Tuesday 26 February 2008

Invading the Impossible - Part 6

"Overthrowing the Spirit of Religious Control - The Revolution Has Begun!".

"We thank you today Father that You have made us to be like eagles who mount up and fly into the high realms of the glory high above pettiness and the sordid things of this planet - to enter in to that realm of the glory, to come before Your face and see the love that is on Your face for us. Lord, You have called us to administrate life through the power of the anointing - through the supernatural of Your Spirit. We ask today Lord, You would reveal Your face to us in Jesus Name, Amen".

Folks, the Father loves us. He loves us! And longs for us to sit at the table of His feasting. I had a challenge here at the beginning of this meeting and I spent hours praying this week. When you pray you pick up the Father's heart for the people. Jesus is the Chief Shepherd - I am merely an under-shepherd. I knew people struggled this week and were under pressure this week, and I knew if I didn't lead worship in a particular way this week you would not be able to receive what I want to say. You would be too under torment in agony and distracted and agitated. But the Father as we praised and worshipped Him has perfumed this place with His Presence and with His peace. He has laid for us a table of feasting and He says;

"Come and enjoy My smile - My smile to you, not because you do everything perfectly but because I love you perfectly out of My own perfection and every pressure, and every agony and every difficulty we face, we face in front of the Father's face as well with tender desires to reassure us and to comfort us and affirm us and let us know we will come out of these pressures - and it will be okay when we come out of these pressures. When this comforting heart of the love of the Father comes to you and to me, it becomes something so wonderful because we begin to see problems as blessings in disguise. We begin to see problems as prophetic promises pointing us and positioning us to a higher platform of the blessings of God and promising us increased power in our weaknesses.

Paul the apostle - that mighty man of faith who raised the dead, who wrote three quarters of the New Testament, who was caught up into the third heavens and came back to the earth, who moved in signs and wonders, visions and dreams (as a normal Christian should) - even that great man of faith was under such pressure at one time that he cried out to God three times and he said; "God, get this off me - I can't take it anymore - it's too much". God said to him, "My grace is sufficient for you and My power is perfected in your weakness". So Paul said - as we must say today - "I will delight in hardships and weakness and difficulties for when I am weak, that's when I am strong".

God doesn't need your strength - He is infinately strong - He needs your weakness so He can perfect His power in your weakness. God will not take the strong of the earth, those who think they will be used by the supernatural because of their great education, or because of their race or because of their great talent. God says, "I do not want anyone to steal My glory, I don't want anyone to say God is using that man because that man or woman is so well educated - is so strong, is so talented". No, God takes the weak and the foolish things of this world that He may confound the arrogant of this world.

(James 1:2) "Count it all joy when you face various trials of many kinds". We do not count it joy when we face trials because we are masochists. Do you know what a masochist is? Someone who loves pain. I hate pain! I think it's weird to like pain! We don't rejoice in the pain because our Father never caused the pain! The Father isn't into causing you pain. The Father will give you nothing but perfect gifts. Every good and perfect gift is from the Father coming down from the heavens. With Him there is no shadow of turning. The Bible says, "Don't be deceived - every good and perfect gift is from the Father". Sickness is not from the Father, cancer and flu is not from the Father, poverty is not from the Father, pressure on marriage is not from the Father, discouragement and depression is not from the Father - it is from the spirit of this age. This world in which we are living is not heaven and it is not the final resting place of man.

We are citizens of heaven and we must draw our resources from the supernatural every day. You can't wait two or three days and then have a quick time of prayer. It won't work in Hong Kong. There are things in Hong Kong you have to stand against every single day. There are many days that I feel like I want to die and just go home and be with Jesus. But I tell you something even that death desire is another revelation about how much I must depend on Jesus because I love life more than death. God hasn't called me to die, I have already died in Christ Jesus and I am alive unto the Father now. And the life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me and I am not going to give the devil the credit to live a miserable life. I am going to live celebrating life every day! Because I am a citizen of heaven! Therefore I can delight in hardship and I can delight in insults!

When I find myself murmering and complaining, the loving Holy Spirit is so quick to say; "Rob stop it! Don't do that! If you complain, if you get into self-pity and speak words of negative substance over your life then you are making an agreement and an alliance with darkness and you are empowering a disarmed devil. For even when your mouth wants to say 'I can't take it anymore - I have had enough' say 'I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and I am more than a conqueror through Christ who loves me - greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world! This problem, this pressure is a prophecy pointing me and promoting me to a higher level of the blessing and promising me greater power in my weakness so I will not complain but I will praise and exalt Him and He will make my enemies a footstool under my feet!'".

Pressure on your marriage is a prophetic promise that is desireous to take your marriage to another level of blessing. Sickness in your body is a prophetic promise that He wants to take you to a level not just of healing but of a lifestyle of health. Pressure on your finances is a prophetic promise that He wants to take your finances to another level of blessing and prosperity and more than enough in the blessings of God. As you agree with the promises of God, you make an alliance with light and heaven comes down and agrees with your heart and when you say "Yes!" to the promise God has already said "Yes!" and it is transacted into your life in power.

"Lord any agreement we made with darkness, any complaint, any murmering - we now repent of it in Jesus Name! Lord we break that alliance with darkness - we didn't want to make it and we were under pressure, we repent of it right now Father and there is no more agreement with darkness, only agreement with light!".

If we are going to invade the impossible and we are - when we invade the impossible it is a requirement to topple illegitimate governments. I am not talking about illegitimate governments in Sudan or Zimbawe.

God is bringing those governments down in the earth too before Jesus returns. Jesus will return to sum up all history in Himself at the consumation and the climax of the ages. The end of the age is not the end of the earth but is the end of the reign of evil on the earth then the Kingdom of heaven will have fully come to the earth.

Please don't hear me say that we will have the full kingdom of heaven on the earth before Jesus comes back. I am not saying that. We will die - we will get old. We have aging bodies. When Jesus comes back we will have resurrection, immortal bodies never subject to aging or death again. Our earth suits will be turned into heavenly suits so we can handle the glory of God's beauty.

When I say the Kingdom is coming and evil governments are going to be toppled, Robert Mugabe will be toppled, evil governments in Africa and Asia are coming down because Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lord and the privilidge of co-working and co-equal reign with Jesus Christ and through last Adam is ours. Jesus came and took authority back from the devil who had stolen it from first Adam and gave us authority to reign and rule and trample illegitimate authority. When the church rises up and worships like we did today, then authorities are being shaken! The fact that 6,000 people in Hong Kong are living below the breadline has not escaped the Father's eye. It perturbs Him - He doesn't want that. He wants every person in Hong Kong born again and saved. He wants every person in Hong Kong to be living on at least enough social security to be able to pay their rent and have enough food to eat. He wants every person in Hong Kong to be able to have access to a hospital and not have to stand in long queues for days coughing and sick in disease. He wants every person in Hong Kong to live like the kingdom of heaven!

Christians for too long have been sitting at the rapture bus stop looking for an excuse to get out of this evil world while God says; "I want you to invade the impossible and make a difference in politics, economics, hospitals, social, education and every area of life". He is not calling us to come to church just to have sermons. He is calling us to be the people of God! The salt of the earth! Let me prophesy over you - you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world, you are a city set on a hill, you are the children of God, you are the ambassadors of the highest government in the universe, you are the priests of God, you are the citizens of heaven, you are the sons and daughters of Almighty God - that's what you are!

When the Corinthian church went into all kinds of sins and perversion - Paul didn't put them back under Law! He said, "Don't you know you are light and citizens of heaven? And you are the righteousness of God!". He never condemned them, he never manipulated them - he told them who they were! You need to tell yourself who you are. There is not a day that goes by that Rob Rufus doesn't say over my life, "I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus - greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world - I can do everything! Lord I am up to this. Yes there are giants in the land, but Lord I can surely take the Land of Hong Kong. I can do it!". When I say those words my re-born spirit rejoices and leaps within me and my emotions and my soul come into line with truth as I make agreement with light and disagree with darkness. Darkness pummels my head and puts me under pressure - it's goal is to get me to speak words of complaint, of unbelief, of doubt, of negativity, of hopelessness - because then it can make a covenant of darkness with my words.

Even in your worst pressure and when you have done your worst sin, that is when you need to say, "I am the righteousness of God - I agree with who I am in Christ - I don't agree with my faults or my condition - I agree with my position in Christ Jesus - THAT is my permament position!".

So there is coming a toppling of governments in these years ahead. And increasingly so Jesus will shake the heavens and shake the earth and we will see righteousness like a fragrance in the earth and the child sex trade in Africa will stop and the abuse of children will stop and the broken homes in Hong Kong will be places of glory and perfume and love and husbands and wives will love each other and speak gentle words of kindness to each other. Children will respect their parents and there will be order in the home for the kingdom of heaven is breaking into the earth and as the kingdom breaks in, the governments of darkness are dismantled and they topple.

In order for that to happen, do you know what's more important first? Before we topple governments out there, first of all we have to topple governments in here. Before we can topple governments out there, first of all we have to topple governments of religious controls over us.

Do you know that much of the church in the world today (including us) is not free, it looks free, it acts free, it has an appearance of godliness, it looks holy but inside they are under a controlling government of legalism, a controlling government of condemnation, and a controlling government of man. Human flesh, human talent, human skills, human programmes are controlling the church in an illegitimate religious government and we will not topple evil out there until we topple evil over us and in here.

I was praying and don't normally pray on my knees - but as I got down on my knees God spoke to me audibly on the inside and began to speak to me. He began to speak a prophetic word into my heart and I want to read it to you what He spoke to me and then I am going to read to you some other things I wrote down yesterday afternoon. The main thing today is that City Church International - any residue, remnant or hangover of the control government that has come over our lives from our past - it needs to topple and be brought DOWN today that the government of His freedom, the government of His liberty, the government of His grace, His peace, His love, His joy fill our lives today. Will you give yourselves permission to access and enter in to that government of God and let the government of darkness break off your life? If we are to invade the impossible and topple unrighteous government then let the government of God come over your life today and topple the government of the control of the fear of man and religious government of condemnation.

This is what God said to me on Friday afternoon;

"There is rapidly occuring across the earth a division between Law teaching and Grace teaching. God Himself is doing it. Some of those who still preach a mixture of Law and Grace will first try to be diplomatic and reasonable but under the surface they will carry hatred and envy. They will seek to disguise this in a form of godliness and theological reasoning but God in these days is going to expose the true state of their hearts. This is not a gentle reformation. This is a true revolution. Those that do not understand this will be utterly dismayed at how quickly this revolution is about to spread. In this revolution the gospel of Grace revealed in the New Covenant will spread like wildfire - there will be unhealthy extremes on the left and the right in reaction to this.

There will be voices that will attempt to gain advantage by appearing to be balanced diplomats calling for calm but I will sweep these self-appointed voices of reason aside and silence them swiftly, says God. Those with secure, pure hearts will steward this revolution, not panicking at the unhealthy extremes or trying to prematurely balance everything. For you see, it is not the message of grace that is causing the extremes or imbalance but it is the result of entrenched deeply established legalism and man's control surfacing because of the intensifying pressure of the Grace Revolution. This revolution will force the mask off every form and appearance of godliness that denies the power of the New Covenant. This gospel revolution is not to be blamed for the ugliness that will appear in some. It is simply forcing the true nature of legalism out into the open and stripping it of all it's disguises so that even the naive and the deceived will see how truly hideous, HIDEOUS, it's face really is. The camoflauge of legalism is being removed so that it can no longer harress from hidden positions that have an appearance of godliness.

The people in these days who fearlessly embrace grace and remain pure-hearted and faithful enduring hardship and refusing to be polluted by bitterness during persecution will be partners with the Holy Spirit in seeing entire nations birthed into revival. So rejoice!".


Romans 5 speaks about the suffering we endure - the context is not the suffering of sickness and all of that - the context is suffering for the message of grace. Check it out. It says; "This suffering will produce character in you and character will build hope in you". I am suffering for preaching this message beyond what some of you realise. Your reputation will suffer and as you embrace the grace message you will stir up every legalistic demon to alienate you and cut you off but friends God will draw closer to you and the refreshing of hope and the gospel will fill you with wonder and the glory of God will become more present in your life.

I am amazed at how few Christians daily experience the manifest glory of God. I experience His glory every day and it is available to EVERY believer! But you have got to reject legalism, you have got to reject the fear of man, you have got to let God topple the control government of religion and the fear of man and condemnation and legalism and the performance pressure to do things to earn man's favour and God's favour.

Because you don't have to do a thing to earn God's favour - He loves you right now unconditionally. You are forgiven, you are cleansed, you are in Christ - you are a new creation in Christ! Everything from the old system of religion has passed away - the Old Covenant has passed away - it is obsolete. God says in Hebrews 6; "The Old Covenant of law is a weak and useless covenant". God said that about His own covenant in Hebrews 7! And there are still people mixing that weak and useless condemning that kills people, that Old Covenant that kills people, they are still mixing and confusing Christians in a cocktail of Old and New.

God is stripping that and exposing that and there is no middle ground left! It is either New Covenant embraced 100% and Old Covenant rejected or nothing! There is no more room. God is doing it in the earth today.

This is what I wrote down in response to the prophecy;

"Revolution causes disruption. I am amazed at how some Christians want a cute comfortable life. You even hear people say that if you walk in grace, it means you will never be divisive. If you walk in grace you won't be divisive but it will cause division in reaction. We don't want to be divisive! We love the Church but wherever Paul went division came because Paul would not compromise the New Covenant and mix a bit of Old Covenant in there. He even rebuked Peter to his face for the simple thing of eating Jewish food when there were Gentiles around! He rebuked Peter lest Peter confuse the Gentile Christians and make them think they were still under Jewish law and the law of Moses. Revolution causes disruption.

Did you see wherever Jesus went that everyone loved Him? Do you think everyone loved Jesus wherever He went? Actually some plotted to kill Him and they hated Him. Why did they hate Him? Was He a sinner? Why did they hate Him? Because He exposed their hypocrisy and their form of godliness - they had a government over Israel (the religious leaders) that was not the government of Abraham or Issac or Jacob but the government of the Pharisees and Sadducees. It was controlling the people and Jesus said, "Your religious systems that are making people think that is the normal government - you put weights on people that they cannot carry and you do not lift a finger to help them. But My yolk and My burden is light".

I have to guess that the majority of Christians in the world today are still under unrighteous Pharisaical goverment of man because most Christians still do not live in joy and passion for Jesus and are so in love with God and are walking in the Presence of God. There is an ungodly government that is over the church and over people's lives that must come down before we can topple ungodly government out there. That is going to take a revolution! It is not going to take cute sweet sentimental Charismatics who never want to be rejected or cut off or misunderstood, who want to be accepted by the Pharisees and they want to be seen and get the approval and the honour of man! They are so unlike Jesus and so foreign to Jesus that they fit in out of the fear of man.

I have seen people tell me personally that they do not believe in certain practices and things because they contradict the New Covenant - they are the same people with a position on a team or promotion who will go with the very team that perpetrates that! Because men flatters them and gives them recognition so they went with man rather than God. They have just disqualified themselves - they cannot be part of the Grace Revolution - they are fitting in with the status quo.

How many scientific breakthroughs would there be in the world today if scientists like Newton and others just accepted the opinion of the scientists of the day? What is happening in the earth is that there scientists who are saying that evolution is completely defunct of any evidence and new scientific evidence clearly shows that it is creation. There are many medical breakthroughs that certain scientists had to step out of the crowd and start a revolution and they pushed through against the opposition and the establishment blocking them because the establishment would be threatened by scientific breakthrough. So those scientists moved with compassion for people they had a revolution and then a breakthrough and millions of people are benefitted in the earth. But no one remembers those Nobel Prize winners that had to walk through the corridors and the passageways of loneliness. Them and their wife and children having been cut off and misunderstood by the scientific community that said what a load of rubbish - we have always done it this way! But then the breakthrough came that brought a cure! What are they? They are revolutionaries that step out of the crowd.

Too many Christians today conform to the crowd and conform to the pattern of this world. God has not called City Church International to be like that. We are not going to try and balance things right now. It is not the time to try and balance things right now. To break the control and the entrenchment of legalism there has to be a revolution and fur will fly!

And there will be extremes on the left and the right and it is the silly sentimental ones seeking to take advantage and looking like they are ambassadors of peace but they actually have selfish ambitions and agendas who will try and calm the extremes down but Jesus never calmed the extremes down because He came in to topple a government of religious evil that was over Israel! It is not the time to calm things down! It is the time for revolution!

Revolution out of pure hearts and pure motives because we love the Church and we love people. Revolution causes disruption because things that have been unchallenged are confronted. In order to have a revolution you have to be willing to overthrow the established government. A government that has been seen for a long time as normal. One of the hardest things to bring apartheid down in South Africa was that many people became mesmerised and hypnotised by a philosphy and an ideology to the point that people become like cattle and become like sheep that go along life like they are drugged and duped by deception.

It is sad if man will change in the times of peace and good will so much suffering would be avoided but finally because oppression goes on for so long that God has to raise up revolutionaries and fighters and they stir the sleeping masses to their rights and to their privilidges and there are consquences and it is horrible and ugly and the revolutionaries get the blame but actually the people from forty years ago who could have made the change in the peace time - they are the ones who should get the blame.

Jesus should not have got the blame for speaking the amazing words of authority He spoke to the Pharisees. Paul should not have got the blame for the tough words he had to speak but the people wouldn't change so God stirred up a revolutionary and He confronts things that have gone unchallenged for so long and the government that has been accepted for so long and the Christians live like sleeping mesmerised and hypnotised sheep in the pews and the control of man and the hierarchies of man control rather than the living glory and power of the God of miracles. Religious systems in the earth are coming down - Babylon is coming down.

You say, "Gee Rob I've got problems in my life - I didn't come to church to hear all this stuff!". You did - you are a priest of God! You will understand why some of your problems are coming when you understand what you got involved in when you signed up for this church. Revolution is not dressing the old up as different. Revolution is not putting an overhead up and singing a few happy clappy choruses and saying 'Hallelujah we're so free". That's not revolution! That is dressing the old up as the new with an appearance as freedom. Revolution is not about cosmetic change. Revolution brings radical, cultural transformation.

Why do you think I am so irritating sometimes when I say, "Respond, say amen?". I am trying to build a culture of passion and a culture of unity. I am not trying to brainwash you to kiss your brains goodbye - actually in a culture of freedom, you have the right to believe what you want, to come to your own conclusions theologically and doctrinally and you don't have to agree with everything I teach. You don't have to give permission for me to go where you want to go - live in the Spirit, follow the Spirit of God. I think it's wise to confer with wise leaders if it is a big choice, but you are not subject to me! You are free to hear the Holy Spirit yourself.

Some of the Chinese people who first joined this church couldn't work me out when they first joined us. They kept asking me questions about what they should do - can I do this or that. I realised that they had been under the control of the government of man. That is abusive. They thought it was normal and they found a pastor that says; "Don't ask me what to do - go ask the Holy Spirit - go ask the Father - He will direct you and show you what to do". When I teach, it's not to stampede you all and make you like some cult.

It is to break a spirit of formalism and conservatism that is demonic and religious and a control government so that in the anointing you can start hearing God yourself.

How many of you feel a peace over this meeting that wasn't there when you first came in? The atmosphere has shifted because I stirred that passion. Now I am longing for the day when it is not just cosmetic and dressing the old up in me exhorting you, but it becomes a radical revolution where your heart has culturally changed so that you come shouting and praising and worshipping God without me having to do it! And I will know that day has happened when I don't have to stand up the front and encourage you! That means it has happened as a cultural transformation. The culture of the kingdom isn't to cater to your preferences. It is to cater to the King's preferences - it is the culture of the Kingdom. It's not a South African or an Aussie culture. It's not a Chinese culture but the culture of the Kingdom, the eternal age. It is God breaking in from the heavenlies to topple ungodly, illegitimate governments in the earth that oppresses the people!

Let me read this: "There has been a form of religion, a form of godliness that has been over the Church for centuries. It is primarily controlled by programmes, focus on keeping the people happy for the wrong reasons". It is a false happiness, it is not the happiness and liberty of the Spirit of God.

There are three common characteristics of the control government that God is overthrowing in our day. The prophets in the Church worldwide have had a hard time in the Church in the last 10 years.

Notice that it does not say in Ephesians that the Church is built on the foundation of the pastor or the evangelist or the teacher. It says the church is built on the foundation of apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus as the cornerstone. Evangelists, pastors and teachers must build on the foundation of apostles and prophets - some say "Oh that is the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostles of Jesus". That is not true at all - not even vaguely. We are not building on dead prophets and dead apostles because Christ Jesus as the chief cornerstone is not a dead Christ. I don't need a dead Christ to build on. I need a living speaking vital, vibrant living Jesus speaking to me every day. I am building on life - not Jeremiah. Jeremiah is in the grave as bones! I am not building on Paul or Peter. Now yes I take the words that bring revelation to me, but Jesus said in Ephesians 4 that AFTER Christ ascends He gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets ... until the Church comes to the full stature of Christ.

There is to be no more blown to and fro by every wind of doctrine but now the voice of the prophets have been silenced and the Church has been taken over by pastors and they are beginning to control the church with programmes. The Church doesn't even know why they are going through pressure or what is going on in the earth because prophets are the eyes of the Church. Prophets see what's going on, they see and they discern! They are weird! I am a prophet! And prophets are weird and they discern things and know what God is doing and they get all agitated when they see the people throwing money and talents into a government of control.

True apostles and prophets are godly people who hear God audibly and move in miracles, signs and wonders and don't let anyone tell you they are an apostle unless they move in signs and wonders and understand the revelation of grace and can build a church and have planted churches. Too many people call themselves apostles today. Don't let anyone call themselves a prophet unless they can preach the Word of God with revelation and power that breaks the control spirit off the Church with power! This morning there was an anointing in here that broke the control spirit off our pre-service prayer meeting. It is called a prophetic anointing.

Here are the three characteristics of a control government. God doesn't want to overthrow pastors, He wants pastors to lead the church! He wants pastors in the church leading the church! But pastors must come under the true liberating influence of apostles and true prophets. That's what they must be under the influence of and connected to those ministry gifts in friendship and good relationship.

1. The idea of the supernatural manifestations of the power of God is seen as frightening or as distasteful under the control government because it cannot be fully explained or understood.

Religious government argues that God would not do anything that we don't understand. So it must be the devil they say. They feel the supernatural would not make the people happy - but would make them unhappy and uncomfortable so they dismiss the manifestations of the miraculous. God often does things we do not understand and we know it is God simply by the beauty of His Presence. If there is a miracle taking place and the beauty of His Presence is there, then it is God even if we don't understand. Laughing, falling, crying, demons coming out - the control government pushes that out because it doesn't understand it.

The grace revolution is awakening in the hearts of people a hunger for the supernatural encounters with God's glory and Presence. There is such a hunger burning in people's hearts that they are desperate for the Presence of God. Whereever we go and advertise a "Glory and Grace Conference" - people are lining up because they are desperate to get into that Presence! They are tired of just being under the principles of Bible information from the teacher. They want to encounter God!

The control government is underestimating this to their own detriment.

2. The control government is also legalistic.

Some openly teach that Christians are under the Law of Moses. Others are not that blatent but nonetheless they insinuate that we get God to bless us by the performance of our holiness which is an Old Covenant truth rather than Jesus performace on our behalf which is a New Covenant truth. This way they control the church by condemnation and never releasing the people into the confidence of the assurance of the New Covenant. Often there is in the control government a call for balance.
But truth - biblical truth - is not held in a tension of balance. Truth is held in upward layers of higher and higher reality.

If you touch the leper under the Old Covenant you were declared to be unclean. If you touch the leper under the New Covenant then the leper is healed. Both realities are true - but one is simply a higher truth than the other. You cannot balance these truths or you will neutralise them both. You cannot balance law and grace. One is a higher truth than the other. Watch out for the call for balance.

3. The control government has hierarchies in place.

It is so clear in the New Covenant that Jesus Christ has removed the distinction between priests and clergy. So for some people to dress up with priestly clothes and call themselves priests and the members laymen is totally ungodly. It is a violence and a blasphemy against the Cross. Jesus died on the Cross to birth a priesthood nation, a Christian Church where every believer is a priest! The control government doesn't want you to know that because they want you to see them as the professional and that you have the hotline to heaven and they can't hear God. They don't need to know the Bible - only you do. Up till recently one control government preached every week in Latin! To masses who couldn't even understand the language and it was a sense of control. When the Bible teaches that every Christian can break bread at home!

Pentecostals and Charismatics have a worse government than the one I have just described. It is more dangerous because it is more subtle. You live in fear of the pastor because he is the big guy. He is up on a pedestal. He is the man - you don't cross his demenour. He is the guru and they let you know that. It may not always be immediately obvious but it will soon become clear if you cross one of their invisible lines. The Grace Revolution has freedom in place with strong gifted leaders leading the church! The Grace church has strong leaders who lead with boldness and the fear of God and they are taking people on a journey!

But here's the difference;

In the control model of government, your primary role as a member is to serve the leaders. In the Grace Revolution, your primary role as a leader is to empower the people to know God, to hear God for themselves, to dream for yourself, to have visions from heaven for yourself and to respond to the Holy Spirit's initiatives to lead you to invade the impossible.

Do you know what they do to revolutionaries if they catch you? What did they do to Martin Luther? To the martyrs who stood against religious governments down through the ages? Were they divisive people just out to cause trouble? No they loved the masses who were on their way to hell. They stood and said, "This is not true - we have got to change this". They were not reformers. We have called them reformers but that is too tame a word. They were revolutionaries. Most of us could not stomach radical people. They were wild and today we live in the benefits of their pain and their guts and we cannot afford to let that momentum of the revolutionaries fade.

We cannot leave it for a professional priest because if you leave it for this professional priest, then the powers of darkness will come at me more and more and try and make me a controller. And I will never allow them to do that. I will go somewhere else where people will rise up and say we will topple this false government of religious control. It is about the Father's love, liberty, healing love and beauty coming into the earth! But when you are under a control government you cannot love Jesus more than theology and doctrine and the systems of man - it is about the masses being saved, nations coming to Jesus, unrighteous governments being toppled.

A prophetic people are a people who see the future and become the future in the now.

Down the road freedom in the church will be commonplace - we need to see the freedom in the now for it to become commonplace. Now we can speak in tongues freely but if we did it 100 years ago we would have been put to the stake. Now that war is over. But there is a new war about law and grace - about freedom of government over the church and the people of God.

Thursday 21 February 2008

Invading the Impossible - Part 5

Here is Part 5 of this ever-increasing amazing series. Parts 1 to 4 have all been transcribed and may be accessed here via the new Archive of Rob Rufus! Enjoy and be stirred by this ever increasing, ever uplifting, ever ascending series of faith-building messages! Rob is preaching on; "Refusing to Accept the Unacceptable!".

"Open your Bibles please to Philippians chapter 2. I am very excited about this message today. I have been waiting 2 weeks to preach it and it has been burning within me like a volcano. I am going to try and be gentle and gracious in the outflow of it. It's encouraging, it is going to inspire people and anoint you to invade the impossible more and more. One of the things that was so exciting about the time of prayer this morning was that as a pastor I know the difficulties people are going through - yet not one person prayed out of a spirit of self-pity and I know for some of them it looks like life isn't fair! Yet every single person prayed; "Father help us to invade the impossible, help us to help others beyond ourselves". And for me we have advanced another sequence in that stage and for that - let us give the Lord a clap just for the heaven of it!

It is so important to feed on what God is doing more than what He isn't doing. Because what He isn't doing, He is going to do. But what He is doing, we need to celebrate that!

This church is a womb that is conceiving and giving birth to first generation grace Christians around the world! Every week our stand here has been attacked for affecting hundreds of thousands of lives around the world. So if you understand the attacks that are coming to us, don't think it is disproportionate to the size we are - it is WHAT we are carrying and what we represent in the nations! I had an international Skype conference with 16 leaders of 16 different churches who were here at the Glory and Grace Conference and everyone of them said that they are progressing in signs and wonders and miracles and some of them are progressing beyond us! That is because we are three years old and they have been around much longer.

We are giving something away that is accelerating and multiplying in the hands of people we give it to.

We are a giving church - we are giving 10% of our income away mainly into China. Go for it it - get this message out anyway you can. God's people are struggling under guilt, manipulation and performance pressure, condemnation, never feeling like they deserve the blessing and always feeling like they have to earn it. But I tell you;

"No - God says that the New Covenant is a covenant of unfading glory. In the New Covenant God only looks at you through grace but under the Old Covenant God only looked at you through the law. Under the law God demanded a perfect righteousness in your performance all the time but under grace He gives you His righteousness as a gift and you are secure and you come into rest and the blessing comes just by believing - not by anything you do".

Jesus + anything = nothing. But Jesus + nothing = everything. Under grace you want to tithe! Under open heaven you long to give! But give under law and you come into curse. So we are talking about "Invading the Impossible" and this is number 5. I think this is going to be a 28 part series! In Part 4 we looked at the principle of dealing with disappointments and I want to say this very strongly. Most Christians carry a scenario or a conciousness of disappointment in their life because most of us who have stepped out in the supernatural have had some setbacks and some disappointments.

I look at the disciples and they were men of faith before the Cross but one day they stepped out to pray for a boy with a demon and they couldn't get the demon out. Jesus came and cast it out proving it was the will of God to get that demon out. Today if we try to get someone healed and they don't, we say it wasn't the will of God to heal that person. The disciples were shocked and asked why couldn't we cast that demon out? Why were they shocked? Because they had some success before in casting demons out but then they hit a disappointment. But Jesus said; "This type only come out by prayer and fasting". He DID NOT mean this type of demon only comes out by prayer and fasting. Every demon has lost authority and must come out in the Name of Jesus. There is no hierarchy of demon that can resist you unless you have fasted and prayed. If you believe that lie, every demon will tell you; "I am the kind that only come out by prayer and fasting and you haven't fasted". So you wait for a week fasting and in that time the demon kills the person. Jesus was saying this kind of unbelief comes out by prayer and fasting. You can have faith to cast out demons but if you have disappointment that will hinder your faith.

Most people with disappointments have prayed for someone who has died and they back off and develop a theology to accomodate the abscence of miracle success in Christian life.

If you do not deal with disappointment effectively, then disappointment will effectively deal with you. It is our responsibility and our accountability before God to monitor our hearts and make sure we do not tolerate disappointment and do not allow disappointment to fashion our theology, philosophy or view of the kingdom of heaven. It is to the degree that we effectively deal with disappointment that we will effectively advance and invade the impossible and force the impossible to bow it's knee to Jesus.

What is the power of disappointment? It gives power to the things we don't understand to rob us of the things we do understand. Then we begin to trade truth for lies. I have heard the most diabolical lies told me by Christians who in their disappointment have begun to find ways to explain why the dead aren't being raised and blind eyes aren't being opened, the deaf aren't hearing, the cripples aren't walking. Jesus said the works that He did - greater works shall we do! Jesus healed them ALL - the early church in Acts healed them ALL. We spoke about Philippians 4 and how in disappointment we must; "Rejoice always, again I say rejoice!". Not rejoice in your disappointment but rejoice in the Lord! Why? Because the Lord understands your disappointment and understands your pain and has an answer.

It is one of the most difficult things to rejoice in the Lord when you are disappointed - you want to lick your wounds and have a pity party. But a pity party is one of the most lonely parties on the planet. It's just you! Now rejoice in the Lord always! Then Paul goes on; "Be anxious for nothing but in everything with prayer and petition make your request known to God with thanksgiving and the peace that passes understanding will guard your heart in Christ!".

When the peace that passes understanding comes on you then the things you don't understand no longer have power to rob you of the things you do understand and God begins to open the eyes of your understanding and give you revelation on how to invade the impossible.

Those disciples failed and were disappointed but you look further on and find that they overcame their disappointment and raised the dead and saw cripples walking and deaf ears opened!

The majority of Christians in the Western world do not operate in supernatural ministry, do not cast out devils, do not heal the sick on the level of the book of Acts. The majority! Why? Because they have been taught wrong and been taught that it has passed away or because they have tried and have failed in their disappointment and in their disappointment allow themselves to be robbed of the things they do understand by the things they don't understand.

Today - "Invading the Impossible Number 5" - we are talking about REFUSING to accept the unacceptable! What you tolerate will ultimately dominate you, your family, your children and generations to come. When I say what should we refuse to accept - let your minds respond to Scripture not religious propaganda. What is unacceptable? In Romans 12:2 Paul writes; "Do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world". Now the pattern of this world has it's foundation in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. "Do not be patterned or conformed to the pattern of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so you can prove what is the perfect acceptable will of God!".

As your mind is transformed by divine encounters with the manifest glory of God - when you encounter the glory of God in power - your mind is transformed and then you are able to prove what is the acceptable, pleasing will of God.

What is the will of God Jesus? "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven!". What is the will of God that is acceptable? AS IN HEAVEN - SO ON EARTH! How long will it take a person riddled with cancer, blindness and stiffness to get healed when they step into heaven? It's an instant thing! What is unacceptable? Friends, everything that contradicts what is in heaven. Where is the proof of someone doing that? Jesus healed them ALL! He said: "I have given you keys - what you bind on earth is bound in heaven, what you lose on earth, is loosed in heaven!". But because of disappointment we have begun to accept the unacceptable.

It is unacceptable that there are sex child slave trades in Africa! It is unacceptable that you can go into hospitals that the wards at 02:00 are filled with people like a battle zone with people lying in comas in the passageway! If the early church in Acts was around they would be bringing great crowds to gather and all would be healed!

But because the church has allowed legalism and the traditions of men and toxic streams to come into the pure stream that started in the book of Acts, we have nullified the Word of God's power and we accept the unacceptable and we allow disappointments to make us cynical and skeptical and we lose our innocence and child-like pure simple faith in Jesus Christ.

30, 000 abortions in Hong Kong every year - that means 30, 000 babies in the most vulnerable place that should be the safest place are ripped out the womb and thrown into a rubbish box and it is accepted in the name of civilisation and science because of the mother's rights! What about the baby's rights? We are called to invade the impossible and make the impossible bow it's knee to the church and I am talking primarily about signs and wonders and miracles, but that includes toppling evil and social injustice. One of the most difficult things to try and persuade non-Christians is that Jesus is God. He is eternal God, always God, self-created, self-sufficient, Beginning and End, eternity exists in Him!

But one of the things that is more difficult is to try and persuade Christians that when Jesus left heaven and came to earth He came with none of His divinity in operation. That He was as much man as if He was not God. All of His divinity was 100% restrained within His humanity and He did nothing on this earth as God but did EVERYTHING on this earth as last Adam. As man. He had no advantages over you for invading the impossible.

When Jesus did miracles He was not trying to show us what God could do but to show us what man could do through being rightly related to God.

Jesus lived an ordinary Christian life and set the new norm for Christianity. Before He left this planet He did not announce that the norm He had set would reduce. The very opposite! He said that the norm would go up not down! He said; "Truly, truly I say to you ANYONE that gets rid of the idea that the miracles past away when the first 12 apostles died, truly, truly ANYONE who believes on Me, the miracles I have been doing but even greater works will you do because I am going to the Father".

Greater is the new norm! But what has the Church done? Let the things we don't understand rob us of the things we do understand. There is no argument against this! We are going to look at what did Jesus do when He went to the Father that means we can do greater works? Let me read something to you before we go to Philippians 2. I wrote this down yesterday and I just want to read it to you;

"People say to me that if you go around telling Christians that they are already holy, that they are already righteous, that they are already perfect in God's eyes through grace, that they are 100% accepted in Christ and that God doesn't disapprove of you whatsover because you have obtained a righteousness apart from the law - apart from your performance and apart from your obedience or disobedience but entirely on the obedience of the one Man Jesus Christ (Romans 5:19). A righteousness that is unconditional, permament standing that you have before God every second of every moment of every hour of every day. They say if you tell Christians this, it will make them arrogant and puffed up.

The question I want to ask you - did Jesus knowing that He was equal with God in nature make Him arrogant? No it gave Him the opposite attitude and effect and He humbled Himself. You knowing that God will never see your sins or hold anything against you doesn't make you arrogant - it makes you so secure that you no longer grasp after righteousness through the law but find rest in your identity as already having a righteousness that is equal to God's righteousness. God's righteousness is revealed in the gospel as a gift for you and you humble yourself, knowing this doesn't make you arrogant but makes you want to weep with wonder and joy - My God finds no fault in me! He gave me His righteousness! The righteousness you and I have as Christians is equal with God! This awarness inspires you to reach out as a servant and touch people with miracle working power to heal them, to restore them and topple evil off their lives.

Self-righteousness causes insecurity and an overbearing attitude that dominates others and at best patronises people in a complete abscence of the supernatural power of God".

I have watched as this message has gone out, week after week, month after month for the last 3 and a half years - the effect it is having on people here is that they are becoming less self-concious and are reaching out to touch other people's lives. Self-righteous people are insecure, live under condemnation, or arrogance, always trying to prove themselves but the righteousness of God brings security. Alright let's read this quickly;

"This is the attitude that will bring you and me to the highest level of authority and power that God wants every human Christian to walk under".

(Philippians 2:5); "Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made Himself nothing taking the nature of a servant being made in human likeness". What does being made in "human likeness" mean? It means being made just like us!

But you say - but He was perfectly righteous all the time! So are you. In Christ Jesus. You see if you hesitate and say; "Well I am not righteous all the time" you are still living dominated by Old Covenant mentality. Under the Old Covenant righteousness was demanded through keeping the law perfectly. One failure and one part of the law would bring you instantly under curse and the glory would fade. New Covenant - you are righteous in God's eyes all the time as a gift therefore the glory never needs to fade. So when you think of Jesus having an advantage because He never sinned and always walked righteously, you are still thinking Old Covenant because God sees you as righteous all the time. "Being found in appearance as a man". As a man. As a man. As a man. It is difficult to convince Christians that Jesus was as much man as if He were not God at all.

If He had access to His divine attributes while on earth, then why did He need to be baptised in the Holy Spirit like we do? He did no miracles before the Holy Spirit came upon Him. The Holy Spirit didn't come upon Him as God. The Holy Spirit doesn't need to come on God! The Holy Spirit came on the Man Jesus. That's why you can do the works He did because you are a man as He is.

He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a Cross therefore God exalted Him". Therefore GOD exalted Him. God exalted Him! Him! To the highest place! "And gave Him the Name that is above every Name that at the Name of Jesus EVERY knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father". The two vital questions I want to ask and then answer them.

1. Was Jesus exalted to the highest place as God or as man?

I can tell you right now from the authority of Scripture that He was not exalted to the highest place as God. You cannot exalt God to the highest place - it is BLASPHEMY to think that. He is God and therefore always be definition in the highest place. Creator of all things! He IS highest place!

Jesus had occupied highest place as God but didn't grasp after it. He gave up that equality with God and was found in the appearance as a man and became a servant obedient unto death on the Cross. What we are doing today is not a lecture to entertain your mind - but you need revelation in your spirit. What we are going into - we have to do the Kingdom stuff through revelation. Because one day we will have to stand before God and give account - not to decide whether we are going to heaven or hell. If you are in Christ that is secured forever and ever. God threw away the keys to your cell in hell and burnt it in oblivion. You are going to heaven but friends you are going to have to give an account. Did you sit under revelation when the earth was being filled with the glory of the Lord - did you sit in churches and say, "Oh I know this stuff".

Was I responsible for that revelation? Yes there will be no excuse for ignorance. Everyone on this earth can have access to revelation. Philippians 2 says the grace of God has appeared to ALL men. There is available access for revelation for every human being right now. Jesus was exalted to the highest place as a Man. So in heaven today there is a Man living in the highest place in heaven and on earth!

How did that happen and why?

An angel called Lucifer created by God to lead worship in heaven (pray for worship leaders - they come under the most demonic attack because Satan is jealous about God being worshipped) - he was a worship leader yet jealousy and pride was found within him. He said he wanted to be equal to God and was thrown instantly from heaven like lightening. On earth he came to Adam and said; "You will be equal to God" - in other words Adam had to exalt himself. Remember the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Adam did not take only the evil out of the tree and leave the good. So goodness is as much part of the fall of man as evil. Goodness is man's self-righteousness grasping after righteousness and the law that brings a curse on his life. It is a deception of the devil that legalistic religions are in the earth today.

Everyone who practices legalism does not understand that they are operating under satanic deception to try and seek self-rightousness through their own effort of the law and ceremonies and what they do.

Satan wanted Adam to do what Satan had done in heaven. He wanted Adam to try and exalt himself to be equal with God. Why did he try and do that? Because he knew that Adam had a delegated authority from God to have dominion on the earth. What is the kingdom? It is the dominion of the king! So Adam as a man - an ordinary man - had been given authority from the King of kings to have dominion on the earth. To subdue the earth and Satan knew that if Adam fell for the deception, he would lose that delegated authority like Satan lost it in heaven and Satan knew he could steal the delegated authority from Adam and operate in that delegated authority from Adam in the earth. Before the Cross he was called the "god of this world".

When wars are happening and 9/11 and poverty and insurance companies call it an act from God, they are right but it's not our God! It's Satan! Disasters aren't from our God! Our God gives a church an authority to invade and topple evil bu the church sits on it's blessed assurance and sings hymns and trades truth for lies so God has to raise up another generation and lives a life that is all about my inner healing and what I want. My convinience and if I get offended or disappointed I will trade truth for lies! God is not coming to this earth to stop evil but God is giving His church an authority to invade the impossible and topple the impossible and topple evil. The Church is busy waiting at the rapture bus stop and bemoaning how the devil is so bad and church is so bad and "Jesus take me home!". God is looking at His man Adam and He gave him authority to do the job on the earth. He fell into the trap and tried to exalt himself through self-righteousness.

So Satan stole his authority so now God can't just come to earth and smash the devil out of the planet. Because Satan is operating in an original heaven-sent authority to Adam! What does God do? He does not grasp after equality with God but does the opposite to the devil and makes Himself nothing and God comes in the appearance of a man and walks this planet and when He finally faces the devil, He does not face the devil with the authority of God but with the same authority the devil has. Now He is operating in last Adam's delegated authority from God but as a man. So when the devil tempts Him, Jesus doesn't dispute the devil's right and say; "They're not yours to give!". He doesn't dispute that! He says; "I will only worship God and Him alone will I worship". So Jesus operated in delegated authority as second Adam but Jesus never gives in to the temptation and goes to the Cross and dies on the Cross.

If you read Romans 5 essentially on the Cross it wasn't your sin being forgiven - read Romans 5. It was essentially Adam's sin being cancelled! The Bible clearly says that through the sin of one man, death reigned through the human race! What was his sin? Trying to be equal with God and gave his authority to the devil. So what was the power that was still holding first Adam's sin and giving Satan the operation of delegated authority he stole from first Adam?

It was that the law was introduced for sin to increase. The law of God was never introduced to put sin down! The power of sin increased when the law came. Who wrote the law? God wrote the law on 10 Commandments with His finger. Who cancelled the 10 Commandments? God at the Cross in Colossians 2:14; "Having cancelled the written code ... having disarmed the authorities at the Cross".

He cancelled first Adam's sin and cancelled the devil's authority that he stole from first Adam.

When He said; "It is finished!" and rose from the dead, Jesus then said something He could never have said before the Cross. He said in Matthew 28; "ALL authority in heaven and on earth". ALL authority. If someone has got ALL then someone has got zero! Zero is a circle. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me - now go and disciple NATIONS!

Now the second question;

2. Was that ALL authority given to Jesus as God or as a Man?

It was given to Him as Man! You cannot give ALL authority to God! He has all authority! As God, Jesus had all authority but He did the opposite to Satan and didn't hang on to it but humbled Himself and became a Man then cancelled first Adam's sin and cancelled principalities and powers.

Preaching the Law is re-arming principalities and powers when we preach the written code to the Church.

He arose from the dead and inherited all authority in the earth as a MAN! And then was exalted to the highest place so that at His Name every knee in heaven and earth must bow! The answer is that He re-inherited it as a man not as God!

Now the next question is; did He get exalted to the highest place with everything under His feet for Himself or for you? Because if He did it for Himself then we just worship Him. But if He did it for you and you don't seek to find out why then you are responsible for the gross-est ignorance on the planet! If Jesus went through all He went through to get back into heaven exalted to the highest place with everything under His feet for you and you don't know about it then what is it? Eat food, pass it through your body, grow old, do a few kind deeds, write in your diary. The people who get revelation that He did not just do all this for Himself - a MAN is in the highest place sitting alongside God.

Never in the history of the planet has the devil ever been under the feet of a man. He has always been under the feet of God. In heaven he was leading worship but under God. Then he came to Adam and gets him under his feet almost immediately. He keeps mankind under ignorance and under his feet straight away in insane, fanatical churchianity. Then another Man called Jesus comes. He doesn't put the devil under His feet while He walks the earth but neither does the devil put Him under his feet. Upto the Cross the devil has never been under the feet of a man, he has always been under the feet of God. God is not the problem in the earth because the earth was made for man. Man must govern the earth under God - man must rule the earth. Satan has come in with principalities and rulers and has come over philosophies and political economic systems and is governing whole nations and regions. Jesus said that the Kingdom in heaven will come into earth and topple illegitimate authorities and evil.

But how can I do that if human beings are under the feet of a devil? For government to come into this earth that is righteous, human BEINGS must put the devil under THEIR feet! And none of us could because we are human beings! But ONE human being came and at the Cross cancelled his authority that had reigned for thousands of years through cancelling the LAW then as a man exalted to the highest place FOR YOU. (Ephesians 1). I am not preaching a normal pastor's message here. I need a shepherd to hold my hand and cry with me.

But the church won't tolerate prophets and apostles - the church wants to stone them! Without apostles and prophets the church goes into weakness. The church goes into the absence of the miraculous - the church goes into church programmes that can grow churches into the thousands but no one is coming out of wheelchairs and deaf ears aren't opening and blind eyes aren't opening and it is seen as success but it has got NOTHING to do with the Book of Acts church that has got the power of God and signs and wonders. We cannot settle for anything so subnormal!

There is an international audience that needs to hear this. Let's see why He was exalted to the highest place as a man. (Ephesians 1v17); "That the glorious Father may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation ... the eyes of your heart may be enlightened ... the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints ... for us who believe ... and God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him (a man) to be head over everything". What for? Who for? "The church which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills everything in everyway". He has been appointed the head of all things - what for? His Father? Himself? For the angels? For the CHURCH! A man has been appointed with everything under His feet for US! Principalities, rulers, darkness, cancer, blindness, poverty, broken families, marriages, EVERYTHING was put under HIS feet for YOU! When He says "Every knee must bow" - He is not talking about your knees but the knees of demons, Satan, premature death, sickness, cancer - THEIR knees bow to the Name of Jesus because He has put all things under HIS feet FOR you so that you can walk into the impossible and make all things bow!

The message of grace has GOT to get out! It is the number one reason for the abscence of the miraculous! You don't invade the impossible because your feet are so powerful. You don't invade the impossible because of your holiness or your power.

In Acts 3 Jesus has only been in heaven for a few weeks and spent time talking to His disciples about the Kingdom. His rule breaks people free from hatred and bitterness, from being bound to wheelchairs. He told them that and said; "I am out of here and I am going to the highest place where everything will be put under My feet for you - now you go knowing that everything is under My feet and you watch - everything will bow". In Acts 3 and they are walking to the Gate Beautiful and they turn to the man and fix their eyes. 3 or 4 times I have had the experience where a cripple calls out and I fix my eyes and I know that I know they are coming out that wheelchair. "Silver and gold we don't have but what we do have - we give to you. In the Name of Jesus rise up and walk". That man had been crippled since birth and he went walking and leaping and praising God! (Acts 3:12); "Men of Israel why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power and holiness ..." (v16) "It is by faith in the Name of Jesus that this man who you SEE and KNOW that this man has been made whole". These boys understood something that the modern church person hasn't got a clue about. Not a clue! They understood that everything was under the feet of Jesus already!

Now God waits in heaven for His enemies to be made His footstool by His church walking in. Please don't let the devil come to your mind and say this to you; "You cannot invade the impossible until you have got everything under your feet first - those sins, those habits, those cycles, those bad character flaws - until you have got those sorted and under your feet, don't bother to try and invade me the impossible". Don't bother talking to the devil too much but when you do say; "I am going to slap you sideways - shut up! The Bible does not say I can invade the impossible by having everything under my feet but because everything is under HIS feet! And I am a man! And my new theme song devil is "These boots are made for walking!".

Deal with disappointment, never give up! When you see this you will say "Blow this I am sick and tired of being dominated by a devil already under Jesus feet". (Luke 9:1); "Power and authority to drive out ALL demons and to cure diseases and He sent them out to preach the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick". People say that is the 12 apostles. Rubbish - every Christian is a priest. (Luke 10:1); He called the 12 then the 72 then the 500. "After this the Lord appointed the 72 and sent them to every place where He was about to go". (v17); "The 72 returned with joy".

If you aren't living the normal Christian lifestyle then you are living a psychologically managed lifestyle based on how people are treating you.

You get out in the miraculous and get out where the real needs are. If you just stay sitting with self-sufficient people then you will not see miracles, but when you go where the needs are THEN you will see the impossible invaded!

This church is going to care for thousands of orphans. We want to buy land in China with the governments help and care for dying AIDS people and show dignity to them. We are going to buy buildings in Hong Kong that will cost 10's of millions of dollars and we will pay cash and we will have hundreds of pastors full time and we will write books. People in Hong Kong will say - it doesn't matter how sick you are, just go into City Church and lay there in your cot and as these vibrant people worship, the Glory Cloud will come upon you and you will get healed! And to do that I MUST push through all this resistance I am feeling today.

Because if someone isn't fighting this resistance then it isn't being fought. People so quickly go back to the lowest denominator of their comfort. No wonder the prophets aren't liked because they will not let the church settle in comfort! They keep challenging unbelief and false theology! We are the end-day generation and if years go by and the revelation of grace stays shallow, it will be too late for some people. "Even the demons submit to us ... I give you authority to trample on snakes and scorpians and overcome all the power of the enemy". Overcome some of the power? No - ALL! And NOTHING will harm you! The devil throws thoughts into most of your mind and tries to deceive them as God. It isn't God! We can stop the bird making a nest in my hair!

The devil has picked a fight with the wrong person - I don't know how to give up! I don't know how! Some people know how but appear like they haven't! Some give up and yet go through false theology and go through the motions. If I give up I will go. Hong Kong will have a book of Acts church! It doesn't need another charismatic church! You won't get this! This church will never change! We are going Book of Acts or nothing! They are not looking for the Kingdom - they are looking for a semi-senile Santa Claus! They are coming and we look normal initially and then people run! Don't get angry with me! Get angry with Jesus! Tell Him! So many email me every week and tell me "Don't back off!". We are talking about people that don't want to live a boring little life, people who want to invade the impossible!

When Jesus was exalted to the highest place for us then what do we do with that!? It is not about me or Glenda - it's about Him! The Lamb! It is worth having your tongue cut off for Him! Because when you are resurrected, your tongue will praise the Lamb far more than those who never did anything. This place is mean to people. 30% of the population is suffering depression! Yet the church is having charismatic meetings without kingdom! We need apostles and prophets who stand up and say "This is heavenly vision!". Stop looking at you - stop looking at your past and your success rate or failure rate! Look at Him and what is under His feet! God will keep our enemies alive until they see us leading churches of thousands with miracles and the Kingdom advancing.

(Romans 16:20) "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under YOUR feet". This is a question. Whose feet is the God of peace going to use to crush Satan? His feet or your feet? YOUR feet! Because they are already under Jesus feet and Jesus is a man and the devil is legally under His feet so they can be under your feet irrespective of your performance!

People today look at the Promised Land of signs and wonders and miracles where orphans are cared for and evil governments are toppled and they say; "It's too challenging for me - put me back under the slavery of the Law". But Christians are saying today; "Come what may I must fulfill the purpose of God in my generation". The previous generation did not invade the impossible. I am a Caleb and a Joshua. I am going to lead many people under the age of 40 into the Promised Land. If you are over 40 then join me. Don't give up! Don't let disappointment steal you! Get into worship and you will see the impossible invaded!

A Revelation of Jesus!!

At the end of Session 4 in Dubai, Rob shared an amazing list of how Jesus is revealed throughout the Word of God and I thought it was worthy of it's own post so it is not missed at the end of the Session 4 notes.

Genesis - The seed of the woman.

Exodus - The Passover Lamb.

Leviticus - High Priest.

Numbers - Pillar of Fire by Night and Pillar of Cloud by Day.

Deuteronomy - Prophet like Moses.

Joshua - Captain of our Salvation.

Judges - Judge and Lawgiver.

Ruth - Our Kinsman Redeemer.

1 and 2 Samuel - Trusted Prophet.

Kings and Chronicles- Our Reigning King.

Ezra - Our faithful Scribe.

Nehemiah - The rebuilder of the broken walls of our shattered lives.

Esther - Mordaci.

Job - Everliving Redeemer.

Psalms - The Lord our Shepherd

Proverbs - Wisdom

Ecclesiastes - Wisdom

Song of Solomon - Lover and Bridegroom

Isaiah - Prince of Peace

Jeremiah - Weeping Prophet

Lamentations - Weeping Prophet

Ezekiel -The wonderful 4-faced Man.

Daniel - The 4th Man in the Fiery Furnace.

Hosea - The Eternal Husband forever married to the Backslider

Joel -The Baptiser in the Holy Spirit.

Amos - The Burden Bearer.

Obadiah - Our Saviour

Jonah - Our Great Apostle

Micah - The Messenger with beautiful Feet.

Nahum - Our Avenger.

Habbakkuk -The Evangelist pleading for Revival.

Zephaniah - The Lord Mighty to Save.

Haggai - The Restorer of the Lost Heritage.

Zechariah - The Fountain open to the House of David for sin and uncleanness.

Malachi - The Son of Righteousness rising with healing in His Wings.


Matthew - The Messiah.

Mark -The Wonder Worker.

Luke -The Son of Man.

John -The Son of God.

Acts - The One moving and working among men.

Romans -The Justifier.

1 and 2 Corinthians -The Sanctifier.

Galatians -The Redeemer from Curse of Law.

Ephesians -The Christ of unsearchable riches.

Philippians -The God who supplies all our needs.

Colossians -The Fullness of the Godhead bodily.

1 and 2 Thessalonians -Our Soon-Coming King.

1 and 2 Timothy -The Mediator between God and Man.

Titus -The faithful Pastor.

Philemon -The Friend of the Oppressed.

Hebrews -The Blood of the Everlasting Covenant.

James -The Lord who raises the sick.

1 and 2 Peter - The Chief Shepherd who soon shall appear.

1, 2 and 3 John - Love.

Jude -The Lord coming with 10's of thousands of His Saints.

Revelation -The King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Grace and Glory Conference, Dubai - Session 4

Rob was in Dubai recently to speak four times at a conference that I mentioned here. He was accompanied by Bonnie Rufus - his gifted daughter. This session in particular caught my attention because of Rob's key teaching on the Holy Spirit - we truly can do NOTHING without Him!


31st January 2008


I think we really do have to sort our eschatology. Eschatology is the study of last days or events and there are a lot of brokers or peddlers of fear that try, through sensation, to create loyalty to the kingdom but what they do contradicts the very release of the kingdom because they end up being so afraid of Antichrist and the Beast that they sit trembling at the Rapture bus stop waiting to escape this evil world and just go to heaven.


But our mandate from heaven that we are authorised not to go to heaven but to bring heaven to earth.


I do not believe that Antichrist is going to win or the Beast is going to win - I believe that the Kingdom of God as described in Daniel chapter 2 where Daniel through revelation interprets Nebuchadnezzer's dream of a statue and so forth and so on (which really is the interpretation of several kingdoms) - and all of these kingdoms happened as Daniel prophesied them. Then the purpose of the king's dream was a stone cut without human hands smashed the kingdoms and filled the whole earth. And of course the stone cut without human hands is the One who is born of a virgin - not conceived by the seed of man - and who came in the time of the Roman kingdom and He came and His Kingdom will fill the earth and we will topple evil.


What is evil? Evil is illegitimate authority. Who is behind illegitimate authority? The one who wanted to make himself equal to God - Satan. He then tried to deceive Adam into being equal with God.


That is illegitimate authority in the earth, that is demonic power and for the Kingdom to invade and bring social justice to the earth, we don't need just humanistic ideology or technology - we need the power of the Kingdom of heaven to break into the earth as it is in heaven.


I am so grateful to you folks for your financial gifts today. Money represents time - hours at work frozen into little notes/currency. Into those notes represents hours at work frozen into paper that can be then carried back to Hong Kong and then in the fear of God we at City Church International will by the administration of God help that into China. We are working with a number of churches across the border - we helped to plant 2 churches last year. They have just planted into Shanghai - one of the key influential cities and we are partnering with them to plant a church into Beijing.


China


So we are going right into the nerve centre of one of the biggest nations in the earth with the most booming economy. If you are going to learn a language of the world - learn Mandarin. It will be the language of the world. The future superpower of the earth. China - 1 billion, 300 million people of which only about 100 million at this stage are going to heaven. Most have grown under an atheistic Communistic ideology that has taught them there is no God. They are not immoral - they are ammoral. They don't even know there are references to truth and lives and we are going to invade the impossible.

We are so insane. We think a few of us pathetic weaklings are going to invade China and invade this part of the world because when you did that, you signed on the bottom line of an empty contract and God is now writing in the details. So when Mike said not only money but people are coming - I said, that is it Lord! Mike signed his whole church over! It is a mutually reciprocating thing and there is a lady who has been part of our church for 3 years and she has relocated to China. She is a little dynamite lady and longs to get married but the call of God on her life is like a Mother Teresa calling and she doesn't have the time to get married. Yet she longs to get married. She features in the book "Jesus in Beijing". I have the privilidge of preaching to 10's and 10's of millions over God channel but there are people in this church who may never stand on platforms but you can have influence far beyond those of us who stand on platforms.


The Kingdom of heaven will break through and the underground church needs to break through and become a prophetic voice in China. It is mainly the rural people in the underground church - there is a lot of legalism and they lack apostolic fathers but they are zealous and laying their lives down, they are being put in prison for the Gospel. No matter what you hear, it is still happening today. They had orphanages and "dying rooms" where babies were given to the orphanages with cleft lips who couldn't feed from a bottle and so they are starved rather than change the bottle and they are put in the "dying rooms" without water simply to starve. So this lady went from Hong Kong with a degree and went into these dying rooms and said to the official; "I am taking this baby to my hotel room" and against all protocol he let her go. Out of that she started an orphanage called "Mother's Love".


When Glenda and I stood there and saw the little graves with little shoes on ... I am telling you this becuase you have already given. Emotional manipulators tell all the sob stories and then say, "Now give". That is the wrong motive for giving. You give because God gives you a release of faith that this is what we want to give into. Emotional manipulation is demonic - so I am telling you this after. We stood there and looked at the graves of little babies who could have lived if they had been fed properly. She opened the orphanage and the babies started living. Then the government of China realised that you can make money with a proper orphanage. Americans will pay for orphanages. So the whole government took over the orphanages and wouldn't give babies to private orphanages anymore. So she had to give up the orphanage but now runs an orphanage for special needs children that no one wants. Glenda and I went in there and you see these kids and no one wants them. She said "I will be your mother".


Some of them are so far gone and yet under the love of God they are changing. One of them has been healed of broken bones and HIV. You drive through these little villages and they are ghost towns with the men gone and just women there waiting to go. There are only 2 million people in China at the moment with AIDS but in the next year that will jump to 20 million people. Then you can imagine the next jump if this thing isn't dealt with. We opened a hospice to help people dying of AIDS and now the government is getting behind them and inviting her and her team to come and educate them. The Kingdom of heaven is breaking in - we are finding favour with Communism government! The heart behind Communism is to care for the people. A right distribution of wealth. Unfortunately because of an evil heart, it never works. But friends don't think Satan doesn't get behind capitalism either. Capitalism could work if the Kingdom of a loving heart was behind it. Communism could work but because of legitimate evil they are both invaded by principalities and powers.


So many dear people in churches around the world are being taught to turn away from the living power of God. As they see the need for social justice around the world they say; "Let's forget about signs, wonders and the power of God - yes we believe in it, but let's put it to the side of church life but the main thing is that we become equipped to change church life with social justice". The motive is good but it is a deceptive, demonic thing they have been beguiled into.


The issue behind social injustice and poverty is not just bad administration and lack of technology but a demonic power that has to be invaded by divine power in signs and wonders and miracles. Behind that can come technology and education but when we drop the power of God and replace it with natural humanistic administration that has come into the Church - and we are ashamed of people falling under the power of God in meetings and are ashamed of people getting drunk in the Holy Spirit and we are ashamed of demons coming out because we may disturb some sensative, cute, nice little Christian then we are being beguiled by demonic power.


I find it the most abhorrent thing to think that some people describe Church as nice people meeting with other nice people to become nicer. Why does the Bible say that God wants us to be hot or cold but if we are lukewarm, He just "pukes" us? It is actually "vomit" - the Greek there. To vomit is an involuntary experience - it is not that God wants to. But lukewarmness and nice-ness is so alien to the passion of God that it can't stay in the Presence of God. You cannot topple evil and bring in the Kingdom by being nice. The last thing Jesus was, was a "nice person". You do not have people screaming at you and wanting to kill you by being "nice". You don't crack a whip and go into temples and say "This is wrong" by being a nice man. The last thing church is, is a bunch of "nice people". We are the warriors of God. We are the people of the Kingdom violently and forcibly bringing down evil and bringing in the Kingdom. We are not leaving a planet full of earth and going to heaven one day. We are going to change governments!


Can a nation be born in a day? Yes whole nations can be born in a day. Even maybe Fiji is an example of a nation being born in a day where the vast majority are worshippers of the Living God and not just religious stuff but born again in the power of God, believing in miracles, signs and wonders - not ritualism. Amen? What is the biggest warning that is prophesied in the Bible - the most terrible evil in the last days? If we miss this, we have missed the greatest warning that we are not beguiled by.


2 Timothy 3:1 says there will be terrible times in the last days and then he goes on and says people will be lovers of themselves and not lovers of God but the climax - the worst is that he says there will be people in the church with a form of godliness but who deny the power. Have nothing to do with them he says. The church today is filled with people today who have a form of godliness - they have a pietistic demenour and can go to the ceremonies and the religious rituals but they are Pharisees and Sadducees, Couldn't-sees and Wouldn't-sees.


They want to bring about social justice and change politics but they are doing it building their Babylon. They are doing it building their tower of Babel without reference to the Kingdom of God and they are Christians who have been beguiled out of the power of God. Harvard University - one of the greatest so-called institutions in the USA - was birthed in revival, signs and wonders and the power of God through the corridors of that great university. It was birthed for the dissemination of the Gospel - today it is intellectualism, a haughty arrogance and the delusions of man's self-sufficiency. You can hardly find God there today. Why? They have good motives - we are going to change the world, we are going to do things but gradually they said that the power of God is embarrassing. People falling, laughing, crying, repenting as the Spirit of God comes upon people. It is illegitimate authority - man trying to make themselves equal with God. That is strange to have that power coming on the earth and we don't want that. Schools and universities that started in Christian motives have ended up in intellectualism.


The greatest social reformers are those that seek the power of the Kingdom of God in signs and wonders and out of that bring social reformation.


Amen? Over a 100 years ago, the Salvation Army, when dark days ruled over the United Kingdom (and those days are here again).


But I believe great revival is coming to the United Kingdom - can you say amen? Revival in the United Kingdom will hit dark Europe and I am training Chinese Christians to go as missionaries to dark Europe and to the United Kingdom.


In those dark days members of Parliament were having sex with 13 or 14 year old girls claiming to be Christian and parading themselves in the House of Lords. And a movement by the Salvation Army - they had what they called "stacking boards". On the side of walls you would see little shelves all around the walls. They would say that as they began to worship people began to fall under the power of God because when the weight of God's Being comes upon you, you cannot stand anymore. So to make room so that people don't stand on them, the ushers would stack the people. Under that movement the age of consent was raised up to sixteen - a legal challenge was brought about to protect women and it was birthed by a movement in fire and power. Look at the Salvation Army today and it is a social justice movement, a buxom barmaid patronised by the world. The early church were feared. You will never understand church history unless you look at it through the lense of apostolic truth.


You don't need the power of God on your life if your mentality is to have a home and family and a nice happy little life because that is a self-centred life. We need the power of God to topple evil everyone of us will have to give an account for the earth in which we live - the day is coming when God is bringing His whole throne to earth. And the earth shall be the dwelling place of God. We read in Peter that the earth is going to be "melted up" - no the Greek word there is actually "re-formed" and we will see elephant and rhino and no pollution. Seas full of fish the way that God created - it is good! It is very good!


The kingdoms of this earth shall become the kingdom of this Lord and of His Christ. God is not going to leave an evil planet and pull His frightened little cowardly Church sitting at the rapture bus stop out and then He can nuke the whole planet and only a few little idealistic, pietistic Christians will be in heaven.


An Aussie would say; "No I would rather go to hell and be with my mates!". If that is what is going to be in heaven, a few self-centred Christians who don't see that the call on their lives is to bring order to their marriage and children - not just for an end in itself but to extend the kingdom to topple evil. 2 million of our brothers and sisters in Sudan have been murdered in recent years. Others have had their arms cut off and women their breasts cut off by rabid fanatical extremists religious idealists and the Church says nothing!


It hardly even prays for these things. Because if you are overwhelmed by your personal problems then your prayers are prayers of self--centredness and self-preservation which is self-righteousness. You will never know the glory of God if you live like that.


In the 1600s the UK was on the brink of a bloody revolution that would have killed hundreds of thousands of people in a violent bloody industrial revolution. It was happening in France across the Channel. Thousands were being guillotened in the country under demonic power. France hasn't recovered from that yet. That was not the will of God for that to happen but secular humanists got in to try and bring change through their own personal humanistic abilities but Satan came behind that and destroyed it. I thank God for the Hugenots wh escaped from the country to South Africa and brought the Word of God to South Africa. Right across the Channel the UK was being set up for that and God raised up people like John Wesley.


Wesley came preaching in a demonstration of power - not just "Your sins have seperated you from God - repent and be saved evangelically and then you will go to heaven one day but while you are here live like you are living in hell". No he came and preached the Kingdom of God!


And they called it "Wesley's disease". The police called it "Wesley's disease" because as Wesley and Whitfield preached to the thousands of hardened sinners, men would throw stones and bricks and them and spit on them. As the bricks and spit hit them, they called it their medals of honour for Jesus. They kept preaching the gospel to hardened miners and Wesley and Whitfield said they knew when they were breaking through because the hardened soot-covered faces began to have white streaks running down their faces as they wept. Then when the meetings were over sometimes thousands of men would be left lying unconcious under the power of God. Secular historians say that the preaching of Wesley and Whitfield singularly stopped a bloody revolution in the UK that was happening in France.


George Whitfield said that when he went to Massachusetts, the young men used to climb the tree to better see him as he preached. He said; "Young men I am about to preach - come down out of the trees because the power of God is about to fall and the kingdom of heaven is about to break into the earth and topple illegitimate authority or evil. Evil and rebellion agaisnt the King of Kings". Some of them came down and some of them stayed up and observers said that as Whitfield was preached they heard the "thud-thud-thud" as young men fell from the branches under the power of God. Isn't that amazing? Secular historians said that the preaching of the gospel and the demonstration of power brought social reformation and rights for children and protection of children.


But the Church is abandoning it's heritage - they are abandoning the mighty power of God for seeker sensative services and meetings where we don't offend anyone because of the power of God. We don't want the the power of God to come in our meetings because God is embarressing - God thinks the Church is His!


That is disturbing to us because we just want to live a comfortable little life. We want dry-cleaning services - in by 09:00 and out by 10:00. "Sermonettes". Do you know that revolution in France wasn't the will of God? It could have been prevented.


Do you know that the future can be changed right now by decisions we make today? That nations, communities and regions have their outcome in balance based on Christians making decisions today on what the Church is and what the Kingdom is and what their assignment in life is to see the Church really powerful in God.


Turn to Isaiah 55. Every time I preach I say, "Please Lord let me be nice - let me not challenge anyone or anything - let me just get pats on the back!". I am not challenging you - Jesus is by His Spirit. He said; "Seek first the Kingdom of God and all these things will be added to you". He didn't say seek first your marriage or your children and all these things will be added to you. I have seen people put their marriages before Jesus - and over 30 years as a pastor those marriages have ended in divorce, their children ripped apart by divorce and I say; "Can't you see? Put the Kingdom first!". Glenda and I have been married 23 years and we have six granchildren and all our kids are serving God. If that is not your experience that is not to put condemnation on you at all - in fact it is to give you hope.


Regret is a useless emotion - you cannot do a thing about your past - forget it but you can do something about your future and the decisions you make now. If you are ever brought into a place of powerless hopelessness - that is not the Spirit of God. You are dealing with demonic oppression trying to bring you into regret and powerlessness and hopelessness. The Kingdom of heaven empowers you to make decisions that affect your future.


Forget about your past - it has gone. I feel for you - I really do - but there is nothing you or I can do about the past. The way to aggressively attack regret is to forget the past and look into your future and say; "God I make choices now that may be gut-wrenchingly difficult but I signed on the bottom line of a blank contract and I put your kingdom first. Where I live - when I re-locate - what career I take - where I move to. It's what you want God. Not what I want and then God you fit in. No I am your ambassador and I want to go into a place and represent you and not speak on my own but on behalf of the King of Kings. I am a walking embassy of the government of God".


Some live by hindset and it looks so clever. But the greatest calling is to have fore-sight. Yet even greater than foresight is insight. We are called to work with insight - to see the future and become the future in the now. We are a statement of a future age to come. We are the true new age. The rainbow new age - that is the deception. That is the false, the demonic. We are a statement of the age to come living in the now - in the earth.


So I was going to talk on the "Glory of God" because the Bible says in Habbakkuk 2 that "the knowledge of the glory of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea". So the knowledge of the glory - not just the glory! The knowledge of the glory will cover the earth.


The glory is the manifest, weighty, tangible Presence of God that will cover the earth and we will get revelation or knowledge in the last days of the glory that no other generation has had. The Bible says that the "glory of the latter house will be greater than the former house". That Christ will have a glorious house without spot of wrinkle or blemish. The glory of God will fill the Church and we will carry the manifest glory of God.


I wanted to talk today on the quantum physics of the glory - about the expanded glory and the concentrated glory because we have to learn about the knowledge of the glory if we are to see bread multiply and fish multiply to see the hungry fed! And it is happening in the earth! Food is being multiplied in Mozambique with Heidi Baker to feed orphans. Chickens are multiplying. Bill Johnson said they have had chocolate multiply! The good news about that is in the quantum physics of the glory - is immediate weight reduction and people have lost 20kg in a meeting and I have seen it! The miraculous power comes down and I have seen trousers and dressers out here because the God who destroyed the Hittites can also destroy the cellulites!


One thing that worries me about being caught in one area of Christianity or one movement or one denomination is that you isolate yourself and think that's it and we need to expose ourselves to the Kingdom of God.


God is not building movements or denominations - He is building HIS Kingdom and I am interested in the Kingdom! That doesn't mean to say we don't partner with movements or people - we are just not insular or locked in.


We have to expose ourselves to the Kingdom and thousands around the world are losing weight. Now instantly some of you object to that! Millions in the world are saying that but 60% of Americans are obese and I don't mean that unkindly. But they are coming and are getting weight reduction! What are signs and wonders? Signs are something that point to Jesus. We don't run after signs - the signs point us to Jesus. Jesus is the centre!


But the concentrated glory is when the glory comes into intensity. The expanded glory is when the glory affects the molecular structure of our bodies so that you can walk through a wall like Jesus did or you can walk on water like Jesus did under that glory.


The concentrated glory is different - when the devil said turn the stones in bread, Jesus didn't do it - but the devil knew that Jesus could because the molecular structure can change - if the structure can change so that water comes out of the rock, then the structure changes. You say this is freaky stuff Rob. Well lots in the Bible is freaky! An axe head sinks to the bottom and Elijah puts his anointing on it and the axe head floats. Imagine if we went back to what Christianity is meant to be - how easy it would be to change nations and see multitudes saved.


But there is a demonic illegitimate authority in the earth trying to beguile the church out of the power and just be nice, cute, sweet. I puke on that kind of religion that is sending millions to hell and God pukes it out!


I want to talk briefly on how joy and peace work together - joy and peace. How many of you have got so drunk in the Holy Spirit over the last 3 nights? I believe that is supernatural weaponary against the demonic. He gives us the oil of joy for the spirit of mourning. The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. If I allow my life to come under helplessness, heaviness, mourning - I have allowed my life to come under helplessness that is demonically inspired. And I cannot allow my life to come under the miraculous power of God if I am oppressed by loss of joy and loss of peace.


For peace and joy are the main weapons of glory in our warfare against the devil. Now I am into intercession, I am into praying, I am into binding, I am into fasting - but the main weapons of our warfare to invade the impossible is the supernatural joy of God and the supernatural peace by which we crush Satan under our feet. If you lose your joy and lose your peace you will not move in the miraculous.


You will live under a cloud and when you come into the service you will carry a cloud of the demonic over you. But if you live in joy and you live in peace, you will carry the atmosphere of the miraculous - "All things are possible!". We are not meant to be coming in every Sunday and just getting free - getting free - and getting free from the same problem we had last week. We are meant to come into the revelation of the Kingdom and carry the glory over our lives so that unsaved people come in and get set free from what's oppressing them.


The church is constantly reaching out to the garment of Jesus for another little thing and another little thing and there's nothing wrong with that (we need to do that till the day we die) but that shouldn't be the MAIN THING is that we become the garment for the world to touch!


Miracles take place in this setting and the office and the workplace and we change society and topple evil and topple poverty and topple the sex slavery of children, we topple Babylon - not by arrogance of self-righteous but by weapons of humility, graciousness and supernatural joy and supernatural peace. I don't understand this - I have never preached what I am about to preach anywhere in the world. But God gave me these Scriptures this morning and just said "Preach it". I used to think that peace preceded joy but God said; "No, no it's not like that. Joy comes first and then peace follows!". Many of those people laughing in the Spirit last night I guarantee had the most wonderful supernatural peace. So joy feeds your peace and peace feeds your joy.


Look at Isaiah 55 - (Isaiah 53-55) - this is about the gospel and the New Covenant coming into the earth. Isaiah 55:12; "You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace and the mountains and the hills will burst into song before you and the trees of the fields will clap their hands". Now in prophetic language, mountains refer to nations. They can also refer to problems. Nations will burst into song for the people who go out in joy and be led forth in peace. Zion the joy of the whole earth is led out in joy and goes forth in peace, nations will burst into songs of praise or mountains of problems will have to give way to the song of joy and peace in the earth.


Peace is a supernatural sign of the government of God - it is a supernatural sign of legitimacy upon you. Not peace when everything is going well but peace when everything is going horrifically wrong, then you have a sign that the supernatural sign of the authority of God's government is upon your life. (Isaiah 9) says Jesus shall be called the prince of peace and the government shall be upon His shoulders and of the increase of His ... peace there shall be no end. This will go through the whole earth and conquer the earth and the mountains shall burst forth in joy and be led forth in peace. This isn't just personal prosperity for me but a weapon to manifest the concentrated glory for signs and wonders and miracles.


Rob - do you live in joy and peace all the time? My wife will tell you no - but I am getting there more and more. I am learning every day to live in peace. Sometimes I feel agitated and anxious and I think no - this is a sign of demonic power. Trace back to where I lost the peace and it is either an email or a phone call or criticism and I think "Father ... I receive". When you are living in peace you are living in the power of the supernatural presence of God's government.


When you are living in anxiety and fear you are saying words that agree with and make alliances with a demonic power to empower a disarmed devil to oppress you. But when you are living in joy and peace, your words are the carrier of the power and glory of God.


(Matthew 10:7) - Jesus said when you go and preach the Gospel this is what you do; "You heal the sick, cast out devils, raise the dead and cast out lepers - that is your message". Then He said go in and look for a man of peace and then you walk into that home and say "Shalom" (nothing missing - nothing broken) - the peace of God be upon this home. If your peace is not received then withdraw your peace, shake the dust of your feet and leave. Because you see if they will not receive your peace then they will not receive the signs and wonders and miracles.


I have been in crusades and you can just touch and people come out of wheelchairs. There is such peace. I have been in other places where people are agitated and you can do nothing. You have to withdraw the peace of the Kingdom until in their restlessness they seek a peace. But self-righteous people are driven to prove themselves all the time. (Romans 14:17) - Kingdom means the government, the rule and reign of God. "Righteousness" means the free gift of righteousness given to you in Jesus Christ. The Kingdom is in the Holy Spirit. In between is righteousness, and peace and joy! (Romans 16:20) - a command to the church today. If I don't invade the impossible then the impossible will invade me. If I don't attack Goliath then Goliath will attack me. There are chemical reasons for not having peace but by and large there is no excuse.


(Romans 16:20) - "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet". How many of you think that "crushing" and "peace" are words you normally connect? "Crush" - "Peace"? Peace is a weapon of war. When you lose your peace you need to monitor your life - not the pastors or deacons but you and I must monitor our lives. People want priests and gurus so we don't have to take any responsibility for our lives. No - our job is to equip you for you to walk in peace and joy. I want to quickly show you two areas to live in peace. The devil wants you agitated and anxious. Job said the things I feared most will come upon you. I want to speak words of peace.


Jesus was asleep in the storm! Why could Jesus sleep during a storm? Because His inner life was not equipped from an earthly realm - His inner life was equipped from a heavenly realm. We are seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus - right now! He said to the storm; "Peace, be still". Who sent that storm? God? No! They were on a mission - why would God send that storm! It was an act of the devil - a demonic storm but it had to bow to the Creator.


When you walk in peace you will speak peace on your finances. Jesus equipped them to speak peace! How many of you would keep your job if you kept asking your boss to do what you are employed to do? The anointing equips people to set other people free! I am moved with compassion for the members of my church. I do counsel them and I do love them - but sympathy is not compassion! Compassion is saying I love you and putting my arms around you and fasting and praying for you. But compassion motivates you to move in the supernatural and move in the power of God to set the captives free.


Philippians 4 - joy comes first and then peace. You can rejoice in your suffering because you understand the mercy and favour and grace of God. (Romans 5:1-11). "We rejoice in our sufferings because we know that our suffering produces ... hope and hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out His Holy Spirit ... while we were still sinners Christ died for us ... we REJOICE in God through our Lord Jesus Christ whom now we have received reconciliation".