Knowing the Holy Spirit - His Names, Titles and Operations - Part 6

This sermon completes the transcripts of the "Names, Titles and Operations of the Holy Spirit" series Rob Rufus preached in 2007. It was preached on Sunday 14th October.

"Faith Enjoys Effortless Blessings"

"Open your Bibles please to Galatians chapter 3.

The Kingdom is taken little by little! It is given to those who have faith and patience but you just stay consistent and you never give up! You take little ground and then more ground and more ground and stay faithful! And when it looks like this is a never-ending battle that isn't going anywhere then you stand your ground and take more and more ground - because if you have heard God say; "Take this ground - I have assigned you and authorised you and given you authority from the government of heaven to go and take ground" - then you stay and stay and take ground and one day there will be an explosion and you will take exponential ground and suddenly from all over you are getting reinforcements coming in and you begin to accelerate. We must keep going and be faithful because we are going to see Hong Kong filled with the glory of God! We are going to see hundreds of thousands and I want to declare millions of local Chinese people come to know Jesus Christ in Hong Kong. We are going to see nations impacted from Hong Kong!

We have been doing a series on the Names and Titles of the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit has many names and titles - 20 to 40 - and every name and title reveals a manifestation of His ministry that benefits you and blesses you. This morning I want to talk about the Spirit of God with His title; "The Spirit of Faith". We have looked at His title; "The Holy Spirit", "The Spirit of God", "The Spirit of the Lord", "My Spirit", "The power of the Most High", "The Spirit of the Living God" and the "Spirit of God's Son". The Spirit of God's Son reveals to us that we are not under law but that we have an inheritance with the full rights as sons. We have been looking at that for the last 3 weeks and I want to carry on with that but looking at 2 Corinthians 4:13 where the Spirit is referred to as the "Spirit of Faith". I want to talk about faith being revealed in your heart. Faith is not just a force - faith is a Person. Grace is not just a force - Grace is a Person and His Name is Jesus Christ! Faith is a Person - the Spirit of faith! When the Spirit of faith appears in your heart then there comes a liberty from bondage, a liberty from prisons, unlocking and opening of doors and your life begins to expand.

Once faith is revealed! Some people say "Shouldn't Jesus be revealed in my heart?". Of course Jesus should be revealed in your heart - but you cannot have Jesus revealed without faith in your heart enabling you to see Jesus. So the Spirit of faith is revealed in your heart and you suddenly break out into a whole new, multi-dimensional style of living. Galatians 3:23; "Before this faith came, we were held prisoners to the law, locked up until faith should be revealed". Once faith is revealed in your heart by the Spirit of faith then locks are unlocked, prison doors are opened and you are no longer held in limitations, restrictive thinking, despair, hopelessness and a prisoner to prejudice and pride and Pharisees - you come out of restriction and your horizons expand to ever-increasing jurisdictions of influence!

Galatians 3:25; "Now that faith has come we are no longer under the supervision of the law". (v26); "You are ALL sons of God through faith - no one is born a son of God into this earth". When you are born again through faith you become a son of God and you belong to the Bride of Christ! I want to say that this faith when it is revealed in your heart, this faith has no prejudice whether you a man or a woman.

This faith will work a lot better in a woman's heart than it will in a man's heart. That's what it looks like sometimes! Most of the greater miracle workers I know in the world are women! I want to encourage you men - faith in your heart will work just as well as it will in a woman's heart! In Christ there is neither male nor female! Equal under God in terms of how faith will work! Faith will work in the heart of a white man just as well as it will in the heart of a black man! I am tired of just black men raising the dead! Africa is full of black men who are raising the dead! Are Chinese men raising the dead in Hong Kong? I don't know, I hope so! Hope it has happened here in at least 100 years! Faith will work just as well in a yellow, red, brown, rainbow persons hearts!

When you see people moving in faith who no longer have an emotional lock on their life and are not living to please people and frightened of people's opinions of them but are living for the pleasure of One Man Jesus Christ and are going to serve the purpose of God no matter who persecutes them or criticises them - they are FREE from the prison house of people's pride! People's prejudice and persecution! Their worlds have been unlocked to expanding horizons that see the dead raised, the orphans fed, the widows cared for, hospices raised up, millions saved! That is what happens - your world EXPANDS! If you are listening to this message, this faith will come to you and put faith into you!

Not my faith but God's faith! It will come as I talk - I will preach things I haven't thought of! You will see faith revealed to you! How will you know that faith has been revealed to you? Because you will want to jump up and out of your chair, jump, kick all the chairs over and run around this building and run to the front desk and tell them do you know Jesus? You may constrain yourself but you will want to do something more than just sit and listen to me preach! How do I know you have faith revealed to you? You will change today! Your world will grow! You will worship differently! You will praise differently! You will be bolder and more confident! Your prayer life will go up into another realm of the glory! You will be so excited about Jesus that everywhere you go it will be contageous! You will not be locked up anymore and some of us have been locked up too long! I was locked up before I was a Christian in a Hindu cage. I wasted a whole year of my life locked up in a Hindu cage wasting that year! Then I got born again and was free for about a year. Then the church locked me up again in a religious cage! I don't preach religion or Christianity anymore! I preach Jesus and the Kingdom of God!

A Christian religion locked me up and put me under a culture of coercion and control and manipulation and they wanted me to be what they wanted me to be but Jesus had other plans so I am living for the audience of One Man Jesus Christ! I am not being conservative anymore or being controlled! When the people said to Jesus; "Master stop the people from shouting 'Hosanna in the highest'" - a control spirit wants to stop faith and enthusiasm! Jesus said; "If they don't cry out the very rocks will cry out and worship Me!".

A control spirit is a religious formalistic demon that locks people into prisons - not of the law but of the pressure to perform and be stereotyped little clones of the system! Why is it that you can look at people from a denominational system and see they are from a denomination? You can see people begin to behave in certain ways and talk in certain ways!

We don't want to stereotype! We want diversity and uniqueness and freedom! Don't be locked up! We represent nothing but the Kingdom! We are free men living in freedom! We will not be controlled by anything because FAITH has been revealed! Faith has been revealed! Before faith came we were held prisoners of the law! Locked up until faith should be revealed! Now that faith is revealed we are no longer under the supervision! SUPERVISION of the Pharisees! Supervision of self-appointed people that frown on you when you take initiatives in the Spirit! That frown on you when you say; "No - God has called me to do this! I can't compromise this! I am a free man and I am not locked up anymore! Sorry but you can't play that game with me anymore! I was deceived and thought I had faith but my faith was not revealed!". I had enough faith to get saved but not enough to see the Kingdom! So people play the game with me and try and put the guilt trip on me and put subtle culture of religion on me and made me conform and crippled my personality and made me behave! I thought I was being zealous and thought I was doing what was right but I always knew that something was wrong! One day faith was revealed to me and I was no longer locked up, now the prison doors are open! The anointing opens the prison doors and lets the blind go free! Faith teaching is a dangerous subject! Faith is powerful! Faith isn't just positive thinking! Many people think positively in hell! Let's pretend we are not here! Faith isn't just a mental positive cerebral thought! Faith is God in you!

The faith that created the heavens and the earth is on the inside of you! That faith is in you! God has faith in you and His faith in you has faith in you!

Now we are going to see this faith is not prejudiced to any man or woman, black, yellow, brown or green! When this faith is revealed no one has an advantage! This faith will do the same thing without prejudice! Let's read (v28); "Slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus .. heirs according to the promise". Now what I am saying today is that faith enjoys effortless blessings! Faith enjoys effortless blessing! If I have faith revealed to my heart then I won't have anymore difficulties? No I didn't say that - but difficulties won't have you. Difficulties won't bother you anymore.

If I have faith then there won't be any challenges? Of course there will be challenges but you have got to know what those challenges are designed for! Those challenges purpose is to force you away from grace and back into prison of the law. If there was not that potential then why is the majority of the church world religious and not raising the dead?! Including us! We have seen some deaf ears opened, blind eyes opened and cripples walk and that is wonderful! We have got to go to another level that is called Book of Acts normal or Kingdom! The pressure that comes against you is not that the devil doesn't like you particularly! He actually couldn't care about you one way or another. The pressure comes because James 1 says the "testing of your faith" - he is coming after your faith to stop your faith operating so you will surrender your faith. When you surrender revealed faith then the prison locks come on, doors shut and your personality is stifled and your world shrinks and you become a pgymy existing waiting to go to heaven but not making an impact on human history!

The pressure that comes on you is to tempt you to leave Sarah and go to Haggai to deal with the issues of barrenness. But the Bible says in Galatians 4; "Sing Sarah oh barren woman, break forth into song for more will be the children of the barren woman than Haggai who had a child by the normal fleshly effort means". The problem in the world today is not anti-God. If you think there is an issue of anti-God then you are wrong! The issue in church and world is an anti-Christ problem. The anti-Christ and the mark of the beast is 666. Trying to perfect mankind without grace! It is rebellion against grace! People don't have a problem against God! People are not anti-God! The majority of this world has got some kind of a concept of God and their concept of God is normally religious fanaticism or human effort trying to be good enough and trying to earn favour with their God! Actually the church is meant to be Christo-centric which means that Jesus Christ, the finished work of the Cross and the message of grace in the New Covenant is meant to bring Christians to the end of human effort and enter into the supernatural power and Presence of God.

Go to (v1) of Galatians 3; "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you ..?". (v3); "Are you so foolish? ... Does God give you His Spirit ...?". It is very clear God gives His Spirit and does miracles NOT because of human effort or human performance or human fasting or performance but because they are not believing cultic power that obscures the Cross - the finished work of Christ. They are free to see the message of grace and they believe the message of grace and faith is all they need - and the Presence and power of God will operate in their lives!

God is not interested in behaviour modification. He is interested in heart transformation. The law addresses your behaviour but grace addresses your heart. Every true change that takes place in your life is effortless. People that have been on pornography have listened to our website on grace and have made every effort to get free from their pornographic addiction but listened to the message on grace and came off instantly without any problem and are walking free from that addiction! Any change that grace makes is without effort but by the power of the living God! Anything else is behaviour modification techniques! Anything you change in without the grace of God is not true change and is not lasting change!

Alcoholics have written in and have been delivered from alcohol addiction! Listening to the grace message!

If it is your effort then it is false change that does not last. If your effort got you there then your effort has to keep you there. But if grace got you there then grace will keep you there!

When people are living in grace the blessing comes into their lives effortlessly. Because of faith! When people are living in grace miracles happen - effortlessly! The Corinthian church was the most immoral church that has ever existed. They were getting drunk at communion and have sex with temple prostitutes and were saying "I am of Paul and I am of Apollos" and were denominational. They were taking each other to court and suing each other and a man was living with his mother in law and was having such perverted sex that even the champion sinners in Corinth were shocked at what the Christians were doing! Paul still says he is a father to that church! I would have denied I ever knew them! That's grace! Not once did Paul call them foolish! Not once! He never said; "Oh you foolish Corinthians!". This church in Galatia drifted from grace to law and Paul in anger calls them "foolish" twice in three sentences. He is trying to tell us something about God's opinion!

In the church world today your zealous attempts to be holy and your human effort to make sacrifices in your own strength is looked upon with great awe and respect! God looks upon it as foolish! When God sees faith revealed in your heart He smashes every prison door open, unlocks every lock against your life, you come out free and the power of the Spirit of God begins to move and operate in your life!

Faith enjoys the blessings effortlessly! You say "Rob isn't this message a little bit extreme?". I hope so! I am getting some messages across email; "Your message is extreme!". In the old days they threw rocks at people. Today they write emails. Not only to you and everyone else! "Watch out for that grace website in Hong Kong!". Guess what? Free advertising! Everyone wants to listen to this! 30, 000 downloads a month and climbing! There is a Christian church out there longing to get the locks off! I hope we are preaching extreme! Extremely wonderful, extremely liberating, extremely transforming! It is very extreme!

It is better to be persecuted by man for preaching the message of grace in the same extreme way that Paul the apostle preached it - than to lose the blessing of God out of fear of man.

I was guilty many years ago of having a revelation of grace but I would not preach it in it's fullness - when I lived in South Africa and Australia. I will tell you why - I knew that there were in the church misguided zealots who were so driven by legalism and misguided ideas of the Kingdom - that if you preached grace the way that Paul did, then they will attack you the way they attacked Paul in Paul's day. Paul went to prison many times and was attacked many times for nothing else but his extreme teaching on grace. That is the only reason he was beaten up because they said he was anti the law of God! I am not anti the law of God!

I am for the reason the law was given! The law was given to strip us of self-righteousness and be a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ! Now when faith in Christ comes, you are no longer under the supervision of the law or a prisoner to the law - you are DEAD to the law and you are ALIVE to Jesus Christ!

So what they do is preach grace but stop at a certain point and don't go as far as Paul did because they know that if they do there will be uprising against them. So then they begin to preach what they call "Balance" = human performance and human effort. Now please hear me - they will say to you; "Now Rob I understand we are not under the law. Of course we are not under the law - we are under the New Covenant".

When a preacher puts God's people under pressure to perform to earn the blessing, you can call it WHATEVER you want - it is the Law.

You may not call it the 10 Commandments or the ministry written on stone that brought death and condemnation and a fading glory but you can say it in a way that people think they have got to earn it through their drivenness and their performance. I promise you that is as deadly - you ARE preaching the Law and you are bringing curse on the people of God. If you think you can balance grace by preaching performance then you haven't balanced grace - you have totally made grace utterly invalid! If you preach any part of the Law, the Law is a composite whole and if you preach one part then you must preach the whole part, because if you break it in one part you are guilty of all parts. So if you lie, you are guilty of adultery, stealing and everything else! That's what James 2 says. So you cannot balance grace with a bit of human pressure and performance and human effort preaching! It cannot be done!

If you read Acts 13 - and Galatians 1 - you will see Paul full of grace and Jesus Christ and he goes into the Jewish synagogue - he has been highly trained in all the Law and he is a champion of the Law! He sits at the back and the rabbis talk and there is Gentile prosyltes there. You can imagine what that is like! They read the Torah and totally rejected Jesus as Messiah. They recognised him as a rabbi and asked if he had anything to say. Paul said "Yes" and he gave an erudite communication where he spoke the history of Israel and the patriarchs and the lineage of David and then he preached Jesus Christ and then he said Jesus Christ justified us from EVERYTHING that the Law could not justify us from! He doesn't even say "Repent" - he just said believe and you will be justified! When he finished, the whole synagogue came flocking around him and said; "Can you tell us more - when are you coming back!?". So the synagogue leaders had to get Paul and Barnabus back and the whole town turned up! When there is good news to open prison doors then everyone wants to come! And it said the leaders became extremely jealous!

Then the next line says; "And Paul preached boldly the message of grace!". He would not water it down! It says the disciples had great joy in that city! But it said "The God-fearing men and women of the city THREW Paul and Barnabus out in hostility and hatred!". That town was not known for holiness but for debauchery, it was full of taverns and wickedness and evil.

None of the sinners threw the grace preachers out. The religious people threw the grace preachers out! I have never had a problem with sinners on this message! I have had a problem with church members on this message!

Are we extreme? Oh I hope so! But getting more! There are two ways in the New Testament to get cursed. It is very important that you know that you can be cursed under the New Covenant so you don't do it. Look at Galatians 1:6; "Turning to a different gospel which is really no gospel at all ... trying to pervert the gospel of Christ but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach another gospel ... let him be eternally condemned or cursed". This is what will cause persecution and when men live in the fear of men they will water the grace message down! Because they live in the fear of men and want the approval of men! We cannot water this message down because there is a whole bunch of millions of Christians around the globe who need to come out of prison! There is a whole bunch of unsaved people needing to hear this gospel! There is no secret agenda!

I am at war with legalism! I am going to smell it out! I am on a search and destroy mission! I am going to hunt it down and kill it! I hate it! I hate what it's done! I hate what legalism in the church has done! It has destroyed science, arts - it has destroyed women. It has destroyed social freedom and families and marriages and creativity!

The other way you can get cursed is in (v10) of Galatians 3. "ALL who rely on observing the law are under a curse for it is written ...". What is the answer? (v13); "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written ..". Let me give you this little formula;

Faith + Grace = Receiving Effortless Blessing.

Human Effort to get the blessing = Foolishness and Curse.

Jesus + Anything = Nothing.

Jesus + Nothing = ALL the blessing.

I want you to go to Galatians chapter 5. What is the most important thing in the New Covenant for the blessing? Grace. What is the currency that accesses grace? Faith. So faith with a little bit of value and religion? No! Nothing! Galatians 5:6; "For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has ANY value. The only thing that has any value is faith expressing itself through love". That is a powerful statement! That circumcision or religious ceremonies or keeping the law in any way or religious Lent or somehow thinking you bow here that will bring you favour! NONE of that has value! The ONLY thing that counts is FAITH revealed in the heart! The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love! You know what legalists have done with that beautiful passage? If I was Peter behind Jesus when He cracked the whip I would have been right behind Him! People have taken this beautiful verse and have turned it into a legalistic, self-effort, human performance passage. They have said; "This faith will operate and work if and only if you love everybody! If you don't love everyone your faith won't work!". So in the fear of your faith not working you falselessly love everyone. Legalism turns the church into phoneyness. Counterfeit. People saying "I lurve you". Legalism is a terrible thing! If they say your faith won't work unless you love everyone then at what point do you know when you love everyone? And what does that do to you? It puts the pressure right back on you to human effort trying to love everyone so faith will work!

The word "love" here in the Greek is "agape" and it means; "God's love".

When you get a revelation of how much God loves YOU then you can express faith God-ward very easily! You can express faith in God blessing you very easily! The Gospel will always take the pressure off you to perform human effort and put the pressure back on God to perform and God's effort because His effort and His performance is signs, wonders and miracles and life-transformation!

Don't keep asking yourself to have enough faith! Just see Jesus wonderful grace and He will see you full of faith! Look at grace! Look at the love of God! See Jesus in His great grace and He will see you full of faith! He GIVES you the Spirit of faith through a revelation of His love for you! Psalm 103:8 says God is three things and I am quoting directly from this; "The Lord is compassionate, and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in love". He is compassionate, gracious and abounding in love. The word "compassion" means "favour" - the word "gracious" means "favour" and the word "abounding" means "favour"! God is triple favour! Perfect favour! He is looking at you so full of love and redemption and He has redeemed you from the curse of the law! When you are redeemed from the curse of the law it means you are redeemed from the curse of the law!

That means if you break the law, make a mistake or sin - then no curse is coming from the law because you are redeemed from the curse of the law but a blessing is coming that God gave to Abraham freely to the Gentiles!

Abraham got the blessing 430 years before the Law arrived! He got the blessing through faith and grace! Now I am about to close in the next 2 hours! Let's look at Galatians 3. "Consider Abraham ... those who believe are children of Abraham ... those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith". The Bible says "Consider Abraham!". What does consider mean? It means to evaluate, observe, ponder and look at the outcome of Abraham's life. It means to gaze fizedly at the subject under discussion. The church hasn't considered Abraham enough and how Abraham got the seven-fold blessing! How did he get it - through human effort or faith? "along with". That means that what God gave Abraham He gives to you. What God blesses Abraham with, He blesses you. 12:1-2 - you will be great, I will make your name great - God isn't raising up a nameless and faceless people! He wants people to respect your name and know about your name! You haven't earned this! But by faith God will make your name great! God will abundantly increase favour on your life! Wherever you go there is a trail of blessing! He will bless those who bless you! You will be a blessing magnet and attract blessing! If anyone curses you, He will curse them! I love that one! I don't know why!

You can go out and minister and preach the gospel and God will protect you! You will be a blessing to all nations! You get churches and all they think about is each others belly buttons and each other and the smallness. I puke on that stupidity! I preached to 10s of millions of people on God channel I didn't earn it or deserve it - they just put it on! And that is a small part of the seven fold blessing! Tell people that if you bless me they will be blessed! When do they want to start!?

Only people with attitude make it in life!

Jesus was not nice! He was assertive! He was on a mission and He was doing it! Paul was not whipped and thrown in jail because he was a nice person! He offended people and Jesus was called the Rock of offence! What is this nice stuff on the church?! I am doing a mans camp in Australia and I looked at why the church is full of more women than men. I did a historical search through the last 400 years as to why the church has become more effeminate and why there isn't enough masculine anointing in the church. I am going to get men to rise! The women are doing great! Let's get the men on the move now! We saw that after the seven-fold blessing, Abraham was a pagan and God announced freely the blessing. From there Abraham became very wealthy! He got the wealth after the blessing! The word for "wealth" is under the glory! When you are exposed to the glory realm then blessings are imparted into your life and sooner or later you will see the manifestation of that blessing. When blessing was announced to Abraham freely without law he went out and got very wealthy. He wasn't wealthy before!

But Abraham lied! Sarah was beautiful but the blessing renewed her youth! Without plastic surgery! The glory of God begins to remove the wrinkles! He took Sarah down to Egypt in fear and he feared that the king would see how beautiful a 70 year old was! So they both lied that she was his sister. She called him "lord" in another chapter. Abraham lies! The man of God lied because he was afraid! Pharoh got woken up by God and went to Abraham and gave him wealth and abundance! What did he just do? Lie! We are encouraging people to see that the Bible is true! You don't earn it! Consider Abraham! Those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith! Some people in the world today would like to rewrite passages of the Bible! "God this is not good for your reputation and your image! Let's take the fact that Abraham lied out of the Bible!". God doesn't want that passage out the Bible! He wants us to concentrate and focus on it! Consider Abraham!

What about Abraham's grandson? Jacob! When Jacob became an adult, he lied and he deceived his dad and dressed up like his brother - and he cheated and he stole the blessing of the firstborn! He had to run for his life for lying, cheating and stealing and on the first day he got out of his father's home he had nothing but the blessing! He lay down by the side of the road in a place called Bethel and there he had a dream of a stairway from heaven and God said he would be blessed in everything that he did! Jacob woke up and said "God was in this place!". Jacob said he would give God one tenth of everything! Your failure to tithe can't reverse the curse of the law when Christ redeemed you! How can failure to tithe reverse the Cross?! Jacob didn't tithe to get the blessing! If you tithe to get the blessing then that is human effort trying to earn the blessing! Abraham was under New Covenant and in the Gospel! While they lied and cheated and stole Abraham and Jacob got the blessing! They tithed because of a REVELATION of the love of God! They saw they were in partnership with God! He won't curse me if I don't! Tithe because of a revelation of the grace of God!

Don't tithe into a legalistic church! Don't empower legalism! Find grace churches and empower them and bless them and you will be blessed!

Faith is easy when you realise how much God loves you through grace! God is not interested in behaviour modification and I know that is hard for Christians to realise! He is not interested in forcing behaviour modification changes on you otherwise He would not have blessed Abraham or Jacob after they lied! God wants to capture your heart with His jealous love and so you love Him with all your heart and give your time, your tithe, your love! He will always out-compensate and out-give everything you can do and greater! His goodness to us will transform us!

Under the law you have to obey to get the blessing. Under grace Jesus obeyed to get you the blessing!

How does this blessing come? This blessing comes by the only thing that counts! Faith that is expressed by the revelation of God's love to you. In the Gospels Jesus would meet many people that did not have the blessing. In Luke 13 there was a woman who was sick and crippled for 18 years and the Pharisees were mad with Him for healing on the Sabbath. "Daughter of Abraham ... Satan has bound". When faith came to that woman, she was freed from that crippling state. The Pharisees robbed them of the Abrahamic revelation!

Everytime Jesus found someone who wasn't enjoying the blessing of Abraham He would never say; "Oh you of little holiness. Oh you of little morality, fasting, sowing". He always says; "Oh you of little faith". Faith is the hand that reaches out and RECEIVES the blessing. If your hand is little then you can only take a small portion of the blessing. This is a revelation that is God's energetic desire for us to have BIG faith to receive as much of the blessing as we can! Jesus only rebuked His disciples for one thing and His rebuke was one of redemption to provoke them to more faith - not of rejection! He wants our hands to be so big that we can pull the seven-fold blessing into our lives!

Faith is easy when you consider Abraham and when you concentrate your focus on Abraham then your faith signature accesses and activates greater wealth withdrawals from heaven in an effortless way.

You just get blessed! Faith activates and accesses the wealth of God! John 4 - this is so important for some people right now!

We must see that Jesus absolutely enjoys you pulling as much blessing from Him as you want! He wants to give you so much! When people pulled the blessing from Him, He got energised! How much more in His heavenly ministry? Little faith He rebukes! Big faith He honours and gives more! Take it! Take wealth, anointing, blessing! Take it!

Jesus arrived in Samaria and He was exhausted. He was fully God but fully man. He got tired and His disciples went off into town to get some Starbucks and McDonalds to feed Jesus because He was tired! A lady came to draw water from the well. In the Middle East women did not draw water during the afternoon - it was too hot! So that was an important detail and she came alone. Women drew water in the early morning and came together and gossiped. This woman had shame and had been isolated in a prison of shame and was the object of their gossip. She had five husbands and was living in sin. She didn't want to go to church on Sunday because she didn't want to be with people who gossiped. She was the equivelent of an Elizabeth Taylor today. Has anyone been a Jesus to Elizabeth Taylor? She had no prestige or anything. She was a loser! The seventh Man sat down at the well - completion, rest and effortless. "I can give you water that will spring up like a well of eternal life". "Sir give me a bucket!". Jesus never met this woman or heard gossip but He knew by the gift of discerning something about her life. So He was very naughty and said "Go and get your husband". She said "I don't have one". "Sir I perceive you are a prophet!". What a brilliant lady! Then she got religious! Jesus said "The time is coming when men will not worship ... but in Spirit and in truth".

Such an anointing comes on that woman that she jumps and runs into the city and suddenly she had influence and was unlocked from her cage - the whole town listened to her! While Jesus was waiting for her - His disicples came back and they were thick. They learnt though! There is hope for all of us! But He wasn't tired anymore and He was full of energy! He didn't want to eat! Maybe someone else gave Him food?! "I've got food you know nothing about ... My food is to do the Father's will!". Giving energised Jesus! "The harvest is white into harvest!". The whole town came over the hill towards the well led by a little woman locked up in shame and isolation and suddenly after a brief encounter with the Son of God she was released into horizons of influence to lead the whole city to Jesus. The entire town believed and was born of the Spirit of God! ONE exposure to Jesus and He opened her world up to influence to the entire city!

How can we sit as Christians without leaving a legacy and changing government and politics and arts?! How can the church be ignored when we are sons of Abraham?! Before faith came we were held prisoners to the law locked up until faith is revealed! A secret disciple is no longer a choice when faith is revealed! You will bring people to church! Your world expands and you come out of that and begin to be a Kingdom man or woman and walk in seven-fold blessing and God blesses you and makes you a blessing! And all nations are blessed through you! Consider Abraham!

God said to me this morning; "My eyes are on you". What do You mean? "My eyes are on you". But my eyes are on You! "No - I WANT to fix My eyes on you! I am looking at your heart and I want to honour you! I am looking for what pleases you and gives you pleasure!". But Lord I am Your servant and I want to please you! "But I want you to focus on the fact that I am looking at you to bless you! This faith is not prejudiced! It will work in anyone's heart. Tell the people! My eyes are fixed on them! I the Lord Jesus are fixed on you. If Elizabeth Taylor could find out what that woman at the well found out, she would fall in love with Jesus!".

Not the church. We don't want to introduce people to the church but to Jesus. We want a church that will attract the lost - and they will come in from the nations. And we call thousands of Chinese into CCI. Let faith appear and be revealed to them! We call them into CCI! Let us grow into the hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands! Give us the nations as our inheritance!

Knowing the Holy Spirit - His Names, Titles and Operations - Part 5

I am still working through various sermons of Rob's stored away in the City Church International Archives and noticed that two sermons were missing from the series that Rob did around the time of the "Glory and Grace Conference" in 2007 in Hong Kong. It is a special series to me because taking notes from some of those sermons were the first I listened to (the notes are over on the "Spirit of God!" blog which I haven't forgotten!).

Here is Part 5 preached on Sunday 7th October 2007;

"Foolishness or Favour?"

Just before the children go through I want to make one announcement - that between now and the conference we are having we will not have "Connect" groups around the city. We will meet in our home. God is raising us up for the next few weeks in our home as a holy battering ram as a people of prayer as we pray for this conference. When you have got hundreds of people - each of them spending thousands of dollars on air fares and hotel accomodation and they are flying internationally into our city - then we want to create an atmosphere of the glory of God through our prayers and our intercession. I think we have been a bit sleepy as a congregation, and a bit passive and indifferent to the amazing opportunity that God is giving us. I had to give a gracious disciplinary talk on Thursday night to the very committed people who were with us - that we need to not sleep during this time. Because the enemy over the last few weeks really did try and encroach upon us and really dried to dry up people's finances, tried to oppress people and discourage people and make people confused and some were dealing with demons that they didn't know how to deal with and they just got jealous or critical. So I have had to pray last week and this week (but particularly this week) like I have never had to pray in Hong Kong before. I am amazed I have still got a voice left today! I had to intercede for hours a day so the enemy would be pushed back and the glory of God would roll back into the presence of His people and we would lift up our heads again.

The Bible says that the glory is the lifter of our heads and we see vision again and purpose with greater clarity. On Thursday night the guys prayed like I have never heard them pray before. The intensity of our warfare in the Spirit was profound and I have never been with a group anywhere that has prayed like that. I want to just say to you as a father, a pastor, a priest, a shepherd and as an officer in command - your commanding officer under THE commanding officer - Jesus. There is some times in a war when all leave is cancelled. If you have got leave already and air fares booked then fine - you go. But what I am saying is that times come when a standing order comes;

"All hands on deck! All passes are cancelled! Man the guns! Leave the canteen! Leave the mess hall! We are on full alert! Suicide bombers are coming in!".

We can go on leave and pretend it's not happening and be in the mess but then we will be obliterated.

I promise you as a prophet of God these last few weeks the enemy did not try to take one or two of you out. He tried to destroy the existance of this church. I had to use thirty years of experience in fasting and prayer to keep his hands off and stop him doing what he wanted.

And the about thirty people who stood with me on Thursday night - we blew this thing apart and I am calling on you guys on Thursday to cancel anything you have. Be with us to stand with us and stand together! We have broken through and last night the enemy was trying to sneak back again. I have got an amazing radar system on my spirit and I can detect any intrusions again. He is called the Holy Spirit and He lives inside me and I feel a horrible feeling of grief and a terrible feeling of ugliness and discouragement and I know that people are speaking under demonic power and psychic power is coming against me and I know the enemy is trying to creep up again. So I had to forget what I was doing and go into my room and pray for hour after hour until it broke off again.

Life is not always like this. It is just seasons. We are hosting a conference here and we have to be alert and not sleep in an hour of opportunity and visitation that is unprecidented than most people have experienced living in Hong Kong. While something so key is happening I have watched some people sleeping, distracted, not alert and not aware of the enemy's schemes. To win a battle you must know how your enemy operates and know their schemes and their strategies. If you are ignorant of the enemy's strategies and schemes then he will take you out and make you a prisoner of war sometimes for the rest of your life. You still go to church but you go through religious motions mechanically but you are defeated! I will never be defeated for one split second. I owe Jesus my total life and I will never withdraw and never leave Hong Kong except in a body bag and I am never going until I have finished my race here - and that means a church that is in revival and churches all over the city hearing the grace message. I have never surrendered to the devil and I don't plan to - you can check my track record for the last 30 years in churches I have led. Sometimes people wish that I would have surrendered! And just stopped getting in their faces and just gone with the devil and just been religious.

But I cannot! It is not in my DNA to surrender! I cannot surrender!

So I call upon you as the commanding officer of this local unit - cancel ALL leave! ALL hands on deck! Come as early as you can and we will pray like we did last Thursday and we will have a glory time when this conference comes! This conference is not just a teaching time of sitting in rows. It is going to be a conference where angels are going to turn up, God's glory is coming, hundreds of people will carry the glory! We have got people coming from all over the world - from China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia - to our little church for a divine impartation to take the glory back! And some of you haven't even signed up yet! It just blows my mind! In the nicest way possible! We have got 253 people signed up and the majority are from overseas. It will be closer to 300 over the next 2 weeks so please sign up. It is pretty full with 253!

Open your Bibles please to Galatians chapter 3. We are doing a series on the Names and Titles of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the contact Person of the Trinity in the earth. If you do not know the Holy Spirit intimately and know His nature and His character and His Presence then you cannot experience anything from heaven. The Father and the Son are in heaven but in the mystery of the Trinity - the Godhead - the Holy Spirit is in the earth. When in the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve walked with the Father face to face and knew His voice and saw His glory then they committed high treason. After a millenia of distant relationship through the Old Covenant then God the Son was the contact Person of the Trinity in the earth. You could touch Him, feel Him, hear Him and see His miracles. Then He went back to heaven but just before He went He said "I will send Someone to replace Me - His Name is Parakletos" and that means the Helper. It is not the Father or the Son in the earth now. It is God the Spirit who is in the earth now and if you try to meet with Jesus or the Father then you will just be a religious person and have a dead religion.

But if you know the Holy Spirit - the contact Person now in the earth and as you fellowship with Him and get to know His Names and His operations and manifestations then the Holy Spirit will empower you to know Jesus and have access to the Father.

Ephesians 2:18; "We have access to the Father by One Spirit". So many Christians don't know the Holy Spirit or His Names or His Titles. So we have looked at 'The Spirit of God' - 'The Spirit of the Lord' - 'The Spirit of the Most High'. Every name reveals a different manifestation to benefit you and to bless you. Today I simply want to talk about "Foolishness or Favour?". Are we living in foolishness or favour? I do not believe you can live in foolishness and at the same time live in the favour of God. When I say that some Christians automatically think that I mean you must not live irresponsibly and you must not live undisciplined. No I don't mean that but I do want to suggest that we live responsibly and I do want to suggest that we live disciplined lives. No question about that!

But when I talk about "foolishness" today, I mean the foolish idea that you can win the favour of God and the blessing of God by your human effort, human endeavour and the level of your holiness or the degree to which you can keep the law of God. THAT is foolishness!

It is a folly that has profoundly permeated the church world and has permeated my life in different stages in my walk with Jesus. It is a foolishness that I have progressively been throwing off. It is a foolishness of the deception of self-righteousness. You can receive nothing from the Father - nothing of the blessings of God through any effort that you can make or through any level of your holiness or even through your obedience or any law-keeping that you can do. The only way that you can get the blessings of God in your life is simply through the currency of faith - that you believe the message of grace. That you believe the message of the finished work of the Cross and you believe that the grace of God is towards you to give you the fullness of the blessings of God.

To live in favour means to live in awareness of the message of grace. To live a foolish life means you think you can earn or deserve the blessings.

Let's look at Galatians 3:1. Foolishness is not seeing the finished work of the Cross and letting the devil creep in on your life and close your eyes down to the remarkable grace of God that came at the Cross. Lets read verse 3. "Are you so foolish after beginning with the Spirit are you trying to attain your goal by human effort - have you suffered so much for nothing? Does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you because you kept the law or because you believed what you heard?". Paul is about to go on and make it clear that God moves by the power of His Spirit and does miracles not because we try to observe the message of the law but because we believe the message of the Cross. We believe the message of grace!

If that is true then wherever there is a lack of the moving of the Spirit or a lack of the miraculous in the Church then we have to conclude that it is because there is foolishness in the Church and the Church is still bewitched and is still attempting to get the blessing, favour and power of God by human effort and by moral keeping of the law and trying to earn it and deserve it.

Now when people try to keep the law and try to do right and try to do the right thing and keep the law, that is seen by much of the Church as "wisdom" but God condemns it as foolishness. Many people can't seem to understand if we give up trying to keep the Law and trying with human effort then what am I meant to do? Just get lazy? Am I meant to go out and sin as much as I want? No - if you believe the message of the Cross that you are declared permamently righteous in Christ and that God will never look on you as sinful and that your sins - past, present and future - have all been blotted out and that He sees you as forever perfect then the power of the Spirit of God will move in your midst, miracles will manifest in your midst, you will be empowered to live a holy life, you will see things that are sinful and be disgusted by them, resist them and puke on them. Things that grabbed you before while you were under the law, those sins that held you as a victim, you will mock them and say that you are addicted to the glory of God and believe the message of grace and the power of God is your portion and your inheritance!

Why do I get letters from around the world say that I was addicted to pornography and made myself accountable to my pastor and couldn't get out but listened to your grace series and am FREE! Alcoholics listening too and stop trying in human effort, stop trying to be holy, stop trying to keep the law and you are free! If you went out and sinned every day then God would still see you as righteous! Only a few idiots run out and sin every day! Grace exposes the true state of someone's heart and if someone is a rebel already and hear that they can do what they want then they will do what they want. But if you a Christian and have a new creation heart and want to love and serve God then they hear Romans 6:14; "Sin will not have dominon over you because you are not under law - you are under grace!". Though you may sin and make mistakes (because no one is perfect in our actions .. yet) - you will see yourself sinning less and less! Being less and less jealous, less and less petty, less and less small-minded. Your marriages will be blessed! You won't think of another man or woman as an option even in unhappy times in your marrage!

When Glenda and I got married I burnt every bridge as another woman being an option! I have been through times when I wondered if other women would be better for me than Glenda! Who did that come from? The devil! But because I believe the message of grace and the Holy Spirit moves in my life, I am not living in condemnation and the feeling that God doesn't love me and I know He loves me and I know He sees temptation and because I know that, I can say "NO!" to these things! We are going to see that it is foolishness to try and live the human life by effort and by keeping of the law and it is by believing the message of grace. I am going to show you two things.

To demonstrate what foolishness and what faith is, he is going to say what we saw last week; "CONSIDER ABRAHAM". The second sentance I want you to see is this; "Those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith".

(v6); "He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness ... children of Abraham ... " - remember Abraham lived 430 years before the law. "All nations will be blessed through you so those who have faith". Not those with unbelief, are religious, human effort - "those who have FAITH are blessed ...". (v10); "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse". (v13); "Christ redeemed us .. by becoming a curse for us ... He redeemed us that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus". Not Budda or Mohammed! "By faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit". What does "CONSIDER" mean? It means to observe, evaluate, gaze fixedly with your mind at something.

It is my conviction - Much of the church has not seriously considered Abraham and that is why we have a legalism problem in the church and low-level miracles and low level signs and wonders and low level power because much of the church is acting foolishly by the definition of the Bible.

I am not talking about us or anyone - but I am talking generally. We need to "consider Abraham". Let's look at the phrase in (v9); "along with". It means included with! Together with! That what God dealt to Abraham in his blessing - He also wants to give to you and deal to you what He dealt to Abraham. I know I am being pedantic and repeating myself but I have learned in the last few weeks that people don't listen. So now I am going to make my point so clear that those who don't bother to take notes or listen to the CD again will get it the first time! We can't march around the same truth again - we must get this thing and move on. We don't have the luxury of one day taking things seriously. People that come and go in this church come back and can't catch up anymore! That is the sad thing. People coming in as new people are coming in and God gives them grace to catch up. But people who are casual - we are going faster and faster! We are for the weak and the stragglers but we are not for those who are making excuses. This is the Kingdom of God and we are to be equipped to be very fruitful in what we are doing!

There are high schools here that are to be invaded by the gospel of Jesus Christ. Christian schools that are not hearing the Gospel! Get me in there! Give me half an hour with hundreds of students! Give me an opportunity God! Open the door! Turn to Genesis 12 - let's have a quick look at something.

How do we consider Abraham and what does it mean to be blessed along with Abraham the man of faith? Let me give you an answer! To be blessed along with Abraham the man of faith means that God blesses you with a seven-fold blessing! The seven-fold blessing is your inheritance and your right as a son with full rights! The seven-fold blessing of Abraham - as you consider Abraham and you have faith then you will be blessed along with Abraham - the man of faith!

I don't care if you work for a church or a Christian organisation and you are a volunteer with no salary, or a wealthy person.

You must shut ALL poverty thinking down and all that limitation down! You must lift your eyes above your small circumstances and the misery of an earthly conciousness and truly become the people of God who are seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus! It is time for the church to walk in her inheritance! It is time for the church to stop being so carnal and stop being so humanistically involved with their own inadequacies and to look up to the God who has made a covenant with us and walk in the anointing and the power of a living God!

It is time for a pastor to stop having to fight devils off on behalf of people who should have learnt to fight themselves - women and men! For God gave subduing power to Adam and Eve! Eve has got government in the earth! She was given authority to deal with the devil and she did not use her governmental authority - and the devil took her out. From that time - Adam instead of being a warrior of God expanding the kingdom became an emotional nurse for his emotionally stunted wife. It is no use the wives sitting at home letting the devil crush them to pieces and the husband comes home and finds an emotional cripple at home so his whole life is being an emotional nurse catering for a sulking wife!

Wives you have dominion government authority! Every wife needs to stand every day against devils! So when your husband comes home, he finds a wife with her eyes ablaze under the anointing of God and all day she has stood against depression, oppression, demonic lies - because she used what God gave Eve - subduing dominion authority! So when her husband comes home tired from work he meets a wife full of fire who has been walking in the anointing all day and operating in her kingdom rights and she says; "Come in dear - boy are you going to have a great night tonight! The candles are lit, the perfume is spread, flower petals from the front door to the bedroom and we have got the incense going! Baby sitters arranged!". The anointing will come on that husband!

But many husbands in Hong Kong are manipulated through sulking - the husbands who should be warriors for God are nursemaids to their wives emotional needs. "Oh okay dear - I am so sorry, I feel so guilty, I have neglected you". Come on wives! If you don't fight the devil - you will fight your husband! Don't fight your husband! Fight the devil! Deal with him who is coming to discourage you! Husbands there are times we may have to put our arms round our wives and be emotional nurses! There is a time for that - but not a lifestyle! There are times that Glenda is my emotional nursemaid! "Pull yourself together! Sort it out!". We don't have the TIME to waste on emotional nursing! Use that energy to slap the devil in the face and take authority over depression, negativity, discouragment! Fight it like it was cancer!

Then you have energy to take the Kingdom of heaven forward! No matter how small your apartment is - no matter how small your world is! Whether you are wealthy or in poverty - on volunteer or on a salary! Workers are worthy of their hire! If you are a volunteer working for nothing then start thinking of wealth coming to you! Stop thinking you are defined by the circumstances around you - if you shrink your life to your pathetic circumstances then your life is pathetic! If you will enlarge your life to the grace of God and the vision of God and the inheritance you have in God then you are not earthly thinking - you are thinking heavenly! Set your heart on things above - Colossians 3 says! "Consider Abraham" - it says! Not those who are in self pity and wobbling from one week to the next not knowing if they will be there! "Those who have FAITH are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith!".

What is it to be blessed along with Abraham - the man of faith? It is to receive a seven-fold blessing for your life!

If you have faith then I don't care whether you are a top surgeon or you are working for crossroads - it doesn't matter who you are - this is a blessing that comes to ALL no matter what your circumstances are! The Bible says that the "blessing of the Lord makes RICH and adds no sorrow!".

You know it is the blessing of God when it makes you rich without destroying your marriage or your children! You can get blessed by hard work but it is not the blessing of God - it is the blessing of sweat! It comes with a price - destroyed marriage, children, home and health!

I don't care what condition you are in - whether you are in poverty or in a small or wealthy place. There are glory dimensions of the blessing that are available for us to access and to receive today. Here is the blessing God gave to Abraham - the man of faith! And what happens if I break the law?

I am redeemed from the curse of the law! What does that mean? If I fail or come short then the curse cannot touch me because I am redeemed from the curse that the blessing given to Abraham may come to me!

Here it comes - verse 1. "The Lord said to Abraham .. go to the land I will show you". Here it comes - the seven-fold blessing!

1. (v2) - "I will make you into a great nation".

2. "I will bless you"

3. "I will make your name great"

4. "You will be a blessing".

5. "I will bless those who bless you".

6. "Whoever curses you, I will curse".

7. "All people's on earth will be blessed through you".

Here they are!

Blessing Number 1 - Wherever you go - greatness comes!

If you are truly anointed as a businessman or woman, it is almost like you can take the world map and throw a dart with your eyes closed into it and wherever it lands you can go there and have a successful business. Wherever you go under this blessing, you will have heartaches and you will have difficulties and challenges and enemies but this blessing will supercede and override and conquer everything that comes against you! I am fully convinced I could put a blindfold around my head and throw a dart into a map and go plant a church there and I could go and get it done. Because of the blessing! I do want to stay in the will of God though! Isaiah 60:1 says; "Arise shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord rises upon you". The last verse in that chapter (v22);

"The least of you will be a thousand and the smallest among you a mighty nation - I will do this swiftly in My time says the Lord".

So if you are the least you should have influence and lead at least a thousand people to Christ in your life! You should have influence at least over a thousand and then every individual will become a mighty nation!

Blessing Number 2 - I will bless you!

The Amplified Bible says; "I will bless you with an abundant increase of favour".

Blessing Number 3 - I will make your name great!

Favour, fame, prestige and influence comes with the blessing of God!

You hear in the world today that God is raising up in the church an army of "namless, faceless people". I reject that as heresy. I am sure the people saying it mean it in a sincere way but it is not the Word of God and I am always watching for these phrases that religious people make that sound so spiritual but are anti-Biblical. One of the blessings in Abraham that is ours is; "I will make YOUR name great!". Abraham's name is mentioned over 300 times in the Bible. He is not a nameless person! It is FALSE humility! I WANT God to make my name great! I WANT God to make the name "Glenda Rufus" great! I WANT God to make the name "City Church International" great! I am not going to lie and say I just want to be humble and be nothing and everyone goes to hell around me! No! God says everywhere you go, greatness comes with you! He increases favour in abundance on your life and He makes your name great! So your name will carry respect!

What does "great" mean? Favour! Influence!

If you have been living in Hong Kong for decades and decades and no one knows you are here then you are not walking in the blessing of Abraham but some religious demon!

You are walking in foolishness! The Bible says it is foolish to think you can earn the blessing by human effort, by your holiness and by your righteousness! People say it is too straight, too hurtful, too offensive! I just told you the Bible! If the cat feels I am stroking it the wrong way then let the cat turn around! It is called repentance and we are meant to be doing that while listening to the Word of God! We are not meant to be offended, we are meant to see the light come on and think; "That is right - I turn around - now He is stroking me the right way!". If every sermon you feel I am stroking you the wrong way then you are in a bad way!

A leader has to stroke the Kingdom way and if you are not facing the Kingdom way then don't blame the preacher! Turn around! Adjust! Then the power of God will come! Don't be foolish! God wants to make your name great!

Blessing Number 4 - And you will be a blessing!

Wherever you go, you leave a trail of blessing. I hope it is a case when you visit someone, a city, a hotel or people that when you leave, you feel; "That was such a blessing! I feel so blessed meeting that person!". Who wants to be with sulky, negative, complaining people? People that are always up and down and not walking in Abraham's blessing? If you walk in this blessing whereever you go - you don't try to be a blessing or don't work at being a blessing (it's called being foolish!) - no, you let this blessing come on you and when it does you don't even try to be a blessing. You just are! That is what you become along with Abraham!

Blessing Number 5 - I will bless those who bless you!

This is the power of God that comes on other people - not you. It comes on other people and puts in their hearts a desire to bless you! I don't have the audacity but maybe you can - to tell others; "If you bless me then you will be blessed!". If you bless me then you will go high in life! Whatever you do, don't curse me, don't be jealous of me or attack me because I have got someone else on my life as well! I want to show you my history - people better than you have tried to curse me and some are in the grave today. When this blessing comes on a man or a woman you need to bless them and not curse them. Don't criticise them or speak ugly of them or be jealous! Don't say; "Why did they get it? They're not that holy!". They got it because they have got faith! They got blessed along with Abraham the man of faith because they took time to consider Abraham!

You will attract a desire in people to bless you. People will want to bless you! You will be a magnet to the blessing from others! The truth is - we have not been able to tell you the degree when we were in South Africa and the elders blessed us in dimensions of finance and gifts and places and holidays and air fares that got to the point where Glenda and I (who are used to receiving blessing - we don't have a problem with it or giving it) had to go to the elders and say "Please stop giving us so much - we can't take or handle so much abundance! We are starting to feel guilty". Nick, who heads up the eldership team said; "No that is fine - but here's another 20,000!". The blessing will come to you!

Generosity! People will start to get generous with you! How many of you would like to complain that you are sick and tired of blessing?! Solomon started piling up his silver and gold in mountains - the Bible says! He paid cash - the equivelant of 200 million US dollars for the Temple out of his own pocket. It cost him the equivelent of 16,000 US dollars a day to eat. Solomon! "Well he wasted money - he's just selfish!". Be careful about that. When a woman poured a whole year's wages onto Jesus feet - Judas Iscariot said; "This should have been given to the poor!". Jesus was already giving to the poor! Solomon was giving to the poor! Stop criticising wealth! The love of money is the root of all evil and many poor people are guilty of the love of money. A lot of wealthy people don't care about it and are trying to give it away!

The church is suffering from a poverty spirit! Where did we get "as poor as a church mouse?!". Disgusting! I CURSE that statement! It should be; "As RICH as Abraham!". Where is all these Christians with faith in Jesus, the message of grace, where are the Christians who have considered Abraham and are blessed along with Abraham - the man of faith? Where is the faith in the church for the blessing? Poverty is good - poverty is holy - sickness is good - suffering for God is good! Rubbish! Christ redeemed you from the curse of the law that the blessing given to Abraham may come to YOU! The curse of the law is sickness, poverty and defeat! How can you say that a blessing is a curse?

That was number five - and did you know that the number five is the number for grace? Number 3 is the number for the Trinity which is the number for perfection. Number seven is the number for rest and completion. Number six is the number for man. Man was created on the sixth day. Why is the mark of the beast or the mark of the Antichrist - "666"? Three sixes! The mark of the anti-Christ, anti-anointing, anti-grace is "666". What is that? It is the delusion of man trying to be perfect without grace and without God! That is in false religion and in secular humanism! Some Christians think it will be a mark on their heads - rubbish! It is not going to be a computer bar code! But people who walk in self-righteousness will carry that mark!

Blessing Number Six - I will curse those who curse you!

This is the anointing that brings judgement on those that curse you. Those that criticise you and are jealous of you and try to bring witchcraft against you and are jealous of you and speak out against you - curse will come down on their lives! You NEED that blessing! Christians who want to make a mark in this world will face opposition and jealousy and hatred and you need the sixth blessing! Someone has said that the church is full of nice people, mixing with other nice people trying to be nicer! Eugh! Imagine Jesus just trying to be nice! Jesus was wild, took a whip, smacked it and crashed it on the tables in the Temple!

Don't try and be nice - you will end up being NOTHING!

You need an anointing of favour round your life that causes anyone who curses you to be cursed! You can stand there and be loving and forgiving to them while God is smashing the daylights out of them! You don't have to fight them - God will!

I woke up one morning after having a dream. God said there are three men and He gave me their names. He said they are criticising you and unless they repent they will be dead within three weeks. I told Glenda and Fini de Gersigny - only those two. Within three weeks one man was dead and the other two had left the church. We were in a revival in 1981 and had a powerful outpouring of the Spirit and you criticise in those times and it is very dangerous.

This is a wonderful blessing!

Blessing Number Seven - ALL Nations will be blessed through you!

I don't care if you are wealthy or poor - God has raised you up to be a blessing to all nations! I hate it when people think we are an international church means we are integrated with different nations. No - we are international because our parish is the globe! When I preach to 200 nations, to 10s of millions of people 2 or 3 weeks ago that was a small part of the Abrahamic blessing! I preached in Iraq, Iran, China, America - 200 nations! It was a small part of this blessing when I preached across God channel!

Why do you need the favour of God? Favour gives you free access to all of God's abundance! The greater the degree of the seven-fold blessing upon you - the greater influence for the gospel you have, the greater respect people will show you, He will anoint you! The greater the degree of the seven-fold blessing - the greater the success in your life, your marriage, your family, your career.

Now go to Genesis 13. You have to connect the seven-fold blessing in Genesis 12 to chapter 13. (v2); "Abraham became very wealthy". He became very wealthy in livestock, silver and gold. Modern theologians say that the blessings are "spiritual". No - the blessing of Abraham was that he was made VERY wealthy and it only came AFTER the blessing was released over his life. You will never become truly wealthy in terms of God's wealth until you have faith in the grace of God to give you favour! After the blessing came, this little Iraqui man called Abraham who was an idol worshipper and didn't worship God at all - he was unholy and walking around his life - God appeared to him and manifested Himself to him and said; "Seven fold blessing!". He hadn't earned it or deserved it and hadn't earned a thing! Favour was given to him!

He goes down from that blessing to Egypt and lies about his wife as we said last week because he knew the king would kill him and take his beautiful wife Sarah into his harem. So he lies! So the king won't kill him! If I had asked Glenda to lie like that for me then she would have killed me - not the king! The old pervert takes Sarah into his harem and God wakes the king up in the night and says "Do you want to die?! That is Abraham's wife!". The king gets all frightened and comes to Abraham and gives him silver and gold.

So Abraham LIED and leaves in the blessing! There are still people today that think "I have got to earn the blessing! I must deserve the blessing!". Consider Abraham!

No it is not saying go out and lie! It is trying to show you that your failures and your mistakes cannot stop the blessing flowing! What can stop the blessing flowing? Foolishness. Coming back under law. Self-righteousness. Trying to earn it and deserve it. 666! Trying to perfect your man-ness through self effort and empowerment of yourself. Stay weak and vulnerable and trust the blessing comes freely. God announces blessing on Abraham - a seven fold blessing - Abraham lies and walks out with more blessing than he had before! It is interesting this word "very wealthy" - this is the first time this word is mentioned in the Bible and in the Hebrew it means "glory". Glory and wealth! The glory of God in manifestation drops wealth! Why in many parts of the world right now when the glory is coming over the church is gold dust and diamonds falling? They are taking them to jewellers and they are saying; "There is no flaw! We don't know anywhere in the world where diamonds are like this!". These are dropping in meetings! This is glory coming into the church and God says there is wealth in Philippians 4:19 - that He will meet all our needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus! Not according to what we need! But according to HIS RICHES!

If you have your needs met according to your needs then it is selfish! Then you just got what you need and blow everyone else and to hell with the world! But if your needs are met according to His riches then you have got superabundance to be generous to the purposes of God and to be a blessing into the nations!

What is favour? Three things about favour. 1. It is becoming an object of God's great affection. He likes you. He turns His face to you. He shines His face on you. He wants to make your name great. Why? Because you are so perfect and so obedient and know so much Bible? No! But because you are not foolish and are not deceived by the foolishness of religion and believe the message of His grace! You consider Abraham and because you have faith you are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith! There are people who live with a poverty mindset and a victim mindset and think they didn't get a good break in life, my family was poor, my mother or father or budgie or goldfish abused me - and they talk like success is based on getting a good break when you are young! Or getting opportunities! That is the world's way of thinking about success and wealth!

The Kingdom way is that it doesn't matter what your background is or how much your father or mother abused you. I am sorry if it happened to you and I hate it happening! It grieves me when it happens and I wish I could stop it! But that makes no difference to your future! No matter how people cheated on you when you were young! Or how many people put cases against you that were not right and ruined you! The thing that gives you success in life is stopping being foolish and worldly and relying on the world's economy!

You are the children of the most High God and consider Abraham - a heathen Iraqui that God made an example so He can say that which I did with Abraham I can now do with the people of God!

Galatians 3:29 says if you belong to Christ then you are a seed of Abraham and an heir according to the promise! You can break out of poverty and your circumstances! All your disadvantages can be turned around for your advantage! When you walk with wealth and power and God makes your name great and God blesses nations through you and makes you a blessing wheerever you go - then people will say, "You must have had an incredible mother and father and background". You can say; "No my father raped me when I was four. I was kicked out of school and this went wrong and this went wrong". Well then - how do you account for this?! I am glad you asked! I stopped being foolish and I realised that there is a God who loved me and a God who redeemed me from the curse of the law and I am not talking about Christianity or church! I want to talk about the Kingdom of God! I am tired of talking about Christianity! Let's talk about Kingdom! Christianity has made a bad image in the world! Christianity is religious! People with a poverty mindset who worship suffering and sickness and inner healing and all kinds of therapies! Rise in Jesus Name to your Kingdom inheritance!

God shines His face on you. 2. Favour means God gives you preferential treatment. God is no respecter of persons and loves everyone in the world the same. But He will only give His favour to those who believe the message of grace! If you believe the message of grace then God will dump favour on you - the person next to you and if they don't believe He will give the favour to you and not to them. He will give you preferential treatment!

Don't tell me God treats everyone differently! He doesn't! He treats people with unbelief one way and people with faith another. Don't say it isn't fair! It is fair!

Smith Wigglesworth raised 30 people from the dead said God will ignore and bypass 10 million people to get to one person who has got faith! I have sat in meetings and watched power flowing and seen some touched and others not touched! Why? They did not lift their sail of faith but sat there passively and blamed everyone! No! Stop it! Forget about your past and think about your future! Seven fold blessing! I have never seen major inner healing courses change the course of people's lives! Many have been in it for 20 years! Some time you have got to wake up! Sometimes you have got to wonder if the Kingdom is the answer and not therapy! The power of faith and believing the gospel is the answer! Stop all this foolishness and human effort! Walk before God and as a man or woman walk with the God of Abraham! Enoch walked with God! Enoch didn't go to church! Some people go to church but don't walk with God! Every day walking with God - never turning God off! He is my help and my surroundings! 24 hours a day walking with God! I watch rugby walking with God and in the movies walking with God!

You can't walk with God and then go sin! When you walk with God you see temptation coming your way and laugh! Live in the Spirit so you don't satisfy the desires of the flesh! How many of you saw the movie "One Night with the King"? It was a Kingdom movie based on the book of Esther! Esther was an unknown Jewish lady - no mention of God in the book but she understood the covenant with Abraham. The king of Persia gave her favour and the king gave half his kingdom. 60 nations from India to the Middle East! What is the book of Esther trying to tell the church? When you get favour with the King He will give His Bride favour! People at work will give you favour and promotion! Stop talking Murphy's Law! You are talking curse over your own life! Start talking blessing over your life! Things are going to change now! I am under the blessing! They are flowing! My life is changing! I am getting victory over those cycles of dysfunction! Don't call your children or grandchildren naughty! The favour of God is on the righteous and their children and children's children! The lineage of Rufus is blessed due to the blessing of Abraham! Don't call them stupid! Don't do that! Say "You are a blessing! But I must discipline you right now". Bless your children!

Do you know that Jewish orthodox under the law are not blessed? The average Jew that doesn't have faith in God around the world will lay their hands on Jewish children and say "The blessing of Abraham be on you - and may the face of God shine on you and make you great". Did you know that the Jewish nation has got the highest amount of awards in the world - for inventions, creativity, arts, science and for wealth! Think of the most wealthy people in the world? Jewish! Why does the devil hate the Jews? Because they are natural descendants of Abraham! They have been attacked and fought and hated more than any other nation on the planet! But they are wealthy and people are jealous of them! But the Bible says in Romans 11 that WE ought to make the Jews jealous! How do you make the most blessed and wealthy and blessed people with poverty and nothing?! They are saying it is working now! Paul says we must make the Jews jealous! Gentile and Jew Christians!

Third power of favour - favour is a shield of protection around you. Psalm 5:12 says "You surround them with your favour as with a shield". The favour of God is the only protection against forces of evil that would love to kill you and destroy your life. That is the favour of God! If you walk with faith then you will trust His favour today! That favour is a shield that would drive poverty and sickness on you. You need the favour of God. Isaiah 54:17 - NO weapon formed against you will prosper! It didn't say some may and some may not! NO weapon! The devil hasn't got ANYTHING that will succeed but it will succeed if we don't walk in the favour of God. Walk in the blessing and favour of God and you are invincible! Keep walking day after day and month after month and year after year considering Abraham!

Let our response be as Mary - "Be it done to me according to Your Word".

God's Covenant of Increased Blessing - Part 1

I am carrying on my wonderful exploring of the City Church International archives and suddenly realised that I haven't transcribed a sermon from 2005 yet. So here is the first!


Preached on Sunday 6th March 2005.


"The prophetic is really important isn't it? Someone said "Would it happen if someone didn't prophesy?". Well - I don't think so! I think the prophetic releases that creative word that brings it into reality. So we need to prophesy over one another! The Bible says that we can all prophesy. There is not some with the gift of prophecy and others don't have the gift. The Bible says in 1st Corinthians 14 that we can all prophesy! We are not all prophets! But we are all priests of God and all priests of God can prophesy. The gift of prophecy is different to the office of the prophet. Prophecy encourages and exhorts and comforts and builds up so prophecy is really powerful.

Please open your Bibles to Genesis chapter 1. How many of you are going to make a date with God this week and spend some time alone with the Lord and refresh yourselves? It is so important you know! The Bible says that those who wait on the Lord will mount up with wings like eagles! They renew their strength if they wait upon God. We all need to break free from the gravitational pull of this earth. Some people say that you are so spiritually minded that you are no earthly good.


Some people are so earthly minded that they don't know how to touch heaven. We need to rise up with wings like eagles and move into the heights in God. I had some issues this week and they looked so burdensome and so impossible and so difficult that I didn't know how I was going to cope! So I ran up into the mountains to pray and when you get up there you are so tired that you cannot pray anymore! But in that time with God He began to address my heart and refresh me and release me from things and as I waited on Him mounting up with wings like eagles and it is amazing on the heights with God how your problems DIMINISH the HIGHER you get with God!

And God is magnified! God is so big that He cannot go anywhere because He is everywhere! God doesn't increase but we magnify the Lord. In other words He becomes increasingly bigger in our understanding as we go up to those heights. I remember that wonderful message that Ern Baxter preached one day on the eagles. And he came out with this little song on the eagles and I tell you what it is so corny and cheesy but there is an anointing on it! It goes something like this;

"Rise into the sunlight rays - using both your wings of prayer and praise, rise like eagles higher in the sky. Things will look so different when you fly!".

Maybe I should have done the junior church today! I want to talk about "God's Covenant of Increased Blessing for our Lives". This is not a prosperity cult - we don't focus on prosperity but we focus on Jesus! We don't focus on healing - we focus on the Healer! We don't focus on anything but Jesus. So we are going to look at the covenant that God cut with His Son Jesus Christ to increase the blessing on our lives. Satan is a poverty spirit. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 28 that God will bless our coming in and our going out. Our barns and livestock and credit accounts. Be the head and not the tail. Those who rise against us will flee in seven different directions. He goes on and on and on! You will lend to many but borrow from none! The opening verse says that if you will obey Me and do all My commands then these blessings will come on you and OVERTAKE you! You can't even run away from them! Then He goes on and says if you don't keep these commands and laws then all these curses will come upon you and it is sickness and disease and poverty. And He said because you did not serve Me with joy in the times of prosperity then so you will wear a yoke of poverty.

So part of the curse of the law is poverty but Christians today take oaths of poverty and think that is holy and not knowing it is part of the curse of the law! People think it is acceptable to live in defeat - no it is part of the curse! The blessing is victory and our enemies fleeing in seven different directions!

The one stumbling block for many Christians is; "If you keep all My commands and laws". So they think they must earn it and if they keep all the laws then they will earn the blessings. But Galatians 3:15 says; "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law by being cursed in our place that the blessings of Abraham can come on the Gentiles by faith". This is not earning it - this is by faith! This is a better covenant with superior Mediator based on better promises! The covenant of grace says you receive the promises by faith in the finished work of the Cross and not by you trying to keep the law. If you try and keep the law then you will come under curse because if you don't keep it perfectly then you will come under curse! You break it in one area and you come under curse! But if you step out of law keeping and into faith and the finished work of the Cross then the blessings will come on you and overtake you!

Faith is based primarily not on a knowledge of God's ABILITY but on a knowledge of God's WILL. Even the devil knows God is able! It doesn't take great faith to know that the One who created the heavens and the earth is able to do awesome things! Faith is based on a revelation of God's willingness.

If I was a multi-billionaire and I said to everyone of you that I am able to give each of you one hundred million pounds British! There is no basis of faith for you - just because I am able doesn't mean I am willing! The question Christians are asking is - is He willing to do this for me? If I said I am a multi-billionaire and I am able to give each one of you a hundred million pounds but today I am only willing to give three of you it - you couldn't have any great faith! You could only hope that you are one of the lucky ones! Hope will never get your prayers answered! So many Christians say "I am hoping so!" - well forget it, nothing is going to happen in your life!


Hebrews 11:1 says "Faith is the substance of things hoped for". Without faith your hope has got no substance to it! It is just empty wishful thinking and weak human optimism! But with faith that comes by revelation of the will of God that faith will add substance to your hope and your hope will be made manifest with the substance of your faith! So if I told you I was a multi-billionaire and I was able to give each of you a hundred million pounds but I am also WILLING and here is an attorney and here is a document and I am able and willing! Then you would jump up with substance in your hope because you know that my will is to give you one hundred million pounds!

It is guaranteed! Now your hope has got substance to it which is the basis of your faith! Without a knowledge of God's will there is no basis for faith - there is just empty hope. Now we will look at the Word of God because the Bible says in Romans 10:17 that "faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God". So when you know what God's will is for you then you know that you can put your faith in God's covenant of increase and blessing and you know that He will bless you! Why do we want to be blessed? Because we are selfish and greedy? No we want to be blessed because the qualification for being a blessor is that you first have to be blessed! It is from the innermost parts of our being to the outer most parts of the earth - that is the call of God. The nations are our inheritance! But the innermost parts of our being ought to be blessed and overflowing with love otherwise we will export bondage to the outermost parts of the earth. We need to be free on the outside then the sufficiency and supply of God Almighty will flow to the nations!

Genesis chapter 1. Let's pray;


"Father we ask for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation to open the eyes of our understanding and our hearts as to the hope of our calling and what is your exceeding power towards us that same power that worked in Christ when You raised Him from the dead. So You have worked that same power in us and we are the very glorious inheritance of You Father. Open our understanding to see that we are very joint heirs with Christ and heirs of God! Thank You that through the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness we are ruling and reigning in life through the Lord Jesus Christ. I pray today Lord that I would not preach a euphoric triumphalism - a false hope or a false pretence or a pretended victory. Our victory today is a genuine one because it is not based on our performance or our ability but it is in Him. Open our eyes! May the grace of God come on everyone's employment that the blessing may come on us all. Thank You that our businesses are not the source - You are the source and You can supply way more than our businesses can! In Jesus Mighty Name".

Now we will teach today so hang in a bit and stay open to God's Word and lets receive this impartation. Here at the very beginning of creation God announces out of the generosity of His heart great blessing on man and woman. The theological principle of "first mention" is a very powerful theological principle. The first mention of something shows that it is God's intention to go on and on and on. Let's read this. Genesis 1:27. He has just created man and woman and this is the first thing that comes out of His mouth. This is the heart of God for His people! (v27); "In the image of God ... that moves on the ground".

Now folks I want you to do warfare with me today in the Spirit. I don't believe we attack principalities and pull them down into the basement of the church and lock them up in plasma bottles - no we pull down strongholds that are in the mind! That are in opposition to the Word of God!


Do you know that's what 2 Corinthians 4:10 says? Our weapons are mighty through God to the demolishing of strongholds ... bring it into the captivity of Christ! The enemy has fought me all week to stop me preaching this message! There is excesses in this message and people have backed off from this thing and the devil doesn't want the church blessed - he doesn't mind if we just have enough and a survival mentality! But God has cut a covenant of increased blessing that should keep on increasing daily, monthly in our lives! So you are going to need to fight with me okay! The devil tried to take me out before I preached this message! Take the Word of God and suck it out of me! Let's all be Americans today!

The Bible says that EVERY promise God has made (no matter how many promises there are) they are all YES in Christ Jesus and through us the AMEN is spoken to the glory of God!

There is a biblical purpose for saying "Amen" because as you say "Amen" then you seal that truth to your heart with a golden nail that seals it to your heart! God's desire was to bless Adam and Even and give them increase! And for a while they walked with authority and anointing and dominion. There is a first Adam anointing. The last Adam being Jesus. Here is the federal headship of the human race in first Adam and first Adam walked with such power and authority under freedom in God and then he is seduced by satanic lies that tell him in deception (starting with Eve and then him because he made Eve his goddess instead of God his God and he let Eve manipulate him and deceive him as well because he chose Eve instead of God and that is a pressure that comes on anyone) - Adam rebelled and received the deception that he can be "like God" which is the teaching of the New Age! Satan wanted to exalt his throne above the throne of God - he was jealous and envious and wanted to be God but he cannot be God because there is only one immutable transcendant God.

So he was seduced into believing that he didn't need God and that he could become God and as he did that he committed high treason and died spiritually. He was cut off from the blessing and increase and he had to labour by the sweat of his brow. He entered into a "works ethic" mentality that was cursed. The ground and his life was cursed! And he was cut off from the covenant of increased blessing! The world today and many Christians still labour under the curse instead of the covenant of increased blessings! The world outside of Christ is labouring and working hard for the blessing and as much as they accumulate and they get through the sweat of their labour they find a vacuum of emptiness and they lose it in bankruptcy over and over again. But we are in last Adam and a covenant of increased blessing! So God looks on mankind in sweat and labour and confusion and curse and He has mercy and grace and so He decides that He is going to get back into the earth realm through a man called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans. He is an Iraqui man actually who then becomes the founder of the people of Israel.

So go to Genesis chapter 12. I love the people of Israel and the Jewish nation but I also love the Arabs! Look at Genesis 12:1 - this is the first encounter that Abraham has with God. "The Lord said to Abram ... so Abram left as the Lord told him".

You know that word "blessed" in the Hebrew there is the word "Hasad" and it literally means this; "favour - the dispensing of goods and favours in abundance - good will - special liking, special kindness - in hot pursuit of you - coming on you - blessings coming on you". That is God's promise to Abraham! One condition - leave your father's house and leave the old ways. Now I do not believe that necessarily means we all have to geographically leave our families and children. I believe more of a cardiological change than a geographical change. There has to be something where we come out from the conditioning of the influence of our past - the conditionings and limitations of people's ideologies that we grew up under. I believe we have got to connect with a covenant of increase and to do that we have got to leave the influences of our past that leave limitation on our lives. I do not believe that all of us have to leave our families and friends and children. We have had to do that by coming to Hong Kong. Some are called to relocate to nations in the purposes of God because God wants all nations to be saved and touched with the gospel!

But not all are called geographically and permaemently. All are called sometime to go for the gospel's sake but we are called to leave the mentality that conditioned us when we were growing up. We are to honour our parents but we do not need to take things from our lives if what they gave to us made us cynical and skeptical about the gospel. The very idea that the gospel is only relevant for heaven but on earth it is irrelevant and Christians are a joke and they walk around begging for everything with pastor's discounts and they are as poor as church mice and this mentality where the world patronises and condescends to the church because the church is always begging and poor and needs more and more! But when we have a covenant of increase! You have relatives in this room who think you are crazy when you come to church and they think you are wasting your time and they think Christianity is something one day when you get to heaven. Instead of understanding that this is a covenant that God has cut of increased blessings in our lives.

Go to Mark chapter 10. We are warring well here! We must leave the influences and leave the things behind that have put limitations on your life. (10:29); "I tell you the truth no one who has left home or ... will fail to receive a hundred times as much in THIS PRESENT AGE". I don't know what that means! Is that a hundred homes? "Homes, brothers". Glenda and I have got hundreds of thousands of friends and I am not talking about they are just vague - we know hundreds of thousands of people! 20, 000 churches that we are working with! We just can't remember their names! "with them persecutions". You get blessed like that you will be persecuted! It won't be the world attacking you, it will be some church people! The Pharisees and Sadducees and wouldn't sees and couldn't sees! This is blessings in this present age! This is leaving behind the poverty thinking and limitation thinking and have no power or authority but one day when you get to heaven it will all be worthwhile.

That is NOT what this Bible teaches!

(Genesis 13:1) Abraham had become very wealthy in livestock and silver and gold! When did Abraham become very wealthy? When he had LEFT his family, his home, his country where they worshipped idols! He followed El-Shaddi - the God who is more than enough! God's promise was true! It didn't just say he was rich - it said he was VERY rich in silver and gold! I don't have silver and gold! But I have always turned salaries down in the church because that is too much! It is not about driving around in Rolls and smoking cuban cigars! It is that God's people get blessed!

Because the more we have the more we can do! In Hong Kong money is their god and it is a devilish god! The love of money is the root of ALL evil! People think that if I have got enough money then I don't need God! I want to tell you that money is a great servant but a terrible God! You can't do a thing without money! Money says you can buy that land, buy that building, send five thousand pastors out on the field and plant 20, 000 churches in China! That's what money says in the right hands of the right stewards! Money takes on the character of the hands that it is in! Under Hugh Hefner and Playboy it buys more and more pornography and destruction! Under righteous hands that money takes on a righteous purpose and our money represents our hours and our time!

You can be as anointed as you want but if you don't have money then that anointing can't get to where it needs to go!

No one says to me when I get on a plane; "Oh you are a pastor? Don't worry about it! This air fare is free!". You can't take the gospel anywhere without money! This idiotic thing that money is not important is insane! Jesus said if you are not faithful with worldly wealth then you cannot be faithful with true riches.
If you are stingy and small-minded with money then you will be the same way with the anointing! But when you are free with money and releasing money then you are free in releasing power and the grace of God into the nations!

So Abraham became very rich after he met El Shaddi! Some people in Hong Kong need to understand this that when you walk with Him leaving the old influences behind and walk with God you can become very rich! We may not all become multi-millionaires but we call all LIVE like multi-millionaires! I don't have millions in the bank but I live like one by the blessing of God! Everything we want it seems God does it! Genesis 15 - now this is a long reading but stick with this! Every verse here is a whole series but we will only make a comment on the main one. (Genesis 15:1); "I am your shield and your great reward". Now I want you to see that is covenant language. The enemy cannot destroy you! (v2); "A son coming from your own body will be your heir ... so shall your offspring be". A covenant of increase! Abraham believed the Lord and He credited to him as righteousness! "I brought you ... to give you this land so you can take possession of it ... oh sovereign Lord how can I know?".

Faith is based on knowing the will of God not just His ability.

"How can I know I will take possession of it .. birds of prey came down but Abraham drove them away". You have got to keep the demonic off your inheritance! "As the sun was setting Abraham fell into a deep sleep". That is the Hebrew word again "Radam" and it means to fall under the power or be under the influence of the Spirit. You can hear things going on around you but you are caught up in the Presence of God. "I will punish the nation they serve ... you will go to your father's in peace and live to a ripe age ... a smoking fire with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces ..". This would have blown Abraham's mind and we cannot understand it if we don't live in Africa or North America. "Covenant". Many people in the sophisticated Western world don't understand what covenant is. "Covenant" was well know throughout the world. Dr Livingstone was able to penetrate into Africa because he made covenants with powerful chiefs and the sign of the covenant was a cut on the wrist or the palm of the hand. He walked through dangerous areas and held up his hand and they would see he had a covenant - there is more to him than we see with our eyes.

We touch him and are touching a whole backing of many tribes that are powerful and stand with him. A covenant was an alliance where they cut an ox in half or would exchange coats and belts and would walk through these slain split oxen and as they were doing it they would recite the terms of the covenant; "Everything I have is yours - everything you have is mine". Anyone attacks you and they attack me - if we break this covenant these are the things that will happen. That was known throughout that world. What would have blown Abraham's mind was when God said "I am going to make a covenant with a human". All My resources are yours! Anyone who fights against you fights against Me! How many know who got the better side of this bargain!?

Here is the revelation of the New Testament. When God cut this covenant with Abraham, He said; "I don't want man's abilities in this. It is not by your righteousness or by your human effort. Man's performance is too fluctuating! So we need a covenant that is so secure that it is above and beyond reproach! That even when we fail and mess up this covenant stands constant" and sure and God said; "You won't walk through the cut halves of the ox with Me. I will put you to sleep under anaesthetic. You can see what's going on but you will sleep. The preincarnation Christ - the Angel of the Lord - walks through the calf and God the Father cuts a covenant with His Son on Abraham's behalf. So for this covenant to be broken Jesus would have to backslide. John 8 - Jesus said before Abraham was - I AM. He said "Abraham saw Me and He rejoiced!". Abraham saw the Son of God walk through and God the Father cut a covenant with His Son. That's why God required Abraham to be willing to give up his son so God the Father could get His Son into the earth to die and that was the ultimate cutting of the Abrahamic covenant and sealing it and finalising it here on earth.

So for you to constantly be taking your spiritual temperature and be worrying am I hot enough? Am I righteous enough? He wants us hot but to get the blessing is NOT based on your efforts or your righteousness or your strength! This covenant is as perfect as the Father is perfect, the Son is perfect! They cut the covenant with each other on our behalf! We are in Christ! And if I put a piece of paper in this book, even if that piece of paper has got a few little blotches in it then whereveer the book goes so does the piece of paper even with it's imperfections! And the Holy Spirit is the administrator of the power of the blessings of the finished work of the Cross!

We are just condemned to victory! We are victims of victory! Truth sets free!

God cuts His covenant and now Abraham knows that he has got it now! God can't back out! Imagery of stars - increase! Genesis 17 - now Abraham has got substance for his faith! Now his faith lept into another dimension! Let us see how long the Abrahamic covenant is for! (v1); "When Abraham was 99 years old ... walk before Me and be blameless". He didn't say be PERFECT. He said be BLAMELESS. A very big difference between the two words! Blameless is that you have got no big problems in your life! We are perfectly righteous in Christ as a gift and we are becoming more and more blameless, sinning less and less and less. It doesn't feel like that some days Rob! I know - we all have days like that apart from Glenda! (v2); "My covenant between Me and you and will GREATLY increase your numbers!". I don't understand people who say they just want a small church of 20 people and just want inner healing and to hell with the world! We are on a covenant of increase and there are 7 million people in Hong Kong who don't know their right from their left and are on their way to hell! It is wrong to have a concept of smallness! Is it wrong to have a relational drive? Not at all! We must have relationship before we function! We must have such good relationships that we can speak the truth in love! It is grace and truth! You don't speak one without the other! First with God and then each other!

But we must understand that we can grow as a New Testament church into thousands and still have intimacy with each other and with God! There is just a wineskin the Bible gives! (v3); "Abraham fell face down ... father of many nations ... name will be Abraham ... I will make you VERY FRUITFUL". (v7);

"I will establish My covenant as an everlasting covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come to be your God and the God of your descendants after you!".

This is not a temporary covenant! 430 years after this covenant was made the Mosaic covenant was inaugurated where God's finger wrote the Tablets of stone. This Bible says that this covenant is an eternal one! The law covenant was a temporary covenant! It lasted for 1,700 years and the book of Hebrews says that the Old Covenant is now obsolete! It is now redundant and we do not have to take bulls and goats into temples and we are not under law but under grace. It is not how many hours a day that earns you the blessing! It is FAITH in the finished work of the Cross!


In that kind of faith you want to pray, you want to be a blessing! This is an eternal covenant - not temporary like the law! You say; "Rob is the law of God still relevant in the earth?". Yes - to every unbeliever and to every unsaved person is under the law (Romans 3, 7) - the law was not there to SAVE you but to LEAD you to Christ! The law is to show you can't save yourself! The law was brought in because of sin! So we can come to Christ with faith that we are not under the law, not under the supervision of the law and we are dead to the law, redeemed from the curse of the law that the blessing of Abraham may come on us!

Go to Genesis 24:1; "Abraham was now old and well advanced in years and the Lord blessed him in everyway". He was increasing in blessing! To be blessed iean every way meant there was no area in your life where you are not blessed! You are blessed in every way! Abraham got what God said He would do! Go to Genesis 24:34; "So he said ... the Lord has blessed my master abundantly". Go to Psalm 105. Remember God told Abraham that his descendants would be in slavery and come out laiden with many possessions. (v37). This is the prophetic word God gave Abraham happening. "He brought out Israel laiden". How many Christians do you see today laiden with the good stuff? "laiden with silver and gold. No one was feeble". After years of slavery! The power of God came down on that place and I believe healed the whole 3 million! This is the Bible!

We must NEVER get to the place where we say "I am going to lower the Word of God down to my current experience". Say; "I want to have the faith to raise myc current experience to the Word of God!".

Look what he says in (v38); "A cloud of covering and fire at night ... He opened the rock and water gushed out .. He remembered His promise to His servant Abraham .... He gave them the lands of the nations ... ".

Go to Psalm 115 and read from (v9); "Trust in the Lord ... He is their help and shield ... He is their help and shield. The Lord remembers us". The Hebrew word there means; "You are on the forefront of His thinking". God is plotting and planning and scheming ways that He can bless you!

"Small and great alike". It doesn't matter what your station is! "May the Lord make you increase!". Go to Isaiah chapter 60. You are always going to have in every church someone saying; "Yere but Rob ... !". It is a goat religion! Sheep follow! But Rob! But Rob! You don't know how small I am! We are so narrow minded we can look through a keyhole at the same time! We have poverty over our generations! Someone sinned back there and we are going to be punished! I know God is great but look at me! Look at the promises of God and know you have NO excuse! You have substance for your faith!

(60:21): "Then will ALL". Hebrew means it includes EVERYTHING and excludes NOTHING! It means that in the Greek too. ALL means ALL!

"Then will ALL your people be righteous". It is announcing the New Covenant! "The least of you will become a thousand - the smallest a mighty nation!". God cannot lie! He cannot exaggerate and get carried away! Is this possible?! There are 7 billion people on the planet of which 6 billion are not born again! That is enough to go around! I believe this church can grow to 20 000 and it is still too small!

When we stay in unity that we are in a covenant of increase then God can add to our number daily those being saved!

"But that was for Abraham and the Jews". I am just a Gentile! All I have got is the Gospel that saved us from going to hell! Abraham got the blessing and he didn't have the gospel! The Jews didn't have the gospel - we get the gospel! That's what maybe 98% of Christians in the world believe! They wouldn't tell you but that is exactly what they believe! Go to Galatians chapter 3. This is foundational for next week! Let's read! "I am just a Gentile with the gospel not the blessing!". (v6); "Consider Abraham!". Well we have been doing that for an hour! "He believed God ... those who BELIEVE are children of ABRAHAM ... the gospel in advance to Abraham". This is not the law covenant which was temporary! This is still the law covenant! (v8); "Those who have faith are blessed along with ....". Not hope! Faith is based on a knowledge of the willingness of God to do it for you. "Those who have faith are blessed along with ...". Why are believers so afraid to be blessed? The main thing is justification by faith - sure! "But all who rely on observing the law are under a curse". Too many Christians are under law. "Do this and get blessed". "ALL who rely on observing the law are under CURSE". Crippled with condemnation and negativity and can't even think of God wanting to bless them!

God is NOT pleased when we crawl into the throne room! If my children came to me like that then I would slap them! "Oh Dad I am not worthy to have a chocolate - can I just have the paper?!!". I would say; "What's wrong with you!?!? Have the entire fridge!". "No I am not worthy I did not take the garbage out!". I would say; "Have the entire fridge and then take the garbage out!".

(v10); "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to EVERYTHING written ... Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us ... He redeemed us" - in order that we would go to heaven? No. "In order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit!". (v24); "Now that faith has come we are no longer under the supervision of the law ... Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise". Covenant of increase! Let's quickly look at 2 Scriptures. Acts chapter 2.

Let's see the church that began 2000 years ago and lets ask ourselves is that the way that the church is today? This was the baby church and we have had 2000 years to grow into the full stature of Christ! But we went into the Dark Ages 500 years after this and for 1000 years the church was in religious superstition and hierarchial control, demons and doctrines of demons. You can trace the last 500 years in waves of restoration as the church comes out of religious tradition! The church is coming back to her apostolic and prophetic calling! God is raising up the Ephesians 4 Ministries again! It won't just be an evangelist running a crusade! Evangelists will preach the gospel and then apostles will come and establish foundations and raise up elders and biblical pattern and we will go further than the book of Acts!

I have been to fraternals for 20 years and will continue with God's leading to associate with all the pastors in the city I can - I believe in the spirit of unity! But the Bible says we have the five fold ministry to move us from spiritual unity to a unity of faith and come to the full measure of the stature of Christ Jesus!

That is why we must NEVER meet on the lowest common denominator not wanting to offend each other! You can't read that passage - we don't believe that here! No the covenants must be taught clearly and your traditions nullify the the Word of God! I have worked and led fraternals for 20 years! But I know that is not where it is going! Get into unity and we will have revival!? We have been in "unity" for centuries! We have got to move towards the full stature of Christ by apostles and prophets getting up and SAYING it like it is! With love! There are too many politicians in pulpits today being politically correct! That will never take us to the rugged, authoritative church that paralyses principalities and powers and administrates the power of the Cross into the nations and plants churches!

This church is where we are going! Ride the bus Gus! Some want to get to what I have just described but they are on the wrong bus! You can sit on the wrong bus and pray and fast until you have got no flesh left and pray in tongues but you won't get to the right destination! You can sit in religious traditions of men and say I am being faithful! But the Bible says you must be faithful to your leaders and submit to their authority and if they are preaching stuff that you don't believe in the Word of God then you must believe that too!

There is an apostolic bus that took off in the earth and it is gathering momentum! It is local church based! Apostles circulating and relating to elders! They don't fire elders or own buildings! The local church owns the building! Apostles don't come in as executives or superintendants but as friends with affection and love and build foundation into that church! That is biblical!

(Acts 2:42). Do they have a covenant of increase? Everyone was involved! "All the believers were together and had everything in common ... every day they continued to meet together ... and the Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved!". INCREASE is the will of God!

Notice they didn't add to their number by their religious evangelistic programmes! The LORD added to their number DAILY those who are being saved!

(Acts 4:32) "All the believers were in mind ...much grace was upon them ALL ... no needy person among them ... distributed to everyone as they had need". Acts 6:7; "So the Word of God spread ... increased RAPIDLY ...". Now let me close with a practical application. This covenant is based on faith. But something that can short-circuit your faith is a lack of thankfulness for what you have currently got. I don't understand why God has blessed some of you in areas He hasn't blessed me in! I don't understand why He hasn't blessed you in ways He has blessed Glenda and me.

But all I know is that it is His will to bless me in EVERY WAY!

I have got to be thankful for what I have got right now! If God is blessing you and I start getting jealous and angry and bitter then people will start manipulating and turning Christianity into communism. Christianity is not communism but anointing sacred holy righteous capitalism! Those who invest their talents get more! Those who take risks get more! Those who bury their talents lose it! That is capitalism! The Church is not socialist! They act lazy and are there to beg! As God blesses the church and we give to the poor, the Bible says we are lending to the Lord and we will get repaid! There is no needy in our midst! People in Coastlands gave their cars! There is NO manipulation here! You don't have to give one thing! People gave cars to those who didn't! People paid for others to go on holiday! We were seeing dozens saved and added! If I get bitter and twisted and beat myself up - I have had pastors all over the world tell me about buildings that can seat thousands! I felt a funny feeling and God said I should celebrate what they have got! If you don't thank God daily for what you have got then that jealousy will cut off your faith!

God CANNOT bless you if you are jealous because Galatians 5:6 says that faith operates through love and if you don't have love flowing in your life then your faith won't work.

If God wants to give you something then you don't have to hint! "Faith-hints". God can put it on someone's heart to provide! But don't be too proud to ask for help! We will try and find a way to provide! Walk around your small apartment and thank Him that the rain doesn't fall on your head! Thank Him for the bed and the toilet! And then tell Him about the covenant of increase and ask Him for a bigger one! We need to be increase minded! If your salary is such and such then thank Him!

But God doesn't want us to SURVIVE - He wants us to THRIVE!

He wants us to thrive with an increase mentality! You may be just making ends meet but thank Him that the ends are meeting! Now ask Him for a salary you believe in! "Just have faith". We thanked God that we had two months of savings when we went to Australia! But then we asked for the figure we wanted and that was the salary I was getting! Then in a short while it was doubled!

Your company is too small to give you all that God wants to give you! He can provide through your company but through plenty of other sources too!

He can kill some of your rich relatives! Joking! When we brought our first house it was so small that even the cockroaches had claustrophobia! But don't despise the day of small things! Glenda could tickle me in the ear from the kitchen while I was in the bedroom! But I praised Him for the little house and reminded Him of the covenant of increase! I don't want to live off the church or the state! But in a covenant of increase I can own several houses and live in one and sell the rest and live when we have to retire! I believe we should be so blessed that we can have more than what we need so we can resource others!

The local church should be the most powerful Kingdom resource on the planet. God's agency is local church!

There must be affect through local church and for it to function it will take finances! Giving to local church is investing! This church is very generous for it's size! The Christians in South Africa and Australia resourced us here in Hong Kong! But last month I told them to cut it by a third because you guys are coming through here and soon I want to tell them to cut it by 100% because we are increase minded! I thank God for the six or seven people saved here! But now we want 30 or 40 and then to a thousand!