This sermon was slightly shorter than Rob's traditional hour + sermon! However I think that the church was still basking in the visit of the two large angels and the anointing was clearly heavy so after the sermon - the time of ministry was particularly awesome. For that reason it is very worth hearing the audio.
Rob preached it on Sunday 24th June - two Sundays after the visit of the angels.
"Open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 3.
The Bible says in the book of Revelation that Satan is the one that accuses the brethren or the Christians night and day. It is 24 hour obsession of the enemy - he has got an obsessive personality. His compulsion is to accuse you. Everyone of his accusations are totally illegitimate. Even if what he is saying about you is true - he is illegitmate in his accusing of you. The Bible says at the Cross in Colossians 2 that God the Father nailed the rules and regulations that stood opposed to you and me and judged you and me - the standards of the law - and at the Cross He cancelled them taking them away and made a public spectacle of the powers and authorities and disarmed them, triumphing over them openly.
So there is no more standard for the New Testament Christian of the law by which he can say that you fell short of that standard and accuse you. And every one of the sins you have done past, present and future have been fully dealt with by the righteous integrity and justice of God's High Court in heaven. It has been punished already and can never be punished again.
If you ever interact with someone who you think is the Holy Spirit and after your time you come out with a feeling of hopelessness then I want to tell you on the authority of Scripture that you never met the Holy Spirit. You met a religious demon pretending to be the Holy Spirit.
The Bible says in the book of Romans that God is the God of all hope and encouragement. When you interact with the Holy Spirit you are interacting with a Personality that will fill you with HOPE. Hope is not wishful thinking but a confident and joyful expectation of good things happening in your life. In any area of your life where you feel a sense of hopelessness then that is an area that has been subject to the influence of lies not God. But the spirit of religion, witchcraft, lies, deception or a Jezebel spirit.
But Paul says that we do not have the spirit from the world but a spirit by which we may know the things that God has freely and undeservedly given. The devil accuses but the Bible says that they responded to the accusations by the blood of the Lamb and the fact that we weren't trying to defend ourselves - we have already been defended by Jesus at the Cross and He is our counsel for defence - our lawyer at the right hand of the Father. He is the superior Mediator of the New Covenant and He never changes. He is a never-changing priesthood. You change and I change and sometimes for good and sometimes for the bad. We change all the time but an unchanging great High Priest stands as the Attorney to administrate the New Covenant who is unchanging in His position as a merciful great High Priest that always declares; "Father they are righteous!". He sees no sin in us at all. What was the third way they overcame the enemy? By the word of their testimony! Someone doesn't like testimony and his name is the devil. We need to testify when God does something. I am going to give a testimony this morning!
A few months ago Gloria was diagnosed with a lump in her ovary and they did extensive tests and they found out it was a cyst not cancer. She needed an operation to go and have it cut out. Some of you were here two weeks ago when there were two angels here and the power of God hit Gloria in a phenemonal way and He just hit her again! They had extensive tests and that 3 to 4 cm cyst has completely disappeared out of her body! No operation needed there! There are only two worlds in the reality of the universe - the world of heaven and the world of the earth.
We reflect the world we are most aware of. We reflect the nature of the world we are most aware of.
Heaven is a place where there is total and absolute trust in God and absolutely no unbelief whatsoever. Earth is a place with many geographical areas of absolute unbelief in God. We reflect the world that we most feed on and the world we are most concious of and aware of. That's why Jesus said; "Seek FIRST the Kingdom of heaven". When you seek first the concious of the heavenly realm then you are concious of the nature of heaven and you override the nature of the earth realm which is unbelief in God.
I want to talk today about my little journey into the anointing and how that happened to me and how it changed my life and based on the reality of coming into the distinction between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Lets read 2 Corinthians chapter 3:4 onwards to the end of the chapter. It is such a beautiful passage of Scripture. I like the word "confidence". I think Christians should be very confident. When you know the New Covenant you become very bold and very confident. The Old Covenant under the law was given to strip you of all your confidence. It was to strip you of all self-righteousness and every time you thought you thought you were good enough to earn God's favour or earn God's blessing then the law would come in to strip you of all confidence and show you that you haven't got a hope. You are way short of the standards of the law. The New Covenant was given by God to fill you with confidence before God. As you look around the church world today, primarily you will find a church world that is filled with people who the majority do not have confidence before God to do miracles, to walk into the face of the glory of God because of the deception of mixing the Old Covenant and the New Covenant and blurring them together has confused God's precious people on the planet.
One of my major assignments from God is to travel the world and through our website and raise up first generation grace churches that enter into the reality of what happened at the Cross when Jesus said; "It is finished - it is over now - everything that needs to be done to make God happy with you forever and ever has been done and it is irreversible. From now on God's face towards you is a smiling face, a gracious disposition and He turns His face to you and shines on you every second of every minute of every hour of every day of every month of every year of every decade and on into eternity. The Cross has cosmic and eternal consequences that are irreversible. The Cross was God's secret wisdom destined before time began for your glory and had the rulers and powers of this world known then they would not have crucified the Lord of glory because He ambushed them by His secret wisdom. And now it's done.
Let's look at this. (v4); "Such confidence is this ... spirit gives life". Notice that you and me are competent ministers of the Spirit of life! We don't minister the letter which is the law but the life of God which God has made us competent and confident to do so if we are walking in the revelation of the New Covenant and totally free from the Old Covenant. Now some people say that the letter that Paul is referring to here is not the Old Covenant law. No - we will see very clearly in the next verse and we must read Scripture in context that the letter that kills refers to the 10 Commandments written on tablets of stone and the revelation written to the church today says that the ministry written on tablets of stone - the 10 Commandments - does not make you righteous or bring you closer to God but it ministers death to you and condemnation! And there will be a fading glory. The law was never given to make you righteous, it was never given to make you closer to God or to make you holy or helpo you at all but to strip you of all confidence and strip you of all self-righteousness and bring you into the New Covenant of total grace all the time. If you come under the law at all then you come under death, condemnation and loose confidence before God. No one in this room is 100% under law but equally no one in this room is 100% totally under grace. We are all still living somewhere in between so some days we feel confident and other days we feel condemned.
When we come into full New Covenant truth then no more death or condemnation but the gift of righteousness will make us very bold and we will not have a fading glory but a glory that is brighter and brighter and brighter till Jesus comes again! (v7); "Now if the ministry that brought death ... Lord who is the Spirit".
Now I was in Singapore a few months ago where Dion brought his church. Many of you met Dion last week. He speaks fluent Mandarin and had a wonderful time in those two new church plants in China. In his church he has a young Chinese man who is doing his doctorate in genetic scicence. These are the cream of the cream of Chinese university students that are given special burseries to go to Singapore to study. All the time he had a problem because his science kept him locked up in the intellectualism of his own mind which is a small place to live. The human brain impressive as it is is very small when compared to the infinity of God and the vastness of this universe. So he never experienced the power of God once in his life as a Christian and never encountered God in reality or tangible experience of God's power. He was locked in for two things - intellectualism and legalism which is quite rampant among the underground church in China. Everyone that I have met - at least 30 of their pastors that I have met are stamped with legalism. Precious, zealous people that need to be liberated.
So the first two messages I taught on what the grace of God was and the Old Covenant. And he sat there stunned and amazed as he saw this was in the Scripture and saw it for the first time. The third session I spoke on the anointing and how it flows. So this is a letter that he wrote to a friend in China mainland who goes to the same university but Dion writes;
"God's supernatural workings in the book of Acts were not meant only for the New Testament times!".
So here is an email written;
"Leon talks about his supernatural experience during Rob Rufus's ministry at our church. They both got saved at this university in China in the past year. Great to hear from you again - everything is fine with me except I am fighting with time. My FYP is coming to an end soon but I still have several things to take care of before I can sit and write my thesis. Life here is wonderful. I am glad that you enjoy the GRE and hope you enjoy the AW. I am sure with the Presence of God there will be nothing standing in front of you. Speaking of God I have great news to share with you. Last Sunday as we worshipped in church lead by visiting pastor Rob Rufus, the Holy Spirit came down and hit me in a supernatural way. I was shaking and trembling but inside I felt like fire burning. My hands were cold and numb but I felt power and strength within. All of a sudden I heard a whisper within saying;
"Leon - I want you to impart this anointing to others".
So I stepped up and started to pray for others. As I approached Kathryn she started to cry and laugh. As I went to June I touched her and she fell on the ground. Then Nicky fell then Dion - his spiritual father! Rob prayed more and the power filled the whole church. It was supernatural! But the point is that God reveals Himself to His people. To me nothing in the world can deny the existance of God no more. The argument is over! He is there! And He touched me! I know you must feel shocked as you read my letter - I was once a believer with no faith in God's supernatural power. But when I put my trust in Him not on my own scientific and logical understanding then my faith made it possible to receieve Him in a very different way. Actually the Holy Spirit with us everyday and everywhere! When you eat, when you talk, He is there with you".
I think this is profound what this guy is saying! We think the Holy Spirit only turns up when you pray or fast or in a Sunday meeting! He is with you everywhere all the time!
"But why can't so many experience Him strongly like I had? Here the problem lies in insufficient faith to interact with Him personally. Many pray to experience God but they are actually afraid to see the supernatural or afraid to lose control when the Holy Spirit comes. Many pray and see nothing happen and then question - am I holy enough? Am I too young to see that? Am I reading the Bible too little? Am I spending too little time in the Scriptures praying? You see in the Scriptures it clearly states that the Holy Spirit is a Helper promised for EVERYONE! In Romans it says we are under LAW NO MORE but only under the grace of God! So if you can't see the Holy Spirit then please don't bring condemnation on yourself. Yes we are unworthy and our sinful nature remains ...".
Although Ryan would have another thing to say about that in his book on our website. But he is talking about the flesh.
"Our sinful nature remains even when we declare ourselves as Christians but God's grace made it possible for us to experience Him personally. God is in a love relationship with us. Therefore I pray for every Christian who has not experienced God in a supernatural way. Why is it so important? Because in Romans it says that the sons of God are led by the Holy Spirit. I don't wish or hope for you to experience the supernatural one day. I am sure that you will experience Him one day! Remember faith is what this is all about! Don't pray with wish or hope but with faith only! And faith makes us see the things that are coming but have not come yet".
Isn't that wonderful? How many believe that God has set you up today for a divine encounter? I wanted to talk to you about my divine encounter in 1981 that literally changed my life. My ministry started then. I planted a church in 1979 and had been a Christian for two years when I planted my first church. But I encountered the Holy Spirit in a Kenneth Hagin meeting actually. What was on him was transferred to me and I literally changed from a bland, dull, mechanical, doctrinal, theological, dead intellectual, unbelieving believer - with a fatalistic theology and a Doris Day doctrine.
God showed me in those Kenneth Hagin meetings that everything that is the will of God doesn't automatically happen just because it IS the will of God. It is God's will that all be saved. But millions go into a Christ-less eternity. Scripture is very clear to me - it is God's will that everyone sick get healed. But everyone who is sick doesn't get healed. The doctrine of passivity and fatalism and intellectualism and this world conciousness will not produce the power of God to get millions of Chinese people saved, it will not produce the power to raise the dead, or to open blind eyes and deaf ears. You may live a practical life but you will not produce the supernatural.
I had three days under Kenneth Hagin and when I came out I went back to my dead church and raised my hands and literally 95% of that church got lifted off their feet and thrown three rows back and deaf ears were opened and there were miracles. And that anointing has never left me. Once you catch that anointing it comes to stay. It feels like it has left you sometimes but it never worries me when it feels like it's gone because when I need it, it turns up. It is always there. In two weeks time I will be standing before 6,000 leaders from 40 nations in Brighton, UK and I will be doing six main sessions and what they have called me to do there is to teach on the supernatural. How the power of God operates! A whole precious movement has been changed by this ministry that has come out of Hong Kong!
How many of you believe that today you can catch something that will change your life? That can break more Old Covenant mentality off your mind and bring you into the grace of God? Gloria had a lump that disappeared. The intellectual mind can't understand that. Jesus plus anything equals nothing. Jesus plus nothing equals everything! Don't add to Jesus - don't add your works, law, holiness. Jesus is enough! The Father said; "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased".
Don't ever ask "Am I pleasing to You enough?". Wrong question - ask Him is Jesus pleasing enough? YES! You are in Him! Am I acceptable enough? Wrong question! Is Jesus acceptable enough? YES! You are in Him! Through the obedience of the one Man you stand permamently righteous before God. Not through your obedience but through the obedience of the one Man. Out of that will flow the fruit of obedience where you will seek to obey Him!
The brain is important and the Bible says we must renew the mind so we can know the will of God. It is by the renewing of our minds through thinking of this world's philosophies - then we are transformed by the renewing of our minds. Don't try and work out in your mind how God will touch you. "Well Rob is going to walk over and touch my head three times and then he will sing the national anthem of China". No don't do that! Just have an attitude of desperation that you want God to bless you. Those who need healing, don't think about your healing but think about getting an anointing to pray for others. Most people healed in Kathryn Kuhlman's meetings were there in a crippling devastating state and they were sitting there looking around and feeling compassion for the other cripples and while they felt that a force lifted them up out of their chair and they walked up the front to testify to the miracle. Don't think about yourself. Think about Him! Think about catching an anointing from Him to be a competent minister of the New Covenant.
This the year - 2007 - for the anointing to come!
No comments:
Post a Comment