Grace and Glory!!

New Nature Publications!!

2009-07-04T11:18:00.000+01:00

I am so tremendously excited to report that Ryan Rufus's new publishing company - "New Nature Publications" - has just gone live on the internet offering an awesome vision along with products and resources from City Church International and others to "rain grace upon the nations"!

Ryan's two incredible books; "Sanctification by Grace" (that I've just finished reading for the tenth time!) and "Do Christians Still Have a Sinful Nature?" are available there along with ...

A new book by Rob Rufus called "Invading the Impossible!"

The vision is this;

"The vision of New Nature Publications is to provide an ever increasing amount of grace resources to churches and people across the planet and to see those churches and people come into the fullness of His glorious grace. Our desire is that the lost will find these resources irresistible as well, as they encounter gracious grace filled people who are getting these resources out!"

I do urge you all to go have a browse! This is an awesome answer to prayer for all those who hunger and long for a people of reality and grace to arise in the earth and start showing the lost that not all religion is hypocrisy and legalism!

Stress-Free Living

2009-05-27T19:08:00.004+01:00

This sermon was preached by Rob Rufus on Sunday 17th May 2009 at City Church International in Hong Kong.

"Open your Bibles to wherever you feel like going this morning! Matthew chapter 6. Revelation? No - we are getting to the book of Revelation at the right time. The "Benjamin Generation", Revelation and the Great High Priest. 3 series all ready to go but God has put the pause button on that because He wants us to move into the realm of peace and recognise we are His workmanship and how to work with God and partner with God. I thought my wife looked particularly beautiful when she was giving the announcements today. I felt a romantic moment there which was a bit dangerous! I have recovered and I am back in the Spirit now - I was a bit in the flesh. But I am now in the Spirit! (*sings*) - "To wake up each morning just with you by my side. To offer a prayer each day for you. To drown in your laughter ... ". Okay let's go!

Testimony: "I am shocked at just how good the good news of the Gospel is. I am shocked that it is not preached like this by every church that fears God. But I am infinately grateful that I have heard the truth of this gospel ... We have started seeing manifestations like gold dust, incense and more. I have never lived with a greater hunger to see God's people set free and for them to know just how good God is ... Keep kicking the devil and his cronies in the teeth - it is so worth it!".

We literally have hundreds of testimonies from around the world of people getting healed and delivered from the demonic, release of resources and God is giving us partnerships. They are leaving denominational institutional religion and finding relationships that are authentic, full of integrity and full of callings, giftings and commissionings. No denominational headquarters because Jesus is the Headquarters! Heaven is the H.Q and God is moving on the earth in a fresh way! How many of you believe it is appropriate to walk in humility as more and more people are thanking us and praising us? When Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the back of a simple little donkey and the people threw palm branches down and shouted "Hosannah in the highest!" - how many of you know how ugly and inappropriate it would be for that donkey to think they were doing it for him?! Roman emporers rode into cities they had conquered on big stallions with flaring nostrils and trumpets. Jesus - the integrity of His identity - did not need additions or props - He came in on a simple donkey because He knew He was the Son of the glory of God. Jesus needs donkeys to carry the glory of God!

Freedom is the freedom from being wrapped up in yourself.

The most depressed people on the planet are those who have themselves on their minds. The formula for deliverance from depression is to not be self-concious and to not be wrapped up in yourself!

People that are wrapped up in themselves make very small packages!

You cannot get depressed if you are not on your mind!

The great Corrie Ten Boom who did such great work during the 2nd World War said; "If I look at myself I get depressed, if I look at the world's state I get oppressed, but if I look at Jesus then I really get impressed!".

The worst thing a worship leader can do before a meeting is to say to everyone; "Bow your heads - we are going to have one minute's silence and you inspect your heart and investigate and scrutinise your inner being to see if there is any sinful ways there". That is Old Covenant stuff! That is the Law that is gloom and doom! Scrutinise your heart - introspect - see if there is anything there that is sinful and wrong and ugly and then you will be ready to worship God. You will NOT be ready to worship God! You will be ready to slit your wrists because you will feel so morbid because you and me are not "it" - we are not to be self-concious but Christ-concious!

Jesus was reclining at a lounger having dinner one day and a woman who was a prostitute ran and fell at His feet and worshipped Him and He said; "Daughter your faith has made you whole - you are forgiven". What came first? Morbidity? Introspection? Repentance? Or worship? Worship came first! A man with 5, 000 demons that would snap chains came running when he saw Jesus and worshipped Him and Jesus delivered him of one legion of demons. What came first? Repentance, introspection? No!

Worship comes first in all of life because worship takes our minds off ourselves and onto God! That is what worship is! When you are a worshipper you are not self-concious! Self-conciousness is the worst curse you could live under but Christ-conciousness is the blessing of God!

There are three times in the New Testament that the Bible says "Examine yourself" and the context is grace and not morbidity. Many times in the Old Covenant it is introspective, sackcloth, ashes and negativity - that is not the Kingdom of heaven!

We must never be foolish enough to think that our sins are bigger and more important than God's infinite solution in grace at the Cross!

You may feel at times that your sins and your mistakes are so bad but they are nothing compared to God's answer through Jesus Christ at the Cross - you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus!

The Bible says in 1st John 4:17; "As Jesus is in heaven, so are you in this earth". As He is so are you in this earth! God doesn't examine you to see whether you are good enough or holy enough - He looks at Jesus to see if Jesus is good enough and holy enough and He says; "Yes You are and as He is so are you in this earth!". He looks at Jesus to see if He needs to repent of any sins and says "No - He doesn't!" and THAT is how He sees you! As He is - so are you in this earth!

It's awesome isn't it!? Today I want to talk about "Stress-Free living!". Stress-free working in Hong Kong! I want to talk about living worry-free, anxious-free! "Rob I have faith for raising the dead but I don't know if I have faith for that!". No! Stress-free living is the will of God! Jesus had no special advantages over you and me. His divinity was fully restrained within His humanity and He came to the earth as last Adam with no more advantages than you and I had except that He was born righteous from a virgin and never sinned once but He gave us the gift of righteousness and we have a co-equal righteousness with Christ because we are now in Christ and positioned in His righteousness. He did not live stressed but He faced abuse, He was overlooked, He wasn't appreciated, the religious crowd kept criticising Him and accusing Him of casting demons out by Beelzebub. He never got stressed - He stayed at peace - He is the Prince of Peace and Isaiah chapter 9 says; "Of the increase of the government of His peace there will be no end!". The Kingdom of heaven is righteousness in Christ, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit!

How do I know someone is walking with God? The level of joy, peace, confidence, boldness, the amount that they are not consumed with themselves but they are Christ-concious and are aware that as He is so are they in this world! There is no condemnation, no guilt, no remorse on them, no regret on them, their past has gone and God turns their future into good - using bad experiences to make those bad experiences stepping stones to good steps into success. You are condemned to success, you are a victim of victory! There is an attitude that you and I need to have! I believe that my temparament is most vulnerable to depression. I am a melancholic, I am introspective, I am poetic and have natural highs and lows but I have not been depressed for 30 years because you see I have learnt the secret! That I am responsible to monitor my moods! No guru will do it for me! Even the Holy Spirit won't do it for me! No one can alter your moods, no one can make you angry! "That person makes me angry!".

You have given too much control to someone who can make you angry. They have become your boss and your lord. No one can make you angry!

You have control over your life! "Well I am waiting for the Holy Spirit to give me the power!". No no - you do not sit behind a power steering wheel and come in at a 180 to an S bend and say "I am waiting for the power to kick in on that power steering wheel!". No! You will be polyunsaturated margarine through!

The power kicks in when you take the sovereign thing that God has gifted you with called "free will" and with your free will you take the steering wheel and then the power kicks in! When I choose I am going to be happy and choose when I am going to live with joy! When I choose I am going to depend on my God and no one can make me happy and no one can ruin my life - I am the destiny of my life in Christ Jesus! I am not a victim of circumstances or a victim of other people's betrayals and criticisms and they are not my god - I don't put my faith in man! My faith is in God!

One of the worst things you can do is to be self-concious. The second worst thing you can do is put your faith in man. The United Nations is looking for the brotherhood of man in the absence of the Fatherhood of God. There is no brotherhood of man unless we have the Fatherhood of God. We do not put our faith in one another and we do not put our hope in man. Man will always disappoint you. No one can replace God - only God is eternal and unmoving and eternal permament grace, love and absolute solution to all of life. I would love to put all of my hope and trust in all of you. Don't do it to me! It is not fair. I am not God and I don't have the goods. I can't put my faith in you. It is not fair, you are not God! If I rely on you and you rely on me then we will have friction and problems. But if you and I rely on God and God gives me favour then He will put favour on me to want to love me and favour on you to want to support me and favour on you to support one another. Don't look to man for answers! Look to God and He will bring the answers through man - through a crow if He needs to as He did with Elijah or a donkey as He did with the prophet and Old Covenant and the answers through people but don't put your hope in your husband, wife, children or pastor or boss or nations - God is our hope and when God is our hope He manifests favour and energy and faith on people to support you and resource you and love you and be faithful and to stand with you. But no one is capacitated to replace God.

Trouble stress free living is possible! You can have trouble and stress all around you but inside here you can walk in peace. Is it the will of God? Absolutely. The book of Hebrews says "Labour" or "Strive" to enter His rest. Why do we do everything to enter into this rest? Because rest is your position of power in this earth. If you are not in a place of rest or peace then everything you sow and do will reap a harvest of corruption. The book of James says in James 3 that those who have God's peace sow in peace and reap a harvest of righteousness! Anything you sow out of agitation - any decision you make out of agitation or any decision you make out of irritation and out of frustration will cause you to sow a harvest you don't want. What you sow in peace has the victory of God all over it. What you sow in peace into your marriage and into your relationships - there are times when I want to sow something back to Glenda (and I know she feels the same) when I want to sow something back to her that isn't peace! Don't say it! Walk away and find peace and then say what I needed to say even though it is difficult and say it in peace. Many doctors are saying today that as much as 90% of diseases and sickness can be traced back to stress.

In a university they took two groups of pigs and they injected them with a substance that would cause immediate blockages in their arteries to induce heart attacks. One group of pigs began to die very quickly - in fact they all died! The other group of pigs - their arteries also blocked up but none of them died. So what they had done was subject the first group of pigs to a very intensely stressful environment. The other were subject to a very peaceful environment. So friends it is not what you eat but it is what is eating you! I have read many books on diets but the fear of saturated fats is overrated! There are many people dying of heart attacks with very little cholesterol in their arteries. I think the way you eat is important but 90% for the quality of your life and longevity.

We have people around the world and you can say it is genetics but look at how they live. They lived over 100 and eated saturated fats every day and smoked big cigars and drank a bottle of vodka! It is not what goes in but what is eating you! There are people writing books on how to eat and making millions of dollars - especially the Mediterrean diet. What they forget was that Jesus healed thousands of people of debilitating diseases who were all on the Mediterrean diet! It was Galilee and Jerusalem! They were eating olives and fish and yet they had every kind of disease. It is not what you eat but what is eating you. They took a bunch of monkeys and put them in cages and I don't agree with this - it is very cruel and I mean that. I hate these kind of experiments! But they subjected the cages to a violent electrical shock on the hour every hour for a couple of days and then took the monkeys out and found that the quality of their skin had deteriorated terribly, their blood vessels had been terribly conscricted and their kidneys were affected and when your kidneys go a whole lot of pollutants and toxins are released and they were extremely unhealthy.

I want to tell you that I believe the major killer on our planet is not HIV or mosquitos or malaria but stress that destroys the immune system and the psyche of the human being.

I could tell you all the things that I believe cause stress and I have read all the books and could list the priorities - losing a loved one or moving house are big ones. Children leaving one school and going to another, getting fired, pressure on marriage, relationships - but I want to tell you this and I really believe this. We are not pigs or monkeys. We have a will and we have choices to make and we are not victims.

The number one ultimate reason for living with stress and worry and anxiety in your life - and I got this revelation by worry and stress in my life and learning over years! - it is not lists that you get in books but it is simply this (and I say this tenderly and without judgement) stubborn, arrogant pride and a refusal to trust the awesomeness of God.

In man the reason he has to be dependent on God means he will lose his independence. And human beings because of satanic deception hate the idea of being dependent on God or anything! We want to be independent, self-made men! That is the number one cause of stress, worry and anxiety. We want to be king! And that is fine and not a problem! The Bible says in Revelation 5 that God has anointed us to be kings and priests unto our God! There isn't a priestly, clergy class! There isn't a priesthood and then the clergy! The Bible says in the New Covenant that everyone who says I believe in Christ is a royal priest! That is what Peter the apostle clearly teaches in 1st Peter! We are priests and kings Revelation 5 says! But Jesus is the King of Kings! So we can be kings reigning and ruling in life under the authority of the King of Kings! We partner with God and every part of our life is focused on what God wants for me. Not about what are the principles and laws here and the religious rules here! No - we are focused on the Presence of God and partnership with God and what is the purpose of God. Does He want me to stay here, to go there, is that His will? When you are in His will and things go wrong then you stay focused that God is bringing me through and I am trusting in my God to turn this around together for good! And I am not a victim of circumstances, I am not a pig or a monkey - I can respond with a will that can choose to depend on God!

Now how many think that Jesus had a lot to say about worry? If stress is the number 1 killer then our Lord and our King would have a lot to teach about worry and anxiety. So have you got Matthew 6? You may as well enjoy this message! Really enjoy it! You are allowed to get up and walk out and that won't offend me - but if you chose to stay then chose to enjoy this and get something out of this! Respond! Shout! Do something! The number one cause of stress is a stubborn pride and a refusal to depend on God. We will depend on men occasionaly when it is really getting bad but to depend on God?! Let's read what Jesus says about worry and stress! Matthew 6:24. I get comforted by just hearing Jesus say these words!

And Father I pray that as I read these words - the Holy Spirit will speak them into every person's heart in this room and address us with supernatural grace and wisdom that will help us live stress-free work and lives in Jesus Name!

(v24); "No one can serve 2 masters - either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. Therefore I tell you - do not worry about your life or what you will eat or drink or about your body and what you will wear". This is the key phrase that I am going to comment on in a moment; "Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air - they do not sow or reap or store away in barns - yet your heavenly Father feeds them! Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow - they do not labour". The Greek there is; "Hard, harsh labour". "Or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field which is here today and tomorrow thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you - oh you of little faith?". Isn't it good that Jesus says God will clothe us even when we have got little faith?! Thank God He didn't say only those with big faith! "So do not worry saying, 'What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink or wear? For the pagans run after all these these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them!". He is a good Parent! He knows that you need those things! (v33); "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself - each day has enough trouble of it's own".

So here Jesus gives the absolute answer to the issue of stress and worry that has absolutely saturated modern-society today. Seek first the Kingdom! And His righteousness and all these things the pagans run after and seek will run after you. Clothing, food and blessings will run after you! So unless Jesus was lying and was a charlatan and maybe He was confused like Napoleoan or lying - but! If He was telling the truth then if you don't seek first the Kingdom can you have a stress-free life? You can if Jesus was lying! But looking at the world with empirical evidence and taking an overview of society today then I would say no - if you don't seek first then Kingdom then you cannot live a stress-free life. I will tell you why in a moment! If you don't seek first the Kingdom and are seeking Him when it is convinient and really you are not putting the kingdom of Jesus first then I have to say to you with all love and compassion that you cannot qualify to live a stress-free life. You will live a life with some happiness and moments of joy but most of it will be characterised by stress, unhappiness, depression and self-conciousness. So psychiatrists can't help you - they will help you manage some principles and ideas and philosophic insights but Jesus gave the best truth above any guru or psychiatrist. "Seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you".

Now "His righteousness" is not you "behaving righteously". It is not you earning or being good enough in your righteousness! It is the righteousness that He gave you as a gift! Right standing with God!

What is the Kingdom that we need to seek first? What is the Kingdom of God? Jesus said; "Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven". What is heaven like? Are angels going to psychiatrists for nervous breakdowns? Is Jesus having to have a break because He had a burn-out as our great High Priest interceding for us? No! Heaven is a place of undiluted glory, absolute serenity, tranquility and perfect peace! So why does Jesus say; "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"? What is it to seek first the Kingdom? What is the Kingdom of God?

The Kingdom of God is the government of God's peace. It is the supernatural authority of a living God who created the heavens and the earth who says; "Seek first My Kingdom! It is the answer to all stressful living, worry and anxiety! If you do not want to seek first My kingdom then there is nothing I can do except send My Spirit into the earth and pull on your heart and conscience until one day you will get free from that stubborn pride and learn dependance on Me and seek My Kingdom first! Until that day - enjoy your pride and enjoy your stubbornness but you will just live eating food and passing it through your body and growing old and leaving no footprints of destiny in human history! Or you can be a Kingdom man or woman - putting the Kingdom first! And seeking the government of God's peace and the rule of God which is a gracious kind and loving rule!".

Let me put it this way - because of first Adam's fall which people call "original sin" - first Adam rebelling against God - this earth has temporarily been overrun by a counterfeit, illegitimate, illegal kingdom called the demonic. It is a satanic deception and the Bible says Satan is the god of this world and this time and this season. It is a temporary overrunning of the planet through first Adam's disobedience. So what is ruling in the philosophies and ideologies of political systems around the world but demonic lies and a lying fantasy and a corrupt wisdom of people pursuing priorities that will only lead to pain for all of their life! It is a pseudo-kingdom that is illegitimate and Jesus defeated it at the Cross and when He rose from the dead He said "ALL authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me now go and preach the Kingdom to all nations".

So by the end of the age the Kingdom will have broken through and it is increasing throughout the earth - the government of His peace!

You get a gift of righteousness so that God sees you as perfect all the time when you walk by faith!

In a casual reading of Matthew 6 you could think that Jesus was saying to us and that all He is interested in is making sure that we will have clothes and we will have food. Nothing could be further from the truth. This thing is not about food or clothes. How pathetic to reduce the wonder of eternal grace and everlasting Kingdom - we are here for a short time on earth and will one day have resurrection bodies that will be immortal and live in Christ for eternity or we will spend it outside of the kingdom lost for all eternity. What a thing to think all He is talking about is just food and clothes! He is guaranteeing in Matthew 6 that food and clothing is a given - it is the Father's will to give you food and clothing! He wants to give you lots of food and the best food, wine and clothes! That is the Father for us! Extravagant abundance! That is His will! But is not the priority here! There is a much more gracious loving important priority here! The real priority is this; "Is not life more important than food and the body more important than clothes?". In other words He is saying that the quality of your life - a stress-free, happy, peaceful, rested, serene, tranquil life is more important than food! And your body is more important than clothes! He is saying He will give you clothes but your health is more important than having the right name brands!

I was at the airport last night waiting to pick up Bonnie and was looking for a shirt to wear today and couldn't find one and she said "Don't get that one - it's got the label on it and everyone will know it is cheap!". I said "I couldn't care less! If it fits me and suits me I am wearing it!". But if I can afford a $50,000 suit then I will wear that too! I believe my Father wants to dress me in the best robes! But the body is more important than clothes! Hear this - it is no use wearing the most expensive clothes if the body inside is so diseased and run down by nervous anxiety and stress. He wants us to have a quality of life that is stress free and physical bodies that are healthy and not broken down by worry! It is an amazing thing in our information age that we think that there is something clever in our corrupted wisdom to half kill ourselves to earn enough money to buy a life that is stress-free! You cannot buy a stress-free life with all the money in the world! It will come by seeking the kingdom and government of God first and breaking out of a corrupted illegitimate satanic illegal government that has temporarily overrun the world affecting politics, economics and education and the way that people think. They don't think - they think humanistic and secular survival pride and arrogance against God. So they don't want to seek the kingdom first but a religion that is like a social club so they can pop into church on Sunday and have a happy little meeting that lasts only an hour because we don't want more than an hour because we have got more important things to do out there.

No! We need to be equipped to seek the Kingdom because if you want to live a stress free happy peaceful life in marriage and if you want your marriage to go like ours and longer or blessing on children then you need to seek the Kingdom first! This isn't for pastors! I am not a pastor! I am a Christian and a son of God! I never see myself as a pastor! I am one but I have never thought of myself like that! I am just a man that likes to surf and have fun and go to movies! But something in me seeks the Kingdom! He says; "The birds of the air don't sow or reap but your Father cares for them! Aren't you much more valuable than birds!?". I want to turn to someone and say "You are much more valuable than birds bird-brain!". Jesus is speaking to an agricultural/fishing society and they understand sowing and reaping and sowing up in barns! So they knew the process - you sow and clear the field and plough and sow the seed and water and pull the weeds and finally a harvest and then you reap the harvest and put it into your barns and wait for buyers! He isn't saying that we have to sit at home and wait and we won't need banks or that - what He is saying is that birds know better than us that we don't need to work in a pseudo-illegitimate economic system that is based on the fall of Adam and the curse of the earth. We can seek the Kingdom and find in the Kingdom that our sowing and our reaping and our storing in barns will happen with the acceleration of kingdom economics so there are many people that understand what I am preaching today who work LESS and are paid MORE!

They enjoy what they are doing! I am very concerned about people who come to church and say they are interested in church unity but are not interested in theology! If you don't have theology - then you are an idiot! You are! Jesus said in John 8; "My followers who follow whether they feel like it or not ...". We need to know we are not on a religious addiction to a hormonal religious high. We are not addicted to experiences! We are servants and sons and daughters of the most high God! The King of Kings and we are in partnership to release the advancement of the Kingdom of God to invade this earth as it is in heaven and to come into this earth and topple evil influences, illegitimate governments that are bringing stress and cancer and blindness and crippled disease on mankind and the church is sitting on little assurances on it's blessed behind and to hell with the world and we will live our lives for ourselves! No! We are kings! Under the King of Kings in partnership to reign and rule with the King of the Kingdom which is first in our lives before our wives, children and job! The Kingdom is first! I will chose the Kingdom before my career as a pastor!

If I am in any pressure in any group of people to surrender the Kingdom first to preach a palatable message that is more acceptable to secular, humanistic modern man then I will resign my position and keep the Kingdom first! I will go without my salary! But I will live on the economics of the Kingdom because that is the way to keep a good marriage and good family, health and run up mountains and be strong because there is a way to live in the freedom of the kingdom of God - by putting it first!

Don't ask the question why we don't see more miracles! Don't ask the question why we don't see more results! Ask the question are we seeking first the Kingdom - in integrity! Until you and whole congregations seek the Kingdom and His righteousness in integrity - and let's not bluff and say we are seeking it first unless we really are! When we really are THEN the Kingdom breaks in!

When first Adam was walking with God in the glory and hearing the voice of God before original sin - God came to first Adam and said "I will bless your work" and God gave Adam a work assignment. In the earth! He gave Adam authority and dominion in the earth! And He gave Him work and it actually uses the word "work" in the book of Genesis! Adam was given work by God before the Fall! So work is not a curse - it is the blessing of God. But when Adam fell and turned in rebellion against God and sought himself first not God then the Bible says that the earth was subject to frustration and God said to Adam, "You will work by the sweat of your brow" and that is stressful work! That is the way that people labour under the dominion of Satan today. They are stressed out and they are working hard and they have big holes in their pockets. They earn a lot but it just seems to fall away to pay for this arrangement or that arrangement - and they are working by the sweat of their brow not by the transcendance of God's Kingdom but their own wisdom.

God says in the Bible that in Christ we are redeemed from the curse that came on the earth through first Adam and we are the new creation in Christ Jesus. You and I are part of the new creation order in the earth! We are part of a Kingdom people citizens not of earth but of heaven and we are all going to be there in Christ maybe very soon! The longest here maybe 30-40 years. But some of us will be there sooner! Not me - I am going last and living till Jesus comes again.

What do birds do most of the time? They sing! But I thank God that I have the privilidge of living in Hong Kong and being woken up by birds. I would rather have that than not hear any birds. In those moments when all the stress is off you and you don't need the valium or substitutes to calm you down and all that stress has gone - what is the first thing you do? Sing! You don't try to sing to get rid of the stress! If the stress goes then you sing!

I am not saying stay at home and sing and don't go to work! I believe we have to go and sow and reap and have banking but there is a heart that sings on the way to work! There is a seeking the Kingdom first! I am not a product of an evolutionary random chance but I am the design of a creator that loved me and put His signature in my soul and made me in His image and put eternity in my heart with a purpose not to eat food, pass it through my body, make money and pay off some building and then die!

He made me to change history and He made you to change history! We are called to affect the politics, economics, medical, educational world of Hong Kong and we are called to affect it with kingdom life!

As you start seeking the kingdom first and go to work start singing! As you go to work start singing! Don't sing the sad country and western songs! Try and keep away from melancholic songs! Sing like a bird! If you don't believe Jesus or you - let me encourage you how to worry better. Go to a worry seminar and train and learn from people who have got nervous breakdowns and stress in their expensive clothing and write expensive books! Go to Jesus! He really knows what He is talking about! Seek first the Kingdom! He says you can worry as much as you like but it won't make you grow! Look at the lilies! They don't toil and spin! Even Solomon in all his splendour was not dressed like one of these! Jesus!? Are you saying that the lilys of the field are greater than Solomon, the king of Israel and the king of wisdom!? Lilys have got greater wisdom that Solomon?! And Jesus will say to you "Yes". But God didn't you clothe Solomon?! No only some. The second half of Solomon's life was a disaster - it was a tragedy. He walked away from God and got independent and proud. The first half of his life - God came to him and said what do you want - wealth or long life or fame? Solomon said; "No - I want wisdom from You God". He got wisdom from God that gave Him such governmental legitimacy to rule Israel as a great king and Israel prospered under his rule!

But in the second half he walked away from God and walked away from putting His Kingdom first and it was an absolute mess in his life! He lived in a sick body with wealthy clothes and he had piles of gold and silver but was a broken and destroyed man. In the first half the Queen of Sheba came up for an interview with Solomon and asked him questions about his creativity and his kingdom because he lived with the kingdom first and God's kingdom and the Bible said that he answered with such wisdom that she gave him 120 talents of gold. 120. That is the number of God! That is millions! Billions! How many priests were in the Upper Room in Chronicles in Solomon's tabernacle when the glory fell? 120. 1000 years later when the glory fell how many were in the Upper Room? 120. How many talents of gold did she give Solomon? 120. In the 2nd half of his life he began to get harsh and walked away from God and didn't seek God on a daily basis and began to tax the people that were so far and above and rebelled against God and the Bible says that the talents came to 666 talents of gold every year. 666. The mark of the beast - the number of man's idea that man is the measure of all things. And we have the strength without God to do things and build towers and go to the moon.

Solomon started off with kingdom and ended terribly. So Jesus says look at the lilys! If these things here today and gone tomorrow get God's attention how much more you who are made in the image of God. He cares about you and wants you to work in the economics of His kingdom and put Him first and on your way to work be singing! Sometimes we think we know what is causing our stress and making us agitated! How many sometimes feel stressed and don't know why? Sometimes just an agitation - a stress and we think there is a reason! But I hope I can convince you today to not rely on a guru but on God and on a regular daily basis spend enough time in God's Presence to identify any areas of stress and see what's causing it. I can have something stressing me and think I know the cause of it and as I pray and wait on God an inward impression and an idea comes and I see that is the reason for that stress and can immediately say "okay! I deal with that and break that in Jesus Name!". Demonic presence manifests with agitation and stress and lying fantasies and overwhelming feelings that it is too big! That is a demonic presence! And that is why the apostle says; "Be alert, be vigilent, your enemy prowls around like a roaring lion" and the very next verse says "Casting all your cares on the Lord who cares for you".

Why does he connect the devil prowling around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour to you taking the responsibility to cast your cares on Him who cares for you? Because Satan can't mess your life up at all unless he can insinuate thoughts into your mind of lying fantasies and feelings of being overwhelmed and lies about people and thoughts. Until you are in the Holy Spirit and pick up what is causing you to be stressed and then you can cast this onto Him and cast this and belly laugh by faith and rebuke the devil and sing like the birds!

I am trusting God that everyone will get some change that will so bless you and your family but more than that - others will see your life and say "Give me the answer!". If people are stressed, sulking and depressed and wanting to suck all the energy out of you - Jesus didn't allow that! You can say that is harsh and He wasn't. But the first time someone comes to you and says "I am stressed" you need to listen to them with such open ears and don't interupt and honour and care but the greatest show of love you can give someone is to stop talking and listen to them! When they have finished talking about their problems then you are going to have to say as a royal priest of God who is putting the kingdom first; "Okay I have the answers for you and they are not cliches and I am not insensative or glib but unless you seek the kingdom first then there is nothing that can help you. You will have to help yourself and it doesn't look like your self-help has gone very far". Somewhere you must realise my self-help principles are not working! And you must say; "I love you and God loves you but if you do not put His Kingdom first then He cannot help you while you are living under that pseudo-illegitimate false king called the devil". They say they try and go away and come back and say it didn't work and go away and try again and on the third or fourth try you begin to realise that they don't want HELP they just want SYMPATHY. And then they become a plot of the enemy to phone you just as your husband and wife are about to have a romantic dinner!

Do people a favour - don't dump your sulking on people over the phone! Say I am feeling a bit down and know you need to seek the Kingdom first and say you are phoning just for some advice - don't keep phoning just to get sympathy! Sympathy is like a nice warm bath and it gets cold after a while and it doesn't help you! I want to keep the bath warm all the time and know how to equip people to deal with depression, heartache, problems not by psych-analytical problems but a King who cares for every area of your life!

After someone has phoned you the seventh or eighth time you are going to have to say "Listen I cannot listen to all this again - I have heard it eight times! I am asking you - are you putting the kingdom first?". "No it doesn't work! It isn't working!". "Well Jesus was a liar then and I am deceived because I am happy and stress-free and you know it doesn't work so I am deceived and Jesus was a liar". Well it is easy for you to say because you get a good deal with a great wife and it is easy for you!". The trouble with that argument is that there is always someone in a worse situation than us who is happy! So the argument that you have a better deal is rubbish! You are not a monkey or a pig and you can make a choice and keep seeking until the feelings kick in and you are not a victim! You turn the steering wheel and then the power kicks in! Even though hell and rejection comes at me every day I make a choice! I will lead year after year with faith and enthusiasm but I will never be a person that sulks year after year! I will live for His honour! Two prisoners look out of the same prison and one looked out and saw mud and the other saw stars!

God authorised 12 men to spy on the Promised Land and come back and give a positive report. 10 came back and saw giants. 2 came back and saw grapes! The 10 died on the same day. The 2 waited for 40 years to lead a new generation into the Promised Land! I am going to be a Jacob or a Caleb and lead a generation of young people to their destiny! And any older person above 40 like me has a choice to become a grumpy old person who gets worse as you get old or seek the Kingdom first or set a model for young people so that when they get to 50 and 60 they are not going to be cynical and skeptical but get bold and confident that your life has purpose! The spies all saw the giants and the grapes! 2 decided what they would focus on! All 12 were spies! And they were married to Spice Girls! I am talking about eternal things here and time is going by! What is the legacy we are leaving and what awards await us in heaven? Are you serious about putting the kingdom first knowing that eternity is waiting with awards and the praises of a God for a people that chose the kingdom first and didn't give in to an easy route! The way of the kingdom is the easiest route! In that pain and troubles you have a peace that surpasses all understanding! You are walking with God every day! You can walk with a conciousness of God every day! You can pray early or late - no legalism! No have-tos! But just to spend time in the Presence of a living God who's burden is easy and His yoke is light..

God wants a people so strong that we build strong local congregations! We are building a community that incarnate an eternal truth called grace and called to be a model to every nation around the world! We will touch millions of lives and if we don't do it then others will come! We must break out - and be honest and ask "Help Me to put the Kingdom first!". Ask for help! Be honest! But if it is all self-pity then you are draining resources that could be deployed elsewhere! I am going to finish my race with my chest held high and we will never give up!"

Pioneers in the Miraculous

2009-05-12T15:41:00.002+01:00

This is Rob Rufus's message from City Church International in Hong Kong on Sunday 10th May 2009. It is not quite a classic sermon but there are some essential elements vital to anyone interested in the grace revolution. He starts off by movingly sharing about a member of their congregation who died prematurely and the church's reaction to that - and also about their efforts to raise him from the dead. Then he shares some testimonies from "Grace and Glory 2009" and the resulting impact around the world. Finally he shares some thoughts before closing. Here it is;

One of the keys to longevity in the kingdom - and by longevity I mean not how long you have been a Christian or have been a Christian but I mean freedom from bitterness, freedom from cynicism, skepticism, freedom from unbelief, freedom from fear, suspicion, conservatism, formalism. That year after year and decade after decade you keep a fresh childlike, virgin-like innocence of wonder and amazement at how great our God is. How many of you want to know the secret of that?! How many of you have met thousands of Christians year after year that every time you see them they are full of joy, gone through hell and back and have come through betrayals, disappointments, sad times, death of loved ones and rejection and abuse - yet they still have a twinkle in their eye. You see a love for Jesus there that is so childlike and so sweet and attractive. It is like a perfume comes out of their being. How many of you meet Christians like that? Every single day of your life! Praise God - we have got a church full of people like that! Why is it that there are Christians in the world that you want to avoid if you see them on the other side of the street you would rather go into the pub and sit with the real sinners. Sinners are just talking about rugby and they are really happy and their team won the cricket! They are just pragmatically determined to be happy.

You meet Christians today that sadly look like survivors of some devastating storm and like they have been pulled backwards through the exhaust pipe of a motorcar and have been baptised in lemon juice and they think that is holy! And they are "enduring for the Lord"! The Christian life should not just be characterised by discipline. It should be characterised by a great delight in our God!

When I was an atheist under the delusion of atheism for a short period of my life I began to seek the reality of a living God. I never grew up in a religious home and I looked not for God first but people that claimed they knew God and they worshipped and walked with this God and they believed in this God. I looked at Muslims and I looked at Hinduis and Buddhists and Christians.

I am sad to say that I looked for the reflection of the representation or the expression of the image of God in the people that claimed they knew God. And instead of becoming a Christian I became a Hindui. I saw more joy and more devotion in Hare Krishna people and that is why I was a serious follower of Krishna. I was totally deceived and in darkness and committed to that.

The world is not as intellectual as we think we are. There are people out there that think they are so brilliant and so philosophically together but people don't actually go with their intellectual conclusions - they go more by gut feel and intituion and emotions and by seeing "something" in people. The greatest witness of us is not just signs, wonders and miracles - although I want to talk about that today. It is very important! It is about our disposition - and a consistent attitude of credibility that continues. It is easy to be happy after a great conference. It is easy to be happy after you have just been healed miraculously or after God has just given you a couple of hundred, thousand dollars! It is so easy when your wife is making tea for you in the morning every morning!

Glenda found it easy because I made her tea every single morning on holiday. Thank you ladies - that was your chance to clap! It is easy to be happy when these things are happening. What worries me is that some Christians don't get passionately caught up in God - they get addicted to the sensation of feeling experientially happy. That is not the Kingdom of heaven! We are not to be addicted to a hormonal high. We are not to feel that God has left us when our hormonal high has left us! Do not reduce God to a hormone! Do not reduce God to a happy feeling! God is the creator of the heavens and the earth and the living God! The creator! The One that will sum up all of history at the climax and consummation of the ages in His Son Jesus Christ and every false god will be exposed in that day! God will deal with everything that is false and sum up history by the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That is what keeps us on line and consistent year after year, decade after decade with a good attitude that I am in this to serve and to sweat and to give myself and invest myself to make a change in human history!

I will take all the happy feelings, all the goosebumps, all the joy and all the blessings because I want as much as I can! How many of you want to know the secret to consistent living with a good attitude? I promise you this - it is not going to inner healing classes or going to introspective psychology with a few Scriptures attached to it but is more secular humanistic that sounds kingdom theology. It is not going to all these courses. They have their place and I am not against them - just keep them in their right context!

The way to stay free and liberated and growing in passion year after year - overcoming disappointments year after - is not trying to love God. That is Old Covenant. "You shall love Me!". God said to Israel; "I want you to love Me with all your heart - but you won't". He said in Deuteronomy; "I will make a New Covenant and I will circumcise your hearts and you will love Me". The New Covenant says; "We love Him because He first loved us".

So these Christians that are trying to love God - Peter saying; "I will follow You anywhere Jesus! I will do whatever You say! Others will abandon You but I will come to prison with You! ... Jesus? Not quite sure who you are talking about - never heard that Name!".

The one that knew Jesus loved Him was the one at the foot of the Cross. He was the one that pushed through. All the threats and all the dangers - because it is not about trying to love God. The more you try and love God, the more the devil will remind you how you don't love Him enough. You are not good enough - you don't have enough passion for God!

You will never generate passion for God by trying to generate passion for God!

Passion for God is a fruit - a response - a result to something else! It is a response to the glory of the New Covenant that He loves you unconditionally and He sees you blameless without accusation and you are the righteousness of God permamently and none of your sins can dilute your righteousness because your righteousness is not based on your obedience - your holiness or your performance but on the obedience of the One Man - Jesus Christ! You are always righteous no matter how many mess-ups or mistakes you make! You stand up and say "I thank You that I am the righteousness of God and you have no accusation, condemnation and I am blameless in Your sight because of Jesus Christ! You love me!".

If you don't see it that way then everytime you mess up and make a mistake then some Christian or the devil will come to you (sometimes they are close because religious people operate by religious demon spirits and speak by demonic powers) and they will speak and say "Look how you messed up your marriage and this and that and your children and you are obviously not committed to God enough. You obviously are not committed enough! Love Him more! What's wrong with you!?". That is curse and is Old Covenant! It is knowing He loves you perfectly in height and depth and length and breadth - the perfect cube. The height is not shorter than the length and the breadth is not longer than the depth. On every dimension of the perfect cube God's full love is unconditionally, irreversibly, always towards you and never ever going to change! He is not counting your sins against you and there is absolutely no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus! When that lives in you you can love Him with no remorse and no regrets and no sense of "if only I could put the clock back" - no! He turns all things together for the good to those who love Him and are called together according to His purpose.

You are condemned to success, a victim of victory and what the enemy meant for evil - God means for your good! There is nothing in all creation that can seperate you and me from the love of God in Christ Jesus!

We need to shout this gospel from the rooftops and tell the church and tell the world that it is a new day and a new covenant! It is amazing how if you are out of the orbit of the Word of God or the Spirit's movings you will gravitate to your default settings if you are not fully equipped in righteousness as a gift and go back to trying to earn God's favour. Trying to be good enough! In this economic downturn people who have been saying; "If you tithe enough then God will keep the windows of heaven open and then you will be blessed" - Jesus Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law and He opened the heavens permamently over us in Christ Jesus! So we tithe! I tithe all the time with everything I get not because of law but because I am a partner with El-Shaddi! I am walking with God! I am investing financially with God into eternity.

I don't tithe to get the windows of heaven open - I tithe because they are open! I don't tithe to get blessed. I tithe because I AM blessed through grace!

People who have been preaching law to release finances are struggling during this economic downturn and that makes me wonder about that theology! People that say God is blessing us through Abraham's blessing and through the redemption from the curse of the law - He blesses us with blessings because of faith in the goodness of God and the finished work of the Cross and they are prospering in the economic downturn! Their finances are breaking through!

We had a phenomenal holiday - probably one of the best we have had in many years. I won't tell you everything because you will be jealous. It felt like God had conspired and got a whole lot of angels on assignment to make this holiday work for us. We are so grateful to God - thank you to those that prayed for us while we were away. Holidays are very important - you should take them as often as you can! So we are grateful for that. I just want to say that I listened to all three of the messages of Ryan and Steve and no flattery here - this is integrity. Top quality stuff. It was superb ministry of the Word of God. Not bubble and froth but superb quality and content of revelation of the Word of God.

If you missed those messages I strongly encourage you to go get them and download them freely off our website. I will not miss a message while I am away because every sequence is a stage to the next unfolding sequence that we are being sequenced towards higher levels of release and liberty and glory. If you have been in this church a few years and you have missed dozens of messages or only come in lately - go back and listen to all the files and catch up on the revelation! I really mean that! There are people around the world doing that and we should be doing that! I asked Ryan to continue in that teaching on what is holiness and it is a departure from the traditional religious teaching of holiness and the New Covenant revelation of holiness because I thought that was a classic message last week and a classic insight. I wish we could release him to fly around the world and preach it across the world. I believe he will one day. He isn't preaching today though. Ryan will pick that up some other time and I will pick something else up today.

Now as I said at the beginning of this meeting we lost a son from this house who went to be with the Father some time Saturday morning. He came to Christ in our home and some of you were there when we baptised him in our back garden and I spent many hours having coffee with Ian through the many challenges and issues he faced for his three years as a Christian. He died in his sleep and we think it was a heart attack - we are not sure. Steve and Ryan and myself went around to Ian's home where he was still in bed - his body was there. He was with the Lord but his body was with the Lord.

He had been gone for a few hours by the time we got there and we thought we would give it a go. We would pray his spirit back into his body and command his spirit and life to come and death to go. We gave it an hour and a half standing over his body, laying hands on him and holding his face and praying for him. The glory of God was in that room and the Presence was there and just an amazing sense of God's peace actually. I am not making excuses now - I am going to go for raising the dead at every opportunity! People say "Have you raised the dead?". Well I haven't prayed for any dead people. Well then you are never going to raise the dead! You have just got to have a go. I am going to pray for every blind eye and deaf ear - I don't care! I am just going to do it and not be afraid of failure! Just go for it!

Everything is open target! All the way through - all I could think of was every service Ian would come to and he wouldn't miss, he would come up the front at the end of the service and say "Lay hands on me" and me or the ministry team do it. He just wanted to feel the Presence of God. He so longed - he would come under that Presence and be laid out on the floor and be there for hours shaking and enjoying God's Presence and His glory and he would always ask me; "Rob - how can I experience God's Presence more often? When I am in His Presence I always feel perfect peace and feel so precious in the love of God! An hour or so after the service life returns to normal and I feel torment and trauma and pain and if I could just stay in His Presence!".

So we tried to pull him back from that Presence! I could hear Ian arguing with the Lord saying; "I love my mum, I love City Church International but I don't want to go back!".

Afterwards when they came to collect Ian's mortal remains and we asked them to wait ten more minutes and we kept trying upto the last moment and afterwards speaking to Ryan, he said "Dad you know the whole time I felt like Ian was saying to the Lord, I don't want to go back!". I am saddened that a brother in Christ never finished his calling as we understand it. In the economy of God Ian will fulfill his calling embodied in us. God will use certain things to make sure the legacy of Ian continues through the earth. Even as I am speaking this will go to tens of thousands around the world. Ian! Pam is just a hero - a warrior of faith. She was in that room praying for his resurrection. There was no hysteria in her voice, no anguish in her voice, no sense of "This isn't fair!". It was just good theology, good revelation on the nature of God. That God is not a thief and He didn't take her son. Afterwards I was speaking to her and she said; "I wanted Ian to live - I wanted his resurrection but I told the Lord - not because I love him and he is my son. Because I do love him and will miss him terribly. But I just wanted him to finish his purpose". I said; "Pam - Ian's purpose will be fulfilled!".

And she said; "Yes! We will get redemptive revenge and we will see people raised from the dead and we will see people impacted by this gospel!". This is a mother now! We want to salute you Pam for being the woman of God that you are.

This will be a very key Thursday night in our home - the prayer meeting. God is laying things on our heart as a church that we are going to push further into and we want to pray and intercede and petition God this Thursday. I know Glenda has already welcomed Will and John but I want to do so again. We are privilidged to be having lunch with them straight after the service. What I am very excited about is that Andrew Wommack is hoping to come and minister into Hong Kong in October next year and so we will talk about the possibility of him coming to our church!

He is just a key cutting edge ministry in the earth today - I believe heading up this whole revelation of the grace revolution that is speeding up across our planet!

I wanted to look at the Benjamin generation but I don't feel we are ready for it yet and I wanted to look at Revelation through the finished work of the Cross because the last bastion of those that are judgemental and believe God hates the world and wants to kill everyone - their last bastion is a heretical interpretation of the book of Revelation. So I want to look at what the seven seals and the seven trumpets are and see what the book of Revelation is saying in the light of the Cross!

I also want to do a series on the Great High Priest - which is an awesome revelation - the typology and looking at Christ's fulfillment in the heavenly tabernacle and your heart will expand with the wonder of how secure we are in Christ.

Today I just want to talk about "We are God's workmanship" - a very simple message I prepared last night. I want to read to you a few emails and came back from holiday and had a pile of hundreds of emails. Most of them wonderful testimonies of what God is doing around the world off our website and as a result of people who went back from our "Glory and Grace conference" in March and some of the impact there. I don't know if you remember a couple from Sri Lanka that lead a church and planted a church in Colombo. A trendy Sri Lankan guy and we had lunch with them. But Joshua Mills went up to them and prophesied and when he did the oil started flowing straight away out of his hands. They had such an encounter with God and had such revelation of grace while they were at the conference - so this is what they wrote;

"Dear Rob and Glenda, hope you remember us - Kirby and Fiona from Sri Lanka. We attended the Glory and Grace Conference 2009 and have been back now over a month. It has been an amazing time of revelation and progress in the glory realm. All thanks to amazing grace! We have noticed a definite increase in the signs, wonders and miracles at our works of wonder meetings. We know this is because of the Christ mantle and impartation we have received at Glory and Grace 09 in Hong Kong. The grace teaching has profoundly impacted the ministry and we are soaking in your archives online every week for more. We hope to return next year to the Hong Kong conference. We can't begin to thank you enough and convey how your teachings have impacted our lives. We are so excited to be alive in these times when the Father is shedding more and more light on this beautiful thing called grace. This is good news! And we will preach it! It is everything we hoped for! Everything we longed for! Everything we live for! Jesus is the best! Love and blessings to you and yours - Kirby and Fiona".

"Some testimonies over this last month since coming back from the conference. 27th March - a man paralysed after four years after a stroke, could not talk, walk or lift his hands. After coming to their meeting, he walked, raised hands and praised Jesus as well as shocking himself when he replied out loud and clear; "I can't talk!" only to hear himself do it!".

It is so good to applaud these things because we are celebrating the acts of grace! When you can applaud what God does in other places, I believe He turns up more in your place! We have been like that boat - when the crowds were pressing onto Jesus and He asked the guys to lend Him the boat and He preached from the boat to the multitudes so He wouldn't be crushed. When He had finished preaching to the multitude He said to the guys; "Launch out into the deep". They caught a big catch! We have been like that boat that Jesus was leant - serving churches around the world through our website, through Glory and Grace conferences and worship that flows from here. I believe as we have activated miracles in many different nations from this little church in Hong Kong - God is positioning us for a great increase of miracles here in Hong Kong.

"There was an old woman who has blind and received her sight!".

The blind see and the lame walk - sounds like the gospel! It doesn't sound like church or religion - it sounds like kingdom! The gospel! A lady had a kidney stone healed instantly and many more amounting to about 50 healings.

"Then in Sri Lanka on the 3rd April a lady 90% blind and squint - a Buddhist came only for healing and stubbornly stated "Not to get converted". Was very negative and in a bad mood on arrival. She only came because a friend brought her. She received her sight much to her surprise! She could not help but praise and thank Jesus for what He has done! A young girl around 10 could not read without glasses and received her healing and read texts from a small print Bible without the aid of spectacles. Other miracles as well as the manifestation of oil from hands and have had oil appear in their hands as well as heat. Hands get so hot and when placed on someone else, it actually feels unusually hot and on occasion this happens and we touch others they get very high!!!!".

Now I don't know why God does this oil and different heat and things but if it is God then I am happy! Then this family - the Lewis's;

"Dear Rob and Glenda and everyone at City Church International. We live in Guernsey - Channel Islands - just off the coast of France. We started downloading your messages at the beginning of 2008. Our lives have been truly transformed. Up until that point we thought we had a good understanding of grace but in hindsight we knew we were not under the law but only knew a minute amount about grace".

That is the problem you see - many Christians know we are not under law but don't really know or understand what that means and really live as those under the law. They really don't understand grace because they haven't heard the law properly preached or heard the grace of God properly preached.

If you preach the law properly - it means cut your hands off, pluck your eyes out when you sin. It means take your children out and stone them if they keep on disobeying. It means stone people who break the law. It means fly into buildings in 9/11. That is consistent with the law. It means stand outside abortion clinics and shoot people. That is the law! It is a ministry of death! You cannot water it down to try and behave well. It means kill people if they don't behave well!

People say we preach an extreme grace message - it is because they have never heard the law in all it's true spirituality.

To look at someone with lust in your eyes and your heart - you have committed adultery and you should be stoned. Literal adultery! If you hate someone without cause then you have murdered them! That is the true spirituality of the law!

They have heard a compromised watered down and diluted law. That is why they can mix this compromise law with a compromised grace and mix them together. If you preach the extremes of grace - that is no more extreme than the law! Everyone with a brain will know you cannot mix them together ever again! As extreme as law is - grace is a scandal! It is so wonderful and complete!

"In hindsight we knew we were not under law but only knew a minute amount about grace. For years we had remained on the fringe of church life as we could see the horrific effects of control. It was clear that this was not the way church was supposed to be but we couldn't see how the church could be transformed into a glorious Bride. Now our eyes have been opened, the veil has been lifted and so much truth has been revealed and our lives have been turned upside down. The Bible has come alive! We are learning new things every day! We listen to your messages every week and we are also so grateful for the worship you put on the website. Your church has blessed and inspired us and we are so grateful for your continuing input into our lives. It was an enormous privilidge to come to Glory and Grace in 2009".

I didn't even meet them.

"We have been meeting with two other like-minded couples and arranged an evening of Glory and Grace on our return from Hong Kong. We invited several other people who we knew were also listening to your talks and hungry for more of God. It was a great evening of impartation. To our great relief God turned up and it was simply awesome! As a result a few fragmented people have become a solid group meeting to worship, encourage others and to see that we are equipped to fulfill our destiny. We are looking forward to our first supernatural treasure hunt this Saturday. People in our church have noticed that something has happened to us especially since Glory and Grace and we have had such fire inside of us and such boldness that we are having an amazing time telling people how the good news is really GOOD news! Last week we were invited to speak at a small group and we shared our testimony and spoke about our identity in Jesus and they are keen for us to go back and tell them more. We are so keen to see more and more people set free from religion and know that Jesus will build His church here. Thanks again for all that you have imparted to us. Looking forward to the next Glory and Grace. With love Jeremy and Ann".

How many of you think we should have another Glory and Grace next year?! I have got so many testimonies here - from Thailand and it is deeply Buddhist but God is breaking out. This couple came from Thailand and I want to read what they said about you - CCI! They said;

"What has impressed us very much about City Church is the absence of pretense and religious masks among the people of City Church. The Lord shall make you reflect His matchless glory and Presence in increasing measure!".

When we were away on holiday I just felt like God was saying that He wants to change up a gear and release us into another realm of supernatural miracles, healings, signs and wonders and people being healed through us. Not just through the ministry team but ALL of us. There are no superstars or gurus here and that is the truth! I am on a journey as much as you are.

When I was at Glory and Grace and I saw how Joshua Mills moved, I had lunch with him and I said; "Teach me Joshua!". I am twenty something years older than him but I want to learn from him! I want to learn! I want to remain a novice!

You are not a novice when you are raising the dead regularly and seeing many blind eyes open and many cripples walk and I have seen people come out of wheelchairs on numbers of occasions and I am still a novice, I want to see so much more happening! If I don't see many signs and wonders then I started getting tempted to go into intellectualism! I did that 10 years ago. I put on scientific seminars against macro-evolution and I exposed it as totally unscientific because of blind faith religion. I had professors there and leaders of universities there speaking to crowds of 1500 people and yet you don't convert people that way! Their heads just analyse intellectual facts!

I was thinking if we don't see more signs and wonders maybe I should go back and study more apologetics and get more intellectual and persaude people about the existance of God and the reliability of the Bible and that it is not made-up myths but that it is a supernaturally inspired book and give evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and intellectual arguments that are persuasive. I realised that is a bad sign that my mind is thinking that! Then I felt the Spirit of God say to me; "You and City Church are about to enter into a realm of greater signs, wonders and miracles and the enemy is trying to mock the very idea of miracles and signs and wonders. He is trying to scorn the very idea!". You go and pray for the dead and don't see them live; "Ah! You see it doesn't work!". He is trying to mock and scorn! I came away encouraged though - thinking I am going to do this again!

I have prayed for 50 cripples and seen maybe seven or eight walk. I want that to get to 50 out of 50! I have to fight through the same cynicism as you have! You have no idea what my intellectual university brain was trained with! Some of you think I am gifted with some lucky charm and never live with doubts and unbelief and cynicism and skepticism! You must be crazy - you don't know how I have to wrestle! I know some of you that come under a spirit that wants to mock the very idea of doing miracles. That is not you! There is a demonic spirit that is anti-anointing! Anti-Kingdom and anti-authentic gospel!

This gospel is not just about grace but about God testifying to this great salvation through signs and wonders and miracles! If you preach grace and don't see miracles then you are not preaching grace!

That is what I love about Andrew Wommack's ministry. He preaches grace and they see signs and wonders. He raised his own son from the dead when he was black - that is how far dead he was! You preach grace and there must be confirming signs and wonders and miracles! That spirit of cynicsm - how many of you have felt when you hear preaching on miracles or going for a run and out somewhere quiet, and you think about miracles and you hear a voice saying; "Eugh, it won't happen - it can't!". We have seen them! They have happened! Not just in the UK when we saw hundreds! And in Dubai - where I just got an email from the "Power Encounter" conference I was at and people who couldn't fall pregnant for years and now babies are coming! Miracles can be pulled in or out from inside of you and we have seen miracles!

In the Hong Kong Glory and Grace in the fire tunnel that little boy came through with a squint eye and the next morning he came running up to me pulling on my pants as I am trying to get out the door; "Rob, Rob! Look at my eyes!". Eyes perfectly normal! God straightened his eyes! We have seen miracles in Hong Kong! That couple from Sri Lanka - she had big scarred ridges on her back and scars had completely disappeared! Those are miracles in Hong Kong! Not in the UK or in Africa but here in Hong Kong! We are seeing miracles in Hong Kong! Sally sitting over there had her hips turned around in this building! If I see a thousand attempts to heal someone and a thousand people are prayed for and one gets miraculously healed without any argument - if 1/1000 gets a miracle then it is evidence to me that God does miracles today!

We haven't seen one but dozens even in this year! But as grateful as I am and we need to applaud God, I know with a burning ache while I was on holiday that Hong Kong is a city destined for miracles. This city has not been known as a city for signs, wonders and miracles! Jackie Pullinger in bringing drug addicts off heroin through speaking in tongues is a great sign and wonder! But I am talking about churches that regularly see the blind see and the cripples walk! Mighty manifestations of cancers disappearing and lumps going! The dead being raised! There is very little evidence of that in 100 years of the church being in Hong Kong! I felt God say; "It is Hong Kong's time for signs and wonders - it is our time to move into that realm!". I preached a whole message on how to overcome disappointment! When you pray for the sick and nothing happens! Your children ask you; "Why did they die?" and you don't know how to answer your children! I talked about how to overcome disappointment and we must do that.

But without signs and wonders and healing - we are not manifesting an authentic gospel. A biblical gospel will have signs, wonders and miracles and healings!

Balance that with what I said at the beginning. We are not going on a religious high. We don't live from miracle to miracle but from faith to faith - from glory to glory - from Scripture to Scripture. But if you live that way you will see the miracles!

You have got to keep contending because if you don't contend then the vast majority of the church worldwide if it doesn't have prophets and apostles and evangelists and teacher/pastors contending, passionate, overcoming their own disappointments, their own cynicism, their own skepticism and unbelief - pushing through the demonic lies, if you don't have leaders like that then the church will gladly settle quickly to sermonettes on a Sunday and dead religious rituals and laws and superstition and guilt and doctrines of demons!

It is so vast around the world that when the true gospel appears there is such hatred against it and such a reaction in certain parts of the earth! But I tell you what there are people standing up around the planet right now and preaching the gospel that Paul preached and it is gaining momentum and signs and wonders are gaining momentum and around the world there is over 176, 000 people being saved every day! Every day! It is a documented record of hundreds of resurrections from the dead - documented records in books today! The dead are being raised! Mighty miracles are happening! We live in Asia and in China and God knows that the Chinese must see signs and wonders and miracles! Even sophisticated Hong Kong people! I want to say this - that you will either be a mimic-er and a follower or a pioneer and an initiator. You will either live in the fruit of the breakthroughs of others or you will breakthrough yourself.

Where would this world be - in the natural - if we didn't have men and women through our history that overcame the formidable intensity and the savage opposition of skepticism and cynicism and the scorn and mocking of people who dared to believe and dream that there was something possible that is greater than what we can see right now with our eyes?

Any inventor, any person that breaks society and history into another dimension had to endure hell and opposition and even their friends and close friends and members of their congregations or political groups and educational groups that mocked them and ostracised them as fanatical fringe and madmen. In their hearts there was a dream that they felt that something greater than what they see can happen! They are the initators! What would this world be without the Wright brothers who believed men could fly on wings? Now we fly all over the world and take it for granted! But imagine when there were no planes flying and the Wright brothers were saying they believed they could find something to overcome the law of gravity and can have men fly around the world! The people mocked them! We have such an inbuilt desire to be loved and understood and accepted and patted on the back - and that is the problem. We have a need for man to recognise and approve of us and accept us. That's why you have so few inventors and initiators because they are constantly afraid when they try and fail and the scoffers mock them!

The Wright brothers believed and they were mocked! The people said if God wanted us to fly then He would have put wings on our backs. That is arrogance! And the Wright brothers flew and got wings and took off! Roger Bannister said man could run a mile under four minutes and he was mocked - he broke it and then everyone else started breaking it! I have run the mile under four minutes but I am a mimic-er! I am a follower! He was the initator! Eddison invented the light bulb and tried over a thousand times and each bulb failed. One day he created a bulb that worked and he said that over a thousand times he learnt what didn't work until he got what did work. Today at the flick of a switch we turn on lights but we forget that there was a man that was mocked. In the natural - the world would be a poor place if everyone were mimic-ers and mockers and scoffers of those who have the guts and the courage to step out and say "I can't stand passivity! I can't stand apathy or status quo - I believe there is a God who can do things differently and better in the nations of the earth!". The Church is like a sleeping giant! The Church is a place where there is so little change taking place but we are subjects and partners with a God who creates and brings initiative and transformation and revolution! He is not the God of stagnation but the God of creativity and diversity and colour!

I am SO frustrated sometimes at how quickly churches settle for the lowest religious common denominator of happiness and peace and personal victim mentality! The majority of Christians pray for the sick a few times and if it doesn't work then they back off and formulate a theology to legitimise and accomodate blatent evil hearts of unbelief and then they mock and scoff at those who step out and fail! Well we may break a thousand lightbulbs but one day that lightbulb is going to come on! And almost everyone that is dead that we pray for will be raised from the dead! And all the blind eyes and deaf ears and cripples! In Jesus Name! Because He said; "The works I do shall you do and greater works!".

Those Scriptures haunt me - how can I leave them behind!?

Re-defining Holiness by Ryan Rufus

2009-05-06T14:54:00.002+01:00

This sermon was preached by Ryan Rufus at City Church International, Hong Kong on Sunday 2nd May 2009

"The week before I preached a one-word title message called "Rest" and this morning I have a two-word title message called; "Re-defining Holiness". I am excited to preach this word and I believe God is excited about this word this morning. It is His Word and He wants to do something here this morning. "Re-defining Holiness" - re-defining what holiness is.

Living a holy life should never be defined as "living without sin". In fact sin has got nothing to do with holiness at ALL!

We have been programmed to think that it does and this morning I want to undo that programming. The religious world has made not sinning to equal holiness. They have made that the most important issue for the church today. The religious spirit across the world today is trying to put pressure on leaders to preach more on holiness and not sinning and it seems so virteous! But it is a demonic deception and many are blindly falling prey to the religious spirit. This morning I want to come out strong. There are some things in the Body of Christ that need to be smashed down today!

The lie that says "If you don't sin then you are holy but if you do sin then you are unholy" - that is the 10 Commandments right there! What is the first thing you think of when you hear the word "Holy". Stop sinning? If that is the first thing we think of when someone says "Be holy" then it means our minds have been programmed by the law to define what holiness is.

Holiness has got NOTHING to do with sinning or not sinning! If that is what we think, then we think WE are the cause of our holiness and I am telling you there is only ONE Person who is the cause of our holiness and His Name is Jesus Christ!

If you are in Him, then YOU ARE HOLY! You don't have to try and be holy or get holy - you ARE holy!

Hebrews 10:10 - it is amazing that this is in the Bible. "We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all". You have been made holy once and for all! Now I am going to try and define what holiness is and it isn't complicated.

God was holy long before sin ever existed. In fact God's holiness could not be referenced to sin at all. Sin wasn't around! If we limit the holiness of God to the mere abscence of sin then we are limiting His awesome holiness! God's holiness is far greater than just the abscence of sin.

What is holiness then? Holiness is who God IS. God IS holy! If you are in Him and born again then you are holy!

The sin of Adam that we were all born into - we were made sinners (Romans 5 says) - and it is the sin of Adam and our state of sin that seperated us from God. Now it wasn't that sin was unholy. It was the seperation from God that was unholy.

A state of seperation from God is a state of unholiness.

Then Jesus came and offered the once-for-all sacrifice that permamently removes all of our sins and makes us blameless before the Father. He made us righteous and blameless and because of that we were able to come into God. It is the coming into God that makes us holy! People confuse holiness and blamelessness! We mustn't confuse the two. Blamelessness is the removing of our sins. Holiness is the coming into God. Let me read to you Ephesians chapter 1:4; "He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight". Blameless is us becoming righteous. Holy is us coming into God.

Now holiness is not about what you DO. It is about where you ARE. Where you ARE will affect what you DO.

So the question is; "Where are you?". If you want to understand what holiness is then you need to understand where you are. So where are you!? Ephesians 2:6 tells us; "God raised us up with Christ" - that is being born again. "And seated us with Him in heavenly realms in Christ Jesus". You are seated in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus! That is where you are! That is your heavenly position seated in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus! What else is true about this heavenly position? Ephesians 1:3; "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing that is in Christ Jesus". Your heavenly position is that you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. God cannot bless you anymore in the heavenly realms - He has fully blessed you in Christ Jesus! You have received every blessing in the heavenly realms!

Your heavenly position in Christ is that you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ! Colossians 2:9, 10 says; "In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form and you have been given fullness in Christ". Other translations say "You have been made complete in Christ". That means you can't receive anymore fullness in your heavenly position in Christ! That means you have been made absolutely complete in your heavenly position in Christ! Some of you are looking like you don't believe that! You need to see where you are! We are not talking about your flesh or your soul but your spirit that has been made alive with Christ and seated with Christ in the heavenly realms! How can God be in heaven and also living inside of you? That is the glory realm! It is multi-dimensional and don't try to understand it with your mind! You have been given fullness in Christ! That means you don't have to try and achieve anymore righteousness or achieve anymore perfection. You have got 100% righteousness and 100% perfection and 100% obedience and love and faith and authority and health and riches! And 100% victory and passion and access to God all the time! That is your heavenly position in Christ!

What is your heavenly position? It is that you are seated in the heavenly realms and have been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus and have been given fullness and made complete in Christ. You have been made holy and complete in Christ and that is your heavenly position!

Living holy is not about living without sin! Living holy is about living from your eternal heavenly position in Christ Jesus!

That is holy living! That is holiness! The Greek word for "holiness" is the same word for "sanctification" and it means two things. 1. Seperation or seperated or seperate. 2. The life that flows out of someone who has been seperated. So you have been seperated from your old life of sin and we are talking about what it is to become holy. It means you have been seperated from your old life of sin in Adam and you have been brought out of that and into Christ and seperated unto Christ and brought into your heavenly position in heaven. Now the life that you live flows out of that place. Or at least it has the potential to flow out of that place because if you don't see and have revelation of that place then you will live your life from this natural earthly place.

To live holy is to live from your eternal, heavenly position. To live unholy is to live from your current earthly condition. It has got nothing to do with sinning. It has got to do with position. It has got to do with where you are living from.

The truth is we live in our current condition from our eternal heavenly position. Sin is not unholiness - it is the by-product OF unholiness. Or rather it is the by-product of not living from our eternal heavenly position. If you were to live 100% from your eternal heavenly position you would never sin while in your current condition. But it is not about sinning anyway! The religious world makes it all about sinning! It is all about what you have got to do and what you have got to change! It is all about behaviour modification and it is trying to put behaviour modification on your current condition. Forget behaviour modification! Forget change!

Forget trying to change your character in your current condition and SEE your heavenly position! As you SEE your heavenly position then THAT begins to flow through your current condition!

The religious world makes holiness the most important issue. I believe holiness is the most important issue but not the way the religious world has defined it as living without sin. God wants you living holy - they say! God wants you living without sin! Actually God is not that interested - and that is not God's priority! God's priority is that you live holy - but that is living from heaven! From your eternal position! We have got to seperate the concept of sin from holiness and see heaven!

When you define holiness as living without sin, people automatically think if they stop sinning then they are holy! That gets their focus on themselves, on their flesh and on their human efforts and makes them think that not sinning is the cause of their holiness. But there is only one cause of holiness and that is Jesus Christ! And if you are in Him then you are holy forevermore!

Now to live holy is to simply live from that place where you are in Him and are seated and given fullness in Him and that is it! That will get your eyes off yourself and onto Him and who He is and who He is in you and who you are in Him. The more you see that the more that will begin to flow through here.

The more you see your position the more you begin to live from your position and the more you begin to live from your position the more you will overcome sin but greater than that the more you will see heaven coming to earth through your life and the more you will start doing the works Jesus did and greater works.

God did not leave us on earth to see how much sin we could overcome! He left us on earth to see how much heaven we could bring to earth through our lives!

The religious world says "Produce fruit!". It is actually so important and serious what I am saying this morning. God is shifting mindsets in the body of Christ and bringing down the lies that have blinded men and women for centuries and bringing them to see true holiness. How they have limited what holiness is and how they have got people involved in what God is not involved in! God is involved in seeing heaven come to earth! The more you over come sin but the more that realm breaks in through your life! At the end of our lives we are not after saying "God I didn't sin!". That's useless! We want to be able to say that we walked in all the things He had for us in this life. We want to see heaven come to earth and see this world shaken and thousands of millions saved and brought into the Kingdom. The religious world says "Produce fruit! Change!". Grace and truth says "No - get established in the love of Jesus Christ!". I believe the way we get rooted and established in the love in Jesus comes through seeing our heavenly position, seeing what He has done for us through His love in Christ and taking us up and seating us in the heavenly realms and giving us fullness. The more revelation we get and the more we see the heavenly realms - that is faith! Faith is seeing the heavenly realms! It is not about what you DO - it is by faith. Simply believing. Simply see by faith the heavenly realms.

The more you see by faith your heavenly position - then the more your current condition gets rooted in the heavenly realms and the fruit of being rooted up there will show over here! You don't even have to make it manifest. You won't be able to stop it manifesting.

The religious world tries to pull on leaves and branches to make the tree grow. Forget it! Feed the roots and the tree will grow and produce fruit! Get rooted and established in the heavenly realms and the fruit will show up in the earthly realms!

If you don't see that holiness is about living from your position and who you really are, then when you read Scriptures about holiness - you will assume all they are talking about is not sinning - when in actual fact they are trying to say that if you live from your position in the heavenly realms then you will not only overcome sin but you will see heaven coming to earth and you will see the kingdom coming to earth!

Go back and read all the holiness Scriptures! People will send me emails about this and that Scriptures and that is fine! I am for that because I believe this with conviction! Go back and read with conviction!

Bill Johnson says; "Our destiny is to go to heaven but our assignment is to bring heaven to earth!". My version of that is that; "We have already achieved our destiny because we are already seated in heavenly places and now the life we live, we live from heaven to earth bringing heaven with us!".

You could say the more you live from the heavens, the more the heavens will show up in your life. It is not bad to live from the heavens. Don't mock people who are always in the heavens and living from the heavens. You need to live more from the heavens - you need to be truly more holy! That is the appropriate way to say that! When you hear that you don't think; "Me, my, what I must do, my sin". You think, "Him and what He has done and how awesome He is". As a consequence of that faith errupts in your heart to lay hold of the things that are yours in Jesus Christ. I want to leave you with this thought.

The more you find out about your position in heaven, the more you find out about your potential on earth.

You have the potential for total victory over sin! You have the potential to walk in divine health! You have the potential to walk with God in the glory realm 24 hours a day, great wealth to finance nations, blessed with every spiritual blessing, to continuously hear the voice of God day in and day out, to raise the dead, to do the works Jesus did and all that God has planned for us to do! I don't preach on faith! I am not against faith. Some people focus on faith. Preach the thing that produces faith and you won't even have to preach on it! Same with sanctification - forget about it! Don't worry about sanctification! Focus on the things that cause sanctification! Stop trying to preach obedience and holiness but rather the things that empower it! Sanctification is not about trying to sin less and less but learning to live from hte heavenly realms more and more. It is not about trying! But seeing! Seeing who you really are! The church preaches too much about who you aren't. A sinner - filthy, disgusting! No - you need to hear who you really are! Son of God! Righteous forever! Perfect! Seated in the heavenly realms! Blessed! Made perfect! Holy! Made complete! That is your true identity!

"Come and undo in a moment centuries of false doctrine".

"It doesn't matter what abusive leaders were against you - He is for you! And He is representing your minstry to the world!".

Attitudes that Attract the Empowering Grace of God - Part 2

2009-05-02T08:44:00.002+01:00

This sermon was preached by Rob Rufus at City Church International in Hong Kong on 27th July 2008

"Why don't you turn in your Bibles to Philippians chapter 4. It is wonderful to see so many of you here this morning. We have about 50% of people away and I am amazed how God is bringing and adding people. It is very exciting - this is the year He promised us He would bring people from within Hong Kong and also from many from different nations and He will bring resources to us. How many believe we will not be meeting in this hall forever? I have just signed on an 800 seater hall for March next year where we are hosting "Glory and Grace - Hong Kong" and we have Patricia King coming and Josh Mills and Fini and Isi and I believe it will be an awesome time of the glory of God manifesting in Hong Kong. So we thought shall we meet here with the credit crunch and flights and hotels for people? But we just felt that I was standing outside that building and praying "God what will we do if there is a shortfall? We have to make up the shortfall! And I don't want to waste your money!". I felt God say;

"Son, son - go big, think big and trust Me! You will look on this in a few years time and say "How pathetically small was an 800 seater in Hong Kong!?".

We are going to host "Glory and Grace" in the next few years in the rugby stadium - I am telling you right now!

I have heard so many testimonies in the last six weeks of local Chinese, Hong Kong people have been saved in our services! A lot through the ministry of Angela and Randy who are on holiday but also Alice's testimony of what miracles God is doing and it is so thrilling! How many went on our website this week? I got a call from a pastor friend in Australia and he said "Rob have you seen what's happened on the website front page?". Our Muslim friends hacked in again! They love our website and really feel it is an opportunity for free advertising for Islam! We bless them for that! They had advertising for Ramadam and Muslim songs and praise God for our brothers! If I could trace their address I would send a love message and say thank you because there has been a team in City Church International that have been meeting for a number of weeks and consulting with website designers and we have a website designer coming to join this church in a few months from South Africa and we have been strategising to upgrade our website and make it more user friendly as well as translating our messages into Mandarin and Cantonese. So God used the blessing of Muslim friends to give us a sign and a wonder; "Yes I want you to upgrade!".

God works ALL things together for good to those that love Him and are called together according to His purpose! The ministry of the Word is like a bank - the more you put into it, the more interest you get out of it. The more you set your heart - "I am going to learn today from the Word of God and it will advantage me and cause me to have understanding and wisdom to deal with issues in my life much more effectively and give me prophetic wisdom to deal with the context I am in right now and deal with my circumstances by the wisdom of God!".

"Thank You that we are as secure in this covenant as Jesus is because we are in Him ... give us revelation that you have put all things under the feet of Jesus ... open our understanding to see that we are Your glorious inheritance that You take pleasure in as a delighting Father!"

How many of you have found in life that the rhythms are different? Sometimes you go through times where everything you do is going well and succeeding and all blessing and all good? Then it comes to an abrupt end and for another season or time you go through negative and bad and then you come out of that and it becomes good for a while? I believe that right now we are NOT in that sort of a time!

I believe that right NOW we are in a time where we are living in the BEST of times and the WORST of times at the SAME time! And that is because the devil is intimidated about what is going on in the earth.

There are things going on in the earth that I get regular reports on and some of you do as well where millions are being swept into the Kingdom! Across the border in China the estimates are 40,000 people are born again EVERY single DAY! This year we have seen several people come out of wheelchairs and blind eyes open and deaf ears opened! Deaf ears! Cancers healed! At the same time we have faced all kinds of heartaches and disappointments like some of you are! There are things going on in families and friends all around the world. So great things are happening but it's also the worst time at the same time because the devil is trying to target those who God is using and will use to the greatest degree in this time!

The least people He is using are apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers! Their job is not to be the superstars who do the work! Their job is to equip every believer to be a manifestor of the Kingdom of God and to have influence in their context!

Ordinary people are having great effect in their time and many more will come out with greater influence! Some of you sit in relative obscurity today and you think; "What do I do? I don't do anything much! I would love to! I go to sleep and go to work! What do I do?". Something is at move and at work in the earth!

The devil will target those who God is using to the greatest degree (or is about to use) by giving them the greatest degree of distraction! The devil is not interested in your money. I promise you he doesn't need it and He can't spend it or want it. But he will attack your finances and he will attack your economy because he doesn't want your money. He wants to rob you of your peace. Agitated people seldom hear the voice of God! Agitated people hear the voice of deception, discouragement, confusion and condemnation! People under the government of God's peace hear His audible voice and hear His instruction and get His leading and they know what God wants them to do. The devil couldn't care if you had a good or bad marriage - honestly! It doesn't interest him! But he will attack your marriage to rob you of peace to agitate you with distraction! The devil doesn't care if you have a visa to stay in Hong Kong or not. But he will attack you on every kind of issue he can - because those who God is going to use to the greatest degree will be distracted by the devil to the greatest degree.

The word is "Distraction" friends! In a time of opportunity, distraction is the strategy of the devil and God's agenda is FOCUS! Laser-like focus! "I was born for this reason - I was raised for this time and I didn't go through hell and back and difficulties and betrayals for three decades to come to this awesome town to go down in flames of bitterness and cynicism and rejection complex! This is the time to stand strong! God is not interested in talking to you about your circumstances of distraction. A lot of people say "I am crying out God! Deal with this issue - finances, money etc!". God is not a magic genii that comes out and offers you three wishes! He is not coming down to reduce His kingly lordship on the issue of difficult circumstances.

Now He loves you and me and cares about us but He won't talk to you about the issue of your circumstances. God will talk to you on the issue of your DESTINY.

As soon as you say "God I want to talk about my destiny. These are the distractions and they are hurting me but what is my destiny? How will I move to next level of my destiny?".

Your destiny is not your career! Your career is a vehicle by which God can express destiny!

When Gideon was threshing wheat in a winevat as a coward and afraid, and complaining and mumbling saying "Where is the God of my forefathers?" and he wanted God to come and use His miracles to change his economic dysfunctional situation. God would not talk to Gideon on the basis of his circumstances but on the basis of his destiny - because God is after destiny for you and me! He said to a coward hiding in a winevat; "MIGHTY warrior!". When Gideon tried to talk circumstances, God said; "Shut up! I am not here to talk circumstances! I am not a God who will be reduced to making men and women just feel a bit happier and sort their problems out!". That is not God! God said; "I am here not to give you a bit of economic empowerment - not to change your circumstances but to make you the greatest general Israel has ever seen and drive out the Mideanites and;

When you obey destiny - your circumstances will improve! But if you focus on your self-pity and rejection and my problems and ask God why He's not helping - you will find He will not speak to you about your problems. He WILL talk to you about why you are on the earth and what your destiny is and what He has equipped you for!

If you do not live in the unfolding sequence of your destiny and the reason why you are on this planet then you will feel your existance on this earth is a mistake and it is NOT a mistake! You will feel you are living a mistake if you are not living your destiny! If you want to have maximum impact in your life then you have to allow God Almighty to have maximum impact in your life because we grow and develop on purpose through process!

There is no microwave Christianity! I am the most impatient man on the planet! Even microwaves don't do it fast enough! Every red traffic light is a demonic conspiracy to frustrate me! I want to go and arrive and get somewhere! If you are not like that then something has been stealing your guts and making you defeatest and passive! The herd mentality is just being mesmerised and trivialised! The Kingdom doesn't have microwave spirituality! I have people who come to me and say "Rob will you pray I'll never sin again?!". I say "Okay I will try. I may have to ask God to kill you and take you to heaven! That's the only place you will not have those issues!". Christianity is not microwave - it is a consistant process! People say to Glenda and me; "How did you get to where you are in the world? How are you influencing so many people?!". Three decades of no sulking, no backsliding, no giving up, no blaming this or that, rejection or oppression! It is not the greatest talents or the greatest gifts or the greatest anointing! It is those who understand that Christanity is not microwave - it is a process!

Today is an event - this message! How you respond to this message, how you deliberately decide to make decisions of wisdom in response to this message is a process that will bring purpose and unfolding evelation and promotion in the purposes of God.

The modern church has overestimated the value of event and underestimated the value of process.

People go to conferences and fill their notes and talk about the experience they had in the event. Great! Wonderful! Do it more! But that is an event and it is the purpose of you making decisions that I am here for DESTINY and if I do not fulfill destiny I will feel like I am living as a mistake in the earth. Which will explain the majority of suicides. It is not because their circumstances went down because of changes in the earth or the oil price went up and they faced bankruptcy. Those are circumstances. If they talked to God about their destiny then God would lift them up in their destiny and in the following of their destiny, their circumstances would be dealt with and they would become economically empowered again. If the nations of the earth cried out to God not for their circumstances but asked God what their destiny was; "The earth is the Lord's and everything in it - God what do you want done with your nations?" - then this planet is so wealthy and every human being could be a billionaire! There is enough wealth in the nations for everyone to be a billionaire!

It is because of the rebellion against the King of Kings and the Creator of the heavens and the earth. Everyone - you and me - can become great if we will value process more than the trivia of events. You say "Do you always preach like this?". No sometimes I am a bit worse!

The motives for living out the process is a revelation of acceptance grace. I am talking in the second part of a series; "Attitudes that attract empowering grace". And I said last week that I am deeply disturbed by the emphasis in the church world today on empowering grace at the expense of undervaluing the foundation of acceptance grace. I am going to quickly review that. Grace has two components.

1. Acceptance Grace.

2. Empowering Grace - enables you to raise the dead, do miracles, signs, wonders and enables you to say no to sin. Enables you to work hard! "I worked harder than anyone else but not I but the grace of God" - that is empowering grace.

Wonderful!

I want every part of empowering grace on my life! The way into empowering grace MUST be a revelation of acceptance grace. Even if I don't raise the dead or do any great things or don't get victory over sin or get holy enough or do enough - my Father accepts me in Christ Jesus because He has given me the gift of righteousness not based on my obedience or disobedience. The righteousness I have is the permament, stable, eternal righteousness of Jesus Christ given to me! Ephesians 1:3 - "I am accepted in the Beloved". Romans 15:7; "We are accepted in Christ Jesus". 2 Corinthians 3 says that what the Father sees in you is the glory that radiates and reflects from the face of Jesus.

I said to you last week that the secret of my prayer life is simply this. I know the Holy Spirit really likes me and loves being with me because He knows that I know that He knows that I know that the Father sees Rob Rufus in the righteousness of Christ and I am in the same standing as Jesus. Romans 8:16 - I am a joint equal heir with Christ and an heir of God and I don't have co-equal divine-ness with God and will never be! But I have a co-equal righteousness with Jesus because I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus!

Now that is a process! It is not 3 months or 1 year of hearing acceptance grace. It is a process over years of getting deeper and deeper into understanding acceptance grace. When you understand by revelation deeply acceptance grace then this will be growing fruit and will build into your life inner security, inner stability, inner sense of safety and an inner sense of significance even if you don't do anything great. In other words you don't have to do great things to feel important - you know your value is because the Father accepts you as He sees Jesus! The fruit of acceptance grace revelation is humility - humility is inner security, no more drivenness or franticness to impress people. Inner security produces a freedom from jealousy, comparing yourself with others, looking at others salary and what others get and you don't get, you don't feel inferior or superior to anyone else because you have got inner security because you know that you are accepted! People that have to prove something all the time is a sign that they don't understand acceptance grace and have got to "do things" all the time by the power of acceptance grace.

Now when we believe the gospel of acceptance grace then three fruit immediately grows through a process;

1. Boldness.
2. Obedience.
3. Humility.

Rejection of acceptance grace in Christians produces;

1. Fear of rejection.
2. Drivenness to prove themselves.
3. Comparisons between people.

That is a sign of rejecting acceptance grace. Unbelief in acceptance grace produces fear, rebellion (which is like the sin of witchcraft) and pride! 1 Peter 5; "Therefore clothe yourself in humility all of you to one another for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves therefore under God's mighty hand and He will lift you up in due time casting all your cares on Him for He cares for you". You have just seen the working of acceptance grace and empowering grace right there. Acceptance grace will produce humility whereby you will humble yourselves under God's mighty hand and you will be loving and humble towards one another and God will then lift you up by His mighty hand. When God lifts you up by His mighty hand that is empowering grace! If you are proud and insecure and jealous and driven then God has to oppose you because of self-righteousness. If God is opposing you then you can fast, bind devils and be concious of devils and oppression all you like but they are not going away because God is resisting you.

Though the devil comes and wants to attack us - that is not what I am talking about. You can build alliances with men and get every denomination on the planet to support you - you are in trouble if God is resisting you! When you humble yourself from inner security and acceptance grace then the empowering grace of God's mighty hand lifts you up in due time by process! When He lifts you up no devil in darkness can attack you successfully! No human being can stand against you all the days of your life and you become invincible with the invincibility of God! To be lifted up by His mighty hand is to have favour and influence and jurisdiction and authority! Every Christian on the planet is either in a place of being resisted by God's mighty hand or they are in a place of God's mighty hand lifting them up and it is all dependent on a posture of pride or humility.

Those that walk in humility are not caught up in the seduction of the distraction of circumstances, what's happening or difficulties - they are caught up in what their destiny is through inner security in what acceptance grace brings. Rather they are captured by a vision and destiny to fulfill. Let's go quickly to Philippians 4 and I want to show you these attitudes that attract the empowering grace. Attitudes that attract the empowering grace! Philippians 4:1. I am not under pressure to rush the message and I have been rebuked by the majority of people in this church who say "You rob us! Why are you always rushing? We need this stuff!". Anyone can leave anytime they like but don't pressure me into rushing by your body language! I will finish when God says "Finish!".

"Therefore my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, that is how you should stand firm in the Lord - dear friends".

There are four attitudes there that attract the empowering grace of God. Last week I mentioned that Paul the apostle is the preeminant apostle that ever walked this earth except Jesus who was the apostle of apostles. He wrote two thirds of the New Testament but I think most churches would kick him out if he came to preach in their churches today. He was wild. He was loving and gracious father as well. He raised people from the dead and we have accounts of it in the New Testament. He himself I think was raised from the dead because he was stoned for preaching the gospel and God raised him up. He had revelation and was caught up into the third heaven. This guy makes all of us look tame! He was a preeminant apostle! Yet when he comes to talk to his fellow believers, he does not say; "I apostle ding-a-ling, prophet, bishop, reverend!". No he doesn't say "my sermon fodder, my followers that are there to make me look great!". This preeminant apostle - which speaks so loudly to the modern church which is so gripped by this hierarchial sense of ranking and ecclesiology and titles and names and positions that are driven by a misguided theology that has emphasised empowering grace instead of acceptance grace.

Paul was the champion of acceptance grace and he understood that his father loved him and he was accepted - so he needed no titles or things to make him look important in the eyes of men because he knew that his Father loved him. Out of that acceptance grace God lifted him up and gave him empowering grace to do mighty things. But he was not not concious of his merit or his badge or his significance in the things he DID but in the REALITY of acceptance in the Father's love.

So he relates to his fellow believers - this preeminent apostle - as "my brothers who I love and long for - my joy and my crown. This is how you should stand firm in the Lord Jesus - my dear friends". So his first connection with his fellow believers is "brothers". That means "sisters" too. Sisters as well! He calls them "brothers". How many of you know that all the three and a half years that Jesus walked with His disciples He never once called them "brothers". He called them "friends" and "servants" but He never referred to them as "brothers". When He was crucified and raised from the dead and Mary came to Him in John 20:17- He says "Mary go tell my brothers that I go to their Father and My Father - their God and My God".

The first time Jesus calls His disciples brothers is AFTER the finished work of the Cross and the resurrection.

Why could Jesus not call them brothers before the Cross? They were not born again! They were under the Law and judgement and the wrath of God! Romans 2 - Paul lays it all out. He says that the result of law is that not one is righteous. Under the law no one was righteous. They were all under the wrath and the curse of the law. Before the law came Abraham was given righteousness as a gift because of his faith. But after the law came, Paul said in Romans 2 that there is not one righteous person on the entire planet through trying to keep laws to be good enough to gain acceptance with God. So they could never have been His brothers because they were under the law. He fulfilled the Law! He didn't come to remove but fulfill the Law. The Law is now fulfilled and on the Cross (Colossians 2 says) He abolished the Law and cancelled the written code that stood opposed to us. Once He had cancelled the written code He could then give us His righteousness. You cannot have a gift of righteousness and be under the Law! When you behave wrong or sin wrong the Law will say "You have done something wrong". If you say "But I have a gift of righteousness" then the Law will say "You are not righteous by a gift because I say you have done something wrong!".

So God had to cancel the law in Colossians 2 and obliterate the Law and then declare you to be the righteousness of God through Jesus taking all your sin past, present and future and giving you all His righteousness as a permament unconditional standing before the Father. Only after the Cross and Resurrection could He say "Go call My brothers and tell them I go to My Father and their Father, My God and their God". Co-equal heirs with Christ! Romans 8:29 says "Jesus was the first-born among many brothers". Now first Adam was the firstborn from spiritual life to spiritual death. Everyone born into the planet was born into first Adam's death. Jesus Christ was the first born from spiritual death because He took our death at the Cross - spirit, soul and physical death and He was raised from the dead by the power of God and He is the firstborn among many brothers! I don't know who was the second and third born and it doesn't matter. You are IN the first born! Hebrews 2:11 says Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers.

I don't know if you understand this because when this came on in my heart some time ago - it has changed my entire life. I have realised that I have a brother in heaven. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood. I have a brother of DNA in heaven who is the King of heaven and is not ashamed to call me brother! He was the firstborn among many brothers and His Father is my Father and His God is my God! That has changed me on the inside! I am so tired of these inner healing courses that have gone on for centuries in the church to deal with Christian insecurity and need of self-value and self-esteem. When you realise by revelation that you are accepted and you are a brother of Jesus Christ then there is no more inferiority left or superiority left! The next time you feel some Christian putting a superiority onto you - look them in the eye with amusement! "I don't know who you think you are! Jesus is my brother! And I am co-equal with Him in righteousness as an heir! And I am going to judge angels throughout all eternity with my brother Jesus! Not because of any good or holiness I have done but I am accepted in the beloved!".

It is not about ministry! People run about the church saying "What's my ministry!? What's my ministry?!". What they mean is what makes them important in the church. Ministry means service. Where do I serve Lord? What is my service in the church? Your service may be only a small part of your destiny and your destiny could be a lot bigger than how you serve in the church but Lord where do I serve? You know you believe you are a servant when people treat you like a servant! Will you do that or that? Huh! Don't you know my ministry!? I am a son first! And out of my security as a son - I can minister as a servant. I said in Cape Town that they were driving me crazy! I honestly didn't know whether I was coming or going! "Can you pray for me? Can you pray for me!?". Don't these people understand that I need to go for a cup of coffee?! Then I realised that they are treating me like a servant! Yes I will pray. I am here to serve.

Servants - no hierarchy! I have taken four years to appoint leaders and I know I haven't demolished under God's power hierarchial thinking that somehow means that appointments mean superiority! Position! Prestige! It gets two extremes. "Oh now he is superior - he is an elder and deacon so I have got to fawn and flatter him". Rubbish! He is your brother! Or the other extreme; "Who do they think they are?! I don't recognise them - bunch of nothings!". Rebellion! That is insecurity and jealousy!

The New Testament atmosphere is a preeminant apostle addressing fellow believers as "brothers". Why? Because the preeminant apostle of all apostles - God the Son who was God from all eternity and never was anything but God and who clothed Himself in all humanity - the Man Christ Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father who is fully man - that man dimension of Him is my brother! You and me! Todd is my brother! Our other brother is Jesus! My brother Glenda! My other brother Jesus! The next thing here levels it all. "You whom I love". That word love here is this lovely Greek word; "Agape". It means "my beloved". Paul says in Philippians 2:12; "So then my beloved". Romans 16:9; "Greet my beloved in the Lord". 2 Corinthians 11:11; "God knows I love you". 12:15; "I will most gladly be expended for your sake". This preeminent apostle says to a bunch of problem people who are misbehaving; "I will most gladly be expended for your sake".

Something has gone wrong when leaders or Christian fellow believers see others as a "duty" or a burden or a responsibility.

When the worship leaders or connect group leaders or childrens group leaders start seeing it as a burden; "I don't want to expend myself" then something has gone wrong. Ministry is serving! It is exhausting! He didn't say; "Well I am so anointed that I never feel tired and I never can expend because I have an infinite resource". No - he said "expend myself". When you have expended everything out of your bank and you try to draw money they will say "No". There are times as a Christian when you get to the place where there is nothing left in the soul tank. Nothing. You did it because of a motive of acceptance grace empowering you to serve. Why? Because it's my duty? No! My brothers whom I love! My beloved! I have watched leaders raise up a group of people and after a while they get so frustrated and want to hurt the people. How do you see people sitting around you? Do you see them as your brothers? Do you see them as your beloved? Paul wouldn't have known every Christian in every church in which he was working yet his attitude was "You are my beloved because you are His beloved and you are my brothers because you are His brothers. I am not superior or inferior to you. You Corinthians are getting so arrogant that you are acting like you are superior to me. It doesn't intimidate me. You are my brothers". He didn't sabotage his own ministry because he operated from an inner security.

It is only a matter of time when everyone in this room and everyone listening to this website will not be left on the planet. We will all go into eternity. Modern technology has deceived us to think we have immortality. I don't know who's going first and I am not volunteering! One of us could be gone tomorrow! I guarantee you that within 30 years most of us will be gone and within 50 years there will be not one of us left on this planet. Then everything will be weighed up as to what we have focused on - our circumstances and our difficulties or did we focus on our destiny? I am getting to a place of rewards - that doesn't contradict grace - but I want to talk about rewards in eternity.

Then he says "You who I long for". He isn't just saying "I long to see you" but he is saying "I long to see you". He is saying "I have ambitions for you! I see greatness in you!". God saw Gideon and He didn't see a coward in a vinevat but a great general. When Paul saw his fellow believers he didn't see them as they were but he saw them in their full destiny in God! "I long for you! I have desires for you!". I have to say that I have not seen anything else attract God's empowering grace on a man or a woman's life who has longings for fellow brothers and sisters. When you have this longing - "You are my brothers and my beloved and I long to see you grow more in grace and get out of those dysfucntional patterns and insecurities and fears of rejections! I long to see the Cross of Jesus Christ have an effect that you would embrace it and not modern Christian therapy and the latest book but come back to the simplicity of the Cross and the gospel! I have longings!

Nothing thrills me more than to see people making progress.

I am going to make a statement that sounds big but God knows that I am telling the truth;

I have never been part of a church like this one. I have been part of some of the most outstanding churches on the planet - two of them are very healthy churches currently. And they planted dozens of churches out of those churches. But I have never been part of a church like this one where I have seen such amazing transformations in people's lives. In just four years I have never seen such miraculous transformations in people's lives. I still shake my head and say "It can't be".

Glenda and I had lunch with Rob Gordon last Tuesday and to look into his eyes and see confidence and bright eyes and I said "When you first came into that service in our church - when you walked in I thought "My God what are we going to do with this guy?!". He said "This church has raised the dead! I was walking death. You have no idea how deep in death I was". The man I am talking to today is not the man that walked in a year and a half ago. I literally could go person to person and say "Wow!". I look at Todd here. Todd you shock me! When you first came in I thought you had escaped from an asylum and you were an axe murderer! He used to run out of meetings because the demons in him used to make him run out! We would run out and say "You are not running away!" and pull him back and they would say "Rob, Todd heard voices telling him to run" and I would say "So why are you bringing him to me?! Take him to your leader and His Name is Jesus!". That is the way I lead! There has been no microwave with Todd! None! We didn't do it as a church! I look at a very sane man and it is not my ministry but the ministry of a local church. That is the truth! A very intelligent man and an integrated man! A man bordering on genius in his intelligence! And for a year and a half that darkness was broken off him because he came into a church preaching grace. Not a series on grace! Everything we preach is acceptance grace and it produces in God's people not a drivenness of insecurity and selfish ambition but suddenly they start seeing others as "my beloved, you who I long for". We had longings for Todd! And he has come through.

Barry! Who is not well today. When Barry came - we met him in a real Chinese resturant and spoke to him for about 4 hours. He talked about how he was abused in Hong Kong as a little boy and sexually abused and every kind of abuse. Not making it up! He had the scars! I could not believe one human being could go through this pain! He represents hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong people! He was so angry - barking and biting at everyone, swearing and blaspheming and I think he was trying to trigger some religious reaction in Glenda and me! And we sat there and smiled and blasphemed and swore. We didn't say "Don't you use those words in my presence! Don't you know I am archbishop semi-apostle?!!?". We sat there and he swore and cursed and spoke about unbelievable stuff. A year and a half later I am shocked at how well adjusted Barry is! Barry is the most transformed human being I have ever witnessed in 30 years of ministry! When he talks there is no bitterness. He was street smart and now he comes and talks about other people! Brothers who he has longing for!

Four weeks ago I prophesied from here that God would take his story - the longest surviving man with HIV/AIDS and openly speaks about his homosexual past and now the doctors can't find any problem with his immune system. He is off the retro-viral drugs and no problems with his immune system! He is like a normal man! I prophesied that God is going to take his story around the world! God will take his story across Hong Kong! Four weeks ago I prophesied that! In November this year he is going on television and meeting with the Hong Kong television with his two doctors to talk about how he is the longest survivor with HIV/AIDS in Hong Kong and what he went through and how it is Jesus who has healed him! But the greatest healing in Barry that he will talk about is not the physical AIDS but the healing and liberation of his soul! That is what he is going to talk about! He will talk about it with integrity because people in this church had longings!

This isn't a church where people have a sweet meeting and pop out. This is a community with integrity that are connecting! In Galatians 4:19 the believers had been under law and they went back to the law and got themselves under the deception of legalistic modern day religious Christianity and Paul didn't say "Well I have prayed for you and preached to you and I have exhausted myself and that is it! I will forget about you!". In Galatians 4:19 he said; "My dear children I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ be formed in you!". Paul's longings NEVER gave up!

I came to Hong Kong and God said; "You do not leave any wounded behind. You don't give up on anyone until they give up on you. You don't stop loving them or seeing them as your brothers!". There are people that come and go and we don't see them for months and they come back and get into all kinds of stuff. We don't stop loving them, reaching out to them and I am not just talking about me and Glenda! I mean people in this church. They will come through! This word "longed for" is the most powerful word you can use in the Greek language to describe human emotions.

Philippians 1:7, 8. Love is a decision! An act of the will! But love is an act of the will! If you never feel anything then something is wrong! I have feelings! I feel for people! I have longings! "It is right for me to feel this way about all of you. Since I have you in my heart for whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me". The whole church is sharing in a common inheritance with Paul - the same grace! "God can testify how I long for all of you with the affection of Christ Jesus". Where is this supernatural love and longings come from? A revelation of acceptance grace that brings you into the Father's love and He gives you affections for your brothers around you and you can say "My brothers - you - my beloved! I long for you! You are my joy and my crown!".

I wanted to get into how this translates into rewards where Paul says "You are my victory wreath!". The Bible says a lot about rewards and it is not meant to inspire fear in us but to inspire faith to find inner security and stability and humility that will enable us to care and equip for each other so when Jesus comes again - Paul makes it clear that what you have done for your brothers around the world, you will share in equal rewards! Glenda and I have been going in ministry for 30 years and when you see Glenda and I as your brothers and as your beloved and as your longed for and you are praying that you stand firm - when you go to heaven then everything Glenda and I have done you will share in our rewards. Everything each of you have done with the right motives to honour him - if I see you as my beloved and not my joy - then everything you have done in God and born fruit, then I will share in the rewards! We all share! Whatever we have done! Partners we are involved in!

I feel so sorry for anyone who isn't part of a local church and can say "You are my victory wreath - the way you are standing in God and I am connected to the rewards of your maturity". All those believers will get is what they have personally done. But you and I will share collective rewards. Jesus will talk about common reward and common judgement. If you are in a church living in grace - then the only churches Jesus rebuked in Revelation were self-righteous. "Poor and blind". If you are part of a church where acceptance grace is part of the gospel then you will find shared reward on that day. I am here in Hong Kong by destiny! We don't focus on our circumstances! God will come and talk to us about our destiny! When you respond to destiny through process - not microwave - and process is by decade then our focus on destiny will mean He talks to us every single day!

Don't miss next Sunday! If you are a visitor passing through Hong Kong then download it next Sunday! Get this message! It is a misunderstood doctrine in the church today! Many Christians don't throw themselves into grace-filled works because they don't believe it! God said we are going to continue in momentum! Stay alert about your destiny and don't let anyone rob you of your destiny!

"Rest" by Ryan Rufus

2009-04-27T09:32:00.002+01:00

This sermon was preached on Sunday 19th April 2009 at City Church International in Hong Kong.

"We are just going to have a mellow preach this morning and try and not be long. The word of the Lord this morning that He gave me this morning is "Rest". That's it! That is it! So thank you, that was quick eh? There is not much to do when you rest. But Steve was praying that out in the prayer meeting this morning and I was really excited about that because I had written it on my hand. "Rest". It didn't manifest there but I felt the Lord saying that His word this morning to City Church International is "Rest". Rest is two things. Firstly it is a theology - the rest of God. And the rest of God is also a living reality. I don't want to just know the theology of the rest of God - I want to experience the living supernatural reality of the rest of God. I want to enter into the rest of God and God wants CCI to enter in and live in the rest of God! The living supernatural reality of the rest of God. As I speak this morning I just believe that His rest - that supernatural reality - is coming upon us. So receive that right now!

Lord, we just release Your Presence of peace and of rest upon each person right now in the Name of Jesus. We are not looking for a cleverly crafted word. God gave me this word in 5 minutes this morning! We are looking for You and Your Presence and Your peace and Your rest. Those that might be uncomfortable with this kind of a meeting - Holy Spirit we pray that You would just dissolve all their discomfort right now and let them be comfortable in Your Presence with You.

I had a long week this week - working Monday to Friday and very working very hard. The only day I had to prepare for today was yesterday and I felt this pressure that I had to get up Saturday and prepare for Sunday with the goods. I felt God said "No just have a day of rest - watch movies and get couch time". Ryan loves couch time! Just rest and watch movies! God said "Don't worry I will give you a word". That can be scary if you have got to preach the next day. What happens if He doesn't give you a word and you get up looking like an idiot?! Maybe I do care a little bit - but I would rather just communicate what God has and it could be the simpliest word but as long as it comes with His Presence and His impartation then you can say one word - "Rest" - and it can change your life. So Lord keep releasing that rest! The Bible says "Strive to enter into His rest". So it is the only thing we are told to strive for! How cool is that? Strive to enter into His rest. For everyone who enters into His rest ceases from his own work. Ceases from his own work!

God created the planets and the galaxies and the universe in six days and the Bible says He rested on the seventh day. It wasn't because He was tired. It just meant He stopped working on the seventh day. It was finished. The Old Covenant is a six day covenant - a working covenant. The Law is a working covenant. The New Covenant is a seventh day covenant and is rest! A rest covenant! It started when Jesus said "It is finished!". It is FINISHED! We entered into a seventh day Sabbath day covenant! God only showed me that this morning - I have never studied that anywhere! We are in a Sabbath - seventh day - covenant!

That means our work has finished! Grace says "Stop working". And just believe.

Jesus said this is the work that the Father requires - to believe on the One He sent. Not to go and do this or that or to keep the 10 Commandments. Not to try and be holy. Not to try and not sin or win the world for Jesus. He says THIS is the work - to believe on the One He sent. Grace says "Stop working".

God says come and lift false burdens that we are carrying. We have a passion to serve Jesus and live for Him and do stuff - I do! But the enemy can get behind that and say "You are not doing enough. You need to do more". He will start to drive us and we get into false burdens and think we have to be more holy and change more. "God wants me to change more!". God says "Stop trying to change!". God says to CCI this morning; "Stop trying to change!". God doesn't want you to try and change. Stop trying to change yourself! I don't know if I even have a theology of changing! So much emphasis on changing in the body of Christ!

I think the more we see Him and the more we see who we are in Him and the more we see where we are seated in the heavenly realms in Him - the more that realm begins to flow through our lives. We don't need to change! We just need to see Him. Sanctification is not about trying to sin less and less - it is about living from your eternal position in Christ more and more. Sanctification isn't about trying to be holy. I am going to preach about holiness. I am going to preach on being holy. And I am going to re-define what holiness really is because the church has got holiness really wrong! Holiness has got nothing to do with sin at all! The church has made it all about that.

What's the first thing you think about when I say - holiness? Don't sin! That is the 10 Commandments right there. If that is what you are living under then that is the 10 Commandments.

If I sin then I am not holy. If I don't sin - then I am holy. It's rubbish! Sin has got nothing to do with holiness at all.

I am going to leave that there! Otherwise I will end up preaching that whole message! Holiness has got to do with where you are seated. That is what holiness is - where you are seated in Christ! Living holy is simply living from the place where you are seated in Him. That's holy living. I will explain more about that the following week. It will release you completely from trying not to sin. Just see who you are and where you are! Not sinning is the by-product of holiness.

The religious world is putting pressure on pastors to preach more on holiness and congregations more to try and stop sinning and be more holy and it is putting pressure on churches to live under the 10 Commandments and is totally bogus and it needs to stop in the body of Christ! Stop teaching "holiness" and stop teaching obedience! Stop teaching sinning less and teach more on who we are in Christ and where we are seated - perfect in Christ! 100% righteous in Christ forever more! Seated with Christ on a throne and made holy!

Hebrews 10 says you have been made holy! You can't be anymore holy! You are holy! If you are born again then you are holy. The seventh day covenant! That is a good one! It could be totally heresy but ...! We are in a rest covenant! The work is finished!

Stop trying to complete your holiness and complete your righteousness! Stop trying to complete blessings and approval from the Father! You have got it all! You have got the faith of the Father! Let's just cease from our works!

Ryan if you preach that then it's going to lead to passivity! It will lead to fatalism! Graces says "If you never did another thing for God for the rest of your life then He would still love you and approve of you and be pleased with you!". That is it! That is what Grace says! If you never did another thing for God for the rest of your life then He would still love you, accept you and approve of you!

Because He is not relating to you on your performance - He is relating to you on CHRIST'S performance and you are in Christ and He is pleased with Christ, loves Christ and is happy with Christ. You are in Christ and "accepted in the beloved".

You don't have to do another thing for God to get Him to accept you or to get Him to love you. He loves you completely and utterly and fully! We live with this thing in our mind that if we are not praying enough or winning the lost enough then God is a little bit unpleased with us! That is a LIE from the devil!

If you never read your Bible for the rest of your life and praying another prayer to God for the rest of your life or never tried to win one more person to Christ for the rest of your life then God would still fully love you, accept you and be pleased with you!

But then won't Christians not want to do anything? No! Actually it takes all the "have-tos" off Christians! I don't want to live my life by someone saying "You have to do this". That is the 10 Commandments again! Grace takes all the "have-tos" off us and says we don't have to do another thing! You don't have to live for God or try and stop sinning! It takes all the "have-tos" off and when they get taken off then all the "want-tos" begin to come out!

Grace awakens your spirit to all the goodness that God put in there at the point of salvation and draws those things out!

Because my spirit is being made perfect in Christ - Ephesians 4:23 - says we have been created after the very nature of God. My spirit has got the nature of God in it! So many people preach that we still have got a sinful nature and that is a load of rubbish! My spirit is part of the new creation order and that means nothing from the old got put back into my spirit.

When my body dies and I go to be with the Lord then my spirit will be instantly with the Lord and nothing will change in my spirit! Because it's already part of the new creation order! So nothing has to change in my spirit! Nothing of the old - no evil or sin or unbelief - my spirit is made perfect in Christ!

When you take the "have-tos" off the Christian then all those things in my spirit - the nature and love and passion of God and fire of God is all there! And that wants to come out! Grace awakens those things to come out! It is good! If this is the first time you have heard anyone say anything like this then I don't blame you for being a bit shocked!

We at CCI are a bit used to this but most of the church doesn't preach this stuff and they have been lying to you. It is not because they are evil. Most times they are doing their best with good intentions. A lot of legalism in the church is simply because of bad theology. When you haven't seen your salvation and you haven't seen what God has done in your spirit then you feel like you have to move Christians to action. "Do this!". All these clever manipulation techniques are used to get Christians into action. But they fail! The only thing that should move us is the Spirit of God in the inside of us and that connects with who I am! Grace moves me! Unmerited favour moves me! Not external pressure! God took off external pressure and external restraint and put internal restraint!

Believe it or not a born-again Christian doesn't want to go out and sin! A born again person wants to get rid of sin and struggles with sin and doesn't like sin! The flesh and mind still like sin but your spirit doesn't like sin! Sin is foreign to your spirit! The more we live by our spirit the more we can overcome sin. The more we don't walk into sin! God isn't trying to put external restraint on us when He has already put internal restraints for us to live by that! Maybe someone needed to hear that. The more you preach this stuff, the more those "want tos" rise up and the more people are empowered to be Spirit-led. If you are putting "have-tos" on people then you are not teaching them how to walk by the Spirit but by denominational law and church conformity. You are putting pressure on people to conform.

No one has a right to tell another Christian that you have no right to drink alcohol! Maybe God told you not to drink alcohol! But if you say to another Christian we are not allowed then that is external and if they bow the knee to that then they didn't do it because the Spirit led them to do it but because someone put pressure on them to do that. You can't say to someone you need to pray every morning for one hour. You have to read your Bible! God might have told you to do that but He might not have told your neighbour to do that! You have no right to put that on other people!

God is trying to take false burdens off us and get us to move by the Spirit and not by the pressure of man. God doesn't want us living and moving by the pressure of man but by the Spirit and by His voice. We enter into that rest! Can you feel yourself right now entering into that rest? Some say I am not happy - I have still got that problem and that can become our focus. God says get our focus off that and stop trying to change this or that. God says I am not even putting pressure on you to try and change that!

All I want is for you to see Me! That is all God wants!

Maybe someone else put that pressure on you! Just see God! Just see how good He is! How awesome and loving God is! See how happy He is with you! God takes absolute delight in loving you! That was such a revelation to me! I think Dad preached that a few weeks ago. We all hear that God loves us! Some think God has to love us because He saved us! Actually God has delight in loving us. It brings God pleasure to love us and He enjoys doing it. Have you heard that in your spirit? God delights in loving us! God is happy with us!

Lots of people say that Christians should live with a sense that God is not happy with them and if they have that sense then it will move them to try and live to get God to be happy! That is manipulation - it is demonic and witchcraft! "We have got to have more sin conciousness because then people will feel like they are sinners and will be moved to get rid of sin!". That is WRONG! So many people preach that!

If all you hear about is repentance and what you have got to repent of then your entire focus is on how short you have fallen from God and how useless and how unhappy God must be with you. That is awful. We should be focused on how perfect we are in Him and how right we are with Him. How perfect He is! And how we are in Him and how much He loves us and how much He is blessed by us! God is smashing some mind-sets here this morning. Some things we need to let go of. If we don't get grace references points in our life then we come in here and hear grace preached and think "Yes this is awesome - I love it" and go out and then people carefully put "What about this scripture?" into our minds and then we get knocked around and end up back in a place where we are not reigning in life and feeliing the pleasure of heaven on us. Once we get certain things established in our hearts then it will be like reference points that we will not be moved on. People can throw any clever slants on Scripture they like but we will always live in a place where we know that God is happy with us, likes us, and we are 100% righteous!

Some of these reference points are; teaching about the gift of righteousness. You have to understand it! You have to understand total forgiveness and understand propitiation. God has already poured out all wrath and punishment on Jesus fully. That means He will never ever judge or punish us! People say you are sick because you did this sin or that sin. No that is rubbish! God will never EVER punish you again because He fully punished Jesus! The gift of righteousness - you are 100% righteous in Christ! Hebrews 10; "perfect FOREVER" by one sacrifice! That means righteous! Perfectly righteous! He doesn't just "see" you righteous but knows all your sin is behind that. No - He has MADE us righteous. We need to see ourselves 100% righteous because that is how God sees you all the time. That is a reference point. Get it established even when we sin and mess up! That must get established and you won't be moved!

People will say "Ah you did that sin, you are not righteous, you have got to go and repent and confess and get right with God". It's rubbish! Strive to enter into His rest! Nothing else!

It will lead to being Spirit-led and it will lead to supernatural initiatives from God!

How many programmes does the church run - this programme and that programme!? It is so that Christians are doing something and not wasting their time! "You need to be a good steward of your time". God says - no enter into my rest! And I will give you supernatural initiatives! You are not being a good steward of your time if you are doing things that you don't even have faith for. When all the "have tos" are off and you are walking by the Spirit - then He can come even in a dream! God gave me an assignment in a dream! It changed my life! It was in a vision! He can drop a business idea! A guy at Bill Johnson's church wasn't doing much with his life and the only thing he could do was archery. One night God woke him up and gave him a new design for a bow. He invented this bow and has one of the highest selling companies of bows! That is incredible! God will wake you up and give you something! Rest! Go to sleep and let God wake you up!

I have never done so much for God since I have been in Hong Kong and learnt about rest and grace. I feel I have done so much for God since being here! I just waited for God to give me supernatural initiatives and He does! And you just follow!

Some of you look like you need some rest! We have been flat out lately! It is appropriate God speaks to us about rest at this time! Let's go into our future in rest! It doesn't mean passivity or fatalism but doing exploits for God! It is doing HIS exploits for God! Those are the big and powerful ones! God is speaking this morning! He is speaking! There is leadership and God speaks through them. Sometimes you can hear Him through your leaders but ultimately you want to hear Him for yourself! When Kylie and I came to Hong Kong big leaders were saying "No" - but we came and we are glad we came! God speaks through them and we are not undermining that. Dad preached last week and the first place of authority is the voice of God. Second is the Word and third is man.

Faith is Conducting Heaven's Influence Into The Earth - Part 7

2009-04-09T11:22:00.002+01:00

This quite awesome sermon was preached by Rob Rufus at City Church International on Sunday 5th April 2009.

"The Good Shepherd".

At the "Glory and Grace Conference" - people became slightly like the Bible - we're not there yet. They were much more drunk in the Book of Acts in the original church! People got so drunk in the Holy Spirit on the Wednesday or the Thursday night at "Glory and Grace" that they rolled down the driveway where we were meeting and staggered through the streets and people in the coffee shop reported them to the police. This is a true story! The Hong Kong police came and saw members of this church staggering drunk in the street - no alcohol on their breath at all! They said; "What are you doing?". And the people said; "Oh no, ha ha, we have just come from a church meeting! And we are so happy!". The police said; "That's fine - carry on - carry on". Those must be anointed police to recognise that these people were not drunk on alcohol that leads to stupid things but drunk on the very essence and nectar and atmosphere of the glory realm that believers are set for for all eternity and that was a little experience of the glory! And people were drunk for hours! Some actually lost their cool drinks! I saw coke cans rolling down!

I wanted to read so many testimonies and emails that have been coming in from all over the world of the after-effects of the "Glory and Grace Conference". There are healings and testimonies - I will read them out next week maybe. Of people deaf hearing - the first Sunday back! Miracles, fresh message of grace being preached around the world in different churches! I would love to read about some miracles that happened here - people from this church and others went into resturants in Hong Kong and shared the gospel. Gold started appearing on their hands and they started showing unbelievers the gold appearing in their hands! That is signs and wonders evangelism! It is giving them something to be fascinated by so they say "What is this?" and then you have a right to speak the truth! I would love to read you a letter from a small opal mining town in South Australia where they are having revival because of City Church International Hong Kong and the downloads off our website and aboriginal people are getting set free from generations of curses and issues! I would love to read you all the good things that God is doing! But I want to get straight into the message because we have a wedding here today at 12:00.

Open your Bibles if you feel like it! How many of you remember that when Peter the apostle was speaking at Cornelius's home and Paul when he was speaking against his accusers and they spoke about Jesus and they said this; "This thing about Jesus never happened in a small corner in Israel but it was noised abroad for the whole of the nation to hear about!". In Acts chapter 4 when the disciples are arrested for the miracle of that man that was crippled at Gate Beautiful and they said that this teaching and talk about Jesus has filled the whole city and we forbid you to preach in His Name!

You and I were not born to live quiet little Christian lives in the corner somewhere meeting for little chicken dinners after church, for cute little Christianity! We were born and we were destined for the world to know that the greatest event that has ever happened is not some celebrity coming to Hong Kong - but it is Jesus Christ the Redeemer of the Nations! In the New Covenant God has changed the way He looks at the world! He is now not counting men's sins against them! He has reconciled the entire world to Himself and He has cancelled the law at the Cross!

Are all going to go to heaven? No! That is the tragedy! There is one sin that He could not die for and that is the sin of unbelief in Jesus. But He has forgiven the world! He is not judging the world! The tsnuamis are not God - it is the earth creaking and cracking under the stress of first Adam's fallenness! But our God is in a good mood and He is pouring out His Spirit on all flesh and all who call upon the Name of the Lord will be saved!

We were called to make a riot! We were called to go to prison or we were called to have revival - but we were NOT called to be ignored!

The church is ignored in many parts of the world until signs, wonders and miracles start happening! Until boldness comes on the people and they get so full of love that they can't help it anymore! It is not about them anymore and their retirement fund and their happy little life! They are so full of the overflow of the goodness of God that they MUST tell people who are half-way to suicide, depressed, on drugs, on excess alcohol - they MUST tell broken people that I have been redeemed, I was broken and HE rescued me! And I have seen the dead raised and I have seen blind eyes opened and the deaf hearing and I have seen cripples come out of their wheelchairs and it wasn't me - it was the God I met!

And most of us will have to say that I didn't meet Him in church! Because church doesn't preach this Jesus! Church preaches another gospel, another Jesus and another Spirit! They teach something that is comfortable for little small-thinking religious bigots who would gather every Sunday and be happy with their little fellowship and to hell with the world and don't let the world find out about us! No - let the whole world find out, not about us, but about the One that we worship!

We are impacting nations from Hong Kong! You should read the email! Miners down there in the opal mines, working in dark tunnels with MP3's in their ears - listening to "Glory and Grace" - listening to City Church messages on grace - and singing! They say they are singing and shouting down there in the opal tunnels! Other testimonies and miracles! I want to talk today and it is going to be Part 7 on "Conducting Heaven's Influence into the Earth". One of the biggest revelations for me is the picture of our Lord in a specific way. Jesus and God Almighty are pictured in many, many tremendous images. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah, He is the Lamb of God, He is the Captain of the Host, the Warrior King! But the picture He is most pictured in throughout the Old and New Testament - by far the most often used picture of our God is that of a "Good Shepherd"!

You need to come into the revelation I have come into! One of the biggest privilidges in recent months in my life personally is the rediscovery that the best that I am is that I am a sheep in His flock. He is the Chief Shepherd and yes I am a shepherd, but I am a sheep! Under the Chief Shepherd! Many pastor/shepherds have problems because they don't see that they are sheep! First we are sheep with sheep needs and the greatest privilidge that I am discovering is being a sheep in the flock of the Good Shepherd. The Bible talks about goats and sheep - goats are those that are very independent and it is a representation of pride. Goats find their own paths on the rocky cliffs and they go where they want and when they want. Sheep find safety and security when they have a good shepherd leading them! We call them "dumb sheep" but maybe we should call them "humble" because they are followers of the shepherd! They trust that shepherd's integrity has absolute authenticity and that shepherd absolutely has designed a master-plan for their lives that is not going to lead them through death and destruction and breakup and pain! That He has a green pasture for them and He has still waters for them and if they follow Him they will lack for nothing!

When David, this great warrior king who could cut people's heads off - when he found out about Saul's offer to him; "200 Philistines" - this man who wrote the Psalms! - went and cut foreskins off men he had killed with his own hands! That is a man I love! I like those kind of men! I like those men and want more men like that in the church! Not to kill because you are not allowed to do that. But I am tired of effeminate men in the church. I want men, rugged, crazy, bold men! Every wife tries to tame her men because she wants him to be more considerate then she tames him and resents him for being so tame and then runs off with some ugly guy because he climbs mountains and is rugged and adventerous. God called men to do what the Man Christ Jesus did and go into the Temple and kick tables over and crack a whip and say "This is MY Father's house! You Pharisees! You brood of vipers! You are so clean on the outside but on the inside you are stinking corpses!". The man! We have a man in the church today! Where are they?! Sitting politically correct in so-called false unity! Not rocking the boat! Well Jesus is shaking the boat and breaking the boat! He is breaking the religious boat!

There are millions going to hell because of the politically correct men in the church! Sorry - this isn't part of my message! There are women who are so awesome all over the church world because they have had to stand up because of the absence of men!

Hong Kong needs more Chinese men strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might! We have so many beautiful Chinese single sisters! For the lack of men with some chest on them and some boldness!

And they will say; "I want to follow a man like that! He is decisive and courageous! Boy I want to follow him!". He is not dominating and he will never punch me! But he will punch a man that tries to hurt me! I punched a high-ranking United States officer of the marines in Australia. As a Christian pastor! So his face was bleeding! Why? Because he crossed the line and tried to do something that my wife wasn't encouraging. You say "Oh that isn't Christian Rob". No, I know but a son of God does those things.

I don't want to be a Christian! I want to be a son of God!

The point I am trying to make is being a sheep. This man called David - the warrior king - said "The Lord is my Shepherd". There are so many people who are so full of; "I am an apostle! I am this and I am that!". No - you are a sheep and He is the Shepherd! And I shall not lack for anything! And David didn't lack for anything - for wealth, for victory, for armies, for friends, for the anointing - he never lacked because he said "The Lord is my shepherd. He makes me lie down in green pastures". The word in Hebrew for "green" is the word for the anointing. It means "newness, freshness".

The new anointing of the New Covenant is different to the old anointing of the Old Covenant. The old anointing reminds you of your sins. The New Covenant reminds you that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! The Old Covenant anointing reminds you of everything that is wrong with you. The New Covenant anointing reminds you of how perfectly right you are with God all the time because it is in Christ Jesus! The Old Covenant says "I will not remove the iniquity of the guilty" and imputes your sin to you. The New Covenant does not ever impute your sin to you but it is declared; "Your sins He will never remember!".

He makes me lie down in realms of the NEW! There is a newness today happening in this church. New, green pastures! New! "Beside still waters". That doesn't mean stagnation. The Hebrew word means "restful waters". The Hebrew word for healing has it's root word in "relaxation". It is when you enter into rest there is healing in your life. "He makes me lie down next to restful waters in green, new fresh anointing that I am righteous in Christ".

Anyone who knows the voice of the Good Shepherd, the voice of religion they will not follow! The voice that condemns you, the voice that says "Do harder, you are not doing enough, come on try harder". That is the voice of the church. It is not the voice of the Good Shepherd. HE makes you lie down in green pastures and next to restful waters. He will always lead His sheep by rest. He never drives you, He never manipulates you, He never makes you do a thing. He leads you by rest and when there is unrest - that is Him letting you know; "Don't make that decision!". I don't care if it is a big decision - do I leave this country and go to that country or marry this or that person or change this or that job. EVERY decision must be made out of rest!

If you let rest lead you by the Good Shepherd's leading then you will look so clever! People will think you are so well educated! People will say; "How did you invest then just before everything went up? And how come you pulled your stocks out then just before everything went down? Did you study? Are you highly educated? Do you have a great IQ and talents for the investment world?". No. I am a sheep and the greatest privilidge is to be a sheep because I am not a goat. I don't pride myself on independence and I have looked at goats and I have been a goat and there is a trail of depression, broken relationships, hell, addictions, no I never want to be a goat again! He makes me lie down in green, new pastures and restful waters! And He guides me with rest!

I have seen the educated goats and highly talented goats lead frustrated lives of failure in their marriages and everything they do is frustrated yet they are most educated and clever people! Because they don't know what it is to be a sheep and to trust the integrity and the goodness of this shepherd.

When we were deciding on "Glory and Grace" and we had to make up our minds about 7 months ago - we started planning. The economic credit crunch had already kicked in big time. And we had to decide whether to meet again in this hall or go to the 800 seater hall. I was already getting friends ringing me and saying they wouldn't be able to come because finances were difficult. Pastors weren't being paid salaries. And I remember Marike, Glenda and I went and looked at the hall and they were inside. I was standing outside and I said; "Lord I am not gambling with the church's money. I haven't given everyone an opportunity to decide whether they want to have this conference or whether to meet in that hall. It is therefore not my right to gamble with City Church's savings". And if we fell short of the budget - because I was calculating that hall was $65,000 and hundreds of thousands to run the conference with speakers, hotels and advertising - I said I would pay it out of my own pocket. I said; "Lord do we hire this hall?".

And as soon as I said that, peace! Restful waters! Rest! "Go ahead!". And when Marike and Glenda came out I said, "That's it! We are signing!". The next few months leading upto "Glory and Grace" people were cancelling and letting me know that they couldn't come - even key people. Then our website collapsed! It was hacked into and destroyed! And I thought "What are we going to do?". And I felt "Rest!". You know what? The conference came and the building was full! There were signs, wonders and miracles that many people in their entire Christian lives had never seen! Lives were changed! Not only was the budget met but we put into the savings accounts of City Church International a nice healthy figure of finance numbers that was left over! Not into my account! This church's account! And people thought; "Rob is such a good conference leader! He is so clever! So experienced! We can trust this man - he knows what he is doing!". No! I was a dumb sheep! I just listened because if He had said "Don't take that hall" and if there was unrest then I would have not taken the hall.

Don't keep being a goat making stupid decisions of independence and then when hell beaks loose you say "It's the devil!". No - it's not the devil! It's the goat! Goats butt here and butt there! "Rob I know that's true BUT there's an economic downturn!". He restores my soul! If you could look at the state of the average person in Hong Kong I think you would be shocked and horrified. If you look out at a yacht on the marina you can see their sails but below the surface there are barnacles stuck that hinder their passage through the water. If you could look at the state of people's souls - what is that? Their soul hasn't been restored and has wear and tear year after year but if you follow the Good Shepherd then He restores your soul. Why has the church got so many "inner healing" seminars and so many "Cleansing Streams" seminars and all kinds of supplements to the Cross, all kinds of things to add-to rather than the simple?

Did the apostles have all of these seminars and all of these supplement ministries? Or did they just preach the Cross and the power of the Holy Spirit and the revelation that you are not under law but grace and the manifestation of the Good Shepherd turned up and healed their broken hearts!?

This introspection - go back to your mother's womb, go back to your past, back to your budgies cage where it committed suicide. Please! We have got to stop this! It is anti-Christ, it is anti the Gospel and it is anti the finished work of the Cross and I haven't seen anyone helped by it yet! The proponents of it are the most insecure people! It is the truth! I have been leading churches for over 30 years and I have seen and watched these things and have watched the people who have led them and I haven't seen convincing results! But I have seen a people emerge when this Gospel is preached and this Good Shepherd is revealed and the goats repent and become sheep. Stop sticking your head into a sausage machine and then turning the handle yourself! And coming out the other side; "It's the devil!". No it is your goat thinking that got you into the problem! I was too busy to let the Shepherd do this or that! We just sit and watch stuff instead of learning about the anointing of the New Covenant. He leads me in the pathways of righteousness for His own Name's sake! This is for His Name sake! It is not the sheep that keep the Shepherd! It is not the sheep that are responsible to make the Shepherd look good! It is the Shepherd who feels responsible to make the SHEEP look good! If He has a lot of sheep walking around crippled and half their hair is off and they are mangy then it doesn't make the Shepherd look very good does it? It is for His own Names sake!

The pathways of righteousness that He leads us in - righteousness theologically and accurately - means the gift of His righteousness!

He leads me in pathways of ever increasing revelation that I have the righteousness of God as a free gift! For Romans 9 and 10:1-4 says Israel sought after righteousness according to the principle of the law and never gained righteousness. The Gentiles who did not seek righteousness obtained righteousness and then in Romans 10:2-3 says that Israel was zealous but their zeal was without knowledge and they did not submit to the gift of God's righteousness but sought to establish their own righteousness but those who look to Him will never be put to shame! WE have the righteousness of God and this Good Shepherd will keep leading you in that pathway of understanding the righteousness of God!

Remember that little woman who touched the robe of Jesus and she had 12 years of bleeding. She touched His robe and felt power come out of His robe. What does Isaiah 61 say? It is a Messanic prophecy about Jesus - it says that He will be clothed with the robe of righteousness. What did she touch? She touched His RIGHTEOUSNESS. She touched the hem of the robe which is the colour blue for the Israeli rabbi - the colour of grace. She touched righteousness and when she touched it - 12 years of bleeding stopped. But not her righteousness! She was led in the pathways of His gift of righteousness.

What did Jesus say? Matthew 5; "Stop being so worried, stop taking care of this and worrying about that, and running after this and burning the candle at both ends - you are overworking! This is what the pagans do - they try to store up and have!". He said; "You seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things ...". The Lord is my Shepherd, I lack NOTHING! I lack no love, no finance - I am not in debt. I lack no health. I am not a goat but a little dumb sheep and all I have to do is what my Father shows me and do whatever He tells me! If there is unrest then I don't do it! I don't leave, I don't go, don't preach, don't say unless there is rest! Seek first the kingdom and not your righteousness!

The church will say; "Get more righteous - righteousness is your performance!". There is NO such righteousness in the New Covenant - that is OLD Covenant righteousness earned by the law! Paul said; "I don't want a righteousness that is by the law but one that is apart from the law that is by faith in Jesus Christ!". There is no other righteousness except imputed righteousness that is a gift!

Seek first the Kingdom and HIS righteousness. The more you seek that to understand it and be led in the pathways of the revelation of righteousness for His Namesake then all things will come to you. That would stop about 90% of pastoral counselling in the church world! Most problems are goat problems! That doesn't mean you don't come for counselling unless you be seen as a goat! No I need counselling sometimes and if we have goat problems then this is a grace church and we love goats! A little bit of goat in all of us! She touched the robe of His righteousness and 12 years of bleeding stopped. Now I just want you to think of something here and this is very important for your future.

God said through Isaiah - Israel you are seeking a righteousness that is by the law. Israel your righteousness to Me is like filthy rags. He didn't say your sinning is like filthy rags. He said your RIGHTEOUSNESS - your morality - you trying to be good enough to earn blessings - you trying to keep the law to be good enough - your righteousness is like filthy rags! Am I being crude or biblical? What is the Hebrew? Anyway who has studied the Hebrew there knows that filthy rags is referring to a woman's menstrual cloth. That is what it refers to. That is God! I am not being crude. Women have menstruation cycles a few days every month and it is healthy and beautiful and glorious and it is God and it brings fertility and it is wonderful. It is God's design. But He said; "Your righteousness is like filthy menstrual cloths. Paul said self-righteousness is like faeces or dung or poo (Philippians 3). The modern church with it's Victorian morality can't take Bible words anymore - it has become so politically correct.

Where has the laughter gone in this place? All I am doing is speaking and reading Bible to you. Your efforts to please Me with all your works and your absence of faith in what happened at the Cross is like dirty menstrual cloths. There was a woman who had a menstrual cloth on for 12 years. You can't give birth when you are bleeding for 12 years. The Church has got it's menstrual cloth on and it hasn't come out of the Dark Ages yet. It is still not finished in the Reformation. It has got so much menstrual cloth, it is bleeding on the inside because of the savagery of condemnation, guilt and accusation by the law. 12 years of wearing a menstrual cloth, 12 years of not being fruitful and not giving birth to dreams and visions and signs and wonders and miracles and all paralysed! She touched His robe of righteousness and 12 years of bleeding stopped like that. He leads me in the pathways of righteousness for His Name sake!

You know why you have goats? Because they are people under law and angry with the church because they don't realise He loves them. When you realise this is a Good Shepherd and I might have a hurting heart and might sit under grace message for a few months and the hurt will still be there but it is getting less and less and you are getting healed! You may have decisions that took years and years to get into and you are not getting out of it - seek first His Kingdom! Touch the robe of His righteousness and that menstrual robe mentality is gone! Now people that receive the grace message - all it is doing is equipping you. It is not guaranteeing you immunity to condemnation! How many of you have found that out? That equipment is not a passive thing in your hand! You hear the message of grace and some frothing at the mouth, insane man preaches it year after year and you sit there and are getting equipped but what you DO with that equipment is not my responsibilty.

We that receive the message of grace love to believe we are not self-righteous in any area. "Praise God I go to a grace church and I believe I am the righteousness of God that is in Christ Jesus! There is NO self-righteousness in me! No filthy menstrual cloths over my head!". Oh yere? You want to look me in the eye and tell me there is NO area in your life that you are not self-righteous in? Come on. Anyone want to do that today? Let's find out who has got self-righteous areas in our lives. I believe deeply at many levels that I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus even when I have messed up and made a mistake - I am still the righteousness of God. It is a permament standing in Christ. Do I have any self-righteous areas in my life? Unfortunately - yes. Where? Not telling you!

Here is the litmus test - this is how you know which area you have self-righteousness in. Any area in your life where you have worry, anxiety frequently - that is an area where you are living in self-righteousness. Let me say that again. The pagans and heathens - most of these precious Hong Kong and expat people - 99% of people in this city take thought and worry. How do you know that someone is a heathen and self-righteous? Worry. Anxiety. What shall we wear? What's my image? How will I pay the bills? He said; "Take no thought!".

No worries mate! I am sure that Jesus was an Aussie! He said "Take no worries mate!". Tell them! Be honest! Let them see the real face! God doesn't have faces that He hides behind! He has a beautiful face! Let people see the real you! Let your anger out! I would rather you punch me and we kiss and make up later than this false artificial politically correct rubbish! I don't want people saving face! I want people to be angry with me! I want reality! Stop worrying about this and that but seek first the Kingdom of God!

What is the Kingdom of God? The Kingdom of God is the reign of God - the Good Shepherd leading your life!

It's not a pretense that He is leading your life when it is convinient! But I want to marry this person! Unrest! But I want! Don't! Oh He doesn't know what He's talking about! We really follow the Good Shepherd! That is His beautiful peaceful government! Not you trying to be holy, obedient or good enough!

His righteousness and His obedience and His holiness and His obedience and His fulfilling the law given to YOU as a gift! When you believe that it will start changing the way you live! You will have greater victory over sin and addictions and the control of addictions!

Any area you have anxiety or worry in - you are being self-righteous because in that area you do not believe you are the righteousness of God. Those who believe I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus have such a secure self-image and a trust in this Good Shepherd that they are not going to worry about going down.

When this woman with a menstrual cloth on her for 12 years touched the robe of righteousness - her bleeding instantly stopped.

In (v34) of that chapter He turned to her and said; "Daughter!" (a believer) "your faith has made you well - go in peace and be freed from your suffering". When you read that you don't get the full meaning of what Jesus was saying. I promise you this - the New Testament was written in Greek primarily and the Old Testament in Hebrew. In the Greek - and it is easy to find - when He said; "Daughter ... go in peace and be freed from your suffering" - He did not say "Go in peace". The Greek word for "in" is "en" - He said; "Go eis" which is "Go INTO peace". Go into the realm of peace! Go into the reality of peace and your healing will be permament! The English says; "And you will be freed from your suffering" but He says; "Go into peace and your healing will be permament". I can guarantee you that it was her self-righteousness that drove her into stress-worry and anxiety that finally caused 12 years of bleeding - that He knew He could stop that flow of blood by the power that came out of Him but if she doesn't go into peace, which is going INTO the righteousness of God then she will get that same condition back again.

Any area that you have anxiety or worry in - then in that area you are not seeking first His righteousness but your own and your own hard work and own earning and own deserving and your own leading to guilt, condemnation, worry and anxiety. How many you truly believe that it is the will of God and it is possible for believers to spend all of their lives without worry and without anxiety? How many of you believe that is a possibility?! Is it happening in the Church!? Christians are some of the most depressed people I have met! Because they are under laws and rules and regulations! They know how to act on Sunday and "Hallelujah, praise God" and go home and have weird depressions and ideas and worries. That is not the Kingdom and Jesus didn't die for that! Go INTO peace! What is the Kingdom? Romans 14:17 - righteousness! The whole book of Romans is speaking about not being self-righteous but receiving the gift of righteousness! Righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit!

When you believe you are righteous then peace comes and joy comes in the Holy Spirit! I am committed to having no areas in my life where I live with self-righteousness! I don't want a menstrual rag over some areas of my life. Every area of my life I want to believe that I am the righteousness of God! Every area! No worry and no cares! "Though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death". That staff brings them in close and the rod would beat the living daylights out of any wolf. When He says "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death" - He is not saying that God leads you through the valley of the shadow of death. The implication is that it is sheep that decide to take short cuts! It is sheep that want to be a goat today and end up walking through the valley of the shadow of death! Even when we end up in that valley then this Shepherd doesn't say "To hell with them" but He comes into that valley and picks you up and carries you back on His shoulders celebrating and having a great party! The Bible says He will abundantly party and according to forgiveness Ephesians chapter 1 says; "He forgives us according to the riches of His grace!". If you want to know how much you are forgiven then find out about the riches of His grace!

People will worry if you are not worried! Just follow the Good Shepherd! Follow the Good Shepherd into new green fresh revelation, restful waters, restore your soul, you will touch His righteousness and that eternal bleeding will stop and wholeness will come into your soul.

The man and the women who can conquer condemnation and religious guilt by believing the grace of God is a man or woman that the Lord will appoint to be a commander-in-chief on this planet. That is what David said - anyone who can go up and rescue Jerusalem from the Jebbusites, the oppressors, the condemners. The man who will go up by the watergate and rescue Jerusalem from the Jebbusites; "I will make commander-in-chief". The man that can defeat the oppressor, the spirit of heaviness will in Hong Kong be a commander in chief because there are millions living under the oppression of the Jebbusites.

Not only over the church but the unsaved - because they suffer guilt and oppression! There are husbands that work so hard and feel so guilty that they are neglecting their children. I say this to you - any decision you make motivated by guilt is a disasterous decision. Religion will motivate people to do things by manipulating them with guilt and it makes them twice as subject to the Jebbusites. The husband or wife that can understand that guilt and condemnation are of the devil and not from the Good Shepherd - when a partner sees them feeling they are neglecting the children and that wife or husband learns that they are being rude, irritable and unkind then they don't take it personally because when there is guilt in your life then anxiety, worry and depression will follow. They may be irritable with you but inside they are feeling guilty because they are neglecting the children because they are working so hard. The husband or wife who realises the worst thing they could do is put more guilt on them - that is a commander in chief husband or wife and he will not let the Jebbusites have any more room. A husband or wife who realises that any decision made out of guilt will bring destruction on this home - but they instead realise they must take the guilt off their partner and their partner will worship the ground they walk on and be amazed but you are really just a sheep walking and following.

I know pastors that leave the ministry because they feel guilty about the people that leave their church and can't meet the needs of everyone. Every church has got someone leaving saying there is not enough love here. Pastors who leave - and hundreds left Jesus! - but He didn't make a decision to destroy His ministry. The man that gives up his job that is so busy because his wife is complaining and then they have nothing and the wife complains that there is not enough. I have seen men and women give up careers because they feel guilty about neglecting their children and then they make their children gods and give their children everything. I watch those children grow up and those children grow up confused and messed up. You can motivate people out of guilt but they are doing it as hostages. It is not the amount of time you spend with your children but the amount of peace on your life while you spend time with your children. I say this to people - make NO decision based on guilt from children, people, anybody. Wait for the orders of rest and peace. Follow the Lamb and not the pressure of guilt. Your kids won't appreciate you spending time with them based out of guilt but the little time you can give to them because you are no longer self-righteous and bound by worry and anxiety and depression but free and full of peace and joy in the Holy Spirit then they will appreciate that time - whether it is half an hour or an hour! They will appreciate it! If out of peace the Lord says "Leave" and you leave governned by peace then you will be under the government of heaven.

Faith is Conducting Heaven's Influence Into The Earth - Part 6

2009-04-05T17:05:00.002+01:00

This sermon was preached by Rob Rufus on Sunday 29th March 2009 at City Church International.

"Increasing In The Anointing"

"Most people have never seen a prophetic ministry come amongst them and call out the region where someone lives and then give the street name and then the number of their house. Most of us have only seen William Branham doing that in the 1950s on DVD or video and many people didn't even know who William Branham was. But a true prophetic ministry came amongst us. And he didn't call out someone's address to prove that God knows where we live. God is not the mafia! "I know where you live!". He says those details to alert them that everything else now is God. This isn't just some little charismatic prophecy. "The Lord says 'I know you by name'. By the way what's your name again?!". It is not that confusing stuff of speaking in riddles. This is God speaking face to face as a friend speaks to a friend. As a Father speaks to children. So everything else God said to Fini and Isi - they knew that this is God! This isn't just wishful thinking or someone trying to be kind and prophecying something into my life. This is someone who picked up from the Father my address details and now what they are saying is true and authentic. I know Fini and Isi and I know what they have just been through for the last year and I know how powerful that was for them.

I will never understand why people doubt and want to be suspicious about manifestations of God. God dwells in the invisible realm and we live in the visible world. If God doesn't manifest into the visible world then you can't know God.

Romans 1 says we can know Him by the invisible qualities seen in creation and Romans 1 is very clear. But it is talking about those who know God by seeing Him in the invisible realm - still don't worship Him but worship the creation.

You can know there is a God by what He has created and you can know something about His invisible nature by what He has created but if He doesn't manifest who He is in a tangible way that you can experience and encounter God then you will never know God and walk God and you will never see miracles like this.

So Joshua Mills is either one of the biggest con men that you have ever seen or he is the real deal - there is nothing in-between. Someone said; "Oh that gold dust came out of his coat - he probably had sachets of it under his collar and at a certain time in the meeting he would let it out". He came up on the platform one night and there was no gold dust anywhere. Then it was suddenly there. "So he probably pulls a string somewhere". I want to know then - how did it get on his forehead? And on his hair? "Maybe he's got something up there". Listen if he did then it would have gone all over the platform and it wasn't. It was just on him! "Maybe he has got a little bag of oil and he pushes a button and it flows". The reason we are cynical like this is because we were programmed by a cynical intellectual nation.

The first thing God has to do is restore us to childlike innocence again - to say yes just because there is the counterfeit and the fake that is evidence and proof that there is the genuine!

Banktellers learning how to recognise counterfeit money don't get counterfeit money. They give them the real thing over and over again so they are so familiar with the real that the moment the fake passes through their hands they can discern a counterfeit note. The Church doesn't need anymore witchdoctors or people trying to expose fraudulence. They need the real deal - so the average Christian can get the real Presence of a living God who manifests in tangible ways in the earth.

People are leaving the Church by the millions across the Western world because they are tired of going to a building on a Sunday morning and God is not there. "Ah but He is present everywhere!". Yes that's true - but He is not manifest there.

See the nature of God is so lovely and so beautiful and it makes you feel so very precious and valuable - it does not hurt this lady but came over her and tickled her and put heavenly voltage on her and gave her a hip replacement, put her on the heavenly hammock and let her rest and did what no one else can do and year of pain went like that because the nature of God was manifested.

I feel literally nauseous when I hear Christians say; "I don't seek manifestations - if they come then I celebrate them but I don't see them". Why would you not seek something that heals and replaces hips? Why would you not seek something that can move over a whole city and cause millions to be aware of the goodness of God and the glory of God and the Presence of God? Why wouldn't you seek that?

What is the gifts of the Spirit? 1 Corinthians 12:7; "the manifestation of the Spirit is given to all". The Greek word means "the dancing hands of God" that come over us and land on us and touches us with favour - then we have got a gift of faith and we can do things that we couldn't do before. 10 seconds later that gift is not there anymore. You don't have any gifts! You have the Person on the inside of you who has got all nine gifts and all nine fruits! That is why you can't say; "I don't have the gift of faith - I only have the gift of healing". Then you have got to say that you only have the fruit of joy and peace but no fruit of love so I can hate anyone I want to hate! No - the same manifestation of the Holy Spirit produces fruit. The same manifestation of the Spirit can Abi a working of miracles and she can speak under an anointing of faith that is way beyond her normal level of faith. When that job is done then that manifestation lifts and it has gone. Then the next day He can give gifts of healings or discerning of spirits - not the gift of suspicion to discern whether this person has an evil heart or not! No - that is called having a gift of being a Pharisee! Discerning of spirits is primarily to discern the presence of angels. "I thought it was to discern demons!". Yes - that is a small part of it. Discerning of spirits - plural!

Anyone in the church can move in any of the gifts! But it says not all are prophets, not all are apostles. He is talking about the ascension gifts of Christ. Not everyone is an apostle, a prophet, a miracle worker. What is a miracle worker? It is an evangelist. But 1 Corinthians 12:7 is given to everyone to profit everyone! They are called manifestations of the Spirit! What does 1st Corinthians 14:1 say? "EAGERLY desire spiritual gifts".

What have you got to eagerly desire? MANIFESTATIONS! The Greek word for desire is "with intense, strong yearnings and cravings and burning longings - DESIRE manifestations of Almighty God!".

I hear leaders get up and say; "Well I don't see manifestations". When they say it there is a level of aloofness and pride - "I am over that childish thing of people who experience manifestations. I am now into good theology". They are NOT into good theology! Good theology says "Eagerly DESIRE!". What they are into is a mixture of reformed theology that didn't just keep on reforming and has got a built-in "anti" the supernatural, a subtle, manipulative content to it. We need to seek manifestations because really it is a manifestation of God!

The gift of faith is a manifestation of God. He is the Spirit of faith! The working of miracles is a manifestation of God! He is a miracle-working Being! The gifts of healing is a manifestation of healing! When God comes into a room - sick people are healing whether they feel like being healed or not! You can get people healed by their faith or your faith and can preach the Word to help them see it is God's will to heal but if God MANIFESTS then people get healed with faith or not! Because God is in the house! If enough of God walks in then people don't need faith! They will believe afterwards! I am telling you it is good to get people healed with their faith and pray for people with your faith. I tell you - Hong Kong - 7 million people - we cannot reach this city just with individuals faith. We need God to come and MANIFEST over the city of Hong Kong - 24/7 - and hang as a tangible manifestation! Otherwise people will never know the invisible nature of God! They can look at the mountains and the forest and know something about God although it is a fallen planet and has been corrupted and frustrated by Adam's high treason and Adam's fall!

So they need the people that are in last Adam in Christ who are new creations operating from the heavenlies and pulling heaven's influence into the earth which is what is happening in heaven happening on earth and God is 24/7 - a manifest cloud of glory, a tangible beauty of love, light, wisdom, power and LIFE! That is what is happening in heaven! When He enthrones Himself in a community of people in a city and He doesn't come for a conference but 24/7 because there are lightning conductors catching heaven's influence and translating into the earth realm! Whether you are sleeping or awake you have just become a conductor of heaven's influence! That is what we need in Hong Kong! That is what we want - a manifestation of Your glory! A manifestation of the One we love! I don't like a long-distance relationship with Glenda. I can write to her and she can write to me when we are aware. I want to feel a tangible Glenda! I want a manifested Glenda! I don't want an in-tangible God! I want a tangible God! A God you can experience! The living God! The living God comes and you won't have to preach against idols - everyone will just get rid of idols because God Himself is in the city!

God will bring priority to Himself and money will take it's rightful place in Hong Kong! God is not against money but He doesn't want anything before Him and He wants to be first! When He comes then people gladly give up money and God will gladly give them money! As long as He is first! The financial blessing coming on people in this church is an incredible testimony! Testimony upon testimony! In one day people are set free from debt! Others just blessings! Offerings that came in for the conference! Just all kinds of things! Another man wrote out a cheque to City Church for 52, 000 dollars! Just gave it to us! A visitor! A release of the finances while in the glory manifestation! There is financial abundance and you know what? People aren't greedy! They are after God and love God because they have found out that He is so good!

This is number six in the series; "Faith conducts Heaven's influence into the Earth". Today we are finishing the series and we may touch on the Benjamin generation next Sunday morning. Open your Bibles. I am going to be quite quick and I will give you the references.

On Thursday night we have got a prophetic word - God wants to give increase of everything good - increase of blessing into City Church International! We are going into a time of increase! Increased revelation! Increased illumination! Increased understanding of His grace, of the New Covenant, of superior covenant with a superior mediator!

"That weak and useless covenant" - Hebrews 7 says! Weak and useless! Because it all depended on what man can do!

The New Covenant is not intrinsic - it is extrinsic! It didn't happen in you or by you or through you and it has got nothing to do with you because if it did it would be weak and useless because you are trying to keep laws and rules. The New Covenant is not God trying to make a covenant with you. He loves you so much that He didn't want to make a covenant with you. He made a covenant with His Son on your behalf and He did it outside of you but you were included in it so you are infalliably safe and you are the righteousness of God perfectly and all the time - as long as Jesus doesn't backslide! Your life is hid with Christ and all the fullness of Christ is your inheritance as a joint equal heir of Christ and an heir of God and you are seated with Him in the heavenly realms as a co-equal heir, not going to happen one day! It is NOW the reality of your position in Christ! Perfect forever!

I can say those things a thousand times and I still feel good every time! Increased revelation on that! We are still in the shallows in grace! Increased release of financial prosperity! Increased love for one another, the lost in our city and in the nations! Increased signs and wonders! Increased rest! Increased peace! While we work we are at rest! Increased fruitfulness! Do less - see more happen! Sneeze and people get healed! The effortless realm of the glory where you do less and less, try less and less and He does more and more! I want increase!

You get nothing in the Kingdom without the anointing - everything happens by the anointing. Romans 14:17 says; "For the Kingdom of heaven is not about food or drink" - all these religious ceremonies. "But righteousness" - which is the gift of righteousness. "Peace and joy in the Holy Spirit". So the Kingdom is in the Holy Spirit. There is nothing that can come from heaven unless it comes through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. It is getting anointed that brings the increase of everything else! If you can increase in the anointing then you will increase on every other level.

How do you get into the glory? You cannot get into the glory without the anointing. They consecrated themselves as priests under the Old Covenant with the anointing and then they went into the cloud of the glory. The anointing is what God does! The glory is Who God is!. Some of you are thinking that he is 54 and he is forgetting that he said these things before. No I am saying them as a safeguard to "protect you from the dogs, evil workers and mutilators of the flesh". Paul said those are the people that mix law and grace together. Paul the apostle said it! The anointing is what God does - His actions. The glory is who God is. The danger is people who live off borrowed transferences of the anointing and don't know God. They know the anointing which is the actions of God. But they don't know the nature of God - because His glory is who He is. Matthew 7 - people like to frighten Christians. "Jesus said you did miracles in My Name ... and I will say depart from Me you workers of iniquity - I never knew you". He didn't say they were backslidden and lost to salvation! I believe once you are saved, you are in Christ forever! If you are in Christ and can fall out of last Adam then by your own good works, you can fall out of first Adam! That is why people who preach that you can lose your salvation are preaching a much more powerful first Adam than last Adam. It is anti-Christ and anti- the finished work of the Cross. It doesn't produce miracles on a sustainable way.

We know where he was speaking about "where sin increased, grace did much more". Grace did much more in abundance increase! He is essentially talking about the two Adams! When first Adam fell, grace more than abundantly, super-abundantly increased in manifestation of last Adam! No in last Adam - Christ Jesus - you are secure! He said to them; "You workers of miracles and prophesying in My Name, depart from Me, I never knew you". They weren't people that were saved and then lost their salvation. They were people Jesus never knew! Never born again! You can get transference of the anointing and if you don't use that anointing to get saved - or to go into the glory - then you won't know who God is! The anointing is what God does. The glory is who He is.

If you hang around anointed people long enough - you can do miracles, even if you are not born again. But the anointing is given to increase our access and experience of the glory!

Because the glory is His nature! When you come into the glory you want to weep or laugh or worship or adore because you feel so precious in the glory because you feel the love of God and you get to know who God is! Then the way you handle the anointing is with an administration of grace - that is not self-promoting. You are not using miracles to get a big church! You are not using miracles to get money or to be famous! You know who God is through His glory so you are moving in compassion because you can't handle seeing people suffer sickness and disease!

That is why the healing revivalists came down in the 1940s and 50s because they would go fast to get the anointing, they would use the principles and try and catch anointings and then they would come out and preach miracles but you have got to preach who Christ IS! You have got to preach the nature of God in the anointing and who our God is!

Psalm 103:7 says a fascinating thing! It says God revealed His ways to Moses but only His deeds or His actions to Israel! So Moses knew the ways of God - how the Holy Spirit moved, how to partner and surrender to the movings of God because He understood the ways of God! So He manifested miracles. Israel didn't have a clue how He was doing it, they were just witnesses of the miracles! That would be representative of many churches today. A special evangelist flies in and he or she has learnt the ways of God and know how to tap into the invisible realm and know how to operate with the anointing and know how to produce miracles. The average church member is going "Oh wasn't that impressive? That must have been their special gift on them!". It was not their special gift on them! Their gift as an apostle or prophet is NOT to have a special gift but to equip and train everyone else to do what God has given them a grace to train others to do!

That is what it says in John 14:12. "Anyone who believes in Me - the works I do shall you do also and greater works than I do, shall you do also because I am going to the Father!". What did He do when He went to the Father? He that ascended is the same one that descended and when He ascended up, He gave mantles to men and women to equip the church to come to the full measure of the stature of Christ! I believe in this church we are not only seeing the actions and the deeds of God but more and more as a congregation we are learning the ways of God. So in Habbakkuk 3:4 it says God hides His power in His Presence. God's Presence is His glory! In His glory Presence He hides His power! You can get around people who have gone into the glory Presence and have found the power of God and you can get a transfer of the power - but they cannot transfer the Presence and the glory to you. They can transfer the power but glory is not transferrable! You personally have to turn the TV off and personally go out to the country park and personally get alone with God and spend time with the living God because He hides His power in His glory and you have to get into the glory! Not as a law or rule but because you want to! Then you can transfer power to other people and make them hungry for the glory Presence!

You just cannot go week after week without shouting down phones and cancelling appointments, "No I can't run around doing that - this week I am taking time out for me and Jesus just to be together!" - just as in Acts they saw the disciples and said these are uneducated men but they perceieved that they had been with Jesus! There is something dangerous about people who only catch power but don't know His Presence. That is where we get wrong motives and an abuse of the anointing. That is where we get weird people. I am not saying you have to fast every week! The more you spend time alone with God, the more you can experience His Presence in the busyness of Hong Kong! I am walking through the streets of Mong Kok and I can feel His glory Presence on me, I can feel His Presence! You can feel His Presence every day as you walk in His glory!

Let me give you five things that will help you increase the anointing on your life - because the anointing will help you get into the glory.

1. Hunger.

Probably the number one thing. People say; "I don't seek the manifestations of God". Every single person I know that says "I don't seek the manifestations of God" - don't have manifestations. Hunger! I want to see God move! I don't care how He moves as long as He moves! If it is gold dust, oil, words of knowledge! I don't care as long as it is Him! How do you know Rob? I have an anointing on the inside of me! I can discern the reality of the anointing. When the anointing is on someone then it resonates with me. I don't care if their doctrine isn't the same as mine, if they have got an anointing then I KNOW it is the anointing! If it is a devil or familar spirit they are operating under then the anointing in me goes crazy and the discerning of spirits lets me know that is a demon operating. If it is a familiar spirit - that is a medium or a psychic spirit! When Christians are afraid of being deceived then they are already deceived because fear is a deception. God hasn't given us a spirit of fear but a spirit of power, love and a sound mind. So many Christians are afraid of the devil because they have a theology of a big devil and a small God!

There has been more counterfeit miracles for so long! We have got to get the real thing - the real miracles happening! That will shut down the counterfeit! I know - people think the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa are dead and some are, but some are alive. There was a Dutch Reformed pastor that went down on holiday to Durban and Durban has got the biggest Indian population outside of India. It has got the Hinduis there and he went to watch them walking across the fire. He stood there and watched them and he thought; "If their god can do it for them then my God can do it for me". Ripped off his shoes and walked across the fire! They said to him that he had special fireproof socks on! So he ripped his socks off and walked slowly! They all run across!

A person with experience is not vulnerable to a person with argument. When you hear people talk about excess; "Watch out for excess!". Don't listen to them if their life is characterised by lack! If their life is characterised by lack then they have no right to talk about extremes!

Hunger! Acts 10:44, Acts 5:12.

2. Faith in the Goodness of God!

Acts 14:8-10.

3. Worship!

How many times in this conference did we sense the glory come as we began to worship? You will see that in 2 Kings 3:5, 2 Chronicles 3:5. They couldn't even stand as the glory cloud filled the temple. They fell! Paul had an encounter with God and he FELL. John had an encounter with Jesus and he FELL. Daniel had an encounter with God and he FELL! Everyone who had an encounter with God in this Bible FELL! Not voluntarily most of the time but because their knees were having such intense fellowship with one another that they collapsed! I remember I had never seen people fall. In 1980 a man came to our church. He was a useless preacher but my gosh - could he release the power!! An hour of boring preaching but I heard he was Bob Dylan's pastor so anyone who was a friend of Bob Dylan was a friend of mine! Then he got up and he said; "I am going to do this other thing that the Lord has given me". And as he said "other thing" - the atmosphere in the room went to super-electricity. The air molecules became pregnant with the power of God. I felt terrified! What is this!? I wanted to run out the building but I was the pastor so I had to stay!

And he started calling members of my congregation and reading their mail and telling them what is happening in their lives and they were going through the chairs and I was standing there as a surfer thinking "I am not going down!". I brace myself and he said "Oh the anointing is coming on the pastor" and I just flew! It wasn't voluntary! It was biblical! Unless people are astonished, amazed, mocking, criticising - you haven't got a move of God. That is Acts 2. They were utterly amazed, others were saying "They are drunk on new wine!". How many of the churches across Hong Kong have had Hong Kong being astonished, utterly amazed, accusing us of being drunk on new wine! Where?! Where is it happening every week!? Why!? Manifestations of God!

4. Prayer.

Acts 4:29. They actually prayed; "God stretch out Your hand to perform signs and wonders" and the building was shaken. I was giving an altar call one day and I said "There is one more to come, one more to come" and they didn't come and the whole building shook! I said "Okay - are you going to come?" and they came running! Manifestations are very helpful! Right on queue! It really happened!

5. The anointing increases when you associate with anointed people!

I watch anointed people go and associate with someone or something that doesn't believe in manifestations and give them a few months and they come back dry as a Californian! Dry! Every royal priest, every believer, every son and daughter of God should be so full of the anointing that our association with one another inspires us all to go higher! Not; "Oh watch those manifestations, you have got to balance that, you are getting too focused on manifestations! Get focused on the Manifestor!". Stop looking at healing, get focused on the Healer! Who He IS does the manifestation! Who He IS does the healing! Every time you see a manifestation THAT is God coming out of the invisible and manifestating in the visible realm! That is what it IS! Don't run after healing!?!! The Healer is healing! He is a healing Person! Jesus doesn't have love - He IS love!

Association! Acts 4:13 and 1st Sam 22:2. David was a giant killer and when all the discontent and disenfranchised who were sick and tired of religion and sick and tired of being under Saul and began to defect to David who was in a cave whereas Saul was in a palace! With wealth and prestige! Whereas David was an exile out in a cave! He wouldn't line up with the control spirit or do what institution wanted him to do! So the D-D-D's gathered with David and some of them began to kill giants! One man killed a lion for fun! Why? Because they were associated with a giant killer!

You stick around giant killers and you become a giant killer!

You are no longer overwhelmed by giants of finances! No - association with giants makes you a giant killer! I don't mean hierarchy and I don't mean Christian celebrities and get around men and kiss the ring! Anointed people are all around you! "Don't touch God's anointed" - but it is always referring to the big one! You are ALL anointed! Don't criticise God's anointed - the people of God! We have created laity and the anointing can't flow! You get around apostles, prophets, evangelists and you begin to be able to do what they can do! That doesn't mean you call yourself an apostle or a prophet! No! You are a royal priest! That is an honour! It is not the "priesthood of all believers" - that is Old Covenant! We are royal priests! We are a holy nation! There is no hierarchy! There is no superiority! If we want to put titles in front of men's names then put titles to define the function of everyone else! Housefixer Tony! Smashwalls down Tony! Social worker Jonny! Jesus? No title in front of His Name! "In the Name of Jesus!". Not; "In the Name of the Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist Jesus!". He loves it! If anyone should have Lord in front of His Name it is Him!

We have got people serving key leaders! When Fini finished his message last week - respect and honour EVERYONE! Honour and respect leaders! Be kind and generous! Pray! Realise they are weak and get tired and need help! But do it to one another equally! In our big church in Australia when I came back from holiday everyone would welcome me back. I suddenly realised that other royal priests come back from holiday and they don't get welcomed! So I said "From now on everyone who comes back from holiday, we welcome them by name!". And this was a church of a few thousand! I believe in that! Then I saw pastors parking at the front of the building when I got there so that came to an end as well! We give people parking if they have a function, if there is a reason why they have to come late and have to come to a front seat and don't have time to run around looking for parking then that will be a function. The reason why I sit at the front is that it is more convinient to get to the pulpit and be involved. If I didn't have that function then I could sit anywhere in this building. This is not me being honoured above anyone else - it is a function! The insecurity in much of the church is that if you get the car parking space or front rows - then that is just creating childishness and insecurity and envy and Old Covenant thinking and God comes in revival and can't go any further because the wine skins are so Old Covenant and control!

5. Discerning the Presence of the Lord.

This is so important because I see Christians missing this! The way the Presence will increase in your life if you recognise even if a little Presence comes upon your life and you recognise it and urge Him to come more. In Luke 24:13-21 the disciples are walking with Jesus and they dont recognise it is Jesus and as they walk their hearts begin to burn and then they realise it is Him and then they urge Him and then get more Presence! In Matthew 6:48 they are in the storm and are frightened because of the size of the waves and they see Jesus walking and I quote; "He was about to pass by them". Then they said "Jesus!" and then He turned towards them. I have been in too many meetings where you feel the Presence come just a little bit into the meeting and people don't recognise the Presence and then they do something so insensative to the Presence that grieves or quenches the Presence and the Presence is lost for the rest of the meeting. God wants everyone of us in this church as royal priests to read the meeting and interpret what God is doing in the meeting. So successful meetings are when you have people discerning what God is doing in the meetings and partnering with God doing it!

When you get a whole congregation of lightning conductors and they are all seeing and discerning the Presence then God can come in undiluted glory! You can have a mediocre preacher or a useless pastor but if you have a whole congregation like that then you have miracles every week!

When the anointing is rubbed on you:

Middle Eastern shepherds rub oil on the ears of their sheep because if you have lived in Australia or Israel then you will know all about flies! Flies do terrible things to sheep's ears! That's why a shepherd can say whether a sheep is ill or not - because it is away from the flock. Only sick sheep leave the community of the flock and if you go and look their ears are dry because the flies - Satan is Beelzebub - the Lord of the Flies. So the shepherds anoint their ears so the flies can't penetrate their ears. The Bible says in the last days people will have "itching ears". What for? Legalism! Religion! Hierarchy! Their ears have not been protected by anointing oil so they listen to lies and partner with Beelzebub in lies. They are born again and going to heaven but partner with religious lies! Itching ears!

This anointing oil is wonderful but it needs to be rubbed on!

Some people come to the service so dry and the anointing is being smeared on but they stand there. Dull! Because of a veil over their heads because of the law! Give that anointing time and keep smearing and slowly "ha ha ha - oh this feels quite good!". Until you get a dear lady bouncing around! That is why it is so difficult in an hour and a half service! Modern stats show that the average person can only take 18 minutes of praise and worship and 20 minutes of a message! So the whole meeting can only be an hour because we don't want to inconvinience people! Some people need months of rubbing on - they are so dry! When you pray for them all the essence of your life gets sucked out of you because there is so much - a deep black hole there!

David says "You anoint my head with oil - my cup overflows!". I want to live in overflow all the time! My first priority in giving out so much over this conference was getting alone with God! I want overflow! I don't like living with my cup not overflowing because if you don't live in overflow you are heading for a nervous breakdown! If you are not burning oil then you are burning a nervous system! Eight hours of preaching after the conference and every minute was taken up by pastors wanting appointments. I was giving out and giving out and listening and listening! For seven days! Non-stop! You come out of there and people think a quick; "Lord refresh him" prayer will make me better! Elijah had to go and eat angel food and get anointed! You need more than a little prayer!

Sometimes the best thing you need is to go to sleep and eat some good food and watch a good movie! Go for a run in the country park!

1. To consecrate for service.

Exodus 30:30-31. It has got to be rubbed on and then you can do things you can't do before.

2. To bring honour to you and show God's loving ownership of you.

2 Cor 1:21-22.

3. It enables you.

1st John 2:20.

4. It brings authority.

If it was not for the anointing I would not be alive.

5. It destroys bondage.

Isaiah 10:27. I am amazed at Christans that do not get to one anointed service month after month. You know what is building up in the subterreanean depths of their soul? Bondage. Partnership with lies. And when you lay hands on them it is like granite walls of unbelief and tension! Don't wait! As soon as you get up; "Holy Spirit anoint me! Come!". You cannot allow those things to build up. Every day!

6. It imparts truth.

1st John 2:27.

7. It brings heavenly vision.

Acts 9 - you see into the heavenlies. Even if you don't see, you sense and become aware of the heavenlies more than earth. As Joshua Mills kept saying, you put your head above the clouds and you are much more relevant on the earth.

The anointing is transferrable - the glory is not. That is something you have to access through the throne room of grace.

Come boldly! Your sins and lawless acts I will remember no more! He doesn't say; "Having confessed them I will forget!". He forgave our sins at the Cross 2000 years before you were born! Come boldly! Most Christians spend the first hour with God saying sorry for this and sorry for that! Old Covenant! Their confession of sins - Hebrews - the blood of bulls and goats was simply a reminder of how sinful they are! Old Covenant was designed to make you feel sinful and make you feel condemned! New Covenant is designed to make you feel confident with full assurance of faith! To come boldly! Having our conscience washed from evil! What is that evil?

An evil conscience under New Covenant is a conscience trained by the law to feel guilty!

That is why repentance is from endless, useless ceremonies! Repentance is from dead works and doing things without faith! Our conscience is cleansed by the blood to serve the living God! What is an evil conscience - conscience trained by the law to feel guilty! The blood of Jesus cleanses our conscience so we can come confidently! By one sacrifice He sat down forever! Forever perfect! What about spending the first five minutes thanking Him that "I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus"?! I have been in some fellowships where the first hour is Old Covenant stuff. We may as well go and get some bulls and goats! After an hour I am so depressed and now they are ready to tiptoe! No it says come "Boldly"! Jeremiah 20:14 says he felt fire in his bones! Electricity! Trembling over the entire body! I long for the day that the majority of Christians will feel the vibrations of God's electricity so I won't look so weird! We know that you can be under the shadow of the Most High - you are already there in the intimate place! You start in the secret place overshadowed by the Almighty!

Psalm 89. In the last days there will be a Benjamin company of people, a David-hearted group of people that have access into the Presence of God and are anointed. 5 blessings of the anointing that are yours as the anointing increases. All five will increase as you get into the anointing. (v21).

1. You will get more strength (v21).
2. You will get victory in your life (v22) - not against people but demonic.
3. You will get more prestige in your life (v24).
4. Your influence will increase (v25)
5. You will leave a legacy to future generations that will last.

Miracle at City Church International!!

2009-04-04T14:11:00.004+01:00

I got this brilliant email from my fellow transcribing friend - Heather - giving a bit more detail in an awesome miracle that God did at City Church last Sunday. It's absolutely vital that testimonies form part of this website because as Rob himself said;

"Testimony" comes from the word; "To do it again". When you share a testimony of what God has done in a miracle in your life - that testimony is a sharing of a prophecy and it carries with it a power to duplicate what you are testifying happened to you".

Here's what Heather wrote to Ryan and I;

"Hi guys

I can't believe I'm doing this when I should be packing, but anyway, I took a picof Sally on Sunday (attached) and thought it would be great to put on our website. Here it is:

It was her 2nd visit to CCI. She'd been experiencing a hip problem for about 3 years and couldn't move much. And her right leg she could only bend a little ... and walked with pain all the time. She could not sit for more than 15 minutes because she got a lot of pain. When she was prayed for, she felt electric shock go through and all around er. After the prayer, all the pain was gone and she could move like she couldn't do before at all. She believes that God has replaced her hip with a totally new one.

Praise and Glory to God!!!!!!!!
Hallelujah!!!!

Lots of love
Heath".

And we say - "More God! We want more! We're so grateful for what you are already doing! But keep demonstrating and proving the gospel of power with signs and wonders!".

Empower Conference - Session 1

2009-03-29T08:44:00.003+01:00

It was my initial plan to begin transcribing a series that Rob Rufus preached on the gifts of the Holy Spirit in 2007. However to be honest I have been really struggling with feeling quite low about the spiritual state of the United Kingdom - my homeland. I remember when Rob first came to "Together on a Mission" - the Newfrontiers Leaders Conference in Brighton in 2006 and then in 2007 there was a great deal of excitement and anticipation. God seemed to be on the move and there were dreams and visions and prophecies about tidal waves and coming waves of glory. The Florida Outpouring seemed to be another signal that something was abroad in the world. But then I am not quite sure what happened. "Together on a Mission" went off somewhere different and last years conference talked a lot about Mark Driscoll - but I didn't hear as much about the manifest Presence of God. What's going on? Where's God's tidal wave?

So I decided to transcribe and publish the last conference that Rob spoke at here in the United Kingdom! I was fortunate enough to be there - it was called "Empower" at Kings Church in Eastbourne. It feels really "right" to do so! There is so much encouragement and reminders that God has not forgotten His planet!

Here is Session 1 preached on the Friday night;

Graham Marsh (Kings Church lead elder): What would church be like if the fire of Pentecost came upon us and then I asked another question - what would community be like if the deluge of His Spirit came down? In recent weeks and in the last month we have been catching a glimpse of that if you have been tuning into satillite T.V around the world and seeing what would happen if suddenly the power of God was to break in upon us. Two years ago I started to ask that question and it was at that time that I went along to a conference and heard extrodinary communication of faith to prepare us for that day. 2 years ago ago nearly I sent out an email offering lots of things - holidays, fine wine and cheese - in the hope that Rob and Glenda would get on a plane and travel 13 hours and come and be with us. As we started this evening and I was welcoming people, a lady came in who had been to the conference we held last year from another church around this region and she said "Something happened on that day that has changed my life. I have been suffering with depression for years" - and fourteen months later she is now beginning to testify that her life has never been the same since the day she was released from that depression. What would church be like? What would community like if we were in a place where the power of God came on us like a deluge? That is our prayer for this weekend that we will be changed, our churches changed and as a result the community will be transformed. So I want to welcome you to "Empower" - the desire as we read through the Book of Acts was that people's breath was taken away and that is also our desire;

That we will catch such an awesome glimpse of the manifest Presence of God that our breath is taken away.

So it is my real privilidge and pleasure to introduce all the way from Hong Kong - Rob and Glenda Rufus!

Rob: Good evening everyone! It is such an absolute delight to be here. Eastbourne at last! We believe this is a divine setup. When Graham invited us 2 years ago - there was no Florida outpouring and no idea of those things. We feel that God has ambushed us this weekend in a wonderful way and we are so excited to be here. We have already had a lot of fun with Graham and Belinda and they have been so good to us. Everything they promised us when they tried to seduce us to come, they have gone exceedingly abundantly above we could have ever imagined. I preach from living free from guilt but I am almost guilty and embarressed since coming into Eastbourne - but I can handle a bit of that kind of guilt! God is so good. It is so strange having lived all of our lives in the southern hemisphere and everytime we come back to the UK it is the most strange sense of coming back to your roots and legacy and we feel so at home here - as though we were born here.

Three years ago I was in Richmond Park praying for a series of meetings we were going to do in a place called Reading just outside of London. God spoke to me literally audibly. Not with my physical ears but down here. That is for every believer to hear the inward audible voice of God. I don't think it is normal to go without hearing God's voice! Jesus said; "My sheep hear My voice" and that inner voice of God that is audible and clear and speaks in English (because God is English - you realise that?!). He speaks in English to the English and there is an inward witness and an inward testimony of the Spirit and sometimes your own spirit speaks and you can hear it. The Holy Spirit lives in your spirit so your spirit gives you good counsel. It goes upto your mind like a kite in the wind. But often God will speak in an audible voice. We are listening with the wrong ears because He speaks down here and not to your head. He said;

"Son I am going to visit the British Isles with waves and waves of glory" - this was three years ago - "And I am going to call you to come into the UK from time to time for a season - for only a period of time - and I will open platforms that are strategic and significant platforms where you will facilitate the release of the glory. Then after a season you will not need to come back anymore for your assignment will be over".

So I didn't tell Glenda that and a few nights later God said; "Terry Virgo will be the first one to invite you to the Brighton Conference". Glenda turned to me the same day and said; "You know what God has just told me? Terry is going to invite you to the Brighton Conference!". I said; "I know that - He has already told me!". Like a smart alec! A few months ago up in Hong Kong we have a rooftop where we often have BBQ's and God just came and visited me in the most extraordinary way. I love it when God visits you and you haven't been fasting and praying. I have got a bad confession to make. I have very few encounters with God when I fast and go on extended prayer times.

God just seems to come upon me unexpectedly and unsummoned when I feeling most unspiritual!

I had my BBQ all lined up. Suddenly God came and visited me - it sounds Biblical and I went into a kind of semi-trance and I heard God's voice. And He said;

"Son I want you to please tell My people to stop trying to impress Me". I said; "What!?". He said; "Including you! Stop trying to impress Me. Stop trying to impress one another. Ask My people to let Me impress them because I can really do that well! Nothing actually impresses Me except faith and I wasn't shocked or impressed when man landed on the moon. I created the galaxies! I want to impress My people! You are the Bride and I am the Bridegroom! There is something wrong about a Bride that is meant to be all feminine and beautiful trying to flex her muscles and impress the Bridegroom! I want to impress you with how powerful I am! My church doesn't have to impress Me! I have clothed you with the garments of salvation and you are beautiful to Me and I am already in love with you! Would you let Me impress the church?". So I said; "Yes go ahead Lord! Anytime!". We saw an increase of God's Presence from then on!

So anyway we got back to Hong Kong and within a week Terry's email arrived asking us to come to Brighton and he said; "Won't you pray about it?". We wrote back immediately within minutes and said; "We don't need to pray about it - have been waiting for your email! What took you so long?". He also graciously invited us back last year as well to be there. There has been such a sense of everytime we come back to the UK there has been such an increase here of anticipation! We have seen people get out of wheelchairs here - did you know that? God is doing miracles in the UK! I get so angry when I go to Third World nations and I hear people say; "God has finished with Europe and the UK". I say;

"The greatest move of God is coming out of the UK and out of Europe - He isn't finished with the UK and Europe! This is going to be mighty what is coming out of this area of the world!".

I am finding it easier to see miracles in Europe and in the UK than in some Third World countries! We have just been in the Northern Europe Conference - the Newfrontiers Leaders Conference. We had at least forty to forty five healings and extraordinary miracles that Jesus did! From the Latvians to the Dutch! An incredible colourful gathering of people! There was a Dutch lady there that we saw being wheeled around the conference everyday and she had M.S. She had been diagnosed a few years ago and slowly she started losing the use of her limbs and her arms and eventually she has now been reduced to being in a wheelchair. Her unsaved husband was at the conference pushing her around. I was speaking at the conference about a miracle that God did in Reading with a lady with chronic MS came out of a wheelchair and couldn't lift her legs before we prayed for her. She began to walk and then semi-trot and then jog around this auditorium. People were shouting and going crazy and her husband was crying. So I said to her; "Put your husband in the wheelchair and push him around!". Which she did! So while I am giving this testimony - this woman comes out of her wheelchair just a few days in Holland in the conference and pushed her husband up and down and Dave Holden was there so can verify this! She ran around the building showing off! How many of you believe that it won't be long before her husband is saved? He was reduced to tears! God is doing these things in Europe!

How many of you find that you struggle with a cynical mind? I do! I am still cynical! When I see these miracles I am the most shocked out of everyone! You did it again! I am analytical and cynical and embarressed about the movings of God! Our background didn't help us or prepare us or educate us to do signs and wonders. Whether you were secular or religious - both work against the supernatural. We have been taught by cessationist theologians or by secular atheists that we are living in a closed material world of cause and effect and everything we see is the product of impersonal time plus impersonal chance plus impersonal matter organising itself in an impersonal way developing impersonal complexities thus contradicting the second law of thermodynamics - do you believe that? And we said yes! That there is no supernatural, invisible realm. We brought into this lie and were brainwashed over and over again. So we stand here in a time when God is beginning to do unprecidented things in our earth. I mean unprecidented! We had a visitation of God in 1981 and many came out of wheelchairs - some blind eyes open and deaf ears in South Africa. We have seen some signs and wonders but I promise you what is happening on the earth now is unprecidented! It is unique!

We must be careful that in our openness to supernatural signs and wonders of God and His manifest glory Presence that we don't start putting categories on God as to what He can and cannot do. We will be locked into this! Some have already done this and only see Him as a healer - those who have gone further in signs and wonders - they see Him as a Healer but forgot He was first a Creator before He became a Healer! The only reason He had to start healing was because creation was subject to the fall of man. God is a Healer! But the reason why we don't see more creative miracles is because we only see Him as a Healer and have locked and restricted and limited God.

The Bible says "Let God arise" - let Him arise and be a creator! Because He can do awesome things! Like this lady from the Reading church in Southern California where a number of people have seen into the spare department room in Heaven! Now when I first heard that I thought; "That is a bit silly!". Then Bill Johnson said; "Well you live without parts you need then!". My first reaction is "I must verify that and make sure that is the case". I am longing for the day when I hear a testimony of the miraculous and just say; "Yes I believe that!" - until it is proved
wrong!

In the early church when the lady came and said; "It is Peter knocking at the door! The guy you have been praying for to come out of prison!". They said; "It can't be him! It must be an angel!". They found it easier to expect angelic visitations than an answer to their prayers!

Today if someone gets bitten by a poisonous snake and they don't die then we say "It must have been an old snake or bitten someone else and had no poison left". We are still primed wrongly and the main thing that we need to deal with is our minds! We must deal with how our minds think!

There are coming miracles that if our minds are not open then we will become Pharisees and Sadducees and couldnt-sees and wouldn't-sees! The Pharisees loved the Scriptures! You couldn't fault them - they were Word people.

I believe in the Word of God! I believe from Generations to Revolutions! I believe in the Bible! But we need to have the Spirit of revelation in way we read and contextualise the Word of God! When Jesus spat into sand and made mud and put it on someone's eyes, I cannot find any biblical precident for that. If I was a Pharisee I would have said; "Where in the Word of God do You have authority to do that?". I don't know in the Word of God where there was a precident for a whole herd of swine to go screaming with a kamikaze spirit and jump over a cliff!

Revival is wild! Revival is tearing a hole in the roof in desperation to get into the Presence of God! Revival is not for the comfortable! For those who want to understand everything with their heads! How do we deal with the fact that God is downloading gems and gold and unusual things and people are taking them and getting them verified as something unique!?

Millie here who is originally from the UK and is in our church in Hong Kong was at our "Glory and Grace Conference" and we saw unusual signs and wonders! We discovered a new platinum tooth filled up by God! My cynical mind said "Go check" and a dental technician who was there said it was new and flawless. The more we open our hearts to the fact that God is not just a Healer but a Creator then we will see things! More than ever we need to hold onto the Word of God in these days but we have got to watch how we interpret what God is doing! If it is God doing it then I don't care what He does! I have heard all about these feathers falling and I think; "What's the point?". But if it is God then let Him do it! I don't know why He does it but if He is doing it then let Him do it! Let God have His way! People say; "I don't know if it is God or the devil" and I almost want to say "You need to get born again" for you have an anointing on the inside of you so that instantly you can discern the difference between absolute manifest evil and absolute holy God. In Hong Kong the majority of Christians seem to have a theology of a very big devil and a very small God. Anything supernatural that happens must be the devil. We need to be saying; "God if You are doing it then I am embracing it!". As long as I know it's You! If I don't know it's You and I am a bit suspicious then I am going to wait! But if I know it's You then I will do it.

Just before we left Australia to relocate and go and go and live in Hong Kong - about a week before I was praying and was frightened and thinking; "God what is going to happen there!? I don't know the language or the culture and nobody knows us in the city. We have got five people to start and I am not a young man anymore!". I was just praying and then suddenly the power of God fell on me and I am talking FELL on me! My arms starting windmilling around and I thought God was going to take my arms out and then put them back on to demonstrate what He could do! And I am not exaggerating! It was that violent! He was waiting for me to say; "I am glad this isn't a public place!". Suddenly the manifestation changed like a Jew at the Western Wall and then suddenly the inward audible voice of God came and it said;

"Rob are you willing to be unashamed of My manifestations no matter what I do as long as it is Me? For many of My people are ashamed of Me and have pushed Me out of the church because I am not popular in many churches anymore. When I turn up and do manifestations then people are ashamed and think it will drive the unsaved away. In the Book of Acts I had many manifestations and I added to their number those that were being saved and Peter's shadow healed the sick and there were great signs and wonders and all were healed and demons came out with shrieks and it didn't drive people away but MANY were added! Are you willing to be unashamed?". I said "Lord I am willing to be unashamed!". Then He said; "Go in My power!".

I dropped to my knees and sat there for about an hour in the tranquility of God's Presence. I think that around the world if people don't understand that there is a revolution - not a revival - going on. There is something coming on the planet that we cannot look into our past and say "This is going to be a duplication of that". It is not! It is going to be of such a scale! We have got to be so careful that we don't call it the devil when it goes outside our cultural box! When I made a decision not to be ashamed - I said if I shake, rattle, roll then do it Lord! But do it in a dignified way! I am a proud man! No - do whatever You want! Then we began to preach and teach these things and it goes on our website! Last month in April we put a series of 12 teachings on "Glory and Grace" onto our website and we had over 348,000 downloads! There is a hunger out there! It is easier to get miracles in the street and in the marketplace than it is in the church. The New Agers have been doing Phd's in the supernatural while the church has been sitting analytically wondering if it is God or the devil with cautiousness and formalism that has dwarfed and diminished many believers from their inheritance to do the works that Jesus did and greater works.

There is legalism in the church so people don't feel worthy enough to get healed but you go out into the world and people out there are open!

Friends of ours - Fini and Isi - where we have just done our "Glory and Grace Conference" there - they were sneaked into a New Age Festival. All tarot card readings and fortune telling and they spent 3 days there. 17 of them from their church in Sydney that is in a great move of the Spirit and they have powerful revelation. They often go up into the heavenlies - this friend of ours - Isi de Gersigny. She is a true prophet but very down to earth and real. But she goes up into the heavens regularly and sees angels often which is normal New Testament! They set up a "Prophetic Booth" and said they could tell your future. And didn't tell them they were Christians and just started praying for people. A lady came who was totally unsaved and she had an accident and had a large piece of glass in her foot that the doctors couldn't remove because it was right next to a nerve. So they bandaged it up. These friends of ours began to pray in a New Age festival context. The lady said "Oh it feels better!". So the girl looked down and saw a big piece of glass on the floor. Remember the lady still had the bandage on! So she picked it up and said "Is this your piece of glass?". The lady said; "I saw it on the X-ray - that IS my piece of glass! How did it get there?". So they undid the bandages and there was no scar or mark! So she gets up and runs around the booth and they told her that they were Christians and they had prayed for her! So she goes running to other booths saying "There are Christians here! They prayed for me! My glass came out through the cloth! I am going to be a Christian!". And she came to Christ!

We have got teachers in our church in Hong Kong and one is an Australian and she teaches in a private school with young Chinese children whom Cantonese is theif first language. And she is trying to explain about the Gospel and they weren't understanding! So eventually they said; "Well Who is the Holy Spirit?". She said "I will do something better than tell you. I am going to invite Him because He is My Friend and He is Almighty God into this room and you can all meet Him!". So we teach everyone in our church to move in signs and wonders and how to release the anointing. So she said "Oh Holy Spirit won't You come?". And He did! Which He always does! He came in and instantly children were saying "I have got electric feelings on my hands!" and others laughed drunkenly and others had demons coming out! There are a lot of demonised people in Hong Kong. This is what I have lived for! God moving there where the precious ones that Jesus died for are! The lost ones! Those that some of the Church judges - the New Agers! That is where God is going!

And if the legalistic church in it's fundementalistic pride but abscence of the supernatural does not want to live up to the season or time we are in - then the greatest church of the future will be those that are not yet born again but are birthed into first generation grace churches with no baggages of the traditions of men.

Open your Bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Jesus seemed to talk and didn't say "Turn to this or that" but everything He was saying was the life and the Word of God. How many of you are here desperate to have a divine encounter to carry away? It is not about my speaking. God can wrap the words I am saying in His Presence and there comes impartation and divine administration and tomorrow afternoon I will probably talk about positioning yourself for this wave of glory and then the second session - sustaining the supernatural.

The manifestation of God's glory is merely the appearance in the seen world of the unseen world of God. It is when the invisible realm of God becomes seen in the visible realm of men. If the world does not see regular signs and wonders and miracles then it will not see the true nature of God for the true nature of God is to restore, to replenish and to give back what has been stolen and lost. The true nature of God is to remove human suffering, pain - He is a God of redemption.
I don't believe that heaven is clashing with the earth rather I believe that heaven is merging with the earth in order to topple the control of evil and manifest the goodness of God.
Anything that does not exist in heaven God does not want it to exist on earth.

The glory light - the light of God's glory - when it comes and shines - there is no opposition that can stand against it from darkness. God's glory light is so superior to the darkness in this world that there is no contest! As soon as light shines, darkness immediately goes for the light is superior! The fact that there is still so much darkness in the nations is not because or explained by the power of darkness. The reason that there is so much darkness is that darkness has not yet been fully challenged by the light. As soon as there is a challenge by the light there will be no contest and darkness must flee.

I do not have a theology that we will shrink into a world where the Christians will be some remnant group hiding away. I believe we will see the Kingdom of heaven advance and we will see the Spirit of God poured out on all flesh and God will reveal the knowledge of His glory as the waters cover the sea!

The greatest sign of the end of the age of evil - Matthew 24:14 - the Gospel will be preached as a sign to all ethnos and then the end will come! The greatest sign is not a church hiding away but a church preaching the good news of the government of God's Kingdom in the earth and mighty signs and wonders to all nations in the earth! China will wake up any moment now and 1 billion - 300 million people will experience the glory of God manifesting and shining across China! It will cover the earth! It is not a contest between light and darkness! That is yin and yang. Darkness must just go. Jesus would just walk into a place and demons would start screaming. People have got such exaggerated ideas of pulling down principalities and powers and binding them. Colossians 2:14 - Jesus cancelled the written code that stood opposed to us and disarmed the powers and authorities, triumphing over them openly! The Cross has already defeated the powers and authorities! We don't have to battle them to neutralise them to get them out of the third heaven! We are living under an open heaven in Christ Jesus! It is not a closed heaven - it is closed heads! Cynical closed heads that sit in pews on Sunday morning - the Sunday morning conservative traditional mentality! Jesus went to His own home town and could not do there any mighty works except heal a few of minor ailments and He marvelled at their UNBELIEF!
We are getting out of the Nazareth syndrome - the syndrome of minor miracles and we are moving in a wave of glory to major miracles! The contest is not between light and darkness but in the hearts of believers.

The war that is raging is this - am I worthy enough to carry the glory that raises the dead? Am I worthy enough to carry an anointing that causes a piece of glass to drop through a bandage and onto a floor? Am I worthy enough to carry a glory that causes cripples to get out of wheelchairs so that unsaved husbands can see an invisible world made manifest and see how good the nature of God is? Well if we have an Old Covenant mentality then we will never feel qualified and worthy to carry such glory.

Most Christians don't have an absolute Old Covenant mentality. Most Christians that I have met on this planet have a mixture of Old Covenant and New Covenant. Many believers have come into a revelation of grace and are enjoying a level of freedom in the grace of God yet still have performance pressures and things they feel they must do in order to see miracles. I believe in fasting and I believe in praying and some days I will pray hours a day. But it is not my fasting or my praying that will produce miracles. It is the revelation of the New Covenant! And it is abandoning any trace or vestige or remant of Old Covenant thinking and performance pressures!

It is through the obedience of the ONE Man that we have been made righteous! So we have a fool-proof, a failure-proof and a devil proof righteousness! It is not based on yours or mine obedience but on the one Man on our behalf! It is faith that we are the righteousness of God permamently and eternally and irreversibly in Christ Jesus - that by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever all of those that are being made holy! THAT is where the miracle power flows out of on a regular basis and on a daily basis!

How can we tell multitudes of churchgoers who work hours a day and have children to pick up and drop off and have all kinds of demands that in order to produce the miraculous you have got to fast and spend hours a day praying - it is not like that!

The New Covenant is not about what we DO - it is about what He has DONE at the Cross! The generator is ON! I don't pray to get the power - I pray IN the power!

Instantly it is accessible! "Holy Spirit come!". And He comes! I didn't have to fast! Come! We are in a New Covenant of unfading glory! We need to condemn condemnation! We need to accuse accusation! We need to grab guilt around the throat! We need to get out of the religious boat and realise that we can float! And wear our Father's glory coat! Most Christians who have a fear of stepping out in the supernatural and a fear of standing in front of someone in a wheelchair - a fear of praying for the blind or a fear of letting the manifestation of the Spirit show - you will find behind all that fear there is a root of condemnation. Even people that have sat and listened to grace for years! God is coming with a greater understanding of grace!

I am so glad that in Europe Dave Holden endorsed me and said "Rob - run with this message - we need this - you have opened more light to us - go for it!".

There is a deeper realm of glory! To the degree you deal with guilt and condemnation - to that degree the glory of God in proportion to that will manifest in your life. I want to say something - I am an intense person. I am an introvert posing as an extrovert. I like the mountains and the desert! I like being alone with God! I am exposing my insecurities and vulnerabilies! I like a response! I am not asking you to kiss your brains goodbye but when you sense that sounds true - be like the noble Bereans! Sometimes we have got to give ourselves permission to be happy! I can feel there is a responding culture here! How we miss the revelation of what that great outpouring of joy was. We thought it was all about joy - if that was all it was about then it would have been worth it, because that was a party! The first manifestation in the Gospels was when He turned the water into wine!

I believe that where it says; "a joy of unspeakable glory" - I am convinced of this theologically and experientially that the joy takes you into the glory.

It was the revelation that our God is good and His mercy endures forever that took them into the glory! It is the revelation of joy in the wonder of the good news of the gospel - a holy laughter! Joy is a fruit of the Spirit! Zion is the joy of the whole earth! Psalm 126 - the Lord filled our mouths with laughter! God sits on His throne and laughs at the devil who thinks he can advance against the Lord's anointed! A merry heart does good like medicine! People fought that joy and the devil was behind it because the joy of God is the doorway that takes you into the glory. Some of the greatest miracles I have seen are when the Holy Spirit has fallen and the people don't sit there analysing whether it is genuine - we are in days of extreme grace! If the church doesn't open up then like Paul tried in Ephesus to preach this radical extreme gospel! Where Paul says "I am not ashamed of the gospel" - we think he was saying he was not ashamed to preach it. He lived in a Jewish culture extremely committed to righteousness by human effort and performance and by what you gain and the very idea of being declared permamently righteous all the time was called a scandal and was almost blasphemous! He said "I am not ashamed of this gospel!". It is the power of God unto life, healing, preservation and in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed that is by faith from first to last.

It is not something you get by faith and then you must work later on to keep - it is faith from FIRST to last! This is such good news! We have said "yes it is good news but ..." that we do a Galatians 3. The Galatians had signs and wonders and miracles and then went back under law. It is so radical and extreme and sounds frighteningly irresponsible! Jesus plus anything equals nothing! Jesus plus lots of prayer and fasting ... Jesus plus any good deed will bring a declining fading glory. Jesus plus NOTHING will bring an unfading glory. The fact that the church even has need of revival is a sad testimony of Galatians 3 syndrome where the church gets a revelation of grace and then slowly drifts into a mixture of law and grace. The gospel is not preaching right living. I believe in right living and have been married 33 years to the same wife. I have six grandchildren and go to bed every night with a granny. I haven't split churches or run off with the church secretary although my wife was the secretary for a while and I ran off with her! So I believe in right living.

But the gospel is not right living. Many people for centuries in Europe have been under such condemnation. Preach right living for centuries has produced such dysfunctional church goers. I have had the pain of hearing a number of psychiatrists say that their biggest clients have been Christians living with obsessive compulsive behaviours because of the fear of losing their salvation or the fear of God getting upset with them. The fear of divine disapproval. Most psychiatrists link the root of all stress, anxiety and anger to a root of fear. From the Word of God I say they are wrong and it is not rooted in fear but a root of condemnation.

That was in the Garden of Eden. As soon as he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - what's that? The law! The knowledge of GOOD and evil. He didn't cut good out of the fruit! Good was as much part of the fall of man as evil was.

When he entered into that conciousness he hid from God because he said he was afraid. Condemnation caused a withdrawal and a loss of the glory of God. God then had to set up a cherubim and not let Adam and Eve have access to the glory realm.

When you are under a conciousness of good and evil or law-keeping then you have no right to have access permament and unconditionally to unfading glory. The law demands a fading glory. Moses said "Show me Your glory!". God said "I can only show you My hindparts". Under the Old Covenant glory is God walking away from you. Under the New Covenant it is God walking towards you open-handed! An unfaded glory!

The first Pentecost was on the day when law was given on Mount Sinai and the focus was on man's works and efforts to keep the law and 3000 died. The first Pentecost of the New Testament was when the Holy Spirit came in like a mighty rushing wind and 3000 were saved.
Ezekiel had a vision of the temple and he saw the glory of God come off the Holy of Holies and begin to reluctantly withdraw slowly and then went to the Mount of Olives and then hover there and then reluctantly go back to heaven. Then for a long time Israel had no manifest glory. It faded completely off the earth. When the first Pentecost of the New Covenant came, the Holy Spirit did not come back slowly like the way He left but He rushed in!

Somewhere in this time He will come and shock and surprise us and come like a mighty rushing wind - the moment Old Covenant strongholds in our thinking are broken! When it says "There is now therefore NO condemnation" - it means NO! It didn't say "No condemnation to those who don't sin" - because what would be the point?! Who is that who accuses?! It is God who justifies! But how many Christians who believe the grace message still live with accusation and low grade guilt all the time! It is rampant in the Body of Christ and that is the number one hindrance to great signs and wonders and miracles. It makes people dysfunction, shy and frightened of the supernatural and scared of manifestations!

This is what I wrote down the other day and I believe that this is the best way I can describe what the glory of God is;

"It is the realm of effortless miracles, signs and wonders".

When this lady came out the wheelchair a few days ago - it was effortless. It was the easiest thing! We should restore dignity to the ministry of Jesus - we don't see Him huffing and puffing! Just; "Go your way". Up to now the Church has mainly seen the operation of the anointing. The anointing and the glory are different. The anointing of God is the power for man to minster and man to pray. It is an empowering of God but the glory is WHO God is. You can get people healing in the anointing but you get very tired. You need the anointing to preach. I never preach without desperately relying on the anointing. It is the most dangerous thing to speak accurate Bible truth without an anointing. Very dangerous! There needs to be always a demonstration of the anointing while we are speaking Bible words otherwise we bring death to God's people. I am speaking under the anointing right now because I want to demolish Old Covenant thinking patterns because I know to get a move of God is not to neutralise principalities up there but to demolish ways of thinking in here in people's heads and then open them to the realm of the glory and the more you do your job in the anointing successfully the more man can backpedal and then His glory comes and man can fade into the background.

God takes place and then does things effortlessly. It is not difficult for God to heal cancer! But under the anointing I can get cancer healed but it is such hard work! The crowds will be so big! How does your shadow heal the sick? It has to be because the glory is over you! If we are going to live under the glory then we can't fluctuate with guilt and condemnation and the paralysis of analysis. When God's people come to a place where there is no condemnation even when they mess up and say "Lord that is not consistent with my new nature and I shouldn't have but I thank You that where the blood of bulls and goats couldn't take away guilt for thoe who draw near and their sin offerings were in fact an annual reminder and made them even MORE guilt concious - I thank You Father than by one sacrifice I have been made perfect forever!".
Colossians chapter 2 says "Having forgiven ALL our sins" - past tense. 2 Corinthians 5 says; "In Christ reconciling the world ... NOT counting mens sins against them!". Romans chapter 4:8 - David looked down the corridors of time and saw the New Covenant and said; "Blessed is the man whom the Lord will NEVER count their sins against them!". We are living in the time that David longed for and yet still living a confusing cocktail of good news and bad news! Christians are becoming spiritual schizophrenics and we are mis-reading contexts and we are wired to read rejection and disapproval into things but if we see the context as love letters that are securing us in grace!

The Old Covenant was written to show the power of sin and strip us of all self righteousness! When Jesus said to the Pharisees; "You should not commit adultery - it is a death sentence but I say you should not even look with lust in your heart" - people say that Jesus was preaching the New Covenant and it is a higher standard! He wasn't preaching the New Covenant! He was preaching the true spirituality of the law of Moses to strip the Pharisees of self-righteousess and prepare them for the wonder of the grace of God! If He was preaching New Covenant truth there then you that look with your hearts at someone you shouldn't be looking at, then you should pluck your eyes out or cut your hands off and be consistent if you are saying Jesus was preaching the New Covenant there! He followed that up with self-mutiliation! And because we live in a modern world we don't do that anymore although I have met Christians who have plucked their eyes out in Australia and Zimbawe because of that perverse interpretation. We don't self-mutilate physically but we self-mutiliate psychologically with this root of condemnation and the devil loves it. He is the accuser of the brethren!

You say "Talk about the anointing - don't talk about grace - we are the people of grace!". I know you are and I have learnt from you! But this will open up the manifest glory of God! The glory realm is the realm of effortless signs and wonders and miracles. The glory realm is God's realm, the realm of the supernatural, of healing, of prosperity, of life, of fruitfulness, it is the realm of His riches shared generously. It is the realm of multitudes being saved. Don't tell me the glory has come to church and people aren't being saved. When the glory comes people get saved. It is the realm of liberty, joy, confidence and peace. The glory is the realm of awe and wonder and power over the devil, where we get purified and grow in holiness, where we become more like Jesus and grow in God. It is the realm where we see into the invisible. It isn't just apostles and prophets that should see into the invisible - every New Covenant believer should see into the realm of the invisible! It is the realm of rest and revelation. It is the realm of hearing His wonderful voice. It is the realm of heaven! It is the eternal realm, the realm of heaven, the realm of absolute goodness.

I just want to read these few verses and make a few comments and then close. The Old Covenant was designed by God to strip us of all self-confidence. If you meet Christians who don't have confidence to pray for the sick or to prophesy or to come close to God then that is a sign they are living under Old Covenant mentality because the Old Covenant will take away your confidence in God. I know Christians who go to church and outside of church they are confident in their careers and in the sports field but before God they are wimps! Why? They have condemnation conciousness. I believe there is enough in the New Testament - Hebrews 10:14; "By one sacrifice He has made us perfect forever" and the next verse; "The Holy Spirit testifies to this!". I am so tired of people accusing the Friend of all Friends that I have in the earth of being someeone that condemns or convicts of sin. "I know that Scripture Rob - John 16 - when the Holy Spirit comes He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgement. You see the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin and tells us how righteous we should be and that if we dont then what judgement will fall upon us". That is bad exegesis!

Jesus elaborates what He means! "Sin because they do not believe on me". So the only sin is unbelief on Jesus. That is the only sin He couldn't die for and the only sin that will send people to hell. "And righteousness because I go to the Father". When Jesus went to the Father what was He doing for us? Our high priest mediating and interceding for us and declaring that we are the righteousness of God. Then He said; "And judgement because the prince of this world is now condemned". So the Holy Spirit comes to the believer comes to the believer to help you overcome areas of unbelief in your life or comes to the unsaved and convinces them of their sin of not believing on Jesus. Once you are saved He comes to convince you that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus (Hebrews 10:15) and that we are perfect forever and then He convinces you that it is the devil who is judged at the Cross! I know why some people don't have an intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit! They think He is the one convicting them of every sin they did! How many of you could have a close friend who followed you around and was always pointing your faults out!?

That is the practice of the LAW - to make you concious of sin! The Holy Spirit does not come to make you concious of sin, He comes and convinces you when you most need it that Jesus has gone to the Father everliving to intercede and mediate for you as a superior Mediator of a better covenant that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and the devil who is accusing you - he is the one who is guilty and is the one triumnphed over at the Cross!

He has come to be just like Jesus! Sinners were so comfortable with Jesus and how will the Holy Spirit be any different? The only people that Jesus was hard on - and He was the most courageous man ever dealing with arrogant bigots - the Pharisees - and He never backed down or was intimidated and didn't fear man. He only feared His Father and was only hard on the self-righteous! To the people He was kind and loving and despite the sin the crowd had was that He healed them ALL! Grace was flowing from Him! The Syro-Phonecian woman persisted and said "Even the dogs will eat the crumbs" and Jesus said "I have never seen such great faith!". She didn't need to get offended by Jesus! Grace came! Which other person did He say that to? The centurion! What was the common link between himself and the housemaker woman? They were both non-Jews, not living under the law. Romans 4 says that the law neutralises and diminishes faith. It is not just about having a theology for not being under law. It has got to go far deeper than that! It is more than a notebook! It has to be a demolishing of a thinking that we have a standard we must live upto! I have heard some say that the only difference between the Old and New Covenants is that we now have a power to live upto the standards of the law. I do not believe that is the radical message Paul preached. Because we are still focused on ME trying to attain a certain standard.

Colossians says we are COMPLETE in Christ! We have received fullness in Christ! We are no longer under the law! Christ is the end of the law to ALL who believe! And the Holy Spirit is now really a comforter! The devil is the one judged! You are the righteousness of God! It gets difficult to sin regularly when you are in the glory! Do you know it is difficult to sin in the glory presence? It is condemnation that drives people to sin but glory transforms the Church! 2 Corinthians chapter 3! The worst thing you can have in a place like this is people who come to observe. No we want people who come to find the power source and want to crawl right up the plug to the power station! Smith Wiggleworth said if the Holy Spirit is not moving then we move the Holy Spirit!

I get angry when people say of me or other ministries; "Ah its their gifts that produce the miracles". How come for years I didn't see any miracles? I have a gift as an Ephesian 4 Ministry to equip and train people but I have no advantage over any other believer! This move of the Spirit is not following a ministry but a message - the message of the New Covenant!
Take Florida or any other move of the Spirit - if legalism comes in then you will see the glory fade very quickly! It is not an issue about law and grace but an issue of "Who is in control of the church?". We are not going to have chaos! We believe we tithe under grace not Malachi 3! Abraham didn't tithe to get the windows of heaven opened! He tithed because the windows were already open and we are partners with God! The majority of our people come every Sunday and give! They are committed and share their faith! This message doesn't make rebels! It is an empowerment of the New Covenant! Elders are not managers of the church but empowers! We will celebrate even your failures!

A grace church is a safe place to sin if you are going to! People sin under law and under grace! If you swim with sharks don't them know you are bleeding!

2 Corinthians 3:4; "competent as ministers of the New Covenant ... the letter KILLS". The devil can retire in many churches because preachers are killing people! He said it was a ministry that brought death. (v8); "How much more glorious is the ministry that brings righteousness ... being transformed into His likeness". Let's give Jesus an applause for this wonderful New Covenant!

Hearing the Voice of God

2009-03-25T20:48:00.003Z

This sermon was preached by Rob Rufus on Sunday 7th December 2008 and just before Rob came up to preach, Wayne Duncan brought a significant prophecy to City Church. Wayne is based in South Africa and leads a church there that is enjoying an amazing move of God. He and his wife were visiting City Church that week.

Wayne Duncan: I just wanted to share something that during worship I felt God drop into my heart and it wasn't planned. This church - as small as it is - has an internation effect. You guys touch countries and people all over the world. As we were worshipping I was so caught up with the profoundness of what I believe God has called this church to be. God kept on showing me even from early this morning - the tip of a spear. I saw it stabbing a soft ceiling the whole time and during worship I felt God gave me the fullness of it. I felt God was saying

"Do you see it - have you seen it and do you know? Don't underestimate the power of the divine strategies of God and don't underestimate the significance of your role in His divine strategy". I felt God say that He has positioned this church to be part of the most significant move that Hong Kong has ever seen. A revival that will touch the city and will be spoken of by every citizen. The Name of Jesus will be on the lips of everyone! I felt that in heaven there was a trumpet that was sounded a while ago and the call of that trumpet resonated in many people's hearts and that's why many of you are here even now. You heard the call of God and it is significant in and through that thing God wants to release in Hong Kong - He has called you here.

Then I saw the rest of the pole for the first time reaching down in the vision. In that pole I saw those who were worshipping and I saw those of you praying at home and getting caught up into the glory and every time someone prayed and everytime someone worshipped and everytime someone was laying down a part of their lives I saw that as something that was going into the very pole that was driving the spear tip. And that added weight and momentum and support behind the thrust. I felt there was an army of people that were called to serve. I saw finances being released and I saw a huge army of people bringing energy into it.

Then I saw the most awesome thing in the third part of the vision - I saw Jesus Himself grabbing the spear and thrusting it through and I believe there is a time coming of incredible breakthrough. Don't underestimate your significance. God has significantly and strategically placed you and placed you in this church and in Hong Kong for this time. It is now! Hong Kong is going to see something unprecidented and never seen before in terms of the power of God. Even as we were worshipping and saying "Jesus come build Your throne" and we were declaring the glory of what is to come. We were declaring the glory of the breakthrough and there will be multitudes and thousands of people saved as that spear shoots through into new places. So bless you guys - go for it - we love you".

Thanks Wayne. I appreciate you guys - they came to "Glory and Grace" last year and their lives were turned upside down and their church came instantly into a move of God. One of the phenomena that happens regularly (so it is not a hit and miss thing) in their church and where they travel, when they lay hands on people - people get gold dust. Even when they don't lay hands on people's hands! And it's not 1 out of 10 - it is a high percentage of times. No pressure guys! But afterwards we will line everyone up! I am inspired to live every day with the belief or conviction that my Father really wants to pour out grace and mercy on me every single day!

Grace means the absolute goodness of God and only His goodness coming my way! Never judgements, never divine frustrations, never divine disapproval.

The Old Covenant has finished! The Law has gone and Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the law that the blessing of Abraham may come on us and that we have a God whose nature is to do us good all the time! He is not impatient, He doesn't get frustrated, He is not disapproving of us - if that is what you think He is, then you are wrong for you are reading the Old Covenant. I suggest go after the Cross! Don't even go after the four Gospels if you want to start! People say "Start at John" - no don't start before the Cross! Start in Acts chapter 1 after the Cross in the New Testament and see the power of God being poured out from a Father who is smiling! And there is a happy sky over your head! Then go back and read the Old Covenant and see how grateful you should be that you are living in the New Covenant and it is good to read the Old Covenant so you can understand how wonderful it is for God to have positioned us to be in the New Covenant. I am inspired to live every day with goodness and mercy following my life.

David - that great king - had God say of him; "THIS is a man who is after My heart". David in Psalm 23 said; "Surely goodness and mercy will follow me ... some of the days?". "ALL of the days!". Bad hairday, good hairday, bad Monday - all my days, every single day! If you had a bad week it just means that you weren't sensitive to the desire of God to dump goodness and mercy on you! He was trying to and He just couldn't because you didn't expect it or believe it. But once you do - then He can! Now hell might have been breaking out with all kinds of friction and frustration and anger relationally but God was wanting to dump goodness and mercy on you every single day of your life! If you will start looking for it and expecting it and believing for it!

What is the difference between grace and mercy? I thought they were the same! No - big difference! If you were breaking the speed limit by a long way in Hong Kong and policeman pulls you over to give you a fine and he comes up and looks through the window and he is overcome with mercy and he says; "I am not going to give you a speeding fine" - that is mercy! You kiss his hand, his glove, his cheek, his head and you receive mercy! Then you see him take out his book and say "Oh no! I knew it was too good to be true!" but he gives you a cheque for $10,000 and says; "I just want to give you that - I just feel in a good mood!". THAT is grace!

Mercy stops God giving you what you do deserve - judgement and grace inspires God to give you what you don't deserve but to give you what Jesus deserves - because He died on your behalf!

I am convinced that no one can believe what I just said - that every day God's desire is to dump abundant goodness on you. You can try and study and confess a million times; "I am the righteousness of God" but you will still live with a conciousness of doubt and resident cynicism about the fact that God wants to dump every day grace and mercy on your life!

The only way we are ever going to believe this is to have a community that believes the voice of God! When you hear His voice -not my voice or some preachers voice - but God's voice tell you that you are the object of His affection and you are the objection of His sonship and you are an inheritor of the wealth of heaven and a joint equal heir with Christ - when you hear Him say THAT to you then forever you believe that our God wants goodness and mercy to follow you all the days of your life!

Today I want to speak on "Hearing the Voice of God" and there are many many people around the world that want to hear the voice of God! They long to hear it! But the good news is this - many of you in this room have already heard His voice. If I called out in the worship and said; "Who hear has heard God say something to you in this worship?" - many of you will have heard God. Those who didn't hear - it wasn't because He didn't speak. He did speak but you didn't hear because you didn't expect to! This is the good news - the One who cannot lie said; "My sheep know My voice and the voice of a stranger they will not follow". I am so glad that He didn't say; "Sensative, New-ager, loose wrist, artistic, intituative, sensitive types hear My voice!". No - He just said MY sheep hear My voice! If you have truly met Jesus Christ as a resurrected Lord and discovered His Lordship - if He came into your life then I promise you that you are a sheep and you know His voice!

To know His voice is to hear His voice!

It doesn't matter what your temperament is or your personality - some people are prophetic people and they are artistic, poets with a sensitive soul. They can walk into a room and feel what people are thinking in that room! Before anyone tells them! Others God has not designed them like that. He has designed them to think strategically and to think pragmatically and to think like that because if they didn't then they couldn't do the job that God called them to do. So thank God everyone is not an artist! Or pragmatic! It would be a chaotic world if everyone was artistic but it would be a bland boring world if everyone was pragmatic and strategic, task-orientated thinkers! Some are feelers and some are thinkers! But God didn't say a certain temperament or personality - He said, "My sheep know My voice!". So certain types of personalities will hear the voice of God in a more artistic way. They will see pictures whereas the task-orientated people will have a thought or a flash of an inspired idea.

It is responding to those promptings and being more sensitive to the intutative. 9 out 10 times when I meet a stranger I know things about them immediately! My head tries to talk me out of it but my first impression is always right. I know when people are pregnant! We all hear the voice of God and I don't mean psychics. Psychics hear a false voice - because any voice you hear that takes you away from Jesus or from the Word of God or from thinking your life with eternity in mind that I will give an account for this life - any voice that distracts you from that is never the voice of God! It is the voice of a psychic, the voice of witchcraft, the voice of the demonic. My sheep know My voice! Jesus says in Revelation eight times; "He that has ears let him hear what the Spirit says!". The good news is that He didn't say "He that fasts and prays and gets good enough willl eventually grow ears and be able to hear Me". He said; "He that HAS ears let him HEAR!".

The grace on the prophetic ministry is that we are not speaking to the deaf society when we talk to the born again Christian. The grace on prophets is to announce to believers in Christ that you already have ears and now under the power of the Spirit I say to your ears; "Let them hear!".

Too many people are trying to grow ears to God whereas the prophets are saying "He that HAS ears" - who has ears? My sheep know My voice! Everyone in Christ has spiritual ears to hear the voice of God and the prophets say; "I activate you and release you into revelation supernaturally to recognise that you have ears! Now ears - HEAR what the Spirit is saying to the church!". So I say to City Church International and everyone listening on the website; "You have ears and can hear so HEAR what the Spirit is saying - let your ears hear!". And when you hear this grace and mercy following you all your days! A hearing community are positioned to believe that grace and mercy at a high level follow you!

In 1st Corinthians 14:1 the Bible says very clearly; "Eagerly desire the best gifts especially the gift of prophecy". We have got working of miracles, the gift of faith, word of knowledge - to know facts and events about someone where that information was not fed to you by natural information and you just knew, word of wisdom - you know things about their future, discerning of spirits - you know what angels are doing around you and you recognise if it is a demonic presence and prophecy and tongues with interpretation.

And it says "desire those gifts". Every believer can operate in all nine of those gifts like every believer can have all nine fruit of the Spirit. That is why Paul says; "Eagerly desire" - which is the word; "Lust after" or "Hunt after". In those days when they went hunting it wasn't for sport but for survival to eat.

So "hunt after the gifts" because your very life depends on it!

My son is alive today because of the gifts of the Spirit. When I was in L.A the Spirit spoke to me and said "Pray for Ryan right now and apply the blood over his life" and it stopped him being killed because he went into a car accident and he walked out of a smashed car and stepped out unharmed when many had been killed in that spot in recent years. I didn't know it - I was in L.A getting ready and was showering and walking to go to a meeting and stopped and said; "Oh Glenda! I have got to pray for Ryan" and put my Bible down and saved his life! Hunt after these gifts! Eagerly desire these gifts because it can save lives! It's saved Glenda and my life too - we have been going somewhere and the Spirit says; "Don't go" and the people who did got killed. People heard God on 9/11 not to go into the Twin Towers and they are alive today!

What we are talking today is very important! "Eagerly desire the best gifts" - hunt them down, lust after them and ESPECIALLY the gift of prophecy! Why?

Because prophecy is hearing God and saying what He is saying.

Reading the Bible and preaching or teaching is not prophesying. It is reading what God said a long time ago. Prophesying is saying what God is NOW saying. "Eagerly desire" - to hear what God is saying and the anointing to say what God is saying across a coffee table or in the middle of a sports match, work or a commercial meeting - listen to what God is saying and desire above anything eles to hear what God is saying and be able to say it. Why? Because that revelation of the voice of God will open up all the other gifts and will manifest gifts of healing, working of miracles and all those other things - as a community start hearing God! I believe and say again - you CCI have ears and you are hearing! Let your ears hear! People say why doesn't God just speak audibly and loudly to my physical ears? Well that would be great wouldn't it? Easy! "Rob! Don't work today! I will provide!". "Yes Lord! Your servant hears!". God has spoken like that in the Bible and I know people personally who have heard that audible physical voice. I personally as far as I know have never heard His audible voice with my physical ears. One time it was so audible in here that I did jump around thinking someone was talking to me but that doesn't happen a lot - that loud inner audible voice but it has happened a few dozen times.

He often speaks so quietly and so whispered that you have got to develop a history of listening to actually get the tones of that voice. With art of practice you begin to hear that voice every day. I would say over the last 20 years there hasn't been a day gone by when I haven't heard thati inward voice. It is an inheritance because everyone who is a son and has received Jesus as their Lord knows His voice and the voice of a stranger they will not follow. A strangers voice takes them away form Jesus! In John 12:28-30 says Jesus was standing there and there was a large crowd and God the Father spoke and said "This is my Son" and some said "It thundered" while others said "It was an angel". So no one in that crowd recognised God's voice when He spoke physically and audibly! We live in a world today and think that if God would just speak physically and audibly then all the world would believe and all believers would hear His voice! It doesn't work that way. John 12 shows us that. 1 Kings 18:12-13 says that Elijah was standing on the mountain top and there was a fire and an earthquake and God was not in the earthquake or the fire or the dramatic things.

God was in the still quiet voice. God told Elijah things to do in the still quiet voice that saved the whole nation of Israel. The instructions God gave to Elijah and which he put into practice brought Jezebel down! Jezebel was a witchcraft spirit that hates the apostolic and hates the prophetic.

There are so few prophets operating in the church world today because the pastors and the teachers in denominations have allowed prophets and apostles to be kicked out and silenced and no one wants to listen to them because they are too wild and too passionate and too full on for the average person who wants a religious club!

The church world by and large have gone into total irrelevancy because the prophets have been silenced. Elijah ran from Jezebel in panic and fear after being a mighty prophet and on that mountain he heard the still quiet voice of God not in the earthquake or thunder or fire but in the small voice and he went and anointed Elijah and Jehu and successors that brought Jezebel down and liberated Israel back into revival and a return back to God! That's what the quiet voice is! Too many Christians are saying they want big, technicolour angels talking to them - I want to hear the audible voice with these ears! No - sensitise your spirit and that can change nations and can save your marriage, your family, your finances, stop you getting engaged to the wrong person, taking a wrong job or going or staying somewhere. You need to hear God! So many Christians have got a speech impediment and can't seem to talk with confidence and boldness and authority with prophetic, apostolic authority! Instead they speak like the Pharisees of the law! But when Jesus arrived they said; "With what authority does this man speak?". Why? Because when you hear God you speak with authority!

I am talking about the nature of a loving God - not some god that says go fly into buildings and blow them up. That is NOT God. That is something else. People can't speak because they are not hearing. And ear, nose and throat specialists say if someone has got a speech impedient, the first thing they look at is a hearing capacity. Because if you are not hearing then you can't speak properly! Let me give you two things about hearing the voice of God. Not technique but how to steward this gift. God will give this gift in greater capacity to those who know how to steward it rightly.

1. This gift is not to make you rank as a super saint.

God spoke through and to Balaam's donkey! Therefore do not think that hearing God makes you the voice of God! That is why there are idiots out there who were once great prophets but they are idiots now because they think "I am the voice of God! When people don't obey me they have rejected God!". No - you are not concerned with them rejecting God. You are insecure and you feel rejected so you hate the church and you withdraw because the church didn't change fast enough or get in the process of seeing the promise fulfilled. Sometimes that process can take decades! Prophets don't have a sense of time sometimes and come in with a sense of immediacy! "God says revival is on the way!". Next week God! This is three months of teaching on how to hear God, how to be a community that hears God! Some people are just coming around to the idea of there being a God and Him being interested in speaking! You must prepare people with grace and what He may say and how you interpret what He says and how He says it.

In Christ EVERYONE is a super saint!

If you hear God a lot He will encourage you and talk to you and confirm you and you will hear His tender voice. But you hear God for other people as well! So use the gift of hearing God to bless other people! I learnt these things the hard way. My first trip to Australia and I stand up in front of the congregation I have never met in my life and I am going to be given the leadership of this church but I am kind of on probation that day. I know it and they know it. They are Aussies and I am a fresh South African and I have my best behaviour and I am going to preach my best sermon and bring out the real me later! So I am in the worship and worshipping God and God says; "Joan!". My mum's name is Joan! "Is my mum okay?". I heard; "Yes she is alright". So why are you saying Joan? Am I Jonah?! "No you are not a Jonah - there is a lady here in the service called Joan and she has never met you - call her out by name as soon as you get upto preach". So I said "Okay God!". Praise God this is going to get me into this church! When they see they have a prophet in their midst! That knows people by name! If I get the name I will get amazing details about her life that will prove to her I am a prophet!

I get upto preach and everyone is looking at me and I say; "The Lord has shown me that there is a woman here by the name of Joan". A middle aged lady at the back jumps up and comes running forward all excited. So immediately I lay my hands on her and say; "Joan - the Lord would say to thee that your name is Joan ... and He would say that He knows you by name and He would say to you - Joan - that your name is Joan and that He knows you by name!". And I am inwardly praying "More! Please God! Give me the downloads!". So I had to say; "And Joan that is all the Father would say. Go back". There are numbers of times I have walked home depressed after the service thinking I preached terribly and the devil agree and a few people ally with that! Public speaking is the biggest fear on the planet apart from dying. So my preaching is a flop! I am thinking they all think I am stupid! At the end of the service Joan comes running up to me all excited and says; "I am a widower and live on my own and am so lonely and was saying to God when driving to church that I don't want to test you but I feel like You don't even care and don't even know my name but this guy coming today - if he doesn't call me out by name - then I am not going back to church. Wasn't that amazing?!".

I wanted to slap her! Why didn't you tell the people!?!? For my credibility?!?! God said "Because to hear His voice is not to promote you but to love people - to love them and show them God knows about them". But if we think it is to promote us then that is why we have got frustrated weird prophets in the world today and the church didn't appreciate me! Many times they haven't! But some of us prophets are around and not cynical or hating the church! Lastly;

2. Prophesy and speak the Word of God in humility.

We are all prophetic by the way - there are prophets and there are sons that prophesy - every Christian can hear the Word of God and speak on behalf of God to people. Not what the Bible wrote 2000 years ago but what He is saying now to this person. If I have got seven doors to go through and choose from then I can't open my Bible because the Bible doesn't talk about doors - I have got to hear God tell me which door to go through. I need to hear God today! And if I have a problem speaking with boldness and authority then I need to check that I recognise that I do have ears to hear.

We need to prophesy in humility because no prophetic person prophesies perfectly. The Bible says we prophesy "in part". We don't see everything 100%. That's why we need other prophets and we need local church. I prophesy through my temperament but I need to hear someone else who hears God differently. They each have a bit of the puzzle. So this thing about someone who doesn't prophesy accurately - they aren't a prophet. Not true! The only Person who was accurate 100% was Jesus! The highest level prophets still get it wrong occasionaly and the psychics get it wrong 99% of the time but have vague clever ways of hiding it and clearing it up. This is what determines a false prophet - Deuteronomy 13:1-5; "Someone who hears God accurately and with that incredibly accurate gift they use it to draw the people away from God and to wow the people and make it all about personal power". That is Satan! He didn't want to see God worshipped. Lucifer did not want to worship God but be equal with God - that is why he was cast out of heaven.

Everyone under the deception of Lucifer - the voice that is not the voice of Jesus wants personal power. To use what they have got to draw people to be impressed with them! Deuteronomy says a false prophet is someone hearing God accurately because the gift is genuine. The Bible says in Romans 14 that God won't withdraw the gift or shut it down. But they are using the genuine to draw other people to themselves or other gods. Not Jesus! That is a false prophet! People who come and don't prophesy accurately but don't try and draw people away from God - have no fear of those people! They are just speaking out of their imaginations. A false prophet is someone who hears God but uses it to draw people away from God. A true prophet use the gift to make a Joan know she is loved and even if it doesn't draw people to you it will draw people to Him which it did to Joan!

Always see if prophetic people are drawing to Jesus or whether they are drawing a following after themselves and where they making people dependent on them and people want to use them like a crystal ball gazer so they become dependent on them.

A true prophet is God bringing liberty through them and then they equip and train you to hear God for yourself!

I was leading a church in South Africa and a couple were our closest friends. They had been trying to have a baby for 16 years with no hint of conception and were totally discouraged. I was in the bush praying and just enjoying God.

If you try to hear God then you won't.

The Father is not like a wife! So I was just enjoying Him as a son and I hear the inward audible voice; "I want you to call this couple out publicly and prophesy over them that within 3 months she will fall pregnant". God! No! Go privately! "No I want you to go public!". God! If I am wrong I won't look good! It is all about fear of man! So I called them out and prophesied. "You shall fall pregnant within 3 months" and everyone claps or is stunned. Within 24 hours she fell pregnant. Everyone was shouting and excited. 3 months she walked with that baby but then instant miscarriage. Gone. I can't tell you how depressed I was. I was about 28 with no mentors in the supernatural. Kenneth Hagin sort of from a distance. Noone fathered me. I had to learn it on the mountaintops alone. So I had to learn what I learnt by the mistakes I made. The whole congregation is stunned and I am stunned and struggling with my own depression! They are questioning God and me!

I was tempted to get up and say "You saw a prophet in your midst call out a woman who had not been pregnant and announce she would be pregnant within 3 months. My prophecy came true! She was pregnant! But the Lord shows me there was sin in their life and they did not believe and therefore God judged them!". But God didn't say that and wouldn't say that because He wasn't judging them. I just knew as a 26 or 27 year old that I didn't understand what happened and that He had to speak to me or I had to get up and apologise to this entire congregation that I didn't have enough information and that I didn't understand or know enough but apologise to all for my inexperience. I am learning and I told them that!

And I found out that people are incredibly forgiving if you are honest. They know a cover up and a con from a mile away.

The entire congregation received it and relaxed and within a year she fell pregnant and has got 3 daughters. This is the thing I learnt - I believe I did hear God and she did fall pregnant. God called me to do it publicly not to show me off but because He wanted that baby to live to full term and be born. He wanted to lift us in 1985 into a high level of corporate hearing from God. He wanted a baby to be born to show forth His glory and His honour. I didn't know enough about the devil and the devil's hatred of the womb or fertility. If I had known what I know now then we would have guarded her around with a sentinel of intercessors till that baby was born. When that baby was born it would have taken that church into a much higher level of breakthrough in the supernatural. We don't realise how many aborted, still born manifestations of cancer, healings are getting aborted before they come to full term because he is not stronger than God but God has given us partnership with Him by learning how to operate and how to hear clearly as to how to do these things better.

About seven or eight years later I had learnt now and understood a bit about this. So we got a prophet from the USA writing to us in Australia when I was leading Coastlands. And he said "In this month of this year your church will be rocketed to national profile in Australia and will go on national TV in a positive way". We didn't have a clue what this prophet was saying or what it meant. His name is Liam from L.A church. About a month later I was closing a service down with about 1000 people there and as I am closing ...

And I know this frustrates practical people - that prophets frustrate practical people and vice versa and God says balance each other. We don't want practical people pulling out or prophets pulling out - we need everyone to come together because both need both. The feelers need the thinkers and the devil is trying to alienate each but the Holy Spirit is pulling both together!

As I was giving the benediction the Holy Spirit gave me a 20 minute prophetic word that said; "I am the God of great love and great power and I want to demonstrate myself in the nation of Australia and I want to show forth signs and wonders but I show off My power for a purpose and if those that are crippled can't walk in your midst and if the deaf aren't here and if the Satanists aren't here - then why should I manifest My power? Because My power comes for a purpose! If you will bring the cripples and bring the broken and take the effort and drive with your cars and bring them then I will do great miracles".

Now you can't put that on every congregation. I am not even putting it on you! He was saying that then to them! They knew it was the voice of God and ran out and got everyone! So next week I came in and there was everyone! I saw wheelchairs everywhere. When you are prophesying you can see five sentance ahead! So I preach on the two Adams and have a salvation call and a lady in a wheelchair is there. I didn't know but she had been on national televison and doctors had said it was impossible for her to walk again and she was dying and every joint went out of joint. She was beyond medical science! It is not about us looking good! I will keep apologising if I make a mistake!

So I said "Father are You doing this miracle?" and He was! A leg shot forward and she spoke in a deep voice; "I am not coming out!" and I said; "I am from Africa and you ARE coming out!". We cast demons out in Africa! Australian demons can't hide when the power of God comes! So it came out and she came out the wheelchair and walked around the building and walked for five days! She got her children back and was about to get her job back. She slipped in the shower and fear came on her and all her joints went out. So they rang me and I was so depressed again - "What are you doing God!?". I am mad and discouraged and depressed! There's always people - cynics are always waiting! I am still human enough to want to kill when people don't give you love! Because they never try any of this stuff! So I think I am never going to step out in prophecy ever again! I am going to be a nice guy! And give life skills and 20 minute pep talks! No - I was born for the glory, born to contend!

Suddenly the inward audible voice came; "When you land in Melbourne, phone this man and go to Michelle and say the demon has gone back worse and then she will walk again and it will go on national television". They prayed and demons came out and she came on national television. Prime time to millions of Australians! If you can't dance and praise God then maybe you need to go in a wheelchair and have God heal you! How many of you know why now it is so important that Jesus said My sheep know My voice and they will not follow a stranger? There is nothing greater than hearing the voice of the good Shepherd. I go out on the hills of Hong Kong and I want to hear the voice of the good Shepherd!

Don't try and get Him to talk! Mainly praise and worship Him! By the time I get back, I know it will be okay! That word "hearing" is the rhema word. We need to read what God said then so we know what God is like but need to hear what He is saying "NOW".

"Laying on of Hands" - Together on a Mission 2006

2009-03-23T09:13:00.004Z

This conference was my first encounter with Rob Rufus - a life-changing encounter although I have yet to meet the man! But I had such an incredible touch from God and was so moved by his teaching that I wrote to Terry Virgo to thank him for inviting Rob and enthusing about what I had heard. Terry was gracious enough to write back and made particular mention as to how Rob's teaching on the "Laying on of Hands" was really useful and revelational to him. I listened again to that session while I was driving back from my parents last night and agreed - and felt it had to be transcribed.

Here it is:

"Training Track - Session 2" - "Together on a Mission in Brighton" - 2006

I want talk about the laying on of hands today and raising the significance of this incredible truth to a higher level of expectation. The doctrine of laying on of hands needs to be raised up to a higher level. I believe currently it is operating in the church at a very low level. I don't believe we are seeing the level of apostolic understanding as to what it means to lay hands on people. It has become almost too cheap and done too quickly and carelessly and casually and we need to encourage and train and equip people. Never come up and ask people to lay hands on you lightly. Never ask hands to be laid on you without expecting to receive something. It is a foundation doctrine of Christ. Hebrews chapter 6. The laying on of hands is equal to baptism, baptism in the Spirit, judgements, resurrection from the dead, repentance and faith towards God. Alongside that is laying on of hands and you can't go on to maturity without a clear revelation of the importance of the doctrine of the laying on of hands.

We look here in Habbakkuk chapter 3 and let's read from verse 2. "Lord I have heard of Your fame - I stand in awe of Your deeds oh Lord. Renew them in our day, in our time make them known. In wrath remember mercy ... His glory covered the heavens and His praise filled the earth, His splendour was like the sunrise. Rays flashed from His hands where His power was hidden".

I am not trying to make out that God is reduced to human shape but it does say that "rays flashed from His hands" so there is this divine image that the power of God is flashing from the hands of God. I believe that when God's immortal hands come on our mortal hands then there is a divine flash - there is a discharge of heavenly voltage that needs to be restored back to the Church in dimension that was there in the Book of Acts and we have got to recapture today!

Go to Acts chapter 8 please. There are many passages on this. Dave Holden quoted it yesterday - Romans 1:11 and Paul says; "I have come to you so that I may impart a gift to you - a gift that makes you strong". Then in 2nd Timothy chapter 1:6-7 Paul says; "Stir up the gift that is within you through the laying on of my hands ... a spirit of power, love and a sound mind".

In other words Timothy was a timid man but he got something that made him amazingly strong when Paul laid his hands on him and got something amazingly powerful that Paul put into him through the apostolic laying on of hands so that Timothy was standing up and starting to lead well but people didn't like that so intimidation was coming back on him and Paul was saying; "Stir up what you received through the laying on of my hands".

Here Philip goes down to Samaria and has the most amazing signs and wonders and miracles - the whole city filled with joy. The cripples and the paralysed were walking - demons coming out - people getting saved! Then the apostles come down and they don't start off with line upon line teaching.

They add MORE to the supernatural by the laying on of hands for the impartation of the Holy Spirit!

Here is Simon the sorcerer who had just got saved through seeing some amazing supernatural phenomeon and he had moved in psychic counterfeit demonic power and in counterfeit miracles and had impressed the village. But when Philip came down he was amazed at the power of God at work and then he sees the apostles come down and apostles lay their hands on the new converts and here is what it says; (v18); "When Simon saw that the Holy Spirit was given through the laying on of hands, he offered them money and said 'Give me also this ability'". There are many witchdoctors in Africa and some of them are cons but I have met many that are really moving in dark demonic power. I have heard from pretty good witnesss of some who could reverse the flow of a river. Their curses on people would have power. I never knew of any of those witchdoctors that came to us Christians and offered us money so they could have the power that when I lay my hands on people something happens that is so powerful!

Peter said "Your money perish with you - you will die and even if you repent" and he gets heavy on him.

A witchdoctor or a sorcerer is not going to be impressed with hands being laid on people and nothing happening! He MUST have seen SOMETHING. He must have seen the miracles that Philip did but now he is willing to offer money to get the power to lay hands on people and something is given to them!

Today you see people lay their hands on people and pray for the sick and nothing. We must recover what it means to lay hands on people. John G Lake came to South Africa in 1905 and in five years, 500 churches were planted. It is the biggest denomination in South Africa today and sadly some of it has gone into terrible heresy because unfortunately John G Lake didn't build a proper biblical wineskin and that is the sad legacy of the power without a proper wineskin. But in terms of the power - phenomenal power! Signs and wonders and miracles! When he got back to America they hooked him upto machinery and put all kinds of gadgets on him and saw electrical powers on him. He said; "Gentlemen the same power that raised Jesus from the dead is quickening my mortal body with life!".

One day he laid hands on someone who had a massive festering sore and they had to scrape the maggots of it. So he came in and laid hands on that person in one of their healing schools and he prayed these kinds of prayers; "You foul devil of infirmity - I curse you by the authority of heaven - let the lightning flashes of heaven break through and manifest the power of healing in this body!".

The person went off and two days later they got a telegram back from this person from another city. The open wound was completely healed miraculously! But there is a clear imprint burn-mark about 1mm deep and the full imprint of that hand over where that open wound was!

We don't understand! That was someone who knew how to impart something! That may not be what God wants as the norm but we have to raise the level of the miraculous impartation with the laying on of hands. I know that if I can get people to lower their resistance to the anointing and get it right down low then I know that; "Such as I have - I can give". I know that! The great One lives inside of us and in the Kingdom of heaven;

Wealth is not measured so much by what you have but how much you give away.

So in a sense I believe that when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, we ALL have the Spirit without measure! But that doesn't measure our wealth. What measures our wealth is how much we can give away. I love what Peter says; "Such as we HAVE - we GIVE to you". So if we can help lower people's resistance then when we help lay our hands on them - there comes an impartation that is so powerful it can heal any disease. What about unforgiveness and bitterness in their lives? I think we have gone too hard on that and said "People with unforgivness can't get healed". I know of people that got miraclously healed and they still were bitter! It is like God healed them and delivered them of their sins. Some need to confess their sins of bitterness but there is no formula or checklist! "Any unforgivenss or any bitterness in your life?". Then you don't get healed!

The 1st thing I am going for is to lower their resistance on their faith fuse. Because when the power of God comes into people, He can heal them of bitterness as much as He can drive cancer out their body! Some people don't have the power to get free from their bitterness! But when the power of God comes on them it destroys that root of bitterness that is defiling them and heals their body. I know sometimes that bitterness can block the power of God sometimes and be a resistance but I am not wanting to make a type category here. If we can lower their resistance and lay hands on them then great healings can take place.

I learnt this at what we called in Durban a, "New Africa Celebration". We did a protest against apartheid, sang songs about a new South Africa but we also wanted to see a demonstration of God's power. So I preached a message in this big hall with a whole load of unsaved people there and I preached on God's will to heal and God's desire to heal and called people forward. There was such a corporate anointing that I literally ran down this row just slapping people on the head! About 98% of people got flung back like a baseball bat had hit them on the head and it knocked them and the catchers over! I didn't ask them what their sickness was because you see - I don't have faith to open blind eyes or deaf ears or miracles of healing cripples. I HAVE faith to GIVE the power of God! And it makes it so much simpler! That took 30 seconds to run down this row and then an elder came to me with a woman screaming "I can see! I can see" and a totally blind eye had been opened! How long have you been blind? She said "I was born blind in that eye". I said "I am so glad that you didn't tell me that before I prayed for you".

What I am saying is that I had faith to IMPART the power and she had faith to RECEIVE it. The power of God is like a heat seeking missile and it went and did the job.

Another guy came up and said "I can hear! I can hear!". How long have you been deaf? "I was born without an ear drum!". I am so thankful I didn't know that either! Because if I had known about this ear or eye then I would have gone back to my secular university days and literally tried to work out how God was going to put an ear drum in there and how that would happen.

But I developed my faith in "Such as I have" and I laid my hands upon people and I expect power to go into them! And I had prepared them to receive power.

I have found in the last 20 years that if we don't prepare people with faith to receive then we get about 5-10% healed but if we teach the Word of God clearly then they can be raised up to about 80% and higher. Let me give you several things here and then we can close. Here is some of the things that happen when we lay hands on people and we need to raise expectations. I have watched in services and no one is prepared to EXPECT something to happen when hands are laid on. So you see begging and pleading but I don't see Jesus ever (and I could be wrong) begging the Father to heal people or even asking the Father to heal people. What I do see is Him commanding sickness to go and demons of infirmity to go and healing to come. He just commands it! When I see hands laid on and there is begging and pleading I just don't think it looks like the New Testament! Jesus said to His disicples; "Go to a village and tell them that the Kingdom of heaven is touchable and it is reachable and it is at hand and you can change the way you think - then lay hands on the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and cast out demons". THAT simple! He is training them to prepare people to receive.

I think once we raise this doctrine of the laying on of hands we are going to see manifestations of God! Now I think laying on of hands is one of the lowest levels of the impartation of the supernatural. But I think if we don't get the lowest foundational Hebrews 6 doctrine right then we can't go on to the greater manifestations. We look at Peter laying hands on the cripple at the Gate Beautiful and him walking to 2 chapters later and his shadows heal the sick. I have watched when we have laid hands on a few in a meeting and suddenly the glory of God covers a whole meeting and suddenly you go into a higher level and people are getting healed in their chairs and we can go onto spitting on people's eyes! Waving clothes around! We can just speak and heal them with our words wrapped in the anointing and people get healed 200 meters back in the hall. But if we don't get the laying on of hands then we are not going to get very far.

The more we lay hands on people to impart the power of God the more we will see the corporate manifestation getting stronger.

Kathryn Kuhlman would go and stay in a hotel prior to a meeting and the people on the floor above and below her would get healed spontaneously even though they didn't know that she was in the hotel! I know of one very well documented case of her speaking at a Full Gospel Businessmen's meeting in a great forum and at the end the anointing was so strong on her and they took her out through the kitchen area so she wouldn't have to work her way out through the crowds and so as they escorted her through the kitchen area and these chefs and unsaved people in the kitchen area were falling under the power! Unsaved people just falling under the power! I think we have got to grow in the laying on of hands and then we can grow to higher levels of the greater manifestations.

Nine or ten things that happen with the laying on of hands:

1. There is an impartation of Supernatural Life.

We become supercharged with the life and vitality of almighty God. For some people it is like the divine defibrillators at work bringing them back to life! That is a heartbeat! Why can't we use a 10v battery? No some people need 10 000 volts to bring a revival into another level of the glory of God!

2. There is an impartation of a gift that makes us strong (Romans 11).

3. Vision can come.

There are five levels of vision and the highest is open vision in front of your very eyes and you can see things happening! I have had a few of those and mostly to do with my children. They used to get so angry! Both my sons got saved properly in their late teens! They were upto all kinds of nonsense although they are all serving God now. My son is a leader with us in Hong Kong and my daughter is a worship leader and my oldest son is serving God in Australia. They would try and get upto all kinds of naughty things. I would be at home worshipping and I would see a vision of my son Ryan and he is meant to be at school. And I would see him standing under a post smoking a cigaratte. So I would come home and Ryan would be there and I would say; "Ryan where were you this morning?" and he said; "Oh Dad I was at school". "No you weren't - you were standing up that post with a cigarette!". He said; "That's not fair - why does God tell on us! Why can't we get away with it!?". I said "Because He loves you and so do I!".

When you lay hands on some people they have instant vision. Revelations of God's plans and purposes for your life! An inward quiet impression is just as powerful as an open vision. Some of the most dramatic breakthroughs I have had, have not been with open vision but with quiet vision! Vision comes through the laying on of hands! People get caught up into the heavenly realm. I don't understand that - that has never happened to me but I have laid hands on people and mainly teenagers have seen the throne room! This is an amazing thing that ten to fifteen years later their lives are still changed. They saw something! I loved what Dave Holden said yesterday - don't try to catch the youth up with a whole load of entertainment to get them related to the church! They are so ready for the supernatural, the young people! When I first went to Australia, all the young people sat at the back cutting up the benches and talking to the girls. These were the youth! Within several months of releasing the power of God they were all near the front and all on the front rows turned unto God. They got under the defibrillator and said "God is real".

Trances are not just New Age - trances are also biblical. The devil is not a creator but a counterfeiter. We have so overreacted to the counterfeit that we withdraw from the genuine. I think it is Acts chapter 10 verse 10 and Peter fell into a trance! He saw things and it opened up the gospel in a wonderful way into Cornelius's home. How many of you have heard of Maria Woodworth-Etter? Amazing ministry. She was standing preaching in the United States and made a point and fell into a trance and was like that for 3 days. It was like her bodily functions were suspended. She stepped over into the realm of the glory. For 3 days! And after that she carried on with the end of her sentance and wondered why the crowd had grown! They reckoned that tens of thousands had come in those 3 days to come and see this lady frozen - a sign and a wonder and they felt the Presence of God was so sacred that they fell to their knees and repented and they reckoned that for a 100 mile radius the glory of God radiated around that whole region.

Many religious traditions would say; "That's demonic". We are so quick to label everything as demonic. It is easy to pick up when it is demonic! When it is demonic it draws attention to the fact that it is the flesh, it is irritating. When it is the glory of God it edifies you and makes you wonder. When God comes in signs and wonders - it is a wonder! What is the point? People realise God is real and it is sacred!

4. Healing both physical and emotions.

5. Darkness is removed.

Demonic presence is driven out and great peace and clarity comes. Because there were extremes in the deliverance ministry many years ago we kind of backed off casting out demons. I don't believe that any individual has a deliverance ministry. I would never categorise myself as that - I believe that ALL believers are to cast out demons. Soon as you classify yourself as having a deliverance ministry the devil says "Great I will send thousands of demonised people that don't want to be delivered to your house and destroy you and burn you out!". Your identity is not in casting demons out but in God's grace. We just cast demons out as a normal way of life! It is just the Kingdom of heaven breaking in!

6. Visitations of Jesus - intimacy, closeness with Jesus.

He becomes so real and His love becomes so real and it carries over into daily living. Many people live for the rest of their life carried by the wonder of that encounter of how real Jesus was.

7. Callings and Commissionings.

God first calls you and then He prepares you over days and weeks and months or even years and then He suddenly commissions you and activates the calling and from that moment we walk in the authority and anointing of that calling through the laying on of hands.

I don't believe someone can actually function properly as an elder unless apostles lay hands upon them - there is a missing ingredient.

8. Conferring Blessings.

"The rod of instruction drives out foolishness from the child". We never want to smack our children with our hands. I know that is a bit controversial issue today biut it says spare the rod and spoil the child. So we would never use our hands to smack our children but a rod.

Hands are not to punish - hands are to bless with. Hands are for conferring blessing, success, favour, promotion, prosperity and peace - all transferred by the laying on of hands.

9. Ordaining Leaders.

10. You bring relief and an impartation of rest.

It brings a relief from striving that can build up internally over days and even years. Often this pressure does not come out until the anointing accesses those areas like a safety valve being opened.

11. The Personality of the Holy Spirit rubs off on you.

(Galatians 5:22).

The laying on of hands is not an immunisation. It doesn't guarantee you against challenges. But it sure is a powerful doctrine of the Bible that God wants to elevate to a whole new level of faith.

Becoming a Lightning Conductor - Part 5

2009-03-23T09:00:00.000Z

This was Rob's sermon launching the "Glory and Grace Conference" in Hong Kong! It was preached on Sunday 15th March 2009.

"Operating in Greater Faith"

I am speaking on "Operating in Greater Faith" or "Dealing with our Unbelief". It is not a subject I particularly like talking about and the reason is that I don't know much about it. Kathryn Kuhlman - one of the greatest ministries of the last century in signs, wonders and miracles - in some ways mentored me through video. She after all her signs and wonders said; "I don't know how to explain what faith is". Today we have got people who are such experts in what faith is. I know we have got Hebrews 11:1 and what it says; "The substance of things hoped for". That is the definition and doctrine of faith but I am more interested in the spirit of faith. The doctrine of faith analyses and is academic but genuine faith acts supernaturally. Genuine faith does miracles! Genuine faith administrates the finished work of the Cross in triumphant application to the world around us. Academic faith or those that can define faith and think they understand faith go to the prisoners and embroider the prison cells with lovely flowers and pictures of what faith is.

But when they are finished, the prisoners are still inside with a little bit more of a colourful cell. The world doesn't need more people with academic, cerebral information about faith. They need people that have real faith that gets real results and really does open people with blind eyes! That is normal Christian life! We are in awe of that because we have lived in the subnormal for so long and have been in the abnormal for centuries - so when the normal arrives we put that person up on a pedestal and say; "Wow that person has got special gifts!". No - they just found out how to move from academic definitions of faith from Sunday morning meetings to something of another realm which is the inheritance of every believer.

The other reason why I don't like talking about faith is that when you talk about faith the anointing doesn't come. Because the anointing comes to honour Jesus and manifest the glory of Who Jesus is. Our message is Christ and not faith! Hebrews 12 from verse 2 says; "Looking unto Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith". So I have to look at Jesus! It is the revelation of Jesus and seeing Him by revelation that releases faith! That His whole joy was to go through the Cross to hold back the 72, 000 angels that could have nuked Jerusalem and neutralised and obliterated all of His enemies - but He called all of those 12 legions to keep back and He said "No I must go through the Cross because then on the other side I can realise the joyful assembly of angels over Zion - the people of God to come and help them inherit everything I am going to die for them". I hold angels back and justify them and take the law off them and cancel condemnation at the Cross and make them righteous as a gift and set them free and forgive all their sins - as I look to Jesus and see all that He was willing to do for me at the Cross and as I understand that - faith begins to rise up in my heart! I am really talking about Jesus today and what He has done for us - that releases faith for the miraculous!

Apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers have no more advantage in the miraculous than the royal priests of God. They only have gifts to equip others to come to the full stature of the measure of fullness of the body of Christ. When the entire body of Christ is equipped with the fullness of God then you don't need apostles and prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers anymore! And I believe for a season on the earth those apostles, prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers will go right to the background and will not be needed anymore because the church will be at the full measure of the stature of Christ and will all be doing the works Jesus did and greater works!

He didn't give the mantle that Elijah gave to Elisha - those were measurable mantles. Elijah's mantle if it can be double meant it was a measurable mantle that Elisha got. When Christ ascended - He gave the measure of all the fullness of who He is! These are not the days of Elijah! These are the days of Jesus! These are the days of the mighty Holy Spirit without measure! The world has never seen the church that is moving in a measure of all the fullness of God.

That is the role of apostles and prophets. Their role is not to teach pattern and wineskin and technique - it is simply to say that the power of the New Covenant will not fit under the wineskin of the Old Covenant - that wineskin is finished! Gone! They are not here to raise up powerless structures of programme and pattern! They are here to authenticate the actual gospel of grace, the kingdom of heaven being given to the church - to administrate what's in heaven being given into the earth!

The credentials of apostles are signs, wonders and miracles! I cannot read a book if a man cannot produce signs, wonders and miracles! I don't care how good his theology is! Something is wrong if he cannot produce signs, wonders and miracles! There is heresy if there isn't miracles in the author! I don't mean every few years - I mean on a regular basis!

It is time for people in the church to go to someone who has got something more than you! I am constantly open to people who are further down the road than me. I don't care what colour they are, where they are, I don't care if their doctrine is weird in some areas - if they have got more than me then I am going to drink at that fountain! We have GOT to get more anointing and more revelation and we have GOT to know how to do these things in our day!

The noble Bereans received the word with joy and THEN went and searched the Scriptures. This is not the time to be analytical. If you do that - I will pick up as a prophet what you are doing. I will and then I will preach for 2 hours! I can pick up! "Knowing their thoughts - He said!". I can know what people are thinking and so I can go and explain that Scripture. They are so analytical and afraid of being deceived! If you are afraid of being deceived then you are already a deceived person because you are not moving in faith but in fear! "I am afraid of being deceived!". What you fear has already come on you! People of faith are not afraid of being deceived because they have the Holy Spirit on the inside of them Who is the Spirit of Truth and the Word of God! The most dangerous place to live is the conservative safe place! That is dangerous! The most safe place is the radical, get out of the boat and walk on water, sink, get back! If the whole bunch of those 12 had come with Peter - those 11 played it safe! All the church thinks about is the guy who sank! I don't! I think about the guy who walked for a while! I spit on the ones who stayed in the boat! That is the majority of the church world today!

You took so long to get to that place because the Nazareth syndrome where Jesus could there do no mighty works is in almost EVERY Sunday morning service! Bill Johnson's church said they were so happy when they got to the Nazareth syndrome because at last Jesus could do a few healings in their midst! Before that there were none! They got so happy with a few minor healings but no mighty works! Jesus could do no mighty works in His home church and He marvelled at their unbelief! Don't play nice games! Faith is not a game - it either works or it doesn't work! We have got to find out how it works! We are not seeing all over the world every church having mighty works! Only a few sick folk are healed!

Jesus is handcuffed and strapped by the corporate shroud of unbelief and the church does not believe it is in unbelief - it has theologised and legitimised the Nazareth syndrome as something quite acceptable! This is not about a spiritual revival but a theological reformation! This is about changing the way people think and this is about a full recovery of the message of the New Covenant and a removal of the law!

Paul says God can't do mighty works and move among you by His Spirit while you think about observing the Law! In verse 12 of Galatians 3 he says the law is not based on faith!

Every time there is Law preached, the people are locked up in unbelief! Law kills faith and condemns, law is a ministry of death, makes people unhappy! Law makes people sin-concious, self-concious and not Christ-concious! Law kills faith! You can fast as much as you want and have the church go on a 40 day fast everyone and nothing will change until there is a theological reformation in the way people think!

Until then you can go into one of those churches on a Sunday morning and you can have fasted for 40 days and you can try as hard as you want but you are not better than Jesus! If He could not get mighty works happening in the Nazareth syndrome then you won't either. I don't care who you think told you can, if Jesus couldn't then you can't! Wherever He went with open heaven - there were "all" healed! They didn't all have "great" faith! All they had to have was a "little" faith! There were many with unforgiveness and bitterness and open sin in their lives but all were healed! Sin in your life and bitterness will never ever stop the power of God! Last year we had a woman come out of a wheelchair and she was totally crippled - the doctors said it was chronic, last-stages and she would die! She got out and ran around! Then she told me she came full of bitterness and only repented after the miracle! You can be full of bitterness, full of sin and with a little bit of sin - you will be healed!

What is stopping 99.9% of the church seeing the greater works? I will tell you right now! It is self-righteousness! It is the law! It is sin conciousness! "Oh it is my failures this week - I am not worthy!". It is so deeply established in the church that it is a shock once your eyes are opened! Then when your eyes are opened then everyone will say; "Oh he is critical - he is so on this! That's all his message is!". Hey - if you find the secret to seeing the greater works happen on every Sunday morning in every church in every nation and in every part of the planet then you will go crazy like I am!

You say "Well I'm not crazy - that's not my temperament!. I just don't respond like that! It's just the way you are Rob!". I will take you down to the car park, open my car door and slam the door on your fingers and you will REACT hysterically! Maybe even words will come out that you didn't plan on saying! The response is determined by the degree of the stimuli! People aren't excited because they have had no degree of stimuli of revelation of what is available for the church! The law makes you dull of hearing and self-concious! When we came to Hong Kong God said; "You preach in a way that you don't live to see buildings full of people but preach in a way to fill people with My Presence. If you preach in a way to fill buildings with people then a political, religious spirit will come on you and you will be a Sunday host that tolerates unbelief and insanity". Some pastors live to keep everyone happy and everyone coming back!

What is the use of having everyone come back if the Holy Spirit doesn't come back?! What's the use of having no signs and wonders and miracles and open heaven? Ten thousand in the meeting but no God?! I would rather go and surf in Australia and dodge sharks for the rest of my life!

Did I say turn to Mark 9? Faith brings the invisible into the visible. Faith is standing in a natural world and connecting with a supernatural invisible world. Faith is the evidence of things not seen, the proof of unseen things! If you have got faith in your spirit then it is the proof of some unseen realities. Faith recognises that Jesus is the only Mediator between the earthly realm and the heavenly realm and that the Name of Jesus is the power of attorney given to family members which authorises us to activate heaven's treasures in the earth! Faith is recognising the the glory Presence is tangible and creative Presence and is a substance that transfers the invisible world and makes it visible in front of skeptics and unbelievers - they suddenly see the invisible world manifest! God first created the invisible world! God did not create the cosmos first! The invisible world came first and then the visible world! And we with faith are called to manifest the invisible world into the visible world.

Now for God to deal with unbelief that means three things. I am asking God in my life and have been for three weeks. The Bible says faith is more precious than gold. We are in a world preoccupied with money but faith is more precious than gold! You can get gold if you need it if you have faith! It is not hope! Hope has no substance - it is just wishful thinking. With faith you have substance of those things you are hoping for and you know how to pull them into this world so they become visible in front of people's eyes.

But now I am in Hong Kong - everything I want to do is walk together with the congregation and I am not running ahead. I am walking with you! Everyone is coming together with greater faith because noone is going to stick out, no one is going to be up on a pedestal and every believer is going to do the works Jesus did and greater works because we can learn the secrets of the Kingdom! They have been revealed!

In "Glory and Grace" many secrets will be revealed! Fini and Isi, Joshua and Janet Mills and Glenda and myself - but at the end of the day it will be the Holy Spirit! Things God has been saying to me this week - I have been saying "God how do I deliver this stuff?! It is just awesome!".

God wants to do three things.

1. Take every trace of unbelief out of our hearts.

There is no condemnation in this but Hebrews chapter 4 says a "sinful heart of unbelief". So unbelief is really the only sin of the New Covenant. Unbelief is the only sin the Holy Spirit will convict the world of. John 16:9; "Convict the world of sin because they DO NOT BELIEVE on Me". They do not believe on grace!

People believe in the law! The majority of people on our planet believe the law! They believe do good, get good, do bad, get bad!

The Levitical priesthood - you do good and you get good. But you do bad and you get bad! You get cursed! The Melchizadek/Christ priesthood - God did good for you in Christ and now you are redeemed from the curse and blessings are all your inheritance all the time! No bad coming! All good all the time! Blessing all the time! The Holy Spirit will convict of unbelief in grace. He will empower people to believe in the grace of God!

We must get rid of all traces, ideas, elements of unbelief and deal with it as sin! A critical attitude to the goodness of God! Unbelief is resistance to God's goodness! Unbelief is self-righteousness, unbelief is self-promotion, unbelief is saying "I am greater than the blood of Jesus! My sins are more powerful than the blood! What I did wrong is more powerful than what Jesus did at the Cross! I am more powerful than last Adam! First Adam was more powerful than last Adam!". That is unbelief in Jesus!

We have to get rid of that! We have to see that being cynical and critical and skeptical is a pollution, a demonic poison and it is SINFUL! You have to learn and be trained in unbelief by evil forces, by demonic powers! The Holy Spirit will convince you that unbelief is wrong.

2. You need to have your thinking totally renewed!

You don't entertain ANY thoughts contrary to the New Testament! You don't entertain law or sin conciousness but you have the conciousness of Christ! You have the mind of Christ! Every stronghold and every idea and every imagination that exalts itself above the knowledge of God's love! The true knowledge of God! That must be brought into captivity of the anointing! Every thought brought into the captivity of the anointing! One of the biggest problems with Christians is that they don't monitor their thought life. The devil is trying to get footholds and landing strips and build them on your mind. He is trying to land lies and things that are against the knowledge of the God of Abraham - the God of all goodness, the God of all redemption, the God who has forgiven all your sins! The devil got a landing strip on Eve and she began to think that God is holding out on us. He is keeping us out of something good. That tree of the knowledge of good and evil - if we can eat that we will be like God!

Lies! It took and it went from her to Adam. The truth is they were ALREADY in the image and likeness of God! They already had all things on the earth! They were like gods on the earth with dominion - subduing dominion power. They entertained lies! When you partner with lies you are partnering with demonic powers. You cannot have great faith and allow your thoughts to just settle on T.V and the economic downturn! No - you must stand firm! That is the worlds system and I am in the kingdom of God! The economic system of heaven! You can hear in many Christians conversations the fact that they have never trained or disciplined themselves to monitor their thoughts and take responsibility themselves to stop giving their minds as landing strips to demonic lies!

I think most of faith STARTS with dealing with the mind! Renew the mind and then you transform and then you are not in the pattern of this world! You don't think by the corrupt wisdom of this age. In fact the corrupt wisdom of this age - I want to tell you right now - is legalistic thinking! It is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil! It is trying to do good and avoiding evil to get more! No! You already have it all! You have been given fullness in Christ! You don't have to be religious! You deal with your thoughts! Don't allow negative thoughts! Sometimes I have to get out of bed at 03:00, go downstairs and walk up and down for an hour or two to get these thoughts off my head because I cannot allow them to just sit their percultating and get established! You need divine power to demolish strongholds, pretensions and imaginations that have taken captive of millions of Christians minds! So they sit in churches and there is an open heaven!

I can't stand it when they sit there in churches and say "We have got to get the heavens opened!". That is anti-Christ! The Cross opened the heavens! At His baptism the heavens opened! John's baptism which was a baptism of repentance for sins - the righteous, Perfect One went through a repentance baptism for sins because He is repenting on behalf of the sins of the whole world. God ripped the heavens open and the Holy Spirit came down and when Christ went to the Cross the heavens stayed open! It is anti-Christ to pray Isaiah 64:1; "Oh God open the heavens and come down!". That is anti-Christ! In John 3 and 6 God said over and over again; "I have come down - I have come down from heaven". God has come down from heaven! Then He says in John 1:50; "You will see greater things, you will see heaven opened and angels ascending and descending over the Son of Man!". The "Son of Man" includes everyone who is in Christ! Angels descending and ascending over you and your heavens are opened!

As I have travelled the world going to church after church you stand there and you know that you can't do much - even though the heavens are opened! Because if people are sitting there with closed heads and they think the heavens are closed, they are in wrong thinking. Wrong theology! Arguments! Pretensions! Lies! No the heavens are open! It is a problem with closed heads! So we need a theological reformation to open heads. Otherwise the prophet can go and fast for 40 days and come into a Sunday morning glittering with the power of God and have a few miracles that impress people and they then say; "When you have recovered come back and do that again! It was so much fun!". While the open heavens are entitling everyone to inherit open heaven atmospheres and encounters with God! "Rob - teach us faith!". I am! Deal with unbelief in the heart and see it as sinful and ungodly and partnership with the demonic. Deal with thoughts in the mind!

3. Position Yourself to be Full of Faith.

The reason why Jesus did what He did when people had even just a little faith and were full of bitterness and sin and yet He could still heal them by the multitudes - the reason why He did that was because there was no unbelief in Jesus - there was no footholds in the way He thought about His Father and His whole heart was absolutely full of faith all the time. So He would see a crowd that only had five loaves and two fish and His mind wouldn't reason any other way - His heart and everything just thought "God can do this!" and He did it! It wasn't difficult for Jesus to do miracles! Jesus just did miracles effortlessly because all three of these areas were dealt with. No unbelief in His heart, no partnership with wrong thoughts in His head with the devil and He said; "The prince of this world comes but he has no part in Me". He had no landing strips in His mind. You say; "Ah that's because He was the Son of God". The devil tried over and over again to get landing strips. Jesus had to fight the same things. "He was tempted in all ways like as we - yet without sin". All ways! Every kind of sexual sin, all kinds of unbelief, He was tempted to take premature inheritance and worship the devil to get the kingdoms of this world.

But He resisted all the demonic thoughts. Sometimes I know when a thought over my mind is a natural thought by watching T.V and that needs to be dealt with. But other times there are other thoughts that are like demonic hornets that go round your head. You must deal with those thoughts and get them off by speaking the Word of God! "I am not under this! I am not under condemnation! I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! No I will not commit that adultery!". Praise God I am not confessing for me! I have never committed adultery or come close to it but if I let those thoughts land that day then they would have driven me to rationalise stupidity. I am so grateful to God that I can say after 34 years of marriage that I have had no physical intimacy or emotional intimacy with anyone but Glenda Michelle Rufus.

Is this a difficult thing to have all these three areas? All unbelief taken out of our heart, all thoughts dealt with in our minds? A heart full of faith? No it's not a difficult thing because it is the will of God! How can it be difficult if you burn with a passion to have it?! If you want to be church-goer that hears sermonettes every week then forget it - don't even start on this journey! You are never going to make it! But if you burn with a passion to be part of the company of people that usher in the fullness of the heavens into the earth then this is easy! I tell you why it's easy - the more revelation the church is getting of the open heavens - first it takes our faith and then we reach out and get revelation and realise the heavens are open!

The more revelation of open heaven coming to the church, the more open heaven experiences we are having!

Last Thursday night was probably one of the most open heaven encounters that many of us in this church have had. 50 of us packed into our lounge on the steps! I don't know if it was because there was not enough oxygen in the room but awesome things began to happen! I can tell you with integrity that for about 5-10 minutes I felt the very air moving, the molecules in the air vibrating and moving in that room! Now I know if that vibration had gone up just one increment higher then the very building would have begun to shake like in the book of Acts. We were one degree from that! There are different frequencies and degrees in the Spirit of vibration and different degrees of angelic presence, different degrees of the glory! At certain degrees you can only get certain results. Next degree more results and next degree people overweight can just lose weight!

God can deliver people from the Amalakies and the Hittites and deliver us from the cellulites! He can do it!

All over the world it is beginning to happen. People are standing there having to hold up their trousers because they lost 20 pounds just like that! I know the cynics say; "Oh wait till I see it!". Well you probably never will. I say everyone is innocent until prove guilty! Any report I hear - I believe that! I believe it! I am positioning my thinking! I will get to honesty in a moment! It is taking a people that have lived in such shallow levels and taking them to other levels and as soon as we go beyond what we are used to, then people get nervous. Something weird could happen! It is weird to stay in the shallows! Something weird is going on in the church! They are not doing the works Jesus did and greater works! They are not moving in miracles! I don't want to be a Christian! I have given up being a Christian! The word "Christian" is only mentioned twice in the New Testament but the word "son" is mentioned dozens and dozens of times! I want to walk as a son! Romans 8 doesn't say that the world is waiting for the manifestation of Christians! It says they are waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God to be revealed!

Creation is groaning and waiting for sons!

Christians go to Sunday morning church and they are so cute and so polite and so nice! They can't cast devils out though and they don't know what is going on and they don't know the realms of the heavens. Jesus did what He did at the Cross with all the cosmic consequences to sum up history through Himself and the vast majority of Christians haven't got a clue what their inheritance is! That is WEIRD! That is abnormal!

That is disgusting and God is going to raise the prophets up again who were put down by a pastor/teacher religious culture that took over the denominations of the earth.

Did you get Mark 9? When I leave here I have got to deal with my thoughts because the devil says that was a bit rough and you sounded critical and then the Holy Spirit comes and says "No it wasn't! You didn't go far enough!". Then I feel peace come over me! So this is what many of us don't understand - faith and unbelief can exist in your heart at the SAME time. That confuses people! They say "I've got faith" and they have! But they also have got unbelief. When I think often people have got 10% faith and it is real faith but 90% unbelief or 20% faith but what you don't hear is the 80% unbelief. So much of the church teaches them to be ashamed of their unbelief and pretend that they don't have any unbelief. So they just say the faith they have got and when they say it they are telling you the truth! But very seldom will you hear them admit; "But I think I have got about 80% of unbelief". If they could admit the 80% of unbelief then we can make a connection and get this miracle happening! But God is a God of truth and He can only anoint authenticity.

I am not exaggerating - I have documented cases of this with cancer that had progressed so far that doctors had given up. I wish I could say thousands but I can tell you dozens with medically verified facts! They said there was no hope! There was no medication going on - the family members had called us in because they were dying and nothing had worked! I say thank God for doctors because they are saving millions of people's lives. The church should be praising God for doctors! But we have gone in and healing! Miracles! No cancer! Disappeared! I have also had the terrible experience of people calling you into someones home and you don't know them. They are in the last stages of the disease and you want to pray for them because your heart is; "I know it's God's will for these people to be healed!". So you go in and you say; "How are you?". I want to locate where their faith is. And you hear this; "We have got all the faith in the world!". And I just want to cry and say; "Can I be honest? If you had all the faith in the world then you would be healed already. Let's not play games. Real faith attracts real power that has the ability to heal ANY disease!".

No they have a little bit of faith but 80-90% unbelief. If they were honest they would say; "I lie awake at night thinking I am going to die - I know this won't work". That is their unbelief and if they could just tell me that then I can say; "Right now we can work with something! Now we can deal with that unbelief and work with this integrity!". The church has got to help people and stop this teaching that makes denying and surpressing unbelief = faith. That is NOT faith! That is deception! If people had all the faith in the world then we would be hearing miracle reports in every local church every Sunday morning!

Never put people under pressure to pretend they have got all the faith in the world. Every time I have done that I have regretted it. Locate where their faith is at - locate how much faith and unbelief they have got and then help them to deal with that unbelief!

Mark 9:14 through to verse 32; "as soon as they saw Jesus they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet Him". That gives me goosebumps! When the revelation of the true Christ is revealed in Hong Kong then seven million people will be filled with wonder and will run to meet Him because He is in the house of God amongst a miraculous people who are moving in supernatural signs and wonders.

(v16); "I asked Your disciples to cast out the demon but they could not". Amazing - today we would have said that proves it was not the will of God. They prayed and it didn't work so it can't be God's will. Keep your suffering for the glory of God! Jesus' response; "Oh unbelieving generation ... bring the boy to Me ... if you can? Everything is possible for him who believes! ... I do believe - help me overcome my unbelief". THERE is humility friends! Faith and unbelief at the same time asking the Lord to help him overcome the unbelief.

(v25); "I command you - come out of him and never enter him again ... the spirit shrieked, convulsed violently and came out". I have seen that happen lots of times!

"He replied this kind come out only by prayer". Now some translations say; "only by prayer and fasting". I don't particularly like the NIV. I just use it because a lot of people use it. But I am glad in this case that the NIV didn't say "fasting". "This kind can only come out by prayer". Is there a kind of demon that won't come out unless you go and pray and fast? People have this idea in the church world that demons can possess people so easily. They can get into you so easily and are so hard to cast out. They get in and you yawn and they are in! Then you must go and fast for weeks to get them out! But you burp and they are in! But I want to tell you that it is so difficult for a demon to get hold or possess an unsaved person never mind someone who is in Christ. It is so hard! They are trying to tell people; "We can get into you easily". If they could then as soon as fell asleep they would be in! But we have this theology that they come in easy but are so hard to get out. They don't get into you easily at all. You have to be traumatised and traumatised.

I don't believe that Jesus said "this kind" meant a kind of demon but a kind of unbelief because if He meant a demon then anytime you struggled to cast a demon out they could say; "Ah it's because you haven't fasted enough".

People say; "Ah I am overweight because I have got a fat demon!". How many of you know that Christians blame demons for everything? Demons are sulking because they are getting blamed for things they never, ever did! Many demons need deliverance and inner healing. You want to say to some Christians; "Come out of this demon!". For those people who say they are overweight because of a fat demon - you can say; "Well THIS kind DO come out by prayer and fasting!".

It is not demons that come out by prayer and fasting but unbelief. "This type". Andrew Wommack talks about three kinds of unbelief that I want to tell you about quickly and then we can close in the next 2 hours. Three types. I listened to that teaching and thought "Wow that is pretty good!". I disagreed with the last point slightly but before we get there let me tell you in advance that I really honour Andrew. He is the only one that I have ever heard recently teaching that the Holy Spirit only convicts us of unbelief and of righteousness He convicts us is the righteousness in Jesus Christ. He has gone to the Father and judgement is about the devil being condemned and disarmed at the Cross! So I disagree with him on his last point but everything else is wonderful.

1. One type of unbelief is a type that people in the church have simply because they have not heard the will of God.

They haven't been taught the covenant of grace. They haven't understood that it's God's will to heal everyone. They have been told that it's not God's will to heal everyone. I want you to go to Matthew 8 and I know this is obvious but I have found out that you can't take everything for granted. Local Chinese people have come to this church when we have been about to have water baptism and have said; "But those pepople only got saved a few weeks ago! How can they be water baptised?". And I don't know what they are talking about! Then I say "Explain"and they say that the church they go to, doesn't allow you to be baptised for six months up to a year - maybe even two after you are saved because you are in classes and on probation to see if you are good enough! So before I realise what I am saying, I say; "That is demonc teaching - the doctrine of demons because you open the Bible up to 2 or 3 passages and you see that as people got saved they were immediately taken to the waters of baptism on the SAME day!".

So I said; "You know what they are doing? They are controlling you with witchcraft and that is demonic!". See we take these things so innocently and think it isn't so serious. We don't know the ramifications of messing with people's heads about trying to earn or deserve something that is a sign of grace. Then they try and make you earn grace! The sooner the better! If possible on the same day! Close the Red Sea and Egypt behind you! 1st Peter he says baptism is a sign to angels of grace! So I take nothing for granted anymore - there is so much wrong teaching which is why people struggle to have faith. Go to Matthew chapter 8. I know we are going to have lots more crazy people in the earth and they are going to be criticised as being critical and they better not be critical! I think when people come and get to know me personally and spend time with me in my home - they can see me weep, they can see the tenderness in my heart, they know that I love!

That's why I am like this! Because I HATE what religion is doing to people! I love people! Jesus stood up in Matthew 23 and said; "You scribes and you Pharisees - you kill the prophets! You stinking whitewashed walls! The blood of the martyrs will be upon you before this generation is over - you will know the vengance of God on the blood of the martyrs!".

THIS generation He said! In Revelation 5 it says that the martyrs were underneath the altar crying out for deliverance. And they got it when He died on the Cross! When He said; "It is finished - the graves errupted and the martyrs walked around Jerusalem!". He said; "They are the martyrs that you killed because of the Word of God which they preached. You religious leaders - you killed them because they stood on the Word. You are guilty of all of their blood!". Look at Matthew 8:14; "When Jesus came into Peter's house He saw Peter's mother-in-law". So Peter did have a wife. "Lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her". That quick.

"He healed ALL the sick". Scripture must interpret Scripture and the Scripture is going to tell us why He heals all and why it is ALWAYS His will to heal ALL. "This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah, He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases". That is Isaiah 53. Now Isaiah 53 is the place where He took our sin away and the punishment for our peace was upon Him. So Isaiah 53 speaks about all our diseases, sickness, pain being taken away at the Cross where Christ was MADE sickness for us at the same place that He was made our sin. Yet today in the church if you ask someone - if someone comes to Jesus and says; "Lord forgive my sins" would He say; "No it is not My will to forgive your sins?". No! Of course He wants to forgive your sins! Yet the majority of the Church is not convinced that He wants to heal ALL our diseases.

He has already healed all our diseases at the same place He was made sin and forgave us all our sins! Psalm 103; "who forgives all our iniquities and heals ALL your diseases!". He says to the man who was lame and the Pharisees judging Him; "What is easier to say your sins are forgiven you or take up your bed and walk?". Both happen at the Cross and He was speaking about it before it happened at the Cross! So for people to question God's will for healing they should then question God's will to forgive! Because at the same time sin and disease were both dealt with by Jesus at the Cross! It is God's will to save every person on this planet! But everyone doesn't believe! It is God's will to heal ALL that are sick.

There is faith in saying God is able but EVERYONE knows that God is able!

This is the New Covenant! Jesus died to ratify your rights as inheritors and joint equal heirs with God and then He rose from the dead as our heavenly lawyer to make sure it is prosecuted by the power of the Spirit! It is the will of God to heal everyone! But everyone doesn't get healed - because of the Nazareth syndrome. Jesus said "I have come down from heaven to do My Father's will". In Nazareth the will of God - Perfect Theology - couldn't get everyone healed! Why? Because of their unbelief.

2. The second type of unbelief is because of deliberately WRONG teaching.

The teaching that the power of God has passed away and the days of miracles are over. God is not moving the way He did in the past. That unbelief is harder to deal with than the first type. Now they have been established in religious doctrines of demons. What is the answer to that unbelief? Just more teaching! Teach and teach and teach! A clarity of the Word of God! Show them that the power of God hasn't passed away from the Word of God! Go to all the difficult Scriptures that they use to support their arguments. Go and answer them all in their contexts. It is very clear - those people need quite a bit longer to get free from their type of unbelief.

3. The third type of unbelief is with the disciples when they couldn't cast this devil out.

How many of you know that they didn't have a problem with the first two types of unbelief? They knew the will of God was to cast out demons! They knew the power of God hadn't passed away because they had seen Jesus do it over and over again and He had empowered them in Luke chapter 10 and Luke chapter 9 to cast out devils and heal the sick and came back to Him rejoicing that devils were subject to Him in the Name of Jesus! So they had seen and they had cast out devils! Now they are wondering why they couldn't cast this one out. They were okay with the first two types of unbelief. Tick those off. Third type of unbelief was this type;

When they looked at the natural and saw how bad the natural was - if you are being governed by education and programming and propaganda and endless training by religion or by secular humanistic thinking and intellectualism then you are governed by your natural senses. You are governed by the limitations of your natural five senses - smell, taste, touch, feeling and seeing. So when you pray and what you see is convulsing after you have prayed and manifestations of what looks worse after you pray - if you are governed by your senses then you will be overwhelmed by a type of unbelief that will go; "Oh it is not working". So He says; "THIS type comes out by prayer". If you want to add fasting then add it - I am not adding it and I will tell you in a moment why! This type comes out by prayer!

What is prayer? Prayer is going and getting alone with God. It is saying "Today I am not going to movies, today I am switching the TV off, today I am going to be alone with an invisible God and I am going to let this invisible God speak to my spirit and I am going to hear and experience things that is not with my natural ears, eyes or intellect".

But I will hear a supernatural invisible God speak in my spirit and I am going to learn how to be governed more by my five spiritual senses than my five physical senses. So what I see contradicting in the natural will be overwhelmed and surpassed and superimposed by a higher level of sons and daughters of God (not Christians) that know the invisible and know the supernatural and when you hear a living voice with inner ears and not these natural ears then you can do something! If you need to fast to help you then that is fine.

Never ever teach (and I will never teach this again) that fasting is the key to miracles. That is what most of the modern church has taught and it has not helped! It has caused more problems! Most of the modern men and women I know who move in miracles and signs and wonders hardly ever fast. I know how whole congregations that have just about killed themselves fasting and don't have miracles today! Jesus did fast for 40 days but that was for us - He was going in to deal with the devil as last Adam and He won! He won a battle for us! Jesus did things for us so we don't have to! We walk in the inheritance of His victories!

In Luke chapter 5 the Pharisees come to Jesus and say "Why don't YOUR disciples fast? John the Baptists disciples fast and the Pharisees disciples fast". The context in Luke 5 was the old sinner Levi who found grace through Jesus and brought all his sinning mates and threw a party for Jesus and Jesus was eating and drinking with Levi! And the Pharisees were mad; "Eating with sinners! Why don't you fast?". Jesus said; "How can the bridegroom tell His guests to fast?! When we are enjoying the celebration of the Bridegroom! When the Bridegroom goes then they will fast!". It is so wonderful because He only went for three days! On the third day He rose to life and said; "Behold I am with you to the end of the age!".

Every day my Bridegroom kisses me and I feel His Presence! I don't need to fast! My Bridegroom is with me! Paul the apostle who was an ascension gift after the resurrection - he didn't know Jesus after the flesh only after He had gone to heaven. Paul got his commission from heaven not from man! And he never taught fasting as a means to get greater faith! NEVER! They did fast at the commissioning of Paul and Barnabus but there is no revelation of the key of fasting to get greater faith!

I have people come when they hear of miracles in my life and they come and say "How much do you fast?". The church has taught them that! Bad teaching! "Well I fast regularly! Every night I go to bed! I do not eat for about eight hours! Then in the morning I break fast!". They are looking for a formula as to how this person came out the wheelchair and what did you do? What is your formula?

NO formula! I just let the Bridegroom kiss me! I look at Him and as I look at Him faith comes because I see grace and I understand and deal with my thinking and let my heart be filled with God! I get away with Him! I have got to go somewhere quiet! Jesus went regularly to solitary places! How many Christians get alone with God to hear the invisible voice? How many of you want your faith to go up another level and unbelief to go down another level? I believe in the worship and I thank all of you who have come from overseas. Something is going to be broken open wider.

The heavens are open - but you need portals to bring that open heaven into the earth. YOU are the portals of God! Your faith is the portal of God!

On Wednesday morning while registrations are going on, people will be already getting healed. While they are trying to sign up they will already be falling under the power of God! I believe in teaching and we will teach but as the conference goes there will be such an open heaven that heaven will be teaching us by the power of the Spirit by revelation! So I want to close with this to precipate and position you - to cause your faith levels to go up and your unbelief levels to go down. "Increase our faith!". They think increased faith is quantity. But Jesus thinks of faith as quality. He said; "If you have got faith as small as a mustard seed then you can say to mulberry trees - be transplanted!". I don't think He meant literal translation - He never did it once. He never moved physical mountains so He is not setting a precident for that. He is saying that there is a certain quality of faith and for that faith - nothing is impossible! Economic downturns, financial problems, sickness, disease - there is a faith that can transplant mountains!

Mountains speak figuratively of problems. Your problems will be brought low. Your cancers will be brought low. You will transplant cancers from here to hell! Gone! So they say; "Increase our faith!". Mustard seeds - it's quality is that it is small. If Jesus was living in our technical age then He would say to us - if you have faith as small as an electric fuse then all the power from the nucleur power stations conducted through power lines can come and light up your world.

The power of an electric fuse is not it's size but it's quality. What is it's quality? It has got the quality of conduction.

There are certain metals that electricity will not pass through. Copper! They need high conduction! And low resistance. Unbelief is low resistance to grace! If you have got an electric fuse with high resistance then you can only conduct a low level of that power. The fuse will defuse if the power gets too high! Certain fuses can only handle low level heavenly power. The church has been full of unbelief because the law has been taught to the people of God so the power of God can only operate at a low level.

When the power of God is de-fused then the church re-fuses the power of God and they become con-fused.

Then the church formulates theologies to legitimise the abcence of power! The atheist resistance is so high that it says the power station doesn't exist. But the problem is not with the power station or the powerlines of God's Word but the fuse box in the church! Stop teaching the law! Stop making them think about their sins!

Jesus didn't come to make you feel bad! He came to make you feel good about what He can do for you on the Cross!

Let me put it this way - five levels of faith.

1. Unbelief = Total Resistance to the grace of God = no faith at all.

2. Lots of resistance = Temporary faith (Mark 5).

3. Medium level resistance = weak or little faith.

4. Little resistance = strong faith.

5. No resistance = great faith!

Only two people had great faith in the whole of the New Testament according to Jesus and they were Gentiles because they had never lived under the law because the law is against faith. Why is the church so weak in the world - because the majority of the church has been preached a mixture of law and grace and it is killing and making them think wrong and putting unbelief in their hearts! All three types of unbelief are operating! There is a way to go from no faith to great faith!

Imagine a local church where every member has got GREAT faith, NO resistance to all of heaven's fullness to come into the earth and saturate regions with the atmosphere and beauty of the power of anointing - hanging like a smoke over the city because the people know how to pull heaven into the earth!

That's what I pray Father - every area of unbelief to be rooted out of my heart - every area of cynicism and skepticism, and pride and conservatism. Remove it from my heart. Let my mind be like the mind of Christ. Let me not entertain thoughts of sin conciousness and condemnation but Your thoughts and Your ways. Give us understanding of Your thoughts that we may stand in that grace. Fill us with great faith! Let our resistance through unbelief and legalism come down! Help our resistance come down so that we may come into "Glory and Grace Conference" as a people operating in high levels of faith and low levels of unbelief! Let angels come into this place! We ask them before the Throne - we acknowledge Jesus before men, now cause Your angelic host to come as chariots of fire, let them help us to inherit the invisible world! Holy Spirit! Change the metal of my conductor! I want a quality faith conductor! This is the realm of glory! It is not for the conservative or faint hearted or religious! It is for sons! Those who are redeemed from the curse of law that the blessing of Abraham may come on us in fullness!

Take one anothers hands oh lightning conductors and let the fire of heaven - the divine virtue - heavenly materiality - heavenly realities that faith is the evidence of existance come into manifestation! Right here! In this place! FIRE! Right through! Fire from heaven without holding back! Don't resist! Yield! FIRE! Burn up conservatism! Burn up condemnation! Burn up debt! Release prosperity! Release the blessing You gave Abraham - give to the people of faith! The anointing is coming even more tangibly! I am just going to obey God. Down the rows let go of your hands. Keep the rows clear but keep holding each others hands. I am going to run down the rows and slap the hands. I have got faith that the power will run down the rows and it will take 2 minutes but leave everlasting results! The guys in the rows stick your hands out and don't close them otherwise I will break your arms! I am going to run down these rows and faith will take that anointing. I pray they don't get Rob Rufus's anointing but Jesus anointing and an impartation of the life and glory of heaven - the breaking of self conciousness, analytical attitudes - a ripping open! A ripping of the shrouds! Let bodies be healed now! May mortal bodies feel immortal power! FIRE!

We will not tolerate conservatism at Glory and Grace! We didn't have this conference to cater for normal Sunday morning church but to see the glory come! FIRE! They've gone through the doors! FIRE! More Lord! Pour in the heavenly wine! Let the party begin before Glory and Grace starts! The first miracle Jesus ever did was to produce 700 litres wine in one go! We declare an opening of festivities! Let Your people get drunk on the new wine! In Jesus Name! A guy fell right through the door at the back - he got thrown through the door! We have an "open door" ministry! The Lord threw him out the door! Lord we are so grateful but not satisfied! We want so much more than this! If this is all we operate in then millions in Hong Kong will go to hell! We are so tired of being brainwashed with religion as normal and what people call anointed was just to comfort Christians - a "positive experience". We declare that pathetic! We want the violence of heaven to destroy evil in the nations! Let the whirlwinds of heaven come down and break evil in Hong Kong! Break abuse! Break demonic darkness! Break that which is against kingdom of heaven! Topple evil in our city! For the sake of all the nations represented at Glory and Grace, we pray that there will be such a release of the Spirit - 10 times more power than this morning in the conference! FIRE!

The Power of the Authoratative Command for Healing - Part 2

2009-03-21T08:52:00.002Z

This amazing sermon was preached by Rob at City Church on Sunday 17th September 2006. I did Part 1 a while back and it was such profound revelation to me as to how we can much more effectively pray for the sick. The transcript of Part 1 is here.

"Open your Bibles to Ephesians chapter 3. This is our eighth teaching on the series - "God's willingness to heal". If you have missed it, it really is worth getting the series from the beginning. This is our second teaching on; "The Power of the Authoratative Command". A lot of positive feedback from people saying how much they learnt from last weeks teaching and how faith rose in their hearts.

I want to now talk about the dynamics behind the authoratative command. For those who weren't here, let me simply say this in 20 seconds. In the New Testament, in the Book of Acts and in the Gospels you see Jesus very seldom asking the Father to heal people. The same with the Book of Acts. What they did most of the time was to command healing to come and sickness to go. They commanded cripples to get up and walk. They commanded blind eyes to open, deaf ears to open and it was done by the authoratative command. We went into detail and we looked at Scripture to substantiate that.

This morning I want to talk about what is the dynamic behind that authoratative command. What can we do in our own hearts in order to nuture the outflow of the authoratative command? I learnt about the authoratative command in 1981 not in a Bible school or by reading a book or by some mentor. I learnt really by the Holy Spirit who helped me and I want to tell you this - the only way you are going to grow in effective ministry to the sick is that you have got to start! You learn on the job! The trouble with Bible schools is that they take people away from the life of the local church and then professors who have never planted local churches themselves - professors that have never prayed for the sick or raised the dead or have seen blind eyes opened or cripples walk - they teach people the academic principles and information about these things but have never done it themselves! There are professors at Harvard University who have never started a business but who teach people on how to start a business! These are just concepts! But the Hebrew model of life - the Christian model of life and the Kingdom of heaven model is about God-encounters and teaching out of experience and that is the model we need!

That is why I say don't wait to go away to Bible college and get all the Bible information dumped on you and then you come out of there puffed up with a lot of Bible knowledge but it is all academic and not experiential. I have to say which Bible college did Peter, James and John go to? They raised the dead! Where did the 12 disciples go to? They went to the college of the Holy Spirit! They learned by making mistakes!

If you learn to fail forward then you are going to grow! But if you are a person that is so perfectionist you will be frightened of making mistakes. And he that doesn't make mistakes - makes nothing!

It is impossible to learn how to do this except by making mistakes. I had to pray for a lot of blind eyes and rebuke a lot of blindness before I saw blind eyes opening. Some people will never see blind eyes opening because they never try to do it - once! You will learn while you are doing it! So in 1981 as a young man in the ministry, there was a young lady in our church called Dawn. She came to Glenda and I and said; "The doctors have just diagnosed me with breast cancer. I have got a tumour the size of a pigeons egg and they want to remove it in 3 weeks time - emergancy surgery". And she was going to lose her breast. So we said come on Sunday morning where there is a corporate anointing and we will pray for you! We were very new in this and had just started out. All our background upto then had not prepared us - the church we were a part of did not pray for the sick. They were just very conservative about it. We hadn't been mentored in this. But for 3 days I had been listening to Kenneth Hagin on faith and so I had come back armed with 3 days of experience.

I want to say to you that you may think you don't know the Bible well enough. Rob really knows it well. There is no one on the planet that knows the Bible perfectly! Bonnie is doing a theology correspondance degree at the moment and she is asking me some very testing questions! I am amazed at how much I don't know! But it doesn't intimidate me!

Because it is not how much of the Bible you know - it is how many God encounters you have had in portions of Scripture!

I know people that know the Bible from back to front but do not have a supernatural manifestation going on in their lives! The Pharisees and Sadducees knew the Bible! Jesus said "You search the Scriptures but they speak of Me! Here I am!". Knowledge of the Bible can just puff you up! Now it is important to know the Word of God. But if you just listen to the Word of God on Sunday morning, get the CDS, look at your notes during the week, turn up on Thursday nights where we don't do lectures on praying - we get God encounters where people learn how to petition, the prayer of faith, supernatural warfare - not by lecture but by Hebrew style of doing it! Doing it! I have just had a fellow elder from South Africa who planted the church with me in 1979 and he is an older man than me - he turned 70 yesterday. I gave him a call and he said "I just so wanted you to be in South Africa so I could publicly honour you for being my father and mentor in the faith". I was going; "Hold on now - I am 51 and you are 70!".

He said; "It's got nothing to do with age! Fathering in natural secular society is biological fathering. In the kingdom you can be younger and father someone and you did it because you invited me to come and do things. And I learnt more by doing things with you than by sitting in a lecture hall!". So this church is only 2 years old and we have got people who can pray now better than most Christians I have met. They have learned "doing"! That's why I get people out to pray for the sick because I want them to learn how to pray for the sick rather than spectate the guru doing it. That's why you have got churches around the world with a big man at the front or a woman who can do miracles and in the congregation you have got people who don't have a clue. That is not the Kingdom of heaven. All you have to do is be here on a Sunday morning. We teach the Word and you learn by God encounters experientially under the anointing - you grow in the understand of grace, faith, kingdom, godly government, how to run your home, management, family life in the kingdom. You are learning that week by week and over several years when you look back you will have grown in a whole lot of stuff!

Or you can go somewhere where there is no life and spend in an academic world with professors who have never "done the stuff" and come out armed with a whole lot of academic understanding and in my opinion that is the WORST thing that could have ever happened to the church that is led by people that have learned the ministry in an academic world of non-practice of the supernatural.

That is why they are academic and they have equipped millions of people to be like them - academics! Cerebral knowledge of doctrine and theology! And knowledge just puffs up.

"Rob so you are saying Bible schools are wrong?". Personally I think they are wrong! I can't see them in Scripture! Where did they learn their theology in the Book of Acts? They learnt it on the job! The apostles trained, taught and equipped! There are certain prophetic schools that are temporary where you go for a 2 or 3 month period but anything that takes you out of the life of a local church is wrong! The Bible has got nothing to teach about individual piety. Some Christians say; "I don't want to worship God in a local church - I just want to go and worship God on a mountain all by myself". They are talking about individual piety and you ask them; "Do you believe the Bible?". Well they are lying! Because the Bible says "Encourage one another!". The Bible says "Forgive one another - serve another!". How do you do that unless you are in a community of believers where you have got to work out your piety through relationships that get difficult at times. You can live in a fools paradise of how spiritual you are - you can be an expert in how to raise kids and be an expert - until you HAVE kids!

You can teach people on relationships and how to work out relational conflict from not being part of a local church until you become part of a local church and realise to your shock that other people are just as imperfect as you are. So I cannot see in the New Testament anywhere where they have Bible schools. You know what they did? They raised the dead, got cripples walking and turned the world upside down because they moved in the supernatural.

Under the Old Covenant there were prophetic schools. I would prefer to see prophets and apostles come to a local church and stay there for a few months and equip and train that local church. You take a few people out of a local church to go to a prophetic school and they come back all frustrated because everyone else hasn't caught it and they have got it! I think the New Testament does not have prophetic schools - the Old Covenant did. I am not saying people should not go to a prophetic conference for a while but I think in Hong Kong, that Hong Kong Christians are addicted to conferences and seminars. I have found that people who run after conferences and seminars and run after the latest en-vogue speaker coming to town are the most rebellious when it comes to local church and are the most independent and unhappy people often living under witchcraft because they do not have proper grace government of a local church where there are gates put in there by God.

People are not growing and advancing unless they are part of a grace government of a local church.

So Dawn came to us with a pigeon egg tumour. I had never dealt with a woman who unless God healed her could lose her breast and lose her life through cancer! So she came up on the Sunday morning and Glenda and I laid hands on her. I laid hands on her head! And we prayed "Father would You please heal Dawn in the Name of Jesus?". That week she phoned and said that the lump was still there and nothing had changed and I could hear the panic in her voice. I thought "Oh God what's happened? When you pray for the sick they are meant to be healed!". So I said "Come back next week Dawn!". Jesus prayed for someone twice! So she came back the next week and we prayed "Father heal Dawn! Heal her of this cancer! Heal her of this lump so she doesn't have to have it operated on! In Jesus Name!". The next week Dawn phones us in real panic now and says she only has a few days left and then needs surgery - her breast needs to be cut off. We are going "God what's going on!?". So I said; "Dawn please come and we will pray for you and He doesn't heal you then we will at least pray that He will guide the surgeons hands". If you are a woman and are going to lose a breast, that is big in terms of their sense of value and dignity or beauty - that is very serious psychologically. So she comes the next week and is due to have the operation in a few days.

So we lay hands on her and I am about to say; "Father please would You heal Dawn". But just before I pray I feel the Holy Spirit rise up in my spirit and He says; "Don't pray for Dawn! Command the spirit that is within that tumour and keeping that tumour alive! Command that force life to go and curse what is in that tumour and demand that the tumour shrivel up and die! Don't pray for her!". And before I knew what I was doing, I said; "I CURSE this tumour!". No asking! "I CURSE this tumour and I demand that the very life that is within this tumour that is demonic and it leave right now and I command that it vanish and disappear in Jesus Name!". That was the first time I had prayed a prayer like that! The second I prayed it - she got smacked through the air under the power of God.

So we finished the service and went home and the next Monday morning very early the phone rings. Picked it up and I answered and I couldn't make any sense because all I could hear was hysterical joy. "AGGGGHHHH!!". I thought it was Cantonese! She had her sister there and they were screaming and I thought "Oh no she is dying!". So I said; "Now Dawn calm down - what's happening?". And she said; "It's gone! It's gone! We have checked it! It's gone! It's totally disappeared!". And I am going; "It has?! It has!?". Now I am getting hysterical! So she went to the doctor and got it checked out and all surgery was not necessary and absolutely unnecessary!

Since then I have COMMANDED sickness to go and COMMANDED demons to go and seen greater increase of the miraculous!

Now when eagles make love - and have intimacy for conception they don't do it in the nest. They don't do it in the Bible school. They literally fly 5,000 feet into the air and lock their talons and then freefall towards the earth and somewhere between heaven and earth conception takes place! And in this meeting right now the Holy Spirit is calling us to lock in with Him and be raised up into the heights of revelation and we will conceive an increase of the supernatural in our lives. A greater authority to deal with the opposition and the miserable things that try to rob us of the quality of our lives and then they will help us to get people free from cancer, blindness, cripple-ness, pain in their backs!

Do you know that the word "conception" comes from the word "concept"? That the wrong concepts can cause a problem with conception! In fact you get the word "contraception" from the word "concepts". Wrong concepts can cause contraception to the conception of the miraculous. Wrong concepts about God! If you think God is just a mean angry Judge and if you think He doesn't love you or if you sin and mess up then God says; "That's it - I will use someone else". Those kinds of concepts will cause contraception to conceiving the supernatural of God in your heart!

In the Old Covenant the glory of God was hidden behind a veil and when Jesus died on the Cross, all your sins - past, present and future - were blotted out and God is not ever going to see sin in your life again! He has declared you righteous as a gift! You stand before Him with the very obedience of Jesus Christ being credited to your account as a free gift! Isn't it amazing that we got saved we understood that we couldn't deserve it or earn it and there was nothing we could do to get it. It was all grace! We received it as all grace and then from then on we tried to earn it and deserve everything else that God gives us. If you could not earn or deserve the greatest gift which is the righteousness of God then you can't earn anything else - it is ALL grace! A wrong concept of law and grace will stop conception like a spiritual contraception!

When Jesus said "It is finished!" - the veil in the Temple was split from top to bottom so that the Presence of God could come out to the people of faith! Now in the New Covenant it talks about a veil too! In 2 Corinthians 3. It speaks of a veil over the mind. What is that? It is having wrong concepts in your head about God, His Word and His grace. God has to strip the veil off our minds by enabling our minds to rid us of the conceptions or concepts that religion has brainwashed the church with for nearly 1,500 years so we can go back to where the church was in the book of Acts. Full of miracles, signs, wonders with no hierarchies, popes, archdeacons but humility and servant-hearted friends standing together and serving God.

When Jesus spat in His hand and put it onto the man's eyes and the man's eyes were opened to a new dimension of seeing - there are two places in a man's body where his DNA is most strongly represented or carried. That's in his saliva and in his sperm. There is a spiritual saliva from heaven that God wants to rub onto our eyes so that we can enter into a new dimension of seeing through concepts that have been working as contraception against us conceiving the supernatural of God! When we talk about this language; "Bridegroom" and "Bride" - please don't misunderstand that we are talking about physical sex between us and Jesus. That is not what Adam is saying or what I am saying. We are talking about the symbolism that the Scripture uses of the Bride of Christ and Jesus as the heavenly Bridegroom. Let me say this - in the book of Revelation and in chapter 17 there are two women identified in that chapter. There is what is called the harlot/whore of Babylon and the Bride of Christ. Now the harlot/whore of Babylon represents churchgoers who just want to go to church and be religious and have a gratifying religious experience but don't want conception. They don't want the responsibility of being impregnated. They are the harlot/whore - give me that good religion and positive experience! "I am not coming to church unless people make me feel good and treat me just like I want!". Indulgant gratification - that's the harlot/whore posturing and posing to be the Bride.

But the Bride of Christ - as much as the bride wants intimacy and gratification and enjoyment of her heavenly Bridegroom - she wants to conceive His DNA! She wants to conceive and reproduce His miracles! That is the difference!

You will see that difference between sheep and goats. God right now in the world - hear me now - I tell you the truth under the Spirit - God is seperating sheep nations and those that are goat nations. Goats represent those that are rebellious. He is seperating sheep Christians from goat Christians and is declaring and identifying those are goat churches and those that are sheep churches. He is taking goats out of sheep churches and sheep out of goat churches. He is bringing sheep from goat churches to sheep churches and taking goat churches out of sheep churches and relocating them to goat churches! You mark my words! There is a realignment happening in the Body of Christ worldwide.

The 11th September 2006 - last Monday - the prophetic anointing increased in the earth and prophets will speak much more confidently now. And pastor/teachers that have dominated the church in a pastor/teacher culture are going to have to move aside so the apostolic and prophetic can once again in signs and wonders - and not in academics! We have had too many apostles just teach and teach. New Testament apostles came in signs and wonders and raised the dead! No one should ever call themselves an apostle again from last Monday unless they are moving in the miraculous supernatural signs and wonders. No one who really is an apostle should even pronounce themselves as one - I know Paul says "Paul, called to be an apostle". But he said it as a calling. He didn't pronounce himself and neither did he call "that one and that one" and voted himself to announcing who is an apostle and who isn't! A lot of books that have been written on apostolic ministry by sincere people - but it may be better that they are burnt now and we just go and read the Bible and see what apostles are.

From the 11th Septemer - Monday - there is a seperation from pretenders to authenticity. Counterfeit Christians to the genuine. Contraception Christians to conceiving Christians. 11th September - I woke up on that morning which was when the Twin Towers came down five years ago and I just felt instantly inside my spirit that I knew that I knew. I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that I knew that some things are just the Kingdom on the inside of us! I believe in science but if you reduce the Kingdom down to what science alone can show in a laboratory - science is a product of the invisible realm of God. The prophets have been so complexed about their subjectivity and the teachers that have been so objective teaching line upon line principles and have been so certain - so the prophets have begun to back off! But they need to stand up! Don't tell people you are a prophet or an apostle and definately don't put it as your title! Just stand up in confidence and say; "The word of the Lord is ... He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit is saying".

The fruit is in the eating! God encounters! Real signs and wonders of fulfillment! Prophets have almost disappeared off the scene of the church for the last 10 years because of the moral collapse of some major prophets and because the church readily pushed them aside and made them have prophets conferences which a few go out from the church to get all excited about and come back to a church dominated by pastor/teachers. The pastors and teachers are important but they need to come in humility and bring teaching and revelation and teachers need to step up and start praying for the sick and stop hiding behind their theology! Paul was the greatest theologian this world has ever seen apart from Jesus! But he raised the dead and opened blind eyes and got cripples walking! You don't have to fight this or get intense about it because God is going to do it anyway! You just have to say; "Lord take the veil away from my eyes and my mind - put Your spiritual saliva on my mind - I want to have a new dimension of seeing". Prophets will say on that day a new release came!

If the Holy Spirit had not put spiritual saliva on my eyes as I stood in front of Dawn for the third time and helped me to have a new dimension of seeing - that concept in my mind that you have got to pray for the sick would have caused a contraception so that her miracle could not have been conceived and at least she would have lost a breast. At worst that cancer would have taken her life. So what I am saying is - this isn't playing church anymore! It's not about coming to church and hearing a little sermon from the guru or the vicar! It is "Lord I want the veil off my mind!".

I want you to look at Ephesians 3. I laid that as a foundation and I could almost stop where I am. (v20); "Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than we could ask or imagine according to His power that is at work". The Bible has just said that God is able to do immeasurably more than our greatest prayer meetings could ask or think or imagine according to the power that is at work within US! Not at work just within a prophet or an apostle! But is at work within US! The Church! US! The Bible is saying that this power that can do immeasurably more than we can ask is not going to work from heaven. There is a power at work within us that is going to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine!

Some of you heard me tell the story of a man who took a day off sitting by the lakeside and watching a man fish. Every time a man caught a beautiful fish and he would get it up on the bank and measure it and shake his head and throw this beautiful fish back. And he did that with every fish after measuring it with a six centimeter stick. Finally he caught an emaciated little fish and got his stick out and measured this small fish and he was so happy and put the fish in his bag and the stick in his bag and put his hat on and started to go home. The man watching couldn't take it anymore and ran up and said; "Excuse me sir - why did you throw all those beautiful fish back after measuring them with that six cm stick?". The man said; "It's very simple. At home I have only got a six cm frying pan". Because of wrong concepts Christians sit while the beauty of the New Covenant is taught and take their concepts or six cm measuring sticks and measure the promises. Measure up what they are hearing under the anointing and say; "It doesn't fit into my concept". And they don't even know they are dismissing it! "Count me out God!". Because concepts are contraceptives to the supernatural. Hong Kong is going directly to hell. There are only a few thousand born again people here. There is seven million in this city of which most worship some style of idol. It is going to hell unless the church gets free from it's six cm measuring stick and wrong concepts.

Unless Hong Kong idol worshipping people see the dead raised, the blind eyes opened, the deaf ears hear, cripples, paralysed and lame walking in the Name of Jesus they are not by the millions going to believe!

So what we are talking about is not just a nice little church morning! God has been looking for decades for a church that will believe this stuff and He will dump His glory in them! How do we break the six cm stick? Very simple - by the power of revelation! Go back to (v14). Let's find out how to break that stick! "For this reason I kneel before the Father, from His family in heaven and on earth derives it's name. I pray that out of His glorious riches, He may strengthen you with power by His Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith and I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power with all the members of all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ and to know this love that goes beyond knowledge - that you may be filled to all the measure of all the fullness of God". Not just for the early church! "Throughout all generations for ever and ever!".

So you say; "Rob are you saying that an increase of the power within us is linked to a revelation of how much God loves us?". That is EXACTLY what the Scripture is saying! It says height, length, width and breadth of the love of God! A four-dimensional understanding of God's love! Why does he use all four? Hebrew people understood what a cube was! They understood that a cube represented perfection in all dimension! When God told Moses how to build the Holy of Holies He gave him the exact dimensions. 10 metres by 10 metres by 10 metres. When Solomon built the Temple he built it as a cube but expanded it to 20 metres height length and depth. The New Jerusalem in Revelation is 200, 000 km in a perfect cube! What does it represent? It means that the love of Christ is not short in one area towards you. It is a PERFECT cube - a full perfect total love towards you! In other words in some area in your life you are more holy and have got success in that area - you are tempted to believe that in that area God's love for you is a bit longer but in that area where you are still struggling with sin or failure or problems - in that area God's love is a bit shorter. What Paul is saying by revelation is that the love of God for you has to surpass knowledge and you have to get revelation that He has a perfect cube of love for you. He loves you in all four dimensions and His love for you is not short in one area towards you! He loves you unconditionally!

Romans 5 says that while you were yet a sinner and a rebel in your mind against God, God demonstrated His love for you in that He died for you. In John 17 Jesus said that the Father loves US the SAME way He loves Jesus! That is the end of people saying that He loved Jesus because Jesus was so perfect and so holy. No - He loves us! With the same perfection and it is every second of every moment of every hour of every week of every month of every decade! And when the veil of the wrong concept of God's love is removed from your mind and you go into that which surpasses knowledge and the power reveals to your heart together with all the believers by the power of the Spirit the height, length, breadth and depth of the love of Christ then you and I are filled to all the fullness of the measure of God on the inside of us - that God is able to do exceedingly above what we are able - to do - not that is at work in heaven! But that is at work within us! Out of that internal reality we speak healing commands and it manifests in external reality! If the power within us is condemnation, insecurity, inferiority complexes and condemnation, feelings of guilt - then what we will speak on the inside will come out on our external reality.

When we get a revelation of this perfect love of God for us - no matter if your father or someone else abused you - if you get a revelation that THIS father loves you then that which comes into your inner being is the measure of all the fullness of who God is! He was writen to the Ephesian church and they were saved, justified, baptised in the Spirit and spoke in tongues! He is speaking about something way beyond that!

That is why Jesus could stand up against a storm and say "Peace - be still!". Because storm out there was no match for the peace that was in here. His internal reality came out through words and then everything - cancer, cripples - has to surrender to the internal reality that is in the Church!

And ALL these concepts can be taken away - the veil - and the church walks in New Testament freedom and New Testament life.

If you read the New Testament with an Old Testament veil over your mind you will be in more bondage than if you just stayed under the Old Covenant! I have heard people say this and I did it myself years ago - that if they tithe under law how much more shall we do under grace. If you go a bit further then everything you see in the New Testament that looks like a command; "Avoid evil, don't do this, don't do that" - and the New Testament does talk like that - then you are talking on more law than you could ever imagine! The New Testament is meant to be spirit and life and the grace of God! You cannot mimic Christ's behaviour in the abscence of eternal encounters of the love of God and the grace of God!

These days are so exciting!

Glory and Grace Conference Update 2!!

2009-03-18T09:14:00.002Z

Got an email from Lydia this morning when I got back from work!

"We are together and all is well!!! But we miss you!!

Enjoyed the first 2 sessions this morning very much. Fini and Isi did some worship. Not much though. We met Ursula after the second session because after the first session she was rolling on the floor laughing!!

And we also met Wayne Duncan from South Africa, and a whole bunch of other South Africans.......and got to chat with them a bit. We will have lunch with them all tomorrow. They were awesome!! I definitely felt God's presence at the end of the first session and had a hard time standing.......I think tonight will be much more glorious.

Rob said he is teaching us to get us prepared to enter into the glory easy...........yahoo!!

Julie and I are enjoying each other's company and our time away from busy mommyhood.........Still wishing you could be here, both of us were hoping you would just turn up!! Anyway, all for now, I will be in touch more later okay.......

Much love
Lydia"

I don't think my mind is going to be even touched down in the United Kingdom this week! I've never before felt so attached to a city like Hong Kong! Everytime I get back from work and lay my head on my pillow, the sounds, smells, sights of Hong Kong come back to me so so vividly! And last night I watched a film where some of the action took place in Hong Kong around the tall tower and I got all emotional!

Likewise I've never felt so much for 3 beautiful sisters in Christ and longed for them to receive the highest and greatest downloads of God's glory that they ever have.