age of spiritual majority in the sight of God at the time of puberty, which is generally somewhere between 12 and a half and 13 or 14 years old today. And it's important to understand that all these passages that speak about marriage, are speaking about girls at that age. Now again, that is a major paradigm to us today. But we need to understand that that's the reality. So, before we judge girls of 15 and 16 who are battling with their sexuality, we need to understand why, because the reality is God never intended them to live the way we require them to live in this age. And I understand that that is immensely controversial, but we need to confront these truths because we set ourselves up as judges and arbitrators over people and make their lives miserable.
The harsh reality, folks, is secular statistics indicate that of the order of a third of all women in the world today have lost their virginity by their fourteenth birthday. And of the order of two thirds of all women in the world today, have had intercourse with at least two men by the time they get married. Those are harsh statistics, those are statistics that are sending billions of souls to hell and we need to confront them. Let’s go and look at what is the marriage Covenant, because I'm sure everybody would agree with me that marriage is a Covenant. So, let's understand what the Word of God says about the marriage Covenant.
Covenant
First of all, Hebrews 9, 18,"Therefore not even the first Covenant was dedicated without blood." The Covenant requires the shedding of blood. " Genesis 15, 14 to 21 is presented there and you are all familiar, I'm sure with the story of the first Covenant that God cuts with Abraham, where he cuts the animals in part and the fiery oven passes through it. I will just read a few verses, verse 6, "And he believed in Yahweh and he accounted him for righteousness." Verse 8, "And he said, Lord God, how shall I know that I will inherit it." Verse 10, "And he brought all these feasts to him and cut them in two down the middle and placed each piece opposite the other." Verse 17, "And it came to pass that the sun went down, and it was dark, but behold there appeared a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces. " Verse 18. "On the same day, the Lord made a Covenant with Abraham."
That is the most explicit description we have anywhere in Scripture with regards to the cutting of the Covenant. Jeremiah 34 verse 18, "And I would give the men who have transgressed my Covenant who have not performed the words of the Covenant which they made before me, when they cut the calf in two and passed between the parts of it" So again we see that a Covenant involves the death of an animal. In the footnotes through Genesis 15; 10, the living Torah, which is a very anointed, modern translation of the five books of Moses that they have subsequently brought out, several volumes of the Living Life. It’s got a series of commentaries by some very anointed Rabbis. It's the most anointed translation of the Old Testament that I've ever read. If you want the Old Testament to come alive, that is the translation to read in my experience. It says here. " Abraham", and that translation relating to Genesis 15,10, says, "Abraham bought all these for him. He split them in half and placed one half opposite the other." And the footnotes to that verse in The Living Torah says, "split them, this is the way of making a Covenant."
Indeed, the words (inaudible 00:35:11) appear to be closely related. It symbolizes that just as the two halves of the animal were really one, so were the two people making the Covenant. Moreover, just as one side cannot live without the other, so the two cannot live without each other. It was also seen as a malediction anyone violating the oath would be torn asunder like the animals. So, we see the principal aspects of Covenants which (inaudible 00:35:38) a Covenant is made by splitting or cutting some living thing and shedding blood. People who make a blood Covenant become one and cannot live without one another and a person who breaks the Covenant is to be put to death. So, we there find the underlying Covenant principle behind the death penalty for adultery. We also find some guidance in terms of better understanding what the marriage Covenant is all about. The Oxford dictionary defines split, 'break forcibly or to be broken into parts especially longitudinally, or with the grain or the plain of cleavage' and out of that we get the crux of understanding the marriage Covenant.
In Genesis 2, 21 to 25, which again, I'm sure you're all familiar with, verse 23 says "This is my bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman because she was taken out of man." Verse 24, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh." So, you see that the verse 24 speaks directly of the act of sexual union, which results in the cutting of Covenant with the shedding of blood. And it's really, really important to understand that. And if you would just bear with me, it's an important point, I don't mean to offend anybody, but the reason Satan uses that symbol the way he does, for lust and love, is because of what is physically represents. So that symbol is used by Satan to create a subliminal effect of men thinking about women’s most holy parts. And it's really important to understand it. Every time you see one of these Valentines cards or one of your kids innocently draws a heart etc., it is getting to the very heart of the marriage Covenant. It is an extremely sexually explicit symbol. And that is why Satan has made us so oblivious to what it signifies. It’s the most terrible abomination and we are completely oblivious to it in the world and in the Church today.
1 Corinthians 12, 23 and 24, "and those members of the body which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor and our own presentable parts have greater modesty, that our presentable parts have no need, but God composed the body having given greater honor to that part which lacks it." So, we see from that that God is saying that the male and female genital are the most holy part of the body, the most honored part of the body and that is why public nudity is such a shame and such an abomination. Those are the most holy organs. They should only be seen within the marriage bed.
Spiritual ties
Let's go and take that a bit further, we've been now to Genesis 2, 24 and let's go to Matthew 19, 5 and 6, and I'm reading from the amplified. And Jesus is again speaking. "For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be united," the amplified verse says, "and joined separately to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. So, they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder and separate." And we kind of hear that and we use it in a legalistic sense, but I've been down a very, very rough road in that area. I came back to serving God. I gave my life and I had an experience with God when I was about 13 in the Anglican Church. I got highly offended with the hypocrisy and what have you in the Church. By the time I was about 17 or 18...and I backslid totally until about 7/8 years ago, so I was 39. I was in adultery, my life was in a mess and I was on the express lane headed to hell, and everything had been opened, the relations were exposed, and it came to an end. I suddenly found that notwithstanding all the will in the world and having to come back to the Lord and truly have a revelation that I was headed to hell, and truly repented of my sins of adultery, I still could not cut off the ties that I had with this woman that I'd committed adultery with.
And the Lord took me through a very dramatic period of cleansing and a period teaching in that. So basically, what the Word of God is in fact telling us here is that when a man has intercourse with a woman, part of the man's spirit joins irreversibly to the spirit of the woman. And the more they make love, the more passionately they're in love, the more passionately and unreservedly they give themselves to one another, the stronger that bond becomes. So, in the sight of God, that man and that woman are no longer two people, and this is the heart of understanding marriage. Their very spirits become fused together. It's no longer John and Jane. It's just John. Two people, but in the spirit sense, and the stronger that gets, eventually if it grows to the full extent possible, the man and a woman are able to communicate with one another, if you like, telepathically across great distances. You can think of something and phone her and say, I was about to say this to you, and she will say, yes that's exactly what I was thinking of saying to you.
They will be able to communicate, and once they get to that point their prayers become immensely powerful. But where you have that in a situation, if it was ungodly, you've got an enormous problem. So, what we have in the world today, you're probably all familiar with that symbol for a male, which is a biological symbol and the symbol for a female. I'm just using them for convenience because I need to do a couple of drawings. In a Godly marriage that's the (inaudible 00:41:53) that you have. If this woman goes and joins herself to a couple of other men, she's joined like that. And then remember, this is an unbreakable spiritual bond. It can be broken but it can only be broken, from my own experience, through a very broken, contrite heart and humble petition before the throne of God, because there is no scriptural basis anywhere for it to be broken. So that is adultery.
Adultery is a spiritual state in which a man is joined to a woman, who is joined to one or more other men. Now, as I said to you last week, the reality is that the Lord showed me at the Passover last year that the vast majority of people in the body of Christ are joined to at least one other person with whom they are not living. And that person is joined to at least one other person with whom they're not living. The result is, you can see the spiders web goes on indefinitely, and now one of these people is joined to the body of Christ and the body of Christ is joined to every Satanist, every witch and every warlock on the planet. In God's sight, that is what the spiritual manifestation of adultery and fornication is. When God looks down on people in this situation, He doesn't just see John and Jane. He sees John joined to Peter and Joe and all the rest of it. And that is why fornication and adultery is such an absolute abomination in the sight of God, because it takes an orderly relationship which is what you've got there, and it turns it into something which is absolutely horrifyingly inappropriate and debilitative.
Incest
If you take it one other (inaudible 00:43:43), and it's important to understand why incest is such a problem. If we just take an example of a woman who has a daughter, and the man, the father, has intercourse with his daughter - and folks this is harsh stuff, but the statistics indicate that 20% of all women on the planet today have lost their virginity to a close relative, either father, stepfather, brother or uncle. 20% of all women on the earth today lose their virginity to incest. And basically, what you get then, there's the bloodline passing through the father, the mother and the daughter and there's the One Flesh Bond (inaudible 00:44:35) which again is an absolute abomination in the sight of God. Once you understand that, you understand why Leviticus 18 and Leviticus 20 speak so harshly about incest. Understand that there is grace in the present age for adultery.
We see in John 8, 3 to 11, a woman caught in the act of adultery, where they caught her in the act but they only brought the woman in, they didn't bring the man, and Jesus wrote on the ground, then again I'm sure you're familiar with that story, but at the end of the day, Jesus said, neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more. And it appalls me the number of people who take that verse and say that if you're living in adultery just (inaudible 00:45:18) and then you find you can carry on with that relationship. (inaudible 00:45:23) doesn't say that at all. It says, go and sin no more. If a man and woman who are married in the sight of the world, are living in adultery in the sight of God, that's it. The Word of God says go and sin no more. Now there are certain things that you can do. There are prayers that you can pray and ask the Lord for guidance and there are some instances where God will sanctify that union, depending on the spiritual state of the man who originally took that woman's virginity, but there are many instances, and I cite again the experience we had because it was a real eye opener to us.
This woman was in her forties. We were ministering to her. I'd actually given her a word by the Spirit of God confirming that God was permitting her to divorce. She had been working for years trying to save her marriage. Her husband was an unbeliever. She'd come to salvation a number of years ago, and she was in a terrible state over this whole divorce. We started ministering to her. She came and had supper with us. She sat in our lounge until 4 o'clock the next morning, and the Lord started to give me words of knowledge and just certain key phrases, and the Holy Spirit started to give her visions. And after eight hours she realized that she had been seduced under hypnosis when she was 16 years old. She'd been taken through a whole marriage ceremony.
01-16b – The Wrath of God for Adultery – Part 2
James Robertson
The message contained on this tape is extremely challenging, and I would urge you to listen no further if you've not listened to the two preceding messages recorded at Foundation for Living Christian Church in Pretoria North on the 31st of December, the years 2000, and the 7th of January, the year 2001. Those tapes are available from this ministry, and they create the necessary context dealing as they do with The Wrath of God for the Church today and why judgment is coming on the Church today and particularly, the wrath of God and the judgment for adultery. If you've not listened to those two messages, you could seriously misunderstand what is being communicated in this message, so I would appeal to you, if you haven't listened to those two messages, or read them in hard copy format, please do so before going further with this tape. If you don't have those tapes or those messages, please contact me. My name is James Robertson, the ministry is A Church Without Walls, a ministry of End Time Issue ministries and can be contacted on the internet by email at james@end-time-issues.org.za. Alternatively, we can be contacted at Johannesburg, South Africa. South African code: 0027 for most countries, local code 011 791 2327, or cell phone 083 251 6644, or fax 791 5004. I urge you please to get hold of those preceding two tapes from me before listening to this tape.
Those of you who have heard the previous two tapes or read the previous two teachings, I ask you to join with me in prayer now. Father, we come to You in the name of Yahooshua, the Messiah and we ask for Your wisdom and Your guidance in the delivery and the receiving of this teaching. In the name of Yahooshua, I bind any spirit that would seek to interfere with the reception of this message. In the name of Yahooshua, I command you to go down and be silent, and I stop your ears and stop your mouth until this message is complete. In the name of Yahooshua, the Messiah. And I ask You Father, in the name of Yahooshua to send your mighty warring Angels to bind and silence any spirit that would hinder the receiving of this message. I ask Father, that You will open the hearts and the ears of the spirits of the hearers, to hear clearly Your Word and Your will in this message, and that You will close their ears and close their hearts to anything that is not of You. I ask, Father that everything that is in this message that is of You, will find deep roots in the hearts of the hearers and that if there be anything which is not according to Your perfect will and Your Word, that You will, by Your Spirit, blow it away and it will find no root in the hearts of the hearers. I ask You to cover the hearers with the blood of Jesus, from the top of the heads to the soles of the feet. I ask You to cover their family members and the entire environment where they are listening to this tape, with the blood of Jesus, in the name of Yahooshua the Messiah. Amen.
Saturday the 13th of January 2001, the previous two weeks, 31st of December and the 7th of January, I preached at Foundation for Living Christian Fellowship in Pretoria. The message on the 31st of December was The Wrath of God for the Church and why judgment is coming on the Church today. In that message, we saw very clearly that tribulation was upon the world and we reviewed the judgment process. Last week, the message was the judgment for adultery and continuation of the previous message. In that message, we went into some depth, as to what God says about marriage and adultery in the Word of God. Those messages were intended as a recap on what was preached at FFL. It was to close off the 3-part set of teachings on the current judgment, bearing in mind that about a year ago, we did produce a set of 10 tapes on judgment in this life. It goes into some detail into all aspects of the subject of judgment. Before I carry on with the teaching today, I would like to recap some of the points out of last week's teaching, as I'm continuing today with the subject of the judgment for adultery. We saw in the last teaching that it's vital that we know the terror of the Lord, because we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. We saw that the seventh Commandment says, "you shall not commit adultery." I made the assertion that that Commandment may be being broken in such a way as to send more souls to Hell and possibly any other of the ten Commandments, bearing in mind that on the 31st of December, I was impressed with the Spirit of Yahweh to say that judgment was coming on the Church, because the Church was materially breaking every one of the ten Commandments.
Recap
Today, we sit with a situation where over two thirds of all marriages in the body of Christ are ending in divorce. Some reports indicate that the level of divorce in the body of Christ is in fact higher than the level of divorce in the world. So, we see that Satan is wreaking great havoc. We saw last week in the teaching on the judgment for adultery, the judgment for adultery has said we will not inherit the Kingdom of God, and that adulterers will have their part in the Lake of Fire and Brimstone, which is the second death. There is some uncertainty as to exactly what that message says. There does appear to be an indication, and it seems to be supported by the visions of Rick Joyner reported in the book, “Final Quest”. But under certain circumstances, a believer may be cast into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone for a season, to pay the penalty of their sin and may then spend the rest of Eternity in Heaven. But on the other hand, we saw very clearly that Proverbs 7, 27 says that adultery is the way to hell.
I cited the example of two specific cases. We've become aware of a man who, having married a woman who was divorced in the sight of the world, but not in the sight of God, died within six months. The Word of God being that he was in adultery, and then the other man who went bankrupt in six months. So, we saw that judgment was already coming from the Church, where they were committing adultery, particularly those who are mature enough and knowledgeable enough. But I say to you today, by the Spirit of God, the judgment for adultery is about to become very harsh and very severe in the body of Christ. We iterate the point that was made on the 31st of December. It is not necessarily that we're going to see large numbers of people physically dead, but we're going to see people in lack. We are going to see people in ill health. We are going to see people falling away and losing their salvation if they do not deal with adultery in their lives.
We looked at the definition of adultery, and we saw that adultery was essentially the act of sexual intercourse with another man's wife. We saw further that adultery is used in certain instances to describe unfaithfulness. And we saw that the word 'fornication' or 'pornea' used by Jesus, or the translation of the word used by Jesus in Matthew 19, 9 refers to a spiritual state which can be likened to treachery. So, we saw that adultery is not just a physical, sexual act of adultery. It can also be pornea, the spiritual fornication, the spiritual unfaithfulness of a wife to her husband, or of a man towards Yahooshua Messiah, Jesus Christ. And we have to understand that that goes into the realms of submission and rebellion as well
We saw that in last week's teaching, that rebellion is the sin of witchcraft, and rebellion is the opposite of submission. A wife who refuses to submit to her husband in everything according to the Scriptures, finds herself moving into an area of witchcraft. By moving into an area of witchcraft, she's moving away from God, and she's moving into pornea. And in the extreme cases we've seen, based on our own case histories that we've shared out of own ministry, that that can lead to people losing their salvation. We also saw that it is definitely possible in Hebrews 6, Hebrews 10, Matthew 12, for a person to lose their salvation on a basis where there is absolutely no redemption, and there's no coming back to God. Their spirit becomes completely dead to God with no hope of salvation because they have crucified again the son of God and put Him into open shame. So, we need to understand that people who persist in adultery in this generation, be it physical sexual adultery, or be it spiritual, pornea, unfaithfulness, treachery, rebellion on the part of the wife, or lack of submission, will find themselves losing their salvation.
We saw on the 31st of December that the Lord was saying that there would be massive spiritual carnage in the next few years given that Revelations is speaking of a spiritual state, not just a physical state, and that billions of people will die in the next few years. A third of the world's population will die spiritually, without hope of redemption. A large proportion of the Church will fall away. There will be a great falling away. It will be spiritual. There may be physical manifestations for those who want to see, but we've seen also, that we have been in great tribulation for some years now and people are misguided. They're looking for physical tribulation. We went on and we discussed what is marriage, what is a wife, and we saw very clearly that marriage was sexual intercourse with a woman who is a virgin.
We saw that there were certain criteria in terms of which a man could marry a widow. We inferred from certain experiential precedent that Yahweh will, under certain circumstances, release a woman who is divorced, to remarry. But we saw very clearly, that the basis for divorce is spiritual death on the part of the husband, for a woman to get divorced from the husband, for a man to divorce his wife. It is persistent pornea leading to a state of finality, an irreversible state of spiritual death. It is not somebody who backslides, it's not somebody who is unsaved and is not coming to salvation, it is a person who has made a commitment, has accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and then backslides to a point into willful sin, into pornea, into rebellion, to a point where they lose their salvation. At that point, it’s very clear that Yahweh, God will permit a woman to divorce her husband, or a husband to divorce his wife. Prior to reaching that state, there is no scriptural basis for such release.
There are indications that, where a woman lost her virginity prior to coming to salvation, under circumstances the Lord will extend grace and release her to remarry. But we saw in some detail, the case of the woman seduced at the age of 16, under hypnosis in her 40's, was told that she was married to that man and she had absolutely no recollection until the Holy Spirit revealed it to her. So, we have no robust basis to say that a woman who has lost her virginity to a man who is still alive, is free to remarry unless the Spirit of God very clearly shows that that is the case. We saw also, that a woman who marries foolishly an unbelieving man is probably required to lay down her life until her death or his death, for his salvation, again unless he comes to a place where he is in absolutely unrepentant sinner with no further prospect of salvation. And that is a very small proportion of situations in the world today. All other women, who in the worlds terms remarry are committing adultery, and men who marry them are committing adultery, and the judgment for adultery will apply.
We saw that the Word of God defined a virgin as being a girl who had just come to puberty, and we saw clearly that the Word of God showed that that was the age that God intended girls to marry at. We saw that about a third of all girls in the world today are reportedly losing their virginity by their 14th birthday, and that consequently, we needed to reassess exactly what it is that we impose on young girls in terms of marriageability, and so forth. We went in some length into understanding that the marriage Covenant. We saw from Hebrews 9, 18, that the Covenant requires the shedding of blood. We saw from Genesis 15, 4 to 21, and from Jeremiah 34, 18, that the cutting of the Covenant involved the shedding of blood and the passing of the parties making the Covenant through the blood of the animal that had been slain. We saw that the Covenant was defined as resulting in a situation in which the parties to the Covenant could not live without one another, and that the malediction or the curse of the Covenant, or the Godly Covenant is death, and therefore, that is why death is mandated in the case of adultery. And even if we don't experience physical death today in the case of adultery, it gives arise to spiritual death.
We saw also that the root words of Covenant and split respectively in the Hebrew Baruth and bothou are closely related. We saw that splits speaks of breaking into parts longitudinally with the grain plain of cleavage, and we tied that to the Genesis 2, 24 in the King James, where we read that a man shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And so, we saw that the Covenant Act of marriage in a Godly union is the act of physical sexual intercourse between a man and a virgin, with the shedding of blood, and that no other verbal or other action is required for a marriage Covenant to come into place. We saw that the word 'marriage' can in fact be replaced in Scripture as sexual intercourse with a virgin. Marriage to a widow is a very special situation and marriage to a divorced woman is only permissible where God has clearly shown that to be allowed. We also saw that there is no explicit guidance in Scripture to determine whether a divorced woman is free to remarry. The implication of that and the (inaudible 00:17:03) sense, is don't marry a divorced woman, but we know from personal experience that there are instances where Yahweh does extend grace, and that under certain circumstances led by the Spirit of God, it is permissible to marry a divorced woman.
We also saw that the Valentine’s Day heart, the symbol of love, is in fact symbolic of a woman's most holy organ, and that it is an abomination that it's used in the way it is, and it contains a whole lot of subliminal erotic messages which are highly undesirable in the body of Christ. We also examined the One Flesh Bond. We saw that that was a very solid, spiritual tie, which ties a man and a woman together. And we saw from that, that a man and woman who's joined to more than one man or vice versa, finds themselves tied into a network which extends to every Satanist, witch and warlock on the planet, which is an abomination in the sight of God. We saw that incest results in the One Flesh Bond short circuiting the blood line and is also an abomination in the sight of God. By the same token, homosexuality results in a One Flesh Bond between men, which is an abomination, which is at the route of adultery, whether a One Flesh Bond passes through one woman, from a man to woman, to another man, if that women has had intercourse with more than one man.
We saw that the Word of God was very clear. Ephesians 5, 22 to 24, "Wives submit to your own husbands as to the Lord in everything." 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 1, "Wives, likewise, be submissive to your own husbands", referring to 1 Peter chapter 2, where Jesus is reported as being submitted in totality to those people who crucified him. When he was reviled, He did not revile in return. When He suffered, He did not threaten. He committed Himself to Him who judges righteously. So, we saw that a wife is required to submit to her husband in everything, irrespective of whether he's righteous or not. We saw that that was a major reason why a Godly Christian woman should not marry an unbeliever, or even an immature believer, who had not reached a level of sanctification and holiness where he could adequately in a Godly fashion, care for his wife, otherwise she could find herself forced into all sorts of things. We saw again, that this does not constitute a basis for divorce. A woman who has married foolishly, must bear the consequence of her mistake for the rest of her life. We saw in 1 Samuel 15, 23 that rebellion, which is the opposite of submission, is as a sin of witchcraft and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry in the context of Samuel speaking, because you've rejected the Word of Yahweh, he's also rejected you from being king.
And we see that a rebellious wife is in fact guilty of the form of witchcraft, a form of rebellion. It can ultimately lead to her losing her salvation. It can lead her to a state of pornea, and it can lead to a situation in which divorce is permitted in the Word of God. We saw that the Word of God is quite clear, that a women's desire, in Genesis 3, 16, shall be for her husband and we saw in Deuteronomy 21, 15 to 17, that the Word of God provides for a wife to be unloved, and that therefore there is no basis for a women to claim that she wants a divorce on the basis that she is unloved, or does not love or have desire any longer for her husband. And we saw that virtually, all the reasons accepted in the world and in the Church today for divorce, are not acceptable before the throne of God. And consequently, the vast majority of people who have divorced in the Church in the current age, are living in adultery, and will be judged accordingly. And this is why it is so vital, that this message is preached to the four corners of the world, that this truth is shared by those who've heard this message.
I must stress that having heard this message, you must understand that Ezekiel 3, and Ezekiel 33 make it very clear that you are responsible for this truth and for imparting this truth to others. We cannot take a truth like this and remain silent about it, otherwise the blood of those who die and go to hell, as a consequence of our silence will be on our hands and we'll face a very harsh judgment. We saw Proverbs 14, 1, saying that "a wise woman builds her house and a foolish pulls it down with her hands." Proverbs 12, 4, "An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, but she who causes shame is like rottenness of his bones." Proverbs 25, 24, "It’s better to dwell in a corner of a house top than a house shared with a contentious woman." The amplified also says fault finding, reinforced in Proverbs 21, 19 and 21, 9. We also looked at the other aspect, 1 Peter 3, 7, "Husbands, likewise dwell with them," that’s their wives, "with understanding, giving honor to the wife as the weaker vessel and as being theirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered." We stress that a house divided against itself will fall.
Luke 11, 17, says that "A wife who gets into contention with her husband is pulling down her husband’s house." She is creating a state which feels like rottenness in his bones, a spiritual state. It doesn't matter how seriously out of line her husband is, a wife does not have the spiritual authority to bring it into life, whether it's by passive or active resistance, whether it's arguing with him, whether it's reviling him, whether it's threatening him, or whether it's controlling him. She does not have that authority. She's required by the Word of God to submit to him in everything. And we read reading in 1 Peter 3, that "if she submits by her humble submission, she may win her husband over." That is the only way a wife who has a husband who's out of line, can actively win her husband over, by complete and total positive proactive submission. We saw also that Yahweh is head of Yahooshua, Yahooshua is the head of the husband, the husband is the head of the wife, and the wife, in a sense, is the head of the children.
We saw that there was a mirror situation there. And we saw that if her husband was out of line, or she thought he was out of line, a wife had the opportunity to go to Yahooshua in prayer and ask him to deal with her husband. By the same token, the husband does not have any scriptural authority to discipline a wayward wife. All he can do is go to Yahooshua and ask Yahooshua and Yahweh to discipline his wife. Under certain circumstances, he can hand his wife over to Satan, that she may learn to submit and be disciplined. We saw also, that if a wife is not in submission to her husband and was conducting herself towards the husband in an unsatisfactory fashion, it was quite possible that her behavior was mirroring the husband behavior towards Yahooshua. We need to understand that one of the major reasons that marriages today are such a mess, is because the majority of men’s relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ is also a mess. By the same token, the relationship between children and their father is a mirror of the relationship between the father and Yahweh God the Father. Therefore, we must infer that the reason that the majority of children's conduct today is so far from what we would desire, is in large measure because the relationship between men and God the Father is in such a mess. There is so much rebellion, there's so much false teaching, and there's so much wrong conduct.
By the same token, we saw that the conduct of the children towards their mother could be a mirror of the mothers' conduct towards her husband. Therefore again, we need to understand that if we got the hierarchy of our relationships right and dealt with the things that were wrong, in the husbands case, in his relationship with God the Father, with Yahooshua Jesus Christ, the Savior, in the wife’s' case with her husband and so forth, that many problems in the world today, would come right. And having understood that, we also need to understand that based on those principals, where a husband is not in full submission to Yahooshua, the Messiah Jesus Christ, or to God the Father, Yahweh, he should not expect his wife to be in full submission to him, or his children to be in full submission to him. If they're not, and he divorces his wife because she is not in submission to him, and he's not in submission to God, then he should not be surprised if he receives a very harsh judgment, and therefore, on the day of judgment, he finds that he's in adultery.
So, we need to understand, God created marriage to work and there is no basis in Scripture for people just to get divorced in the manner that they are doing today. I would now like to, having basically finished my recap of what was taught last weekend and hopefully made it very clear that there's a diversity of behavior within the context of marriage, which is totally and completely unacceptable in the sight of God, and hopefully, sensitized those who hear this message to the fact that there is a harsh judgment, and I do mean a harsh judgment as in wholesale losing its salvation, falling away in great measure, coming upon the Church of Jesus Christ, Yahooshua the Messiah in the days ahead. I'm not talking a years’ time, I'm talking the year 2001, 2002 and 2003. It’s very clear to me by the Spirit of God, that the next 3 years are going to be absolutely critical for those who would seek to find themselves as overcomers on the Day of Judgment. In the teaching on the 31st of December on the Wrath of God for the Church, I touched on in some detail, Isaiah 4. We saw that Isaiah 4 clearly spoke of this age. We saw that Isaiah 4 spoke of the spirit of burning and the spirit of judgment, it spoke of the remnant coming out of the Church. And the next three years are going to see us go through a period of that refining, as the spirit of judgment and the spirit of burning is now upon the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. It will come upon the world in due course.
We see the physical manifestation of this, and the confirmation in the physical realm in terms of the abominations on the temple Mount in Jerusalem, in terms of the war in Israel, which broke out at Yom Kippur last year in fulfillment of prophecy, with the entire world ranked against Israel. We see the prospect of a full-scale war as a possibility there, but whether that happens again in the natural or not spiritually, the entire world has arraigned itself to the United Nations against Israel. And we must see the fulfillment of that prophecy. We must see the spiritual death that will result from that, and we must see the evidence of that in our own lives and the lives around us and we must fear with a holy terror the judgment seat of Christ.
The remnant
We also saw that Isaiah 4,1, at the beginning of those 6 verses of Isaiah 4, gives us a startling principle in terms of what most people who call themselves by the name of Christ believe today. In the King James version, Isaiah 4,1 says, "In that day seven woman shall take hold of one man saying, we will eat our own bread and wear our own apparel and you let us be called by thine name to take away our reproach." We saw that as I said, led by the Spirit of God, I was impressed to look at Isaiah 4,1 in the Living Bible, which is not a translation I normally refer to because it makes it very clear what is being said there. That time is the time we are in today. It is the end of the age. It is speaking of the remnant that comes through the tribulation. It is speaking about those who are refined by the spirit of burning and the spirit of judgement. It is talking about those who are true believers. "At that time so few men will be left alive, that seven women will fight over each of them, and say let us all marry you. We will furnish our own food and clothing and let us be called by your own name, so that we won’t be mocked as old maids."
We saw that based on that we could infer, that there would be seven times as many woman as men in the body of overcomers, in the remnant, in those who would endure to the end, that six out of seven men will die spiritually. This creates enormous challenges today. It means that any woman who is thinking of getting married must be extremely cautious to seek the guidance of the Spirit of God before she marries. It means that any man who calls himself by the name of Christ in this age, must be extremely conscious of the possibility and the high probability that he could lose his salvation before this age is out. Therefore, he should be extremely diligent in seeking to draw near to God in this age and setting aside all the cares of the world that may be distracting him and tearing him away from serving God.
Blaspheming
The key point that comes out of all of this, and it is an absolutely critical point, it is an immensely challenging point, and before I do so, i need to refer you to Matthew 12, verses 31 and 32. "Therefore I say to you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven men. Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come." Blaspheming the Holy Spirit is a very quick way for any human being to lose their salvation. I have witnessed it on several occasions. It is a terrible sight. We must understand the context of Matthew 12. Matthew 12 relates to the situation where the Pharisees were saying that Jesus was casting out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons. In other words, they were retributing what was being done by the anointing of the Holy Spirit to Satan. Jesus warned them, that by attributing the workings of the Holy Spirit to Satan, they were blaspheming the Holy Spirit and they were in danger of losing their salvation forever.
So, I must adjourn you with what I am about to say. Please, I appreciate it is highly controversial, and I appreciate it is extremely difficult in terms of what virtually all of us have been taught in the years to date. Do not respond to what I have to say now by saying that is of Satan. I declare it to you today, that by the Spirit of the Lord, before the throne of God, that what I am about to say to you is of God. It is of Yahweh, the Lord God himself. It is dealing with perhaps the most deeply seated heresy in the body of Christ today. It is a heresy that is so firmly entrenched and virtually nobody in the body of Christ is willing to accept it as heresy. It so entrenched that virtually nobody in the body of Christ is willing to confront it head on. But I say to you today, by the Spirit of God, it is heresy and to declare that what is about to be said is of Satan, may well place you in a position of blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
So, I ask you to listen carefully to what is about to be said, and then to pray and ask God to confirm it. I can supply many, many references, hundreds of Scriptures in order to support what is about to be said. I can supply you with a book of over 300 pages to support what is about to be said. I can supply you with an entire set of teaching tapes, which will support what I am about to say. But I implore you, that if you fear God and you fear His judgement, listen attentively to that which I am about to say. Whether she did it naively, whether she did it because her pastor told her it was ok, the people that I mentioned earlier, the man who died, and the man who went bankrupt, both had been told by the Church that it was safe to marry. There is another discussion there about the judgement that comes to people who give false council like that. If the Church understood the consequences of something like that, they would be a lot less hasty to express judgements in areas like that.
The next page, the definition of the virgin. I am not going to go into that in a lot of detail, but there are a couple of points there. The virgin that is referred to is a girl at puberty. The girl comes into the age of spiritual majority in the sight of God at the time of puberty, which is generally somewhere between the ages of 12 and a half, and 14 years old today. The reality is that God never intended them to live the way we require them to live in this age. I understand that is immensely controversial, but we need to confront these truths. We set ourselves up as judges and arbitrators over people and make their lives miserable. The harsh reality folks is secular statistics indicate that of the order of a third of all woman in the world today have lost their virginity by their 14th birthday. Of the order of two thirds of all woman in the world today have had intercourse with at least 2 men by the time they get married. Those are harsh statistics. Those are statistics which are sending billions of souls to hell. We need to confront them. You will, I imagine, have noticed in the teaching last week in the recap that has preceded this today, a number of apparent anomalies with your current understanding of the Word of God.
The act of marriage
Firstly, we have seen that the act of marriage is the act of sexual intercourse with a virgin. We have seen that there are no other requirements. Accordingly based on that simple principle of Scripture, it is clear that a man who takes the virginity of more than one woman is married to each of those women. Secondly, we have seen that the One Flesh Bond is an unbreakable spiritual bond and we've seen that fornication involves men joining themselves to women who had joined to other men, and so does adultery. A simplistic examination of the diagrams that were drawn last week will reveal that a man who joins himself to several women, who joined themselves to no other man, maintains hierarchical state of order, which is instantly recognizable as the same hierarchy of order in the rest of the Church, and the rest of the world. It is common place, in any other institution in human existence, and in the spirit realm, for one head to have a number of subordinates. It is absolutely scriptural for a man to have several wives and we see that throughout Scripture from Genesis to Revelations.
When I first became aware of this I started crying out to God about the level of divorce. For three months I argued with Him, because the first answer I got was that one of the major reasons for the high level of divorce, and the specific reason for the three instances of hurting and broken women, where their husbands had gone after other women, all three related to this situation. In each case the man had taken a second wife, but because of the false doctrines of the Church, he had discarded his first wife, causing enormous grief and distress. Basically, in that period of time, as I debated and argued with the Spirit of God, with the Holy Spirit, I asked Him to show me where the institution of monogamy had come into place. I read from Genesis to Revelations, and He showed me in virtually every single book of the Bible, that if you read it diligently, you will find confirmation that it has always been Yahweh God's intention that a man should be able to have more than one wife.
We see from the very definition of the marriage Covenant, the shedding of blood from the virgin flesh of the wife, that it's a fact that God created Eve to be capable of having only one husband, and Adam to be capable of having more than one wife. And therefore, so-called, if you like, plural marriage, polygamy, godly marriage, with more than one wife is entirely scriptural and it has been in place since the beginning. I understand that what I have just said to you has probably shocked you to the core. As I said I had enormous difficulty with myself for many months. I would encourage you, that if you are as challenged as I expect you will be by what I have just said, please whatever you do, do not attribute it to Satan. Do not put yourself in the place of blaspheming the Holy Spirit and thereby losing your salvation for Eternity. Go before the throne of God and go to the Word of God. Start reading in Genesis, and read all the way to Revelations, and see that Jesus Christ is married to a body comprising many people.
See that Ephesians 5 clearly makes it apparent, the direct parallel between the body of Christ and the body of man through the One Flesh Bond. See that Jesus, in Matthew, I think it’s 23, saw fit to use a parable where a man was planning to marry ten virgins on the same night, to give us a better understanding of his return. See that throughout Scripture, Yahweh God has appointed this truth. Then I ask you to consider very carefully the significance of seven in Isaiah 4,1. Please understand that seven is not a random number in Scripture. There are seven lamps on the Menorah and there are seven days of the week. On the seventh day, God rested. There are seven Spirits of God before the throne of God in the book of Revelations. Wherever you find seven, God is speaking of fulfillment, completion, and the end. God is speaking of Covenant. He's speaking of holiness when he speaks of seven. He is speaking of sanctification. So, when God speaks in Isaiah 4,1 of seven women to one man in the remnant of survivors, in the body of Chris at the end of the age, He is speaking about the fulfillment of His perfect will for the consummation of this age.
The fact that we don't understand how to live that, is because we have been subject to the heresy of monogamy for nearly 2000 years imposed on the Church by the roman pagan Gentile. Demonic forces through the emperor Justinian in 600 and others, does not alter the fact that God intended, at the end of the age for seven times more women than men to endure and overcome. He also intended every one of those women to have a husband. That is what Isaiah 4,1 shows us. A more detailed study of Scripture will show us that it is God's intention for every woman to be married. It's not God's intention for women to be without the covering of a man. I would like to take you on a slightly different direction now, because it is important before this tape ends, that you have an understanding of what we're talking about here.
David
I take you to 2 Samuel 12, verses 7-9 . This is the situation where David has committed adultery with Bathsheba. Nathan the prophet comes to him. He speaks a parable to him. Then Nathan says to David in verse 7, "You are the man. Thus, says Yahweh God of Israel, I anointed you king over Israel, and I delivered you from the hand of Saul. I gave you your master's house and your master's wives into your keeping and gave you the house of Israel and Judah, and if that had been too little, I would have given you much more. Why have you despised the Commandment of Yahweh to do evil in his sight? You've killed Uriah the Hittite with a sword. You've taken his wife to be your wife and have killed him with a sword of the people of Aman." Understand that at the time that David took Bathsheba as his wife, he had at least conservatively about six or seven, if not twenty wives. And then secondly, understand that Yahweh clearly says he gave David, Saul's wives, plural, not singular. So, Yahweh explicitly participated in David taking additional wives over and above the wives that he had before Saul's death.
Then consider 1 Kings 15 verse 5, "Because David did what was right in the eyes Yahweh and had not turned aside from anything that he commanded him, all the days of his life, except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite.” And so, we see that David, who had taken many wives before his adultery with Bathsheba and murder of Uriah, did what was right in the sight of Yahweh all his days in everything else. And therefore, we have to conclude that the Bible is unambiguously and clearly saying that it is right in the sight of Yahweh for a man to have more than one wife. If we move on a 1000 years to Acts 13, 22 and 23, and this is Peter before the Sanhedrin. "And when he had removed him, he raised up for them David as king, to whom also he gave testimony and said I found David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will. From this man's seed according to the promise God raised up for Israel, a Savior Jesus."
So, a thousand years after David's death, Yahweh says that David was a man after his own heart. Therefore, we must understand if God has said that David is a man after his own heart, and God has said that David has done right throughout his life except in the matter of Uriah the Hittite, then it is Yahweh's heart for a man to have more than one wife, and that Isaiah 4,1 represents the perfect will of God for men in the body of believers in this age. It's not a question, as we saw on the 31st of December of what men want, it is a question of women who are immensely vulnerable to demonic forces and to demonic attack and satanic influence, if they do not have a godly covering, needing a covering. That's what Isaiah 4, 1 says. Isaiah 4 says that there will be women who will be so desperate for a covering that they will be willing to go into this form of marriage. And I would just ask you to consider the number of Scriptures which say that David did right in the sight of God all his life.
1 Kings 11 v 33 "My ways to do what is right in my eyes and keep my statutes and my judgements as did his father David.” 1Kings 11, 38, "Keep My statutes and My Commandments as My servant David did. Then I will be with you and build for you an enduring house as I built for David and will give Israel to you." 1 Kings 14 v 8, "As My servant David who kept My Commandments." 1 Kings 15, 5, "Because David did what was right in the eyes of the Lord and had not turned aside from anything that He commanded him." We have read that before, but it bears repeating. And so, we go. 1 Kings 15, 11 to Kings 14, 3 to Kings 16, 2, to Kings 18, 3 to Kings 22, 2 to Chronicles 28, 1, to Chronicles 29, 2, to Chronicles 34, 2, all of which say along the lines of what was right and in the sight of Yahweh and walked in the ways of his father David, he did not turn aside from the right hand or to the left.
The Word of God
If you're looking for further confirmation, there are literally hundreds of Scriptures. Exodus 21, 10 is completely unambiguous. “If he takes another wife, he shall not diminish her, that's the first wives food, her clothing and her marriage rights,” and that is an absolute necessity in terms Isaiah 4, 1, which relaxes the conditions of Exodus 21, 10, saying that in this age women will be able to provide their own food and clothing. I would imagine that at this moment, you, for the most part are probably surprised and possibly shocked by the message that I've just shared with you, but I have to say what I said to you at the outset. By the Spirit of God, before the throne of God today, I declare to you that this is the Word of God. I declare to you that there can be no compromise on the Word of God. I declare to you that the doctrine of monogamy espoused by most of the Church around the world today is heresy of the worst kind.
It is causing millions of people to fall unwittingly and unknowingly into adultery, a part in the second death and denying them inheritance in the Kingdom of God. I assure you by the Spirit of God that those who are preaching this abominable heresy, face the most awful condemnation and penalties on the day of judgment. The blood of every single adulterer that they have ever counselled or advised, or taught, will be upon their hands. Millions, if not billions of souls in hell for Eternity will be upon the hands of those who will not confront this truth and proclaim it from the rooftops, as Jesus commanded us with respect of all aspects of the Gospel, not just those aspects of the Gospel that are palatable and appeal to itching ears. It is time for the body of Christ to wake up, to accept the truth of what is in the Gospel, the Word of God from Genesis to Revelation, and to lay down heresy in favor of truth. Judgment is upon the world. Judgment is upon the Church and the Word of the Lord today is that He will no longer endure the Church's tolerance of false doctrine and heresy. Judgment is upon the earth and upon the Church right now, and those who will not repent and turn around in the days ahead will be amongst those who will found to have died during this time of great tribulation.
Prayer
"Father I pray that all that has been spoken today, that is according to Your Word and according to Your will, will find deep root in the hearts of the hearers. And should there be anything that is not according to Your Word and Your perfect will, that it will be blown away, and find no root in the name of Yahooshua. May the Lord Bless you and keep you and make His face to shine upon you. In the name of Yahooshua Messiah of Nazareth, King of kings and Lord of Lords and Savior of the world. Amen.
This tape has been recorded by a Church without walls, a ministry of End Time Ministries. PO Box 898, Randpark Ridge, Randburg 2156, Republic of South Africa. We can be contacted by email at: james@end-time-issues.org.za. Our phone numbers, international dialing code, normally 0027, but this may vary from country to country. The 27 is standard. (0027) 11 791 2327 or in South Africa, (011) 791 2327. My mobile number: (0027) 83 2516644, and in South Africa 083 251 6644. Our fax number internationally (0027) 11 791 5004, and locally (011) 791 5004.
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Should you be led by the Lord to sow into this ministry, our bank account is: End Time Issue Ministries, the account number is 0427527805, the branch is the Standard bank of South Africa, Randburg branch, and the branch code is 018005. If, in the listening to these messages you have realized that you do not have a personal saving relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, and that if you were to die right now, you would not spend Eternity in Heaven with Him, I would urge you to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and to pray the prayer of salvation.
Steps to salvation
These steps to salvation are as follows. Firstly, admit and recognize that you are a sinner. Romans 3 verse 23 says, " For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Secondly, accept and believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He came to earth as a man, that He was crucified and died on the Cross, but on the third day He rose again, is now seated at the right hand of the Father and that by His death and resurrection, He took your sins for Eternity. Romans 5, 8 says, "but God demonstrates His own love toward us, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" . Thirdly, confess your sins, repent of your sins and turn around. Repentance means turning around. It means ceasing to do what you now realize is wrong. 1 John 1, 9 says, "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. For confess your faith that Jesus Christ is Lord, that you believe this and receive His salvation and invite Him to dwell in your heart."
Romans 10, 9 and 10 says, "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Give thanks to God for your salvation, pray and cry out to God and give thanks to Him for saving you. Six, work out your salvation by the Spirit of God. Philippians 2 v 12 says, " Therefore My beloved, as you've always obeyed, not as in My presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Salvation is a process. You are saved the moment you pray the sinners prayer, the prayer of salvation, and invite the Lord Jesus Christ to come into your heart and be Lord of your life, but salvation is also process where your mind is renewed, and you come to have a personal and deep relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. It is your choice how far you go in that relationship. He desires a wonderful, deep and an intimate relationship with you, but it is your choice whether you will do what is necessary to come to that place through reading your Bible, praying, seeking counsel, seeking guidance.
You should be water baptized at the first possible opportunity. Matthew 3, 6 says, "And we are baptized by Him in the Jordan, confessing their sins." I encourage you to ask the Lord to lead you to somebody who has some knowledge or the basic ordinance of water baptism, who can water baptize you or lead you to a Church, where they can water baptize you. There's no reason why you cannot be water baptized today, as a symbolic cleansing and washing of your sins. In fact, the minute you have prayed the sinner's pray, it would be preferable for you to be water baptized. Choose to be obedient to the Word of God, accept the Bible in its original Hebrew as given by the Spirit of God and choose to live your life according to that . 1 John 5, 3 says, "For this is the love of God that we keep His Commandments and His Commandments are not burdensome.” I encourage you to read the Word of God daily, and to put into practice everything that you encounter as a principle which I believe will bear fruit in your life. I would encourage you to make an effort right now after you've prayed this prayer.
Start reading your Bible from the book of John through to the book of Revelation, and then make a discipline of reading the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation at least 2, 3, 4 times a year and read the Old Testament from Genesis to Malachi at least once a year. I would encourage you to do that, using different translations. Ask God to lead you to the Church where He wants you to be at this time, where they will teach you, they will guide you, they will pray for you, they will help you to walk in the fullness of what God has called you to be. Be aware that God may move you from Church to Church over time to teach you new things, and you should not be reluctant to do this. The service of God is a personal choice. It's a wonderful choice and if you will step out by faith today and pray the sinners prayer and follow Him, you will reap a rich harvest, if that is your desire to be found faithful on the day of judgment.
Should you have listened to this and have decided that you are now ready to make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life, I would ask you to pray the following prayer with me in Jesus' name.
Father, I come to you in the name of Jesus and I confess that I'm a sinner. I confess that I don’t have a personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ , and I recognize that without Jesus, if I were to die right now, I will spend Eternity in hell and not with You. I confess that I have sinned, and I repent of those sins and I turn around. I choose to turn my back on sin and to serve God. I confess that Jesus Christ came to Earth as a man, that He was crucified, that He died and was buried and that He was resurrected on the third day and that He sits on the right hand of the Father. I confess by faith that He died to take all of my sins, and I thank You Jesus for taking my sin and I give You my sin right now in Jesus' name. I confess by faith that Jesus Christ is King of kings and Lord of Lords, and I choose now Lord Jesus to make You the Lord of my life. I invite You to come and dwell in my heart. I invite You to take charge of my life. I invite You to start leading, guiding and directing me, and I give You my life and everything that I have, and I commit myself to serving You now Lord Jesus.
I thank You that You've heard me, and I thank You that You have now come to live in me, and I thank You for saving me. I thank You that I'm now a child of the most high God. I thank You that I am now a servant of the Most High God and that You will lead me and guide me into the paths that You want me to walk. I ask You Lord to lead me to the Church where You want me to be. I ask You in the name of Jesus to bring the people that You want in my life, into my life by Your Spirit, and to remove the people that You don't want in my life, by Your Spirit in Jesus' name. I ask You to close all the doors in my life that You do not want opened, that no man may open them, and I ask You to open every door in my life that You want opened and that no man they close it in Jesus' name. Father I ask You to teach me to be led by Your Spirit. I ask You to open my eyes, to have a revelation of the Word of God. I ask You to give me a hunger for the Word of God and for Your Spirit. I ask You to teach me to pray in Jesus' name. I thank You father. Thank You Jesus for saving me. I declare that I am a child of God and I praise You and I worship You, and I glorify Your holy name. I thank You for changing me and saving me and delivering me in Jesus' name. Amen.
Now that you've prayed that prayer and you're born again into the body of Christ, realize that the Christian walk is a journey. The Apostle Paul likens it to a marathon race. You need guidance, you need assistance. If you have no one to help you pray and ask the Holy Spirit of God to come into your life and to help you, if you need to contact somebody, contact any of the major ministries. If you're not sure who to contact, contact this ministry through the address, telephone and email details that were supplied earlier. May the Lord bless you and keep you, and make His face to shine upon you, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Amen