It is to my everlasting regret that the closest Rob and Glenda Rufus came to the United Kingdom this year was Holland. Thanks to swine flu and the resulting demands on my job - I simply wasn't able to get the time off to fly the short distance to experience the Glory and Grace Conference. I will have to live in hope that happens next year! I need a Glory and Grace conference very soon! I am so grateful to Mp3s - the second best thing.
Here's the transcript!
"Well Holland Glory and Grace! It is such a joy and a privilege to be here! We have had two or three days in Amsterdam which was a great delight. I don’t like shopping much – but an anointing to shop came on me in Amsterdam! This is one of the manifestations! My wife brought nothing! That is one of the biggest signs and wonders I have ever seen! I want to thank you for hosting this conference. You have a reputation of doing everything well with excellence. Thank you for having us. The whole of the church too. It is our joy to speak to people from different countries as well.
I do want to say to the people of Holland that as we were praying last night, we really sensed that God wants to increase His Presence and power in this land. We felt right across to Eastern Europe including Russia; a move of the Spirit established in the Netherlands will go right through to Eastern Europe. We are trusting this time will light even more fires and that we will be partners together in this move of the Spirit across the land.
I want to honour and welcome my daughter Bonnie who I am very proud of. This has been a great and very challenging year. We have seen cripples walk; we have seen teams moving into China, seeing many people saved in the towns and rural areas of China. We have a team of 11 people from our church preaching the gospel in China. They have seen communist government officials saved when they see the miracles.
We had a lady wheeled into our church 2months ago in a wheelchair and I thought “I hope I get a chance to pray for her!” because our people believe that they are in Christ and can do the works that Jesus did. I am getting out of practice! They just get in before me! They are very rude and pray for the people before I can get the chance! At the end of the service I was heading for the back of the church, before I got there this lady was up and walking! Some of the church had prayed for her.
The next week this lady – a Chinese lady – came walking into the service next week. She had been in a wheelchair crippled for 20 years. God is doing some wonderful things in our days! We have had two Glory and Grace conferences this year already – one in Hong Kong and one in South Africa. We have seen amazing hunger in God’s people. So what I have come to realise is that God uses anybody! He really likes using those who know they are weak. Paul the apostle said we can boast in two things – our weakness and God’s strength! God doesn’t need our strength! He is incredibly strong! All our strength is flesh! This flesh can’t make people come out of wheelchairs or change people’s lives.
When we are weak – then the Holy Spirit moves in power and does great miracles, transforms lives!
I think we will be laying hands on people in some of the meetings but don’t wait for human hands! The greatest miracle can happen in your chair as God does what He wants! How many believe that God has more power to reveal in His church today?
There are four things that will establish a move of the Spirit at a deeper level in our churches:
1. We need to preach the gospel of grace that Paul preached – it liberates God’s people.
2. We must have a desperate hunger for more of God’s glory Presence.
3. We mustn’t be afraid of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit.
4. We must not be afraid of what man says – especially religious men! We must not be afraid of the rejection!
They rejected Jesus and hated Him, they hated Paul! This message of grace is the thing that the devil fears the most. Religious people fear this message the most! I don’t fully understand it! When religious people hear that the gospel means that you are free from the law of Moses, completely free and only under grace – it frightens them! But Paul the apostle said when he was under the law, he said he was a violent man!
People under law are violent – they have murderous attitudes. All religion that is legalistic, performance-based makes very unhappy, angry, violent people. Paul said according to the law – he had legalistic righteousness. He said it was faultless! But he said he considered that legalistic faultless righteousness as rubbish. The Greek is a stronger word – “dung”. Something that stinks! When someone is legalistic, they like to tick off boxes as to what they did not or did do. “You must be pleased with me God”. He says; “It stinks”. Paul said “I want to be found in Christ having a righteousness that is by faith in Christ and is apart from the law – that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and share in the fellowship of His suffering”.
I don’t understand how people can mix law and grace together! Under the law – the law curses you. The Bible says it is a “ministry of death”. It kills you. Under grace – we are redeemed from the curse of the law! The blessing given to Abraham is given to us freely! The law makes you conscious of your sin, grace makes you conscious that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! Under law God says “I will by no means forget your sins”.
Under the law God forgives your sins through the blood of bulls and of goats – but He doesn’t forget them. Under grace God says “I will by no means remember your sins and your lawless deeds”. Under law God demands a perfect righteousness by our performance. Under grace God provides His perfect gift of righteousness through His Son. The law says “Do – do – do!”. Grace says “It’s done!”. The law is a revelation of how wrong you are with God. Grace is a revelation of how right you are through Christ.
I know this is very simple! But the Church has made it very complicated. You are either under law or under grace. You can’t mix these two together. They are impossible to mix together! The law is so radical – if you fail in one area then the Bible says you are guilty of failing in every area. You must pluck your eyes out, cut your hands off, stone your children even! That is extreme! Under law people stand outside abortion clinics and shoot the doctors. They feel they are right in doing that! I do not believe in abortion – I know it is killing children! I don’t like it! But under law they say you must kill those who break the law and stone them. Under grace, it says you must love your enemies. The grace of God is so extreme! Right across the church world there is no argument about the definition of grace. There is no conflict! Almost every Christian will agree that grace is “God’s unmerited favour to you, that grace is God’s riches at Christ’s expense, that grace is God doing good things for us when we don’t deserve it, that grace is God’s empowerment on our lives”. Most of the church world agrees with that. The real problem comes trying to convince Christians that if you are in Christ the only way God relates to you is always and totally through grace and grace alone! That is where the fight comes!
There are two glories – there is an Old Covenant fading glory and a New Covenant ever-increasing glory! The Old Covenant glory is God’s view and opinion of you through the law. When God sees you through the law, all He sees is sin and man coming short. He must bring judgement and walk away. Under the New Covenant God sees you only through grace and grace alone. When He sees you through grace He sees you continually and permanently in Christ’s righteousness and can keep blessing you and causing His glory to come on you. Romans 5:21 says “grace reigns through the GIFT of righteousness”. Isn’t this good news?! It is so good! We have mixed law and grace together for centuries. There is a generation of believers rising in the earth – NO more mixture, NO more condemning cocktail that has confused and crippled us with condemnation, NO more fading glory! We are a generation of the EVER-INCREASING glory!
Some of the greatest insights into the New Covenant are seen when you read the Old Testament prophets. They see a day when the New Testament is coming. In Isaiah 61 he is announcing the New Covenant coming! Under law there is only mourning and sack cloth and ashes – because it is only gloom and doom and judgement. Under grace there is joy and freedom and that is why Isaiah says “The Spirit of the Lord is on me to preach freedom to the prisoners – to bring the oil of joy instead of mourning – beauty for ashes!”.
When I was a university student, I worked as a volunteer in insane asylums. I thought I was going insane! Many of the people in insane asylums have got a religious background and they are so depressed and so confused because there is a condemnation from the law that destroys the human being psychologically! God never wanted to bring the law! He came to Abraham and said; “Abraham – I will bless you! I will make your name great! I will make you a blessing in the earth! All nations will be blessed through you!”. Abraham didn’t have the law of Moses! The law was coming 430 years in the future! Abraham was an Iraqi sinner! He had done nothing good – he had no faith in God! He wasn’t behaving morally! God said “I will bless you! I will make you a blessing in all nations”. And Abraham said … “Okay!”. He hadn’t been to church or been taught the law – that you have to earn and deserve! He just believed that God wanted to bless him – and God credited that to him as righteousness. But God didn’t offer him righteousness! He offered to BLESS Abraham and Abraham believed it! God said “That faith in My goodness declares you righteous”.
Who are the seed of Abraham? The people of faith? The people that believe God wants to bless you out of His own goodness – THEY are declared righteous!
God brought 400 years after Abraham – because of Abraham’s covenant and they went through the Red Sea and were blessed and blessed, yet they complained and complained – but still God didn’t kill or judge them! Finally God said; “Because of your unbelief in My goodness – I will give you something that is NOT based on faith in My goodness. I will give you the Law”.
(Galatians 3:12) says the Law is not based on faith. (Hebrews 11:6) says without faith it is IMPOSSIBLE to please God. The Law is based on something that is IMPOSSIBLE to please God – the Law is based on a faith on me being good enough to earn the blessing.
Hebrews chapter 10 said God did not want to bring sin offerings or the Temple system – but the Law required it. On the day that the law came on Mount Sinai – what was the name of the religious day? The Day of Pentecost. 50 days after the Passover meal in Egypt. That was the day the law was introduced. On that day 3000 people were put to death by the wrath of God. The law had no power to make them holy and they were already worshipping a golden calf. When the Law arrived they were committing adultery and 3000 were put to death by the wrath of God. The law is based on man’s human effort, self-righteousness, human arrogance, the Law is there to show you and me that we can never get the blessings through us earning it. 1500 years later there was another day of Pentecost. 50 days after the Passover lamb had died on the Cross. At the Cross He cancelled the law and took it away. 50 days after that Passover lamb died, there was another Pentecost. The people in that city had done something worse than a golden calf – they had crucified the Lord of Glory! But on that day 3000 were saved!
Why would anyone want to live under law? On that day they walked out completely drunk! People were amazed! They said these men were drunk with new wine! Psalm 2 says God laughs at those who thinks they can advance against His anointed! Hebrews 1:8 says that Jesus is anointed with the oil of joy above anyone else in heaven. The Bible says the Holy Spirit is called the new wine. So – we have a trinity. A Father sitting on a throne laughing from His belly at the devil thinking he can destroy the church. Jesus at His right hand is full of more joy than any other creature in heaven! He is the uncreated eternal God by the way! The Father laughing, Jesus anointed with the oil of joy above His fellows and the Holy Spirit – powerful, intoxicating new wine and then you have the church in the earth. Conservative. Formal. “Have you prayed 5 hours today?! How much have you read your Bible?! Have you confessed your sins?!”. Depressed with an epidemic of melchnolia. Some people think the Trinity says “This isn’t right – look at the Church and how sad they are!”. We should become like them. The Trinity says “Let’s stop all this joy in heaven and laughter and angels from being happy. Stop all the joy when a sinner gets saved. When anyone gets saved we want depressed angels”. Because one day all these depressed Christians and grumpy brothers and sisters will come to heaven and if they see all this joy then they will be in hell, uncomfortable and not at home! Does the Trinity say that?! The Trinity says “NO! Let’s make as in heaven – on earth!”. Let Your Kingdom come to earth! Let Your will be done on earth as in heaven! Let’s let them know that Our joy is their strength! Let the fruit of the Holy Spirit be love, joy and peace!
The Kingdom of heaven is not food and drink but a matter of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit! Let them see that a merry heart does good, like medicine! Let sorrow and sighing flee away! Let God arise – let Zion be the joy of the whole earth! When we get there Jesus will say “Well good and faithful servant – enter into the JOY!”. He will not say “Enter into the depression of the Lord!”.
There is another thing God is doing in the earth – not only is He pouring out joy but ecstasy! Blessing!
You say “But Jesus was a Man of Sorrows”. What is the Man of Sorrows? That is Isaiah 53 – when He was on the Cross, carrying our sorrows and our pain and our suffering and our punishment so we can carry His joy, His freedom, His happiness! He is no longer a Man of Sorrows but the happiest Man on earth and heaven!
The other thing the Holy Spirit is doing is He is pouring out FIRE on the church. It is the fire of His jealous love. This fire is burning out of us – everything that loves something else more than Jesus. The Law says “Stop that – stop that”. It doesn’t help because Christians just carry on! When the fire of God’s love burns in us, it fills us with an awareness of how much He loves us and how glorious He is – it is supernatural!
It just burns out that which will steal our love away from Jesus. And the revelation of grace and the revelation of joy and freedom – there is a fire that is capturing our hearts with a passionate love for Jesus and a love for Him above everything else. In that is coming signs, wonders and miracles and healing filling us with drunkenness – bliss – ecstasy (not the drug but the same effect!).
Why do all these young people want to take ecstasy? I don’t blame them! So much of the Church is depressed so they have got to take something! But imagine when they see us in the supernatural joy!
Not Mount Sinai Pentecost where God is killing people because of the law but Pentecost in Mount Zion where God is saving sinners and the Church is drunk with ecstasy from heaven!
People will give up their ecstasy drugs for something much better! In this conference the wind of God is going to blow. He is blowing here tonight already! He will blow with the winds of the Spirit over all of our lives. In the winds of God we are going to smell the perfumes of heaven and the spices of the anointing among us! We are literally going to smell vanilla! Myrrh! These are the spices!
Exodus 30 is the ingredient of the anointing. It is literally going to drip from us!
Our cups are going to overflow and when it overflows it will splash on people around you! They may be sitting here like this saying “I am not going to get drunk – don’t give me that ecstasy or happiness! My grandfather was depressed, my father was depressed and I am going to keep the tradition of the family!”. Even though God is laughing His head off! Jesus is anointed with joy in heaven! The Holy Spirit is called the new wine. “It’s disgusting this happiness! I am going to keep the family tradition! I wouldn’t do that ‘joy’ stuff even if you paid me!”. Listen – when the Holy Spirit touches you, you will do it without being paid! As you come into overflow you are going to splash on people around you. You are going to splash on people in the streets, in your homes, hotels!
Fini and Isi were walking in Australia some time ago and had been in a meeting where the joy of heaven had broken loose. They were walking through the streets of Adelaide a few weeks later and walked past a young Australian woman. As they came in shadow contact, these unsaved, non-Christian, un-churched women fell under the power of the Holy Spirit totally drunk! There are coming signs and wonders that will break out in the streets! On the Day of Pentecost it was their drunkenness and the sound of heaven breaking into the earth that attracted the crowd and the people said “What is this?”. Peter’s sermon was “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel”.
Evangelism is not going to be knocking on doors and saying “Can I preach to you?”. No! Shut and close the door! Evangelism is going to be because the unsaved people SEE the joy and the Presence of God and the fire of God in US!
I was also walking through a place in Australia and there was a street café and someone called me over. I leant over the table and looked at the people. I was under such a heavy anointing. They were normal and then suddenly they were all covered in gold, oil dripping off them. They fell off the coffee table drunk in the street! People walking by saw them drunk in the street and I was able to say, “Don’t worry they are not drunk as ye suppose” and then was able to share the Gospel with them. Signs and wonders! Religion has been a people thinking “It is so hard to get a goat from our Father!”. In the parable of the prodigal son, the man had been with prostitutes and spent all his father’s inheritance! He came home and his father ran to him and kissed him on the neck and gave him a ring, shoes, a robe, party, a fatted calf. There was singing and dancing and happiness because there had been grace! The older brother had been working very hard doing everything right and said “I come into this place with singing and dancing and you give him a fatted calf and he has been with prostitutes and I have worked so hard for you and you didn’t even give me a goat!”. The father said “Son - everything I have is yours”. You are a son!
The New Covenant says this in Ephesians 2 and Romans 6; “If you are in Christ then you were co-crucified and co-buried”. God does not live within time. God doesn’t live limited to time. God created time and God lives in the glory. He lives in the eternal now. So you are already crucified with Christ! It has happened already! You have been buried with Christ, ascended, glorified and co-seated with Christ in the heavenly realms.
You are a co-equal heir with Christ and an heir of God! This has already happened! You start the Christian race at the finishing line as a WINNER!
This has all happened already. If you were going to play cricket for Holland and you knew you were guaranteed to win. How would you play? If you knew it was impossible to lose, that in the mind of God you have already won! Every ball that came your way – you would go for it! You would play! How would you play football? You would play with reckless confidence! People that think God is judging them and God is putting condemnation on them – Jesus said they take their talents and they bury it. They are so cautious – they think God is a hard taskmaster. Those that know God is good and we are guaranteed to win, they take their talents and take risks and multiply!
The New Covenant is superior to the Old Covenant! It has a superior mediator – Jesus. God took an oath in Isaiah to NEVER be angry with you or me again! He said “I take an oath, as surely as I took an oath with Noah’s flood – that the world will never be destroyed with a global flood – so I declare I will never be angry with you again, I will never withdraw My covenant of peace with you. I will establish you in My righteousness and you will have nothing to fear! Terror will be far from you! No weapon formed against you will succeed for your righteousness is from Me!”.
Your Father is the umpire of the game of life. The referee! The devil is bowling! Every ball you want to hit right out of the ground. You miss! The wicket breaks. The Holy Spirit puts the wicket back up! Jesus said “Not out!”. The Father says to the devil “Bowl again” and you swing and swing until you hit the ball out of the ground. Father is not umpiring the game by religious rules and regulations. He is umpiring the game by the finished work of the Cross. We just step out and swing the bat and we take risks over and over again until we win because we are guaranteed to win.
This is what righteousness means as a gift. You are as righteous in the Father’s eyes as Jesus because you have been given His gift of righteousness, completely apart from the Law! And there is no possibility that the Law can come back over your life because Colossians 2:14 God CANCELLED the Law and disarmed the powers and authorities at the Cross! So the devil can no longer accuse you because the law has gone. Now you are under grace and you are as close to the Father as Jesus is. In John 17 Jesus prayed, regarding all of us, “Father – may they be one just as We are one”. The Bible says in 1 John 4:17 “As He is, so are we in this world”. When I want to know what my relationship with the Father is like, I don’t look at me; I am finished with that inward looking stuff – if you spend all your time looking inwards, then you will get very depressed!
Corrie Ten Boom in Amsterdam said “If I look at myself I am depressed, if I look at the world I am unimpressed but if I look at Jesus I am so impressed!”. Even David under the Old Covenant said; “Search me O Lord and lead me in the paths of righteousness”. You don’t search yourself. In the New Covenant when the Holy Spirit is searching you, He is telling you as the Comforter; “Grace – grace – you are righteous! The Law has gone!”. If I want to know my relationship with the Father, I look at Jesus relationship with the Father because I am in Christ. Under the Law God made a covenant with man and said “If you do the law then I will bless you, but if you don’t do the law I will curse you. If you break one part of the law then you are guilty of breaking it all”.
Under the New Covenant God said; “I love you so much – I am not going to make a covenant with you. I will cut a covenant with My Son – outside of you – I will cut it with My Son at the Cross and then I will include you in Him”. So His standing before Me will be your standing before Me. It is within the infallibility of the Trinity. For you to fall from favour with the Father, Jesus would have to sin. Because you are in Him. You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus ALL the time.
Rob, what happens when I make a mistake or sin? You are STILL the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus not under the law. I don’t want to sin and I know you don’t want to sin but the Law will not help you get victory over sin! Living in the victory of grace will bring you into true victory!
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