Being Established in the Gift of Righteousness - Part 1

"God is sequencing us all in His own supernatural stewardship and He is taking us from glory to glory, stage to stage so that we are being continually positioned to have more and more influence in this world. If you are born again then you are not a victim of circumstance - you are not living life in some hap-hazard, confusing, circular motion - you are living in a progressive lineage to a climax and a consummation of the end of the age. The end of the age doesn't mean the end of the earth. It means the end of evil operating in the earth. God will bring the reign of evil and darkness and wickedness and oppression of governments over people, sickness and disease, earthquakes, famines - all of these things that are part of the fall of man that happened in the Garden of Eden - God will bring it all to a final ending and wrap the age up. That will be the end of the age! Which means the end of the age of Satan's rule. I tell you what - we are going to heaven but heaven is coming to earth! There will be no opportunity for the devil to enter in. This is called eschatology and I am not going to talk about that today - I am here to talk about the fact that this world is not always going to be a struggle. It's going to be restored fully back to the glory that was in the Garden of Eden - never to be stolen again! God knew it was coming - He was never taken by surprise, when Adam ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God set the whole thing up and there is coming a restoration and a recovery and those that are in Christ are going to live on a glorious planet called earth. But you say it will be melted up! No it won't - the Greek word there means it will be transitioned and God is not going to throw this planet away. He created this planet and He will not let the devil steal it from Him. He will recover! And the rhinos and the elephants will be there and there will be no pollution and the lion will lie down with the lamb and there will be peace among the nations! Even when you feel surprised, God isn't surprised. God is inside of you, God loves you and God is working your life out to a prefixed victory that He decided before time began - He had a prefixed intention before time began for your life for a destiny of victory, of triumph, that through pain and suffering and difficulties all of that will work together according to the good of those that are called according to His purpose and who love Him - so we are condemned to the victory! We are victims of victory! We are victims of divine ambition where God is positioning us to succeed! I am going to have fun today! In any culture if you are invited to sit down in someone's home and you sit down at the coffee table and they have got you in your home and look across the table and talk to you with animated gestures and with a smile and you sit across from them not moving - that is very weird and really rude in any culture! How can church be a sad place when the church is called Zion - (in Hebrews 12) - the Bible says that Zion is the "joy of the whole earth"? It is a demonic lie to have any sadness in the church! God says "I will cause sorrow and sighing to flee away!". Not just quietly retreat reluctantly but flee away! The Bible says submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. I want to say to you - submit to the God of all joy, resist melancholia, resist negativity, resist self-pity and it will flee from you! Sometimes you have got to fake it until you get it! 2009! I want to talk to you about how 2009 is the year that God wants to establish us in the rest of the free gift of righteousness. He wants to have us rest in the free gift of righteousness by establishing us in that gift. If you missed last week I really
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encourage you to get Ryan's prophetic statements of the four things he believes God is going to do in 2009. I was hesitant to begin what I wanted to say today because there are so many people away on holiday but I felt led and heard God say it is the first Sunday in the year - go ahead! 1. I believe this - that in 2007 God took a number of churches through the periphery - there is a periphery fence of angelic protection that will stop the church going into full New Covenant glory while they live with a mixture of law and Old Teaching and New Testament grace. Those that wanted to embrace pure grace - even though you would be misunderstand and accused of preaching a false gospel and giving license for sin and even at the risk of being hated by the demonic religious anti-grace spirits (the grace-hating spirits of the religious spirits). Those that said whatever the cost and no matter how much we are understood. "Father we want to go into fullness of grace with no law, no condemnation, no heaviness - we want only the New Covenant, only Jesus and don't want Moses or the law because you redeemed us from the curse of the law at the Cross and we only want the blessing given to Abraham 430 years before the law ever came. Christ fulfilled the Abrahamic covenant upon that Cross". Every church that said that in 2007 - God lifted the periphery fence and they went in. In June 2007 this church went in and began to progress into the greater glory. In 2008 there were first-generation grace churches birthed in the earth. Churches were planted by leaders full of the revelation of grace. They understood the distinction between the Old Covenant and New Covenant and refused to mix the law with grace. They started the church like that and those churches are blossoming today. We have had the privilidge of facilitating with some of these church plants. But for 2009 those churches that went through the periphery fence in 2007 and those that were planted in grace in 2008 - those churches are now in 2009 greatly positioned to have huge influence, extraordinary influence in the world today. It's not that they didn't have influence before but in 2009 it is going up to a level of influence that is beyond imagination!! That's what I felt God speak to me in the country park this Friday. What will happen as these gracefilled churches - the manifest influence of God in them will increase to the level that they will affect media and politics and education - they will affect the church world and many other churches looking at them are going to come under their influence and will say; "We want to embrace pure grace and renounce Old Covenant teaching that is redundant and obsolete". It will not be because of the size of some of these churches although in 2009 some of them will grow quite big and large. But it has nothing to do with their numerical size. Their influence will be totally and only through the measure of extraordinary great grace that will come upon these churches in 2009. Ryan said something very brilliant last week - he said that when you go into a church that is mixing law with grace (as still the majority of the churches on the planet are) and preach pure grace there are two reasons why churches stay under law and don't preach the total redundancy of the law. They still preach grace but mix it with law - that's the problem. You go there and hear grace and think; "Oh no they are preaching grace". But you stay around a little bit longer in the same sermon somewhere and
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you will hear; "You have to perform, you have to do something to earn the blessing". That is preaching the law. That's preaching human effort not preaching blessing coming simply by grace and grace alone. There are only two reasons why they do that. 1. They do it innocently and sincerely because they have theological errors that they have inherited through the generations and traditions of men and sincerely preaching what they believe is the truth. When those people hear from the Bible the clear teaching on grace, they immediately repent, they search the Scriptures and they change. 2. The other reason is more sinister. The other churches are directly under the control of a religious, demonic spirit that is a controlling spirit. When they hear the message of grace especially in 2007, 2008 - they start spitting, gnashing their teeth and become compulsive, obsessive haters. God says in 2009 even some of those churchesa are going to get delivered by the power of God and will change in 2009. Every prophecy I gave exactly a year ago on the first Sunday of 2008 came true every one of them. You say; "Well the $50 million didn't come in". How do you know?! That figure was never prophesied! I said I am believing God for $50 million and I tell you what - I am still believing God for $50 million. You say what will you do with it? It will go quickly! We've got buildings to buy, studios to build, orphanages to support and things to do - ministries to get out on the field. I am trusting God for $50 million Hong Kong dollars - will you trust with me? Whole groups of leaders are going to get up in their churches with joy and repent and say; "Look I was wrong - I mixed law with grace - I didn't know what I was doing!". And the congregation will say; "Yes!" and we will see whole churches and even movements swept into the kingdom of God. Now there will be some religious dominated spirits that will stay legalistic and antagonistic and they will get even more intense in their anger against grace preachers. They will write lots of articles and go on websites and go all over media and run them down but God said this in the country park very audibly in my spirit - He said; "But in 2009 those religious spirits and those religious congregations and leaders - their influence will decline and they will not have the ability to put fear and confusion on people they way they have done". So 2009 has to do with being more established in righteousness. "Righteousness" means "right standing before God". How do you feel when you feel absolutely connected and totally and infinately in harmony and in tune and right with God? That is what the Gospel is about! That's what righteousness is - it means that you have right standing with God! Now if it was by the law then you would never experience even for a split second any feeling of being right with God. If you are under the law - any feeling you think you have that's right with God is a total deception because under the law - all have fallen short of the glory of God. Under the law - all have sinned and fallen short! There is no hope of even having a split second even if you do a lot of religious good things for weeks and weeks and weeks - at the end of those weeks you are still never going to be right with God because the law completely seperates you from God!
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How many Christians daily every second of every moment of every day feel absolutely joyfully right with God and peace with God even 5 seconds after they have sinned? How many Christians? Not one! But in 2009 those churches that were positioned in 2007 and 2008 are going to fill congregations with people that are established - they're not just going to hear about the gift of righteousness - they are going to be established in the gift of righteousness and the enemy will never be able to distract them off that truth again! I want to say there is good news for churches that didn't come in in 2007 and 2008. In 2009 they will humble themselves and repent and they will catch up to every church that has been going for 2 years and have come alongside us and we will move together at the same level. They will accelerate upto the same level we are. This is what I wrote for us. Here are some questions; "Can you see the effect of grace? Remember the first time you truly saw by revelation a pure glimpse of grace? I am not talking about the time you thought you saw grace but there was so much opposing fear that contradicted what you thought you saw. Fear that said to you; 'You could be deceived. This could be something false. The devil is deceiving you - this is too good to be true!'. That it caused you to treat grace as a stranger or even an enemy to be avoided. The many voices warning against grace seemed so loud that gloom and forboding with the dark anguish of doubt settled over you like a damp suffocating hope that God could ever love you so perfectly and never judge your sin or your sinning or disapprove of you! But sees you with absolute fondness and affection and He sees you perfectly righteous in Christ. No - what I am talking about today is what happened when you continued to push past the fera and consistently listened to the message of grace until suddenly the fresh pure winds of heaven blew the dark clouds of oppression off your mind and at that moment you saw pure, undiluted grace for the first time - the thrill, the liberty, the weightless feelings of unrestrained buyoncy in the glory of God - the feeling of safety, security, full assurance and confidence before God. The certainty - that's what I am talking about today in terms of your first glimpse of grace!". By the way if this has not happened to you - don't worry - it will if you hang around here a little longer week after week. "When this first glimpse comes and the joy and peace comes and floods your soul - the devil will change his tactic. It is classical and it is the same all over the earth. The enemy realises that the fear of being deceived that he brought against you has failed. Now he knows that you have seen grace and overcome the fear so he will leave you for a little while. Then his next line of attack is in religious suggestion to your mind; 'Okay you have seen grace - you've got it! But it's time to move onto other things like sanctification and be responsible now' (which really means in Satan's terms - 'yes grace is great but the party is over!'). No! No! No! That's a con to leave grace! When you see grace for the first time, our Father's next move is to establish you in grace and make sure you never move from grace again! That you move more and more into greater grace! He wants to establish you deeper and deeper in the revelation of the free gift of righteousness so that you can see the ever-increasing fruit and miraculous results that come from resting in established righteousness that is a free gift". (Colossians 2:6). "Paul says just as you received Christ so walk in Him. Or the NIV says just as you received Christ, "live in Him"! How did you receive Christ? Did you have to earn or deserve or keep the law or be good enough? No - you received Him by grace through faith - He declared you righteous. So just as you received Christ - so walk in Him and live in Him. There is a major theological heresy in this
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earth that is a very dangerous heresy and is more serious than any other deception in the Church today. It is this idea that there are two types of righteousness. The free gift of righteousness that God gives you and the righteousness that you have to perform after you are saved. That's not only bad theology - that is confusing because that means that God's righteousness is not good enough. And how can you be established in the gift of righteousness if you don't know where God's gift of righteousness ends and where your performance of righteousness has to begin? No! The truth of the matter is that the gift of righteousness is the only righteousness that you live by. You receive Christ by the gift of righteousness and you continue to live by grace through faith that "I am the righteousness of God". That gives you the power to change - but you are always righteous and are constantly righteous! We reign in life by the gift of righteousness and the abundance of grace - that is the present, continuous tense in the Greek! You are constantly righteous - there is nothing that can seperate you from the love of God - you are CONSTANTLY righteous! There is no other kind of righteousness except self-righteousness which will bring the curse of the law upon you. If you have to fast to get God to speak to you then you are coming under curse. God will speak to you because you are the righteousness of God! If you think that whatever sacrifice you make is to get God to accept you more then you are coming under a curse because you are coming back under law and you are operating in something that is not "as you received Christ NOW live in Him". Now you are adding to Christ's righteousness your efforts to merit something from the Father. You merit all the blessing that Jesus merits because you are a joint equal heir with Christ and an heir of God and you are 100% righteous all the time and you will be in 10 years time and 5 seconds time and in a billion, trillion years time - you will ALWAYS be the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! When I sit at tables with pastors and they say; "Rob what's this big thing about grace? I understand the gift of righteousness - I got saved through that but that's how I got into the kingdom! But why are you making such a big deal? That's justification! Now we have got to move onto sanctification!". You must NEVER confuse and divorce justification and sanctification. You must ALWAYS live in the gift of righteousness and sanctification progressively happens through grace while you continue to believe that there is no other righteousness but His righteousness and you live daily in that! That's how you pray! If you have more boldness to pray because you have been more holy that day (in your mind holy) then you are basing your boldness on something that is disgusting! It is pure arrogance that you did good enough now to approach God! Equally if you sin and you withdraw from God in guilt then you are doing something disgusting because you are insulting the grace of God that made you righteous through what Jesus did on the Cross! You are always the righteousness of God! People say well Paul wrote the book of Galatians to deal with the issue of justification. You can excuse Martin Luther and John Calvin for teaching that 500 years ago. They were dealing with the then Roman Catholic church that was lying to millions of people and stealing their money and telling them it is based on how much they give and all the good things they do and kissing the bishop's ring and
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crawling across bottles and whipping themselves and they will never know if they are going to heaven or not - they have just got to hope they've got enough good points registered to decide whether they will get there or not. They were dealing with 1000 years of that darkness - the church didn't start like that - it had 300 years of believing what I am preaching! The church then went into 1000 years of Dark Ages until Martin Luther saw justification by faith - that we are saved by grace and we get the gift of righteousness. So when Luther wrote a commentary on the book of Galatians, all he saw was justification and he preached that is what the book is about! No! I can't blame him - he had the light he had at the time and he was looking for ammunition to deal with the heresy of the Roman Catholic church today. I have got no fight with the Roman Catholic church today - I am talking about that time. Although I don't believe in worshipping Mary because she is just like you and me. Someone that needed to get born again. She's not the mother of God. God doesn't need a mother - He is self-sufficient and self-existant. But the book of Galatians has got nothing to do with how you get saved. It has got nothing to do with justification by faith! It is written to Christians and Galatians 3:3 sums up the motive for Paul writing the book. He says; "You foolish Galatians - having BEGUN in the power of the Spirit - do you now want to come to maturity or completion through human effort?". It's not about how you get saved - this message! Then you hear that I am saved by grace through faith and now I have got righteousness - now leave that and move on to getting holy! No! Paul said you started believing the message of the Cross - as you believed I am declared righteous all the time no matter how much I have sinned - if I sin today or make a mistake today then I am still the righteousness of God. Paul said when you believe that the power of God operates in your life. But he said now you have left that behind and now you have added law to try and improve yourself to get out of these habits. We all have problems and issues we don't want to do anymore but we have still got them. So when you leave the gift of righteousness and try to add to that your better performance you have left the moving of the Spirit and now you have gone into human effort and have gone into the elements of this corrupt age and you have come back under the law and you will not have a boldness to worship God on a Sunday because you will feel that you are not worthy enough because you sinned during the week. When you know that you are the righteousness of God then you start worshipping God with such liberty and freedom and you approach the Father because you are one with the Father even as Jesus is one with the Father! We are working together here as a holy battering ram today - not just for the blessing of people here but people over the website - we are breaking something over the atmosphere of Hong Kong. Can you sense that legalistic, control spirit is breaking off the city of Hong Kong? What is being established in righteousness? How many of you know that if there was a whole load of wet concrete that had just been poured where there was construction going on and I came to it and wrote in it; "Rob loves Glenda" - then I went off, anyone can come back and smooth it off. I come back and see that and write it again and go away and then it can be smoothed off again. What I need to do is come and write in that concrete and then stand guard over this concrete and not allow anyone to come and wipe it off until the concrete sets. Then what is written is now established so that in 100 years time you can come into this city and see; "Rob loves Glenda". People hear an occasional message that they are the righteousness of God. It writes something on the tenderness of their heart - they are so amazed that their mind is dealing with the fear that maybe this is a lie! Then people take Scriptures out of the New Covenant and quote them out of context and in this
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series on being established in righteousness. We will do a whole message on the so-called difficult Scriptures that people try to make you frightened about and I will show you how ridiculous and how out of context those are. You hear the message that I am the righteousness of God and I believe it's true - I think I saw it! And then you go off and sin and do something wrong or a Christian comes along and says no - that is a false gospel. Be careful of that! The devil then wipes it off. Then you have to start all over again from the start. Where do you go to once you leave grace? What have you got left? Human effort! I love God! I want to hear His voice every day! I think I do hear His voice every day - I love Him, I miss Him. If I don't feel His Presence on me every day then I am suicidal! I can't understand how Christians can't pine for the Presence of God! If I had to approach Him through the law - there is no hope! Even my best efforts are like filthy rags! I am finished! It is so stupid! Paul uses the right words; "Oh you foolish Galatians - who has bewitched you?". In other words he is saying - you didn't wait for the concrete to set! You moved off the subject because of these Judaisers who came down and made you afraid and mis-quoted Old Testament Scriptures and got you confused and put you back under the law and smoothed that truth of righteousness out before it was established. I believe the Spirit of God is lovingly rebuking in a redemptive way! The word "rebuke" there I don't mean in a condemnation way - I mean He is bringing a kind of loving rebuke; "Oh Christians you keep hearing this message and keep letting the devil wipe it out! You need to be established! You need to let the concrete set so in 1000 years time, a million years time, you will STILL be dancing that I am the righteousness of God especially after you have sinned!". Instead of confessing; "I am so sorry, so sorry that I have sinned" - that is an Old Testament practice! "Confess" means to agree with. That's what the Greek means; "Con" means the same as. You agree with God - what? That you are the righteousness of God. Under the Old Testament when you sinned, you went into sackcloth, ashes, morbidity, beat yourself up! You should if you are under the law because He is going to kill you! He will kill you for sinning! Blood, goats and bulls - yet still feel guilty. So many Christians today confess their sin and still feel guilty becase you are not meant to confess your sin. You are meant to do that when you get saved! "Lord I have confessed my sin" - now He is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from ALL unrighteousness. That means from the beginning of time to the end of time. By one sacrifice He has made perfect FOREVER! Read right through the New Testament and I challenge you to find one passage where the apostles teach the people to confess their sins when they sin. It doesn't exist. 1 John 1:9 - he says if you confess your sins He is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and cleanse you. I believe He is talking about Christians coming into Christ and getting saved. You can see that by the context if you are building a whole New Testament doctrine on one verse when it is silent everywhere else. It is an Old Covenant teaching! Now if you sin, you say; "Father I don't like doing that and I am sorry I did that but I want to thank You that I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus". By declaring you are righteous doesn't make you righteous - you are already perfectly righteous! But by declaring it over your life, you are establishing it, you are setting the concrete in stronger and stronger.
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You will wake up at 03:00; "I thank You - I thank You I am righteous! And the righteous are as bold as a lion!". The more that concrete sets - that you know you are the righteousness of God - the more that righteousness conciousness establishes in your life - the more and more New Testament promises of blessings and benefits begin to happen in your life. God will NEVER bless you on the basis of your works. He will not even bless you on the basis of your obedience. If you think your obedience earns you the blessing then you are spitting on Romans 5:19; "Out of the obedience of the ONE man - MANY were made righteous". It's Jesus obedience by which you are made righteous and it is not your obedience! People say something like this - yes Jesus obedience gave me righteousness but now if I don't live a life of obedience than I am no longer righteous then you are saying that your disobedience is more powerful than Jesus' obedience that gave you righteousness! Don't even think theologically - just think logically! How insane this insult against the Cross is and how for centuries Adolf Hitler said if you tell a lie often enough the multitudes will believe it! The traditions of the doctrines of the Church has gone on for hundreds and hundreds of years so you have got millions sucking in this mixture of righteousness as a gift and some other righteousness the Bible doesn't talk about - except self-righteousness which is the Old Covenant law. This answers the question that Christians can ask - well how come I don't live in all the blessings I see promised in the New Covenant? How come I don't always get healed? How come I don't always get my prayers answered? How come I don't in all the victory? I will tell you and it's very simple. Jesus speaks in the parable in Mark 4 (and I taught on it months ago) that the seed of God's Word is sown. Now the seed of God's Word is the very life of God. The Bible says that you are born again by incorruptable seed. God does nothing without seed. It is a super-natural seed and it says the same seed is sown into different soil conditions. Everyone sitting in this room have got a condition of your heart. You have got soil in your heart that the seed is being sown into this morning. If you have got a condition in your heart of the years of the traditions of men being taught to you that mix law and grace up and put you under condemnation and guilt - that make you think that God is angry with you and God's not very happy with you anymore because of your sin, then your heart has very limited capacity for the seeds of the promises of the New Covenant to germinate and give fruit to. Jesus gave four levels of the response to the sowing of the seed. Level 1; Zero fruit at all. Hard and rocky soil - the seed though powerful had no effect in these people's hearts when it was sown on a Sunday morning. Level 2; 30-fold fruitfulness. Level 3; 60-fold fruitfulness. Level 4; 100% of the promises of God's seed manifesting in your life! How many want 100%? See some Christians today are really frustrated because they are trying to get 100% result in healing the sick with only a 30-fold revelation on the gift of righteousness. Where there is a grace church teaching on this message - I wouldn't miss a meeting except when you need a break and a holiday and a rest!
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I would say to be established in righteousness I need this concrete to be established with this gift of righteousness because then EVERY promise of the New Testament will start happening for me. You won't even have to pray - the blessings will come on you and will overtake you! Jesus was cursed with the judgement He received for our sin - He didn't have to pray for judgement or curse - it came the MOMENT that He was made your sin. The MOMENT you are made His righteousness by a free gift, the blessings come automatically from heaven but according to the degree your heart is established in the understanding of the gift of righteousness. Have you got me? If you don't get this established in your heart then you will work harder on your marriage, harder in your career, children, health and you will see less and less results. But when you get this established you will work less and less and less and the results will get more and more and more! Why did Jesus say of the pagans that they run after greedy things and money and clothing and a happy life? He said - you! Don't run after that stuff! Don't even waste your time! He said I have got a secret as to how that stuff can run after you! This is all you do - seek first the Kingdom! What's the Kingdom? The benevolent, peaceful government of God - it's not food or drink but righteousness. Whose righteousness? The gift of righteousness! Peace and joy in the Holy Spirit! Seek FIRST His government and His righteousness - not your righteousness. What is His righteousness? It is a GIFT through what Jesus did on the Cross given to you. Get established in the gift of righteousness and all these things the greedy pagans are running after - they will not be distracted from but will be added to you. There are some greedy pagans out there running after some big money. God says you don't have to do that! You just learn by revelation how you got righteous as a gift established in your heart and the things the pagans are running after and can't keep for long in their hands - THESE things will run after you and the wealth of the wicked shall be transferred into the hands of the righteous! There's a wealth transfer coming in 2009! You see Christians working so hard with diminishing returns and neglecting this very important truth - getting established! Did you get Isaiah 54? This is a foundation message for this year. Are you ready for some really good news now? How many of you don't always see the promises working in our lives and other Christians lives? Every promise God has made is yes and amen in Christ! So every promise - it's His absolute will for you to live in the benefits and fullness of New Covenant promises! Yet most Christians hardly live in any of them. What's the reason? We are going to read in Isaiah 54:17 that God said to New Covenant people through Isaiah prophesying; "No weapon forged against you shall prevail". No weapon! He didn't say "most weapons". He said NO weapons! He didn't say "some"! He said "NONE!". That means anything the devil develops - any new viruses or DNA or sickness or disease or economic down-turn, any attack on your marriage no weapon formed against you will prosper! Or prevail! How many Christians live in the fulness of that? Christians get every flu that comes through town! No weapon? The Bible will show us that there is a condition. And there is only one condition - and it's not
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what we have been told by people for so many years. The condition for all the promises to work is not by you getting more holy or more obedient or fasting or coming back under the law. The way you will come into every blessing being fulfilled is that you get established in righteousness as a gift. (v14); "In righteousness you will be established". Did you all get that? Most people think that means God is going to train us to do better and better and better and do better. Me - I want to behave better and do better. I want to be utterly holy and as much like Jesus as possible. I never want to sin again! But that is not what I am saying - and I want to prove it to you from the Bible now. Let's go to (v17); "And you will refute every tongue" (or the NASB says; "And every tongue that accuses you in judgment you will condemn"). In 2009 if you are established in righteousness every political tongue - every accusing tongue - every arrogant tongue that comes against you - you will refute EVERY one! "This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and this is their vindication from Me declares the Lord". Notice the vindication isn't you - you are not vindicating yourself by your good behaviour or by your good arguments. This is God becoming your lawyer - this is God taking your case up and vindicating you - not on the basis of your innocence but on the basis of Jesus' innocence on your behalf. He says when you are established in this kind of righteousness that is a gift - no weapon formed against you shall prosper. To vindicate means to remove all suspicion and establish your merits as righteousness. The Hebrew here is; "For their righteousness is of Me declares the Lord". Many of the translations will say "For their righteousness is of Me declares the Lord ". The NIV says "vindication" - the same thing. Now go to Isaiah 53 - this is a prophecy written by a prophet 700 years before the Cross. You say; "This is going on too long". Rubbish! Just listen now. Come on - you sit in front of the T.V for hours and watch rugby and cricket for hours - this is the Word of God and we are going to get into the Word of God! If you want to leave - go! But we are going to preach the Word of God! If you don't like this then please go! I mean that! I am preaching the Word of God to establish people in righteousness! I am not interested in people who want sermonettes! There are many churches - go get your sermonettes and have your 1 hour service! We will grow to the thousands but we will not pander to people who want short sermons! We are going to build righteousness in the people of God! We are going to liberate Hong Kong! Stir up your faith man! Get some earlier nights! Christians are walking around always moaning - if you don't get established in righteousness - every weapon formed against you will not prevail! People say; "Pray for me - I just want to be happy!". I won't pray for people who won't sit under the Word! I will pray for the lost in the street and the power of God will come on them by grace - but the believers need to know that you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free! It is the seed sown in your heart that will produce promises being fulfilled. It's not people laying hands on you and praying for you. They can pray for you and you get healed and then get sick again until righteousness is established! Then no weapon formed against you will stand! And in the process we will pray for you while we are getting established! This wimpy idea of; "I am a victim and pray for me - pray for me". No. Shut up and listen to the Word of God - get it built into your heart and get the condition of your heart right and the legalism out! "Oh you foolish people - get this legalism out!". Stop leaving the concrete unattended - protect it until righteousness is set! Stop this nonsense of hearing righteousness and then drifting off again into condemnation and being irresponsible with this great salvation given to us.
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Isaiah 53 was written 700 years before Christ ever died on the Cross - these are the prophets who saw more about the New Covenant - if you want to learn how great the New Covenant is - go read what the prophets prophesied of the New Covenant while they were under the law, struggling to keep the wrath of God at bay - and Jeremiah and Isaiah and Daniel kept saying; "There's a day coming when a New Covenant will arrive!". (Romans 3:21) says; "The prophets and the law testify to a righteousness that is apart from the law that is by faith in Christ". These Old Testament prophets saw into the future. We are wrestling against something here. I didn't go through hell from 03:00 till I got here because of the dark clouds that tried to stop this message breaking into Hong Kong. I didn't go through that for nothing. I can feel the pressure; "Just give it a break and end it here". I will not give it a break and end it here! 700 years before Jesus Christ went to the Cross, the Spirit of God came on Isaiah and showed Him what will happen at the Cross (Isaiah 53:4); "Surely (not maybe!) our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted". How many of you know that there was a big problem that when the Jewish people saw Jesus Christ smitten by God at the Cross, many of them like Paul said; "He couldn't have been a righteousness prophet - God would not have judged Him!". The whole Islamic movement - and I honour all the Muslims - but the Koran talks about Jesus being a virgin born but they reject the idea He was crucified on the Cross because they do not believe God would punish a righteousness prophet called Jesus! There are some people that say it was Satan who put Jesus on the Cross. Rubbish! What would Satan do? It was God that struck Jesus - it was God! Look at (v10); "Yet it was the Lord's will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer and though the Lord makes His life a guilt offering" - what did Jesus surrender to on that Cross? When Jesus went to that Cross He surrendered to the sickness we deserve, the wrath we deserve, the curses - He surrendered to all of that willingly! For the joy set before Him - He endured the Cross knowing the joy we will experience when we believe this and are established in righteousness. Why did God crush Jesus? Why did He pierce Jesus? Let's read it in (v5); " But He was pierced for OUR TRANSGRESSION". Mine. "He was crushed for OUR INIQUITIES - the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him and by His wounds we are healed - we all like sheep have gone astray - each of us have turned to his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all ". (v11); "After the suffering of His soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied" - that is the resurrection. "By His knowledge My righteous servant will justify many and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great and He will divide the spoils with the strong" - that is God giving us the victory of the Cross. "Because He poured out His life unto death and He was numbered with the transgressors for He bore the sin of many and He made intercession for their transgression". The point in these verses here is so blatently clear. I've read the whole of Isaiah 53 many times but what is the obvious clear message of what happened on the Cross?
- pg. 11 -

Simply this - that Jesus was crushed so that God would never crush you. Jesus was pierced so that God will never ever pierce you with sorrows or with sickness or with poverty. Jesus was punished so it is a guarantee that God will never ever punish you! Jesus was made a guilt offering by God so you will never feel guilty. How many of you believe that Jesus died on the Cross - His main reason - was to give Christians a power never to sin again? What was the primary reason of Jesus dying on the Cross? Was He crushed so we will never sin again? I want to submit to you reverently that if the main reason for Jesus dying on the Cross was to stop us sinning then He failed. I haven't met a Christian yet who has stopped sinning. If the Father from eternity said, "I have got to get people to stop sinning and the main reason I will send My Son to die and I will crush Him and pierce Him and something in that crushing will cause Christians never to sin again - then the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit TOTALLY failed. Because millions of Christians until the day you die will never be 100% free from some sin in your mind, thought or attitude. But! But if the main reason for Him dying on the Cross was so that your sins will never be imputed to you again because they have already been charged to Him - if the main reason He died was so that your sinning and sin can never again seperate you from the love of God then Jesus utterly succeeded in what He did. Yet today the Cross is not preached that way. Today very often the Cross is used as a lever of manipulation to use guilt to try and get Christians to stop sinning and it doesn't work. I challenge you to read Isaiah 53 and see if what I am saying is true. Jesus did not die on the Cross to get you and me to stop sinning. He died on the Cross to lift condemnation off us 100%. A people who have ALL condemnation lifted off them are empowered to have greater victory over sin. The woman caught in adultery - Jesus said to her - "Woman, I do not condemn you - go your way and sin no more". When condemnation is lifted off you, you have got greater power to overcome sinning. But in the process of becoming more and more like Jesus and dealing with different things in our lives we will get through these processes faster and the more condemnation is lifted off us. Isaiah 53 is followed by Isaiah 54 - the Bible must be read in sequence and must be read in context. This prophet saw the New Covenant coming and just prophesied 700 years before the Cross that Christ would redeem us and now he prophesies the New Covenant coming in a future age and we are in that age NOW! He says God is saying this to My people; "For a moment I hid My face from you in a surge of anger". That moment was the time the law came down from Mount Sinai through to the time 1700 years later when Jesus redeemed us from the curse of the law at the Cross. That whole period is the moment He had a surge of anger because He had to judge sin by the law. But He says that New Covenant will come and in this New Covenant it will be like the oath that I swore in the times of Noah. I took an oath and I swore by Myself that I will never produce a global flood on the earth again.
- pg. 12 -

If a global flood hits this earth and I survive it then I am throwing away my Bible and I will reject God as a total liar because He took an oath and God cannot lie. This God who cannot lie actually took an oath - not for Himself! He doesn't need to prove He will never lie! But for our comfort - He will never swamp the earth in a global flood. But He said in the same way in the New Covenant I swear by Myself and take an oath - and when an oath is taken it can never be reversed! Once God makes an oath - your behaviour, good or bad, whatever you do - He will not change His mind! He has taken an oath. He swore by Himself; "I will never be angry again - I will never rebuke you!". The Hebrew there is "condemn you". I will never withdraw My love from you - I will never withdraw My peace from you! Because He has taken an oath! So any time you feel like God is angry with you - that is NOT God - that is a religious demonic lie! Any time you fel God has withdrawn His love, that is NOT God that's a lying spirit! And it shows we are not yet established in righteousness because once you are established in righteousness - no more lies can settle on your head! But you don't get established in righteousness by casual attendance! You have got to get into it and hear it and hang in with it and flow with it and when you get established lies come and go straight off your mind because you are established and nothing can be wiped out anymore. Let's read Isaiah 54 - God cannot be angry with you anymore because He finished ALL His wrath onthe Person of Jesus at the Cross. God crushed Jesus for your peace. He can never be angry with you again! I am angry here with religious demons that have robbed God's people for so long. I am so tired of laying hands on people and trying to pray them out of bondage - if the mind is not renewed and established in truth then the enemy says; "Great I will wait one hour later and land more lies!". And they believe the lies because they are not established! You won't survive 2009 - it is all about thriving in 2009 to be established in righteousness! Churches that reject grace this year - I tell you I don't know what's going to happen to them. God's not going to judge them but the enemy will take them out. "For a moment" - that's the Old Covenant. A moment! "But with everlasting kindness His anger is for a moment but His kindness is everlasting. I will have compassion on you says the Lord your Redeemer". (v9); "For this is like the days of Noah to Me, when I swore that the waters of Noah would not flood the earth again; so I have sworn that I will not be angry with you - Nor will I rebuke you". You may not feel a thing but my spirit is engaging something in the invisible realm that I hope none of you are aware of. I am telling you that truth that is going to get released into your spirits today and the enemy just does not want you to get this. I can feel in my spirit that I am standing for something here. He just doesn't want you to get this - he wants you to say; "I know it's there - you preached this 2 years ago". You have got to get established in this! (v9) - God swore - He took an oath! "Covenant of peace" - that is the New Covenant. God has taken an oath. How many Christians on the planet know about the oath to Noah? God created a rainbow and made the oath that He would never destroy the earth with a global flood - almost 100% of Christians know about that one. But I guarantee that the majority of Christians don't know about this more important oath that is irreversible! If God breaks this oath He will be sucked into a vortex of oblivion because He cannot exist as the God of absolute and truth if He lives under oath. How many Christians have absolute confidence in this oath? It is the most important oath in the entire Bible and the majority of believers don't even have a
- pg. 13 -

clue that it is there! And those that do know that it is there - it's so vague and has never been concrete that is set in their hearts. I tell you why the majority of Christians don't know about this oath. It is because the the devil knows that once this oath is established in your heart that you are the righteousness of God and God will never punish or be angry with you - never hide His face (because hiding His face is withdrawing favour - His favour is permently on you now and forever). The devil knows once that is established in your heart then no weapon that he forms against you shall ever prosper again! Right now there are weapons being formed against you and me that to some degree are succeeding. God is giving us a way to live a life whereby whatever the enemy wants to throw at you will NEVER succeed! Because you are established! In Matthew 16 Jesus said to His disciples; "Who do you say that I am?" - the disciples said; "Elijah" etc etc. But Jesus said; "Who do YOU say that I am?". To be honest they didn't have a clue! Then Peter said; "You are the Christ the Son of the Living God!". It goes over our heads because we get the Greek and the Hebrew - but "the Christ" means; "Anointed One!". It means "Messiah!". You are the longawaited one! You are the Christ - the Messiah! Peter knew Isaiah 53 as a Jew. He knew the suffering servant - the Messiah, the Anointed One who would be crushed and punished and pierced by the Father for us. So that the Father would take an oath never to rebuke us or withdraw His love - never to withdraw His peace but to always speak to us and relate to us with absolute recognition that we are righteous. Peter knew that! So when He said; "You are the Christ - the Messiah". Jesus turned to Peter and said; "Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you". "You didn't get this in a Bible school or reading your Bible". "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but My Father in heaven has revealed this to you and upon this rock". What rock? The rock of revelation . What is a rock? Something that is immovable - it is something that is established upon this established upon this established. Upon this established revelation I will build My church and the gates of hell will not prevail against My Church! Look at history! The Church has not prevailed! It has backslidden and gone under pressure - it has ordained homosexual leaders and done all kinds of things - it has compromised the Gospel and fallen away. It has sold out to the convinient culture of a corrupt age. It hasn't embraced the kingdom and moved forward under opposition and attacks. It caves in when the pressure is on! The church hasn't been built on an established rock of revelation that Christ is the Messiah, that on the Cross He made us right with the Father forever and when we are established in that the gates of hell cannot prevail against that church! The devil didn't want you to know that! That's why I will keep preaching this Gospel and I tell you there has been hell for 4 and a half years. I've never fought so hard as I have in the 4 and a half years that I have lived in Hong Kong. Not because Hong Kong is bad but because I have never ever stood week after week, hour after hour, second after second, sometimes toe-toe facing the devil and saying; "No I am not giving up this Gospel because of the pressure to give it up so I wouldn't lose friends who even attack me because I know my dream that I dream night and day with passion decade after decade for 3 decades to see in the earth before I go to be wtih God - a church that glorifies Him - a church that doesn't cave in under pressure - a church that doesn't give up when the pressure is on. A church where the devil has a weapon and he says; "Okay that one didn't work - I will forge a different one. Oh that didn't work either".
- pg. 14 -

No weapon formed that he forged can prevail - because we are established in righteousness. Not only does his attacks not prevail but his gates of defence cannot prevail either! "Okay the weapons aren't working - let's go into defence". There are regions in Hong Kong - whole mind-sets, whole economic ways of doing, whole ideas in education and mind-sets; "I've got to stop the church getting in there!". No - even the gates can't prevail against a church established on a revelation of Jesus righteousness. Weapons can't work - gates can't work! His weapons fail! It's not that he won't stop fighting - he will carry on but it just won't work! His weapons can't work - then he puts up gates and the gates of hell don't work. We just keep on bursting through! Now for 300 years that was the church. Go read your Book of Acts and you will be shocked at what you see on the earth! These apostles and prophets and the people of God who were in the New Testament church didn't know modern therapy in church! "I'm a victim! I am full of self-pity and need inner healing because of my past!". They didn't know that! They just saw the power of the Cross - that they are the righteousness of God and the Father loves me and if the Father loves me like that then to hell with my past - I am on my way to heaven! They are established! The Bible says the book of Acts had the glory of God, miracles, signs and wonders. They were whipped, beaten and opposed and just kept going! They were in prison and prisons fell down! They worshipped in the prison and got whipped for preaching the gospel! Today people leave churches because you preach too long. Or because you didn't say "hello" nicely. Or because they didn't get through to pastor on the first call because he happened to be busy. These people broke through why?! They were established! What's happening in the modern church today? The law is being put on God's people. You will never be established if you live with this confused mentality. Some people should stop going to churches and conferences because you keep getting confused. Because you see it and then you go somewhere else and they very cleverly mix a bit of law in with human effort and what you have got to do to earn the blessing and it confuses you. Some Christians should go on a 5-year diet while that concrete is setting - stay on grace! On John 1; "from His grace we have received blessing upon blessing". Stay on grace until it is set in your heart and then you can go to these conferences with vagabond preachers who don't belong to local churches and are not accountable in local churches and are throwing out their spiritual ideas as to the way that miracles are going to happen. "If you do this or this then you will have the break-through". No you won't! You will just have false ideas that will confuse you and delay you in being established in righteousness. Isaiah 54:14; "In righteousness you will be established". After everything I have said you cannot believe that anything apart from what Isaiah 53 speaks about - that you were declared righteous because He carried your iniquity and He was punished for you. Isaiah 53 speaks about the Cross and all that Jesus bore for you so Isaiah 54 can say; "Therefore God took an oath NEVER to be angry with you again!". He is talking about not your righteousness but the righteousness of God. This is for 2009 when people are living in such fear! Running for safety - can't stay where there is too much pressure - it's all about me and my life and my family. No it is all about what God wants you to do! "In righteousness you will be established - tyranny will be far from you - you will have nothing to fear!". And what is the condition Rob? Keeping the law? No - being established in righteousness.
- pg. 15 -

"Terror will be far removed". He did not say there will be no terrorism - terrorism is increasing in the earth. He said it won't come near you. (v15); "If anyone does attack you then it will not be My doing". I hear people say; "Well you open a door and then the devil comes in - God set the devil on you to sort you out. God is using the devil to discipline you". If I let my children get disciplined by throwing them over a fence to where there were ravenous dogs next door and let the dogs bite their faces off - that will teach you! God has left no door left to be open to the devil. Jesus closed every single door at the Cross when He said; "It is finished!". ALL authority in heaven and on earth was given to Him! He took every key the devil had! You never open doors to the devil. The only way you can open a door to the devil is not to believe this Gospel. If he lies to you and says; "You have sinned - now I have got a right to come attack you" - no he will attack you whether you are living well or when you sin! He will attack you to lie to you that he is attacking you because you opened a door to him! No - you better close every door and become self-concious - concious of you. Just say; "Shut up devil! I know I sinned there but I tell you what - I am the righteousness of God and I will get the victory over that sin and I will find grace to get over that and I will not live in sin! But you have no doors - no gates can prevail against me! No weapons can prevail against me - not because I am holy or because of my perfection but because of a righteousness that is a free gift that I have been established in!". Anyone coming against you is not God. Under the Old Covenant God had to let nations around Israel attack them to destroy them. In the New Covenant He is saying if anyone attacks My people - it won't be My doing and those that attack you will surrender to you! (v17); "You will refute every tongue that accuses you - this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and this is their vindication from Me declares the Lord". Close your eyes and close your Bibles.

- pg. 16 -

"How to Increase in the Blessing". "We are in a series - number 2 - of being established in the gift of righteousness. I want to talk this morning on how to increase in the blessings of God. I really believe God intended for us to live incredibly joyful lives! That doesn't mean He guarantees that in this world we won't have some serious challenges - in fact Jesus promises us that - so you should put it on your fridge as one of the promises! "Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers them out of them all". Jesus said in this world we will suffer tribulation but be of good cheer - I have overcome the world. (1 John 5:4) says; "This is the victory that overcomes the world - even our faith". So faith is important! There is an attitude I believe we should have that no matter what the challenges - I can win every time. There is not one battle I need to lose because we have unfair advantages! I am convinced that many, many Christians struggle with living happy because secretly they don't like themselves. Now this is off the point (I want to talk about blessing and how to increase in the blessing) but I feel like God is stirring these things up in my heart this morning! These things come to mind! Some years ago living in Oz and I had something in my life that I didn't like. I had something in my life and I really began to believe that my intensity and my passion must really look weird to people and so I didn't like that about myself so I took 3 days off and told Glenda I was going to a place outside Adelaide and I was going to pray for 3 days. I didn't tell her what I was going to pray for - she thought I was going to pray for revival but I was actually going to pray that God would deliver me from my intensity and passion. I spent 3 days and 1 day I fasted and went without food and tried to manipulate God to deliver me from me! Not knowing He had wired me this way - because in His original design and intension - I would fit into the purpose I had to fulfill. Not everyone has to be intense! I repented and cried out; "God take this intensity away! It must be so exhausting for people to put up with as a pastor!". At the end of 3 days I drove back up to Adelaide in the Friday afternoon and went straight to a prayer meeting at Coastlands Church. As I walked in there was a prophet there who didn't know me at this stage. He has since come to "Glory and Grace" - but at that stage he didn't know me well and says; "Rob - the Lord says to you that He loves you and He doesn't want you to apologise for your intensity". I am quoting it exactly! So I began to realise - enjoy yourself! Sometimes no one is going to do it for you! Have you ever gone through a time when no-one is celebrating you? Hong Kong is not selffriendly. Hong Kong will make you feel like you should crawl on the ground like a worm in the dirt and you shouldn't say; "I'm on the bottom - but the bottom is on me". That is the spirit that is operating in this place! It will suck your self-image and inner sense of security and your sense of well-being celebrating; "I am special and precious in the Father's eyes" because we have listened to so many lies! When we perceive someone as important - if they reject us then we assume that is because there is something in us that is perhaps not likeable! A parent, a school teacher, a pastor, a boyfriend or girlfriend - hopefully not a husband or wife! But when someone important to us rejects us - the devil begins to make us believe that there is something about you that is not likeable because if someone important doesn't like you then you are not likeable and how, therefore can you like yourself? Jesus was the most wonderful and glorious Person that walked the earth and many rejected Him and
- pg. 17 -

He stayed completely secure in His Father's love. Often when people reject you it is because there is some fear on the inside of them and has got very little to do with you. We listen to the devil's lies too often. I have got something very important to preach but I want to get this out the way because if you don't like yourself then stuff will just go over your head and you get happy for a little while in the worship and then go out and spend 2 or 3 hours out there and you are with yourself again. That's why in Hong Kong people love noise, they will make radios play, noise in their ears when they walk in the country park. They don't want to think of the realities of who they are because they don't like themselves so they don't want to meet with themselves. Someone who likes themself enjoys absolute silence and hours on their own with God because they enjoy their own company. If you don't have places of silence and peace and rest and celebrating who you are and letting the Father love and Jesus love you and the Holy Spirit put His arms around you and affirm you and endorse you and approve you then your identity is in other people's approval and that makes you vulnerable to compromise your call in God, compromise your commission in God - all to get people to like you. Jesus couldn't get everyone to like Him because He was on a mission to do what His Father called Him to do. He wouldn't let Peter distract Him when Peter tried to stop Him going to the Cross, He said; "Get behind Me Satan!". He had a mission and if people didn't like Him, He would still stay on focus with it. Many Christians today sell out and compromise because they want people to like them. That is Satan's biggest tool and weapon against you. Every morning the devil accuses the brethren. He has got a list of all your faults. Now often when he points them out he is telling the truth in a way - but he is lying! Because you can tell the truth in a way that is a lie. He is pointing out your faults - you've got a mess in this area of your life - relational problems in your marriage, financial problems, sick problems, sin problems, character issues and he will point them out every day! If you don't like yourself you will suck all that stuff in and believe the lies. You need to talk back to the devil! And say; "Mr Devil - you think I've got problems? I recognise I have got a few messes here but let me tell you - you've got serious problems. I will tell you what the Bible promises. Jesus said at the Cross that you are condemned. The Bible promises you are heading for the bottomless pit. Now the Bible promises ME that I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus!". Then you will hear the tone in his voice change and he will sulk. I have heard the devil sulk! And he will say; "Okay yere - but you've got still messes in your life!". You can then say; "Oh thank you so much Mr Devil for reminding me of how good God is because even with these messes in my life God loves me and sees me as righteous ALL the TIME!". Why does the Bible invite us to come and drink the new wine? Maybe God is just cruel! I don't know I've never seen people drink and drink and drink and stay sober, morbid, unhappy and critical and grumpy! People drink to get rid of their sorrow! Now the Bible invites us over and over again in many passages to come and drink of the new wine. The reason is because it tastes so good?! It makes you happy?! And not only does it make you forget your problems - trust me this is true whether you believe this or not - not only do you get drunk in the new wine and forget your problems but your problems start going away! All because of the power of the new wine!
- pg. 18 -

Last week we did Isaiah 53 and 54 and we saw the incredible oath that God swore regarding the New Covenant - that He will never be angry again and never withdraw His love and never withdraw His peace and establish you in righteousness and no weapon formed against you will prosper - every accusing tongue will fail because your heritage is of the Lord and your righteousness is of Me says God! In Isaiah 55 God invites us as the New Covenant people to come and drink the new wine! He is basically saying in that passage that drinks are on the house! You know what most Christians do?! Say that it's too early to drink! It's only 11:00! Well God will will say to you from Acts 2 - they had been drinking from who-knows-when but they were drunk at 09:00 because when they came out of the Upper Room and people said; "These people are drunk with new wine!". Peter said; "They are not drunk as you suppose but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel - in the last days I will pour out My Spirit". Please don't tell me that the Holy Spirit has been poured out in a place where you have got conservative, cautious, self-concious, introspective, analytical, critical people! DRUNK PEOPLE ARE HAPPY! DRUNK PEOPLE ARE FRIENDLY! DRUNK PEOPLE ARE UNINHIBITED! DRUNK PEOPLE ARE CRAZY! It's not too early - it's too late! It is a SHOCK that we are still sober! I was drunk at 04:00 this morning - and at 05:00 I was so drunk in the Holy Spirit and then I came to church and sobered up! Because I had to get with Christians - no just joking! Why is it acceptable to sulk and be grumpy in church? Why?! "Well we've got so many problems". Why did you stop drinking?! Have you ever seen a drunk who is aware of their problems? They drank because they had problems and now they can't remember their problems and their happy! The problems don't go away until they sober up and then the problems are stil there. But for you and me - we are meant to stay drunk and happy and joyful in the Holy Spirit! How do you drink Rob? Well you can't think and drink at the same time! I double-dog dare you today instead of thinking to stay drinking in the Holy Spirit. Do your thinking later! Reason with God according to the revelations you receive today! So I want to talk about increasing in the blessing. How many want to receive more blessing in their lives? Do you know that there are people who have a problem with Christians getting blessed? It's like; "Ah there they go again - running after the blessing". Who said anything about running after the blessing?! God said that in 2009 the blessing will run after you! The Bible says that blessing will come on you and overtake you! "There's too much blessing - we've got to try and get away!". No it will keep coming and overtaking you! There is a real potential to live like that this year! But Rob - isn't the blessing bad? No the curse is bad! Let me put it very simply. BLESSING = GOOD. CURSE = BAD! I believe God wants to bless us so much in 2009 that it will actually embarress some of us! If you ask yourself why you are so embarressed - it is because you are thinking that; "I don't deserve this!". Then God will show you more and more grace - that it has got nothing to do with us deserving it and everything to do wth us believing that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! God said to me this week; "Go and study all the famines in the Bible and every famine - those people that had faith in the goodness of God got more and more wealthy during the times of economic
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downturn than those who did not have a covenant or faith in God". Isaac saved during a famine (Genesis 6) and in that year he had a hundred-fold and multiplied his wealth! The Hebrew word for "blessing" is the word "favour of God" which actually means "to be envied"! The Philistines envied Isaac because he got so wealth in a time when others were going down and he was going up in financial abundance. That is because he was the seed of Abraham and Galatians 3:29 says; "If you are in Christ then you are the seed of Abraham and heirs according to the promise". The blessings are meant to come on us and overtake us! We are not called to run after blessings! I have lived with Glenda for 34 years as my wife and she knows that I have never run after blessing or pursued blessing - I pursue Jesus and the reality of the New Covenant. But in the revelation of who Jesus is and the revelation of who I am in Christ - when you get established greater and greater in the revelation that you are the righteousness of God then the blessings start coming on you and overtaking you! God says for 2009 that this will make every other year look like POVERTY compared to this year! This is an amazing year and He says I want to bless City Church International people so much that the fear of God will come on the city - the fear of God will come on nations when they hear how God is blessing us! This is scary stuff to say because if I am wrong then it looks like my credibility is going down the line. But I am telling you - I felt God say this and this fear of God is not a "run away and hide" sort of fear. It is a reverential awe and wonder at how awesome is this God - wow! Look at the blessing on that church! We want that! Not one person without a job! Everyone getting promotion - everyone getting double portion! Everyone like themselves! Everyone full of joy - everyone in blessing on their marriages and blessing on their children! Blessing on their finances! Blessing is the power to succeed - it is the empowerment to succeed! Go to John 1 and if you haven't got there by now then don't try. Let's look at the revelation of God's Word. I believe that theology brings reformation to a way that we think - good theology positions us to receive a constant sustainable flow of blessing. You can come to a meeting and someone can say exciting things but without any good theology in it - they can preach from the Readers Digest and preach from the latest movies and do it so enthusiastically but without clear biblical theology - there will be no sustained blessing. When you are sitting in a service and the Word of God is coming - 10, 20, 30 minutes - you are sitting there with something renewing your thinking and positioning you to see an increase of the blessing. It isn't a guru coming and laying his hands on your head and abracadabra - go and be blessed! That is not how it works in the Kingdom! You will get a blessing that is temporary and you will walk out but your thinking will still be stinking thinking. You need to change the way you think - start liking yourself and start believing you are no longer under that Old Covenant - you have come over into a superior better covenant with a superior mediator Jesus Christ! (John 1:16 and 17); "One blessing after another". Isn't that amazing that the law was given but grace CAME? The law was given - that's impersonal - it is a powerless moral structure. It tells you what to do but doesn't help you do it. It judges you, it curses you and makes you concious of sin and makes you hate yourself. That's why religious people hate themselves even more than an atheist does. Even though an atheist believes he is a product of impersonal time - impersonal chance - impersonal matter
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- all organising itself in an impersonal way that somehow became a personal complexity - thus contradicting the 2nd law of thermodynamics. The atheist believes that he came out of a swamp gas and is the product of a frog but still has more value in that existential insanity than a Christian who does not understand grace but is under law. The law was given but grace came in a Person. So many are living in the absolute shallows of grace they have hardly got their little toe wet and they are still too worried that they are being too indulgent. "One blessing after another" - ah no not another one! Yere another one and another one! The active word there is "received". You lay hands on some Christians and they don't know how to receive the anointing! They starting shouting; "Yere! Amen!". Just shut up and receive! You can't transmit and receive at the same time! Receive! That is the operative word. They received blessings - one after another. We need to develop in 2009 a receptive attitude - an attitude of receptivity to the goodness and blessings of God. Let's get out of this thing - well I've got enough now! My job pays for my rent, food and travel. That is like living in slavery! The land of "just enough"! God is El-Shaddi - the God who is "more than enough"! Blessing after blessing after blessing! God wants to bless us so that the nations will fear Him! God wants to release millions of dollars into this church so we will invade the nations and so we will bless! Money says to land; "I can buy you!". Money says to buildings; "I can buy you!". Money says to missionaries; "I can pay you". Money says to the poor; "I can feed you". Money says to the wealthy that God is not against money - He is against the love of money. I don't love money - I love Jesus! I tell you people in this hour who are not greedy are going to be entrusted with the stewardship of great wealth because we will not consume it upon ourselves but release finances to feed the poor and help as the economic downturn gets worse - we are just going to get better! God will bless your job and bless you with FAR MORE than just to pay your rent! We are not going to finance the gospel in these last days just by salary! Salary will not be enough! It's got to be more! You will find money just coming in - all your richest uncles and aunties are going to die! Having a receptive attitude means to be living with a confident expectation of good coming into your life. Every day I have got to discipline my mind to stop the negativity, the foreboding, the sense of dread, the sense of this could happen or that could happen, or that loved one could die, or this may happen. This could happen to my church or that could happen to me. I have got to live with a spirit of receptivity - a confident expectation of God that I have come into fulness of grace and from that fulness of grace I am receiving one blessing after another! Well how do we go into the increased blessing? "Well Rob I have got the answer for that - we have to pursue righteousness. We have to pursue being more righteous. And if we can reach a certain level of obedience and holiness and righteousness then God will bless us!". (*City Church begins booing and cat-calling at this point and shouting "No!"*). You are too well taught! Who is your pastor in this place!? His Name is Jesus and the Spirit of God! If you pursue trying to be more righteous - if you pursue righteousness then that is stupid! The way to get more blessing is contrary to this world's system of economics. It is ridiculous! The way to get more blessed is to do the opposite - you do not pursue righteousness. You simply stop trying and you submit to God's gift of righteousness and get established in that revelation.
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If you try and pursue being righteous enough to get the blessing then every time you hear a promise that it is God's will to bless you then your whole thinking will go something like this - alright I had better get right with God to get that blessing. You know how your mind works if you monitor it! I hope you are monitoring it because if you don't monitor your thinking then you are passive and the devil loves you. He can lay all his lies on a passive mind! I tell you - I have been into this revelation of grace for some years now and there are still vulnerable moments when I hear a great promise of God of a blessing and think; "Well I had just better get right with God!" in some area of my life otherwise I am disqualified! THAT is pursuing your righteousness and not submitting to His gift of righteousness. The Bible says in Proverbs 10:6; "Blessings crown the head of the righteous!". In many places where you say that people look at their life if there is financial debt or relational problems or sickness issues in their life that are re-occuring - the first thing that someone who is not established in the gift of New Covenant righteousness thinks is - look at all the problems in my life - obviously I am not righteous enough so God can't crown my head with the blessing because He only does that for the righteous and look at the problems in my life so obviously I am not righteous enough! No, my friend, if you are in Christ then you can't improve on the righteousness you have got because it is absolute, infinite and perfect righteousness - it is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! The reason those problems are going on is not because you are not righteous enough in Christ - it is because you are still pursuing your righteousness and trying to be right with God by your behaviour and by your good works! It is a big step to make this move out from the boat of religion and walk on the waters of grace and start seeing blessing after blessing flowing in your life. Go to Romans chapter 9. I woke up yesterday morning and heard the audible voice of God say to me; "Rob - are you pursuing righteousness or submitting to My gift of righteousness?". I said; "Well Lord I am not pursuing righteousness!". He said; "Son you still are in some areas". I was shocked! I thought hey - I am the faith and grace preacher! He said; "No there are still areas in your life and in your thinking where you still think I am not good enough for that or not good enough for this". So I repented! He said; "Now you ask My people at City Church International". So I am going to obey God. City Church International - are you still pursuing righteousness? Or are you submitting to God's gift of righteousness? (Romans 9:30); "What then shall we say? That the Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have obtained it - a righteousness that is by faith. But Israel who pursued a law of righteousness have not obtained it. Why not? Because they pursued it not by faith but as it were by works - they stumbled over the stumbling stone". Then chapter 10:3; "Since they did not know that the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own - they did not submit to God's righteousness". Think about this. Last week we read from Isaiah 54:14 - that God said I will establish you in righteousness and you will have nothing to fear - terror will not come near you, tyranny won't come near you - anyone that attacks you will surrender to you and no weapon formed against you can prevail - you will be established in righteousness! Now you know He was not talking about your being established in our righteousness but established in Isaiah 53 - the death of Jesus on the Cross in His righteousness. Israel tried to establish themselves in their righteousness by keeping the law. (v4); Christ is the end of the law so that
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there may be righteousness for everyone who believes! Now go back to (v33) because we didn't read that. "As it is written; 'See I lay in Zion, a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall and the one who trusts in Him will never be put to shame". What is the Spirit of God talking about there? What is this stumbling stone? He is Jesus! This stumbling stone is Jesus! There are religious people zealous and pursuing their own self-righteousness and trying to be good enough to get the blessing and position themselves to be right with God so God can bless them and they are so busy doing this that they are stumbling over the revelation of grace and are constantly falling but it says here - those who trust in the Lord will never be put to shame! What is this issue of shame? In religious communities if someone had to get up and say; "I am the righteousness of God" - the religious community would make them feel shamed. The religious community would say; "Blasphemy!" and tear their clothes! Blasphemy?! How DARE you say that?! That is the stone the religious world stumbles over and so when people feel that pressure, they say; "Oh no - you are right - I am not the righteousness of God". And they stumble over that stone and go after trying to improve themselves and become better in order to get the blessing. Paul the apostle was the Pharisee of Pharisees, he was driven to get righteousness by law but he encountered Jesus Christ in a supernatural way and from that day he was established in the revelation of righteousness so from that day he could say; "I am trusting in the Lord - I am not ashamed to say in front of all my Jewish countrymen - I was a Rabbi of Rabbis, a Pharisee of Pharisees, everything that Israel would want in a man - born of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, circumcised on the eighth day - according to legalistic righteousness - I am faultless'. He says; "I count all of that dung and all rubbish that I may be found in Him not having a righteousness of my own that is by the law but a righteousness that is by faith in Jesus Christ that I may know Him" (Romans 1:16). If you are struggling to rest and submit to God's gift of righteousness - if the struggle comes on your mind now and again - "How can God bless me when I know I've got something wrong in my life?" - just think of Paul and the transition he had to make from Pharisee of Pharisees - king of all kings regarding legalism - what happened to him that he could come to the place where he could say; "I am not ashamed" of this gospel! That is a radical transition that gives everyone hope in this place. (Romans 1:16-17); "Salvation" means "soterio" and that doesn't mean going to heaven. It includes that but it really means; "peace, protection, prosperity". What do we live by faith in? We live by faith in the fact that we are the righteousness of God that this is a righteousness that is from God revealed - not from man or revealed by the keeping of the law. It is a righteousness from God revealed in the Gospel and people who believe this righteousness - that they are the righteousness of God and don't stumble over the stumbling stone but believe they are the righteousness of God and are not ashamed to say that boldly and confidently - to them, the power of protection, peace and prosperity comes to those people that don't stumble! Notice he says it is "by faith from first to last". This isn't just justifying righteousness. This is the righteousness that you come into the Kingdom in and it is the first thing you believe and it is the last thing you believe at the end of your life - you never go back to saying; "I will add another kind of righteousness to the righteousness I have found revealed in the Gospel". I don't pursue any other righteousness because that is the stumbling block! I am not going to be put to shame!
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Now the religious world may shame me and attack me and attack the grace message and even lie about you and even if you make a mistake they will love it and pounce upon your mistakes and say; "THAT is because of the grace message!". But even though you may be accused of things and maybe you do things wrong that the religious world tries to make you ashamed of - if you trust in this gift of righteousness - in the eyes of God you will never be put to shame by your Father. Every time you get sin going on in churches that peace, grace and law abide - they mix grace and law, Old and New together - there is lots of sin going on in those churches but every time someone sins and it is exposed, they say; "It's not our fault - we also preach law - we balance grace with law". Legalistic churches - sometimes people are sinning a lot more than in grace churches but when they sin the preacher doesn't get the blame because he preached law to them! He told them not to! But in grace churches when they sin? "Ah it is the grace message". I want to say to the legalistic churches; "Have a look in your back yard!". I know churches where grace was preached for a long time and people got established to a degree in grace and the level of sin was pretty low. Then other preachers came in and began to preach; "Do better, try harder, hasn't Jesus done enough for you?!". And they manipulate people with what Jesus did at the Cross. "You owe Him something now". No - you DID owe Him something and then He cancelled everything at the Cross! Now you don't have to have a whole load of "have-tos" but a whole load of "want-tos"! I want to love Him! I want to serve Him! I want to pray! I want to give! I want to be generous! Because - I just want to! These guys come in and preach "have-tos" and if you want the blessing then try harder and I see adultery come into those churches and see unmarried couples begin to sleep together and I want to go back and slap those leaders and say; "Go back to preaching what Paul preached - stop trying to put law on the people to stop them sinning!". I guarantee if you have got two glass houses in the street and the first one has got no signs up on the outside and little boys come outside and will not even notice the first glass house. But the second - big signs say "Do not throw stones! Do NOT throw stones at the glass house!". Everything in me - the law stirs up sin! Go to Romans chapter 3. I love the law of God. The law of God is wonderful but I love it for what it was written for. The law was never written to give you the blessing! Obeying the law was NEVER in God's mind! God never gave the law to make you holy - never! It was written to make you feel like hell! It was written to make you feel like a worm in the dust! It was written to silence all our arrogance to God and all our self-righteousness. It was written to make you concious of sin and once you realise that you are so ugly in your arrogant religious self-righteousness then you repent of pursuing a righteousness of your own and submit! You stop stumbling over the rock and submit with all my imperfections!"I thank You that I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus!". And when you do that, the peace of God comes, the power, fullness of grace - one blessing after another! You start hearing God's voice a lot easier! (Romans 10:4) - Christ is the end of the law. Once you realise the law is useless and can't save you - it is powerless! Paul says in Romans 7; "the law taking advantage of your sin deceived you even further". The written code stood opposed to you and God cancelled it at the Cross in Christ Jesus on behalf of the believer. Once you come to Christ that is it. No more law for you! No more measuring up. Jesus measured up for you and you are complete in Christ! You are the righteousness of God in Christ!
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(Romans 3:19); "Whatever the law says - it says to those under the law". Thank God I am not under the law in Christ! This is what it says to those under the law (although it won't say it to you!); "So that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God". That's why no one will get to heaven by their own righteousness. (v20) - Therefore noone will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law we become concious of sin. But now a righteousness from God APART FROM THE LAW has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. Go to Romans 5:17; "If by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive (there's the active word again - active expectation of good) God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness". That is so important! "Gift!". The gift of righteousness reigns in life through the one Man Christ Jesus. Now this is the problem here and this is how the devil is arguing this with false theology. This is a gift of righteousness. The Greek tense is the present continuous tense. So God sees you CONTINUALLY as righteous! Rob - what happens if I sin? Well shock of all shocks! Like I said last week - if the main purpose of Jesus dying on the Cross was to stop Christians sinning, then I reverently say this - He failed. Because I don't know one Christian on the planet who doesn't sin. But if the main reason why Jesus died on the Cross was so that our sin will never be imputed to us - so that our sinning will never be charged against us - "there is now therefore NO condemnation to those in Christ Jesus" - if the main reason He died was so my sin and sinning will never seperate me from God again then He was an utter success. Jesus died on the Cross to lift condemnation completely off His people and when condemnation is lifted completely off His people then you are empowered to have greater authority against sin. Some of the most obedient people on the planet today - the most holy, humble, pleasures to be with are people who are honest and transparent about their weaknesses and their shortcomings and their failures and they are trusting in the grace of God and loving God and they know how many times they fail or make a mistake - yet they know they are still the righteousness of God! Some say; "No you have got the robe of righteousness on and if you sin there are stains on that robe". What a disgusting blasphemy. How do you think that the righteousness of God can be stained by your sin?! No - Jesus was stained with your sin on the Cross once and for all time to make you perfect forever and no stain can stick to the righteousness you have! Now if you are self-righteous then your sin adds all kinds of stains but you don't have any righteousness you have because it is a righteousness that is perfect because that's the one revealed in the Gospel. People say; "Oh yes we know it's a gift and you get a gift - Jesus come into my life". That's justification. But any sin you do after that you are no longer righteous and you have to confess your sin and repent and then you get your righteousness back. Well that's the problem isn't it - you get your righteousness back! Well that's the problem - you will get your righteousness back! No - Romans 8 says no condemnation and nothing can seperate us! Nothing! Not your sinning! Your sinning seperated Jesus! "My God, My God - why have you forsaken Me?". So you will never be forsaken! If you confessing every sin was keeping your righteousness and open fellowship with God then you are in big trouble because you
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don't even know all the time when you sin. Because you have the religious sins of some cultures. God talks about being critical self-promoting, gossip. Anything that is not of faith is sin! So if being cut off from God happens because you haven't confessed your sin then every Christian on the planet is already cut off from God! Then they say; "Ah well we're cut off from God but we will go to heaven when we die hopefully". Oh pleaseeeee! This is a gift - it is not the reward of your obedience. It is a gift of Jesus' obedience on your behalf. Go to (v19); "For just as through the disobedience of the one many, many were made siners so also through the obedience of the one man - the many (are imputed) or made righteous". This is a fascinating thing that people say; "Yes you are righteous when you first get saved and then after that you have got to maintain your righteousness". We need to go back to the great preachers of 100 years ago - Charles Haddon Spurgeon and all who preached Colossians 2 that says; "And Christ forgave all your sins - at the Cross cancelling the written sins - at the Cross cancelling code". When did Christ forgive all your sins? Before you had committed ONE! When Colossians 2 says past tense; "At the Cross, He forgave ALL your sins". Under the Old Covenant and under the Law you only get forgiveness when you confessed! In Christ - when did He forgive your sins? At the Cross you know what modern evangelicals believe? He only forgave your sins from the day you got born again to the day you got saved. Then after you got saved if sinned again then your righteousness is no longer as shining as it was before. WHERE do they get that theology?! If He can forgive all your sins from the day you were born to the day you got saved but can't forgive your sins after you got saved - then I would rather get saved the second before I die!! He forgave ALL your sins at that glorious Cross! Gone! Blotted out! Finished! The sin issue is not even an issue anymore! The Father is not relating to you on that - you are the righteousness of God! This righteousness is NOT a reward of your obedience! It is a gift from God! That we submit to! We do not pursue it - we submit to it and we say; "I agree God! I am righteous in your sight forever!". It is through the obedience of the one Man. Now it says through the disobedience of the one man, many (that is everyone) were made sinners. In other words Adam's disobedience brought condemnation and made you a sinner. You are not going to hell because of your sin - you are going to hell because of Adam's sin. People say; "That's not fair - if I want to go to hell, I want to go for my sin! Why should I go to hell for Adam's sin?". Well God set it up as unfair because you are not going to heaven because of your righteousness or because of your obedience. You are going to heaven and you are righteous through a gift through the obedience of the one Man. Before you were in Christ and when you are in Adam and his disobedience - you are made a sinner and you were condemned by Adam's disobedience. Did you sin all the time? No! Everyone of us before we were Christians did good things. We fed the poor and gave to the hungry. Rock stars get philanthropic and give money and help and do good things. I did good things before I was a Christian! My good things that I did were righteous acts but I could not "righteous" away my sinhood because I was in first Adam! Now they say that you are in the obedience of the last Adam Jesus - and you have HIS gift of righteousness. You are meant to be able to "sin away" this
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righteousness but you can't "righteous" away your sin-hood in first Adam!?! That is blasphemy and what they are saying is that first Adam's disobedience is far more powerful than last Adam's obedience. Now we are righteous and we have got to perform righteously? Well that means you have got to add to God's righteousness and how will you be established in righteousness if you don't know where God's righteousness ends and your performance of righteousness begins? On what are you established? The Gospel is not about you changing. The Gospel is about how GOD changed the way He relates to you from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. When I say "Old Covenant" I mean the law covenant of Moses - I don't mean Abraham. As I keep saying and people are saying around the world now - the Gospel is not about right living. My dad was an atheist most of his life and he lived a better moral life than most Christians. But he was on his way to hell - till I led him to Christ! The Gospel is not about right living. Buddhists live good lives as do Muslims. Atheists lead good lives and so do religious people and Hinduis! The Gospel is about right believing. "For in the Gospel a righteousness from God is revealed to all who believe - it is by faith from first to last". Right believing will progressively lead to right living. I think some people have come into our meetings and heard what we are saying now and say; "Is this a bunch of immoral people and are they all committing adultery all over the place?". I have been married for 34 years and Glenda and I have never committed adultery and never want to. I am too frightened of Glenda and will never do that! I want to live a life of integrity and authenticity - I want to obey God and lay my life down and die for Him if I need to. But no guilt! Just freedom and joy and getting drunk at 04:00 on a Sunday morning! When I do make mistakes I just thank God that I am the righteousness of God! Go to Galatians. Obviously we are repeating and reinforcing things. I want to teach on how to hear God still and teach on the high priestly garments of Jesus and on the Benjamin generation - a prophetic word on that! But God said to start the year off by going back and reinforcing and establishing the foundations. If I have found God saying; "What are you pursuing Rob?" then I realise I hear a promise and think "okay I have got to do a bit to qualify mysefl a bit more" - then I know that some of you think that way. It is more than just hearing; "I am the righteousness of God" - it is being established in it that when the devil comes and says; "Now that sin you did there - that's it - God has had enough, no more blessing" - you will be so established that you will find that the funniest thing you have ever heard! You will fall on your back and scream with laughter that the devil thinks you can "sin away" the obedience of Jesus - that means I couldn't "righteous" away my sinhood when I was in 1st Adam! Ha ha! You think I can sin away Jesus' righteousness?! Ha ha! Devil - what a joke! I AM the righteousness of God - no weapon can prevail against me! From the fullness of His grace I am receiving one blessing after another - hang around devil! Wait and you will see! Hang around here long enough and you will see the blessing! I remember when we first got saved and we were university students at Rhodes and came into Christ and saw something of grace and we were living - every day I had to trust God for money. I knew this God was good. I would run up the forest - any excuse I could get. Before I was saved I was in the pub all day and then I got saved and any gap I had I am up into the bush to meet with the God I loved!
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At the end of the day you can't just learn from hearing a preacher - you have got to meet with this God. I would go meet with this God I loved and I got to know Him in the forests. That's where faith comes! I remember telling a cynic that every day I live by faith and have to believe God for money. Every day to live as a student! My wife had a baby and I had no income! While I was telling him the story this Afrikaan came up to me that we hardly knew at all at this time and he said; "Here this is for you - the Lord told me to give you this". Then he walked off. The cynic is looking at me and I just told him how God keeps providing and his eyes were coming out on stalks! I opened the packet and money came pouring out! I felt like saying; "I told you so!". Our faith has grown since those days - one blessing after another! From the fullness of His grace. You have got to like yourself and have this attitude that God likes me and He wants to bless me! I want to say to you - God loves you! He loves you! God doesn't want to bless you just so you are a greater minister! God wants to bless me because He loves me! Just because of the heaven of it - He loves me! He sees you as righteous! Let's go to 2 Scriptures - what are you relying on and depending on for the blessing? I want to tell you with authority and with full persuasion that the vast majority of people in Christ in the earth do not have clarity on this and still have ambiguity and confusion and are still not established. They kind of think they are righteous in Christ but they kind of think they are disqualified for the blessing and have to try and keep the law a little better. In City Church International we are not going to have that mix of stinking thinking! We are going to stick with the Scriptures! We will cover some of the certain verses - the "difficult verses" such as James 5; "Confess your sins to one another". But Rob - you just said that you didn't have to confess! We will cover that. We will cover all of those difficult Scriptures and you will get so excited! You will believe even stronger! You can't depend on even mix a little bit. You can't depend on your righteousness and His a bit. You can't pursue your righteousness to be qualified for the blessing and submit to His righteousness! It is one or the other! That's why some Christians are only blessing partially - they partially believe grace and partially believe law! When you move over from law to grace fully - you will come into the fullness of the blessing of God. (Galatians 3:10); "All who rely on observing a law are under a curse for it is written; cursed is everyone who doesn't continue to do everything written in the book of the Law". If you are thinking that praying one hour extra a day will give you the blessing then you have MISSED it! If you want to pray for an hour then pray for an hour - I love praying for hours! (v11); "Clearly no one is justified by God through the law because the righteous will live by faith. The law is not based on faith - on the contrary the man who does these things will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written; 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a true' - He redeemed us 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". Now it doesn't make any snese to say that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law - to say that if I break the law and fail the law then God won't curse me if I keep the law 100%!
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If Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law that means even when we fail at times and fall short of the law there is NO CURSE coming our way because Christ has redeemed us from law's curse by satisfying the integrity of the High Court of Justice in heaven - He was cursed in our place with the curse of the law that we deserve - He was cursed so that the blessing given to Abraham could come to the Gentiles by the promise of the Spirit through faith! It is so clear! There is no ambiguity - except the religious world blurs it on purpose to keep control over the people of God with guilt manipulation. What are we depending on? Your behaviour? Or are you depending on your faith in Jesus behaviour?! If you are depending on your behaviour then you are pursuing a righteousness and establishing a righteousness of your own - which will bring the curse on you. The curse of the law - but if you are in faith that you have a faith righteousness that's not based on your fluctuating performance but your faith in the performance of Jesus Christ who performed perfect obedience for you then you will be secure. I don't have to have perfect faith in first Adam - I was born into this world into the lineage of first man and I was born into his disobedience. No matter how many good things I did - all my good things were like filthy rags - I could not "righteous" away my sinhood in first Adam! But to come out of first Adam took faith and I have to believe that there is a righteousness I cannot sin away ever - it is from first to last - a righteousness from God that is not a reward for my obedience - it is a GIFT for my faith! (v5); "Does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law or because you believe what you heard?". Paul told them that he clearly preached the Cross and revelation of righteousness. (v6); "Consider Abraham - he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness ... those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham - the man of faith". (Romans 4:3); "What does the Scripture say? ... faith is credited as righteousness" = right standing with God. How do we increase the blessing in our lives? (v8); "Blessed is the man who's sin the Lord will never count against him!". He is not counting your sins! There is no sense of heaven going; "I saw that! I saw you!". No all He sees is the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! (Deuteronomy 28) - this is a famous Scripture of blessings and curses that is often read out in churches but not explained clearly enough. The context is that God is going to announce to Israel the blessings and the curses. I will not read all the curses to you - they are too depressing. The curses are poverty - you can NEVER say that poverty is a blessing! I highly respect Francis of Assisi and his poverty oath but he was walking in the lights that he had. He was an awesome man of God but in Deuteronomy 28 poverty is a sign of the curse. There is a great controversy about what is called the "prosperity message". I am not preaching it - I am preaching the Gospel which INCLUDES prosperity because God made Abraham very rich! The controversy with the prosperity message is that in some cases it was preached wrong because they did not understand law and grace. So the inference in the prosperity message is that if your life is right - do good and get good. Do bad and get bad. Which is the law! The prosperity message will sound like this - if your life is right and you are praying enough and giving enough and going to church enough and reading your Bible enough and living righteously enough then the Lord will bless you! Well what does that say? To those that aren't blessed and who do have poverty and are poor and are suffering? Well it must be because you are so sinful! No. Many of the people who preached the prosperity message went into debt and borrowed so much
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money they were living in false prosperity. Many of them have disappeared off the face of the earth. You would drive to church in a big car because I am prospering! What are you trying to say to people? This car is a sign of my right doing and that produces arrogance and pride and shame and pain in the people who are in places where they are disenfranchised and don't have access to banks and loans and opportunities. We preach that this message will help people in India, Africa - anywhere in the world where they will stop putting the law on people and saying; "Your good acts and living obediently enough will get you prosperity and your good health and your blessing is a sign of you praying enough and being holy enough and giving enough and jumping through all the right steps and hoops". No! There is just one step. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ that you are the righteousness of God from the fullness of His grace, we have received one blessing after another! You can tell that to poor people in Africa and if they stay in this message and hold on and get through all the stuff that we have got through and evey spirit that has tried to hinder this message and stop us believing this and making us feel afraid if we believe this - that this is a false gospel and we must be deceived! No - the one that has the law in it - Paul says if anyone preaches a Gospel with alw in, may he be doubly condemned! This is the Good News! This is the New Covenant! This is Jesus! The other one is the false one and I would rather be criticised by man than doubly condemned by God for preaching a gospel that has the law in it! When we see someone in poverty, we don't say; "That is your sinful life - you sowed and now you have reaped!". That is an Old Covenant teaching and when you read sowing and reaping, you had better read it in it's context and make sure you are not transferring Old Covenant sowing and Old Covenant reaping into New Covenant. Everything from the Old Covenant must go through the Cross! If it passes cleanly through the Cross the apostles make very little comment on it but if it doesn't pass cleanly through the Cross then the Jewish apostles make commentary on it and re-interpret Old Covenant truths into higher revelation New Covenant truths. Like I said on Thursday night Old Covenant was a "snip on the tip" - it didn't pass cleanly through the Cross so Paul says; "Our hearts are circumcised" - the re-birth! He uses the words; "the circumcision of the heart" - that old nature has been cut out and the new creation nature of Christ is put in. Sowing and reaping - I am not getting what I sow! I am getting what the Father sowed in Jesus on my behalf. Now Galatians 5:6 says "Don't be deceived ... whatever a man sows to the flesh, he will from the flesh reap destruction". Read the context! Don't read the NIV - read most of the other translations when you read Galatians. It says "flesh" not "sinful nature". The context is clear what is "flesh"? It is not just "sinful nature" - the flesh is my human effort - my sweat - my trying to keep the law - my trying to earn. He said; "You have given up on the Spirit and gone back to human effort. You are trying now in human effort to be good enough and you aren't believing what Abraham believed and believing you are righteous. Now you are trying to get righteous and you pursuing righteousness instead of submitting to what you got as a gift". That is the flesh! He said; "I am warning you - if you keep sowing to that human effort - that lawkeeping stuff, you will reap from it destruction! But if you sow to the Spirit - which is the revelation of righteousness in Christ - from the Spirit you will reap eternal life!". Eternal life is not living forever! People will live eternally in hell as well. Eternal life is a quality of life - the life of God lived now in the flesh in this body!
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Your house didn't burn down because you sowed something bad 3 years ago! When Jesus died on the Cross, He caused a total crop failure of every negative seed I have sowed and every bad thing I have done since getting saved! I am not waiting for a bad harvest to catch up with me! People are looking over their shoulders thinking, "I didn't forgive enough or do enough - I was bitter - I did wrong there!". That is still Old Covenant thinking! Under the Old Covenant you only get forgiveness as you forgive others! That is Old Covenant! The New Covenant (Colossians 3:13) says; "Forgive one another just as Christ HAS forgiven you!". He has TOTALLY forgiven you past, present and future and it is not conditional on you forgiving others - it has already taken place at the Cross! You can't mess it up! You have got full forgiveness! And because I know that even if I don't forgive them I am still already forgiven past, present and future then that empowers me to WANT to forgive them. People fear; "If I don't forgive them then God will not forgive me and He will hand me over to the tormentors". That is Jesus preaching before the Cross and before the New Covenant! That is a terrible motive! I forgive so easily because I have been totally forgiven by the Father and nothing bad I am sowing out there can get me to reap bad stuff today. You may as well go and join a Buddist church if you are going to do the sowing and reaping thing - that is totally Old Covenant! (2 Corinthians 8); You have got to re-think traditions of men. Now let's read Deuteronomy 28 - ready for a revelation? If the majority of Christians were believing the truth they would be drunk in the joy of God and would be blessed and would be walking in confidence and would be so happy and would love themselves and forgive everyone and wouldn't hold grudges or be analytical or self-concious! The traditions of men have been nullifying the power of God's Word and some bulldozers in Hong Kong has to start announcing the good enwsin Jesus Christ and break through all these strongholds and wrong ways of thinking. There are seminars that you can go to that will turn you into a inward looking maniac! Analysing everything that has been causing the problems in your life! There is only one thing causing the problems in your life and that is unbelief that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! The devil has got people running back into their mothers womb and running down this formula and that and taking you there and into your past. Your house burnt down because you didn't tithe! If I was a psychiatrist then I would do a thesis on Christians! The religious traditions of men is the worst cause for mental health problems! Here is God about to give the law - curse and blessing. Israel were slaves in Egypt and were under bondage. The Bible says in Exodusthat God remembered His covenant with Abraham. What is the covenant with Abraham? Grace and faith and no law! There was no law under Abraham! When Israel was in Egypt there was no Moses hearing the law at Mount Sinai. No law between Adam and Moses! Just a covenant of grace with Abraham! So He stirs up Moses to go to His people (Exodus 3:13) and say; "I am speaking on behalf of Abraham (covenant of God) and He will bring you out of Egypt with signs and wonders and miracles, and open up the Red Sea". They murmered and complained and sinned yet God turned the bitter waters sweet with the wood - the symbol of the Cross. They complained of not enough food and He brought down manna from heaven. And He never judged them! Why? They were under Abraham and under grace. They are sinning and yet God sees them as righteous in Abraham and in grace and in that covenant.
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They do wrong and wrong and wrong and eventually Galatians 3 says that because of the sin of UNBELIEF - they did not believe in the grace of God! - God said "I will give you the law so the transgressions will increase". So God brought the law to them and He gives them the opportunity to receive the law and the people should have got up as one and said; "We repent oh God! We don't want the law! We don't want to be blessed according to us keeping the law! We want what Abraham got! Abraham got blessed through faith in your goodness and we want that!". They didn't. They said to God; "Everything you tell us to do we will do". Moses was still getting the law on Mount Sinai when they were already worshipping a golden calf. Once the law came, curse after curse after curse came to Israel. From the time of Moses till the time of Christ redeeming Jew and Gentile from the curse; "ALL who will believe". (Deuteronomy 28:2); "You wanted the law? Not grace? Right you got it!". (v1); Can you see a problem in that? The Lord said "IF you obey these laws and commands THEN I will fully bless you". It is not about how much you try or how good your intentions are. It is to FULLY obey. That is 100% and there is no room to drop! (Galatians 3:10); "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse". (Deuteronomy 28:15); "IF ... all these curses will come and overtake you". We have read today that there is good news! ONE fully obeyed on our behalf. One fully did it as last Adam on our behalf. One FULLY redeemed us from the curse of the law that the blessing given to Abraham can come tous. That means that NONE of the curses in Deuteronomy 28 belong to us - not even one. Christians should not be living under any curse of poverty, sickness, disease or broken relationships. Many Christians are living under the curse as people not in Christ because they are trying to pursue righteousness rather than submitting to the gift. None of the curses belong to us but ALL the blessings belong to us because in Christ we have FULLY obeyed the law! God wanted to relate to His people on grace and faith - not on our performance but HIS! Now the day that any church moves into this level of blesssing then the world will know about it. And why not us!?! 2009 is the year - we are positioned for it!

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The Currency of Heaven - Faith Why dont you open your Bibles for the heaven of it to Galatians chapter 3. For our international listeners, the good news is that Joshua and Janet Mills will be coming to Grace and Glory and will be here for the whole time and it will really create a powerful synergy with the prophetic anointing on Fini and Isi who are having a real move of God in Australia. Glenda, myself, Joshua, Janet - I really believe that we are going to go further into the cloud of glory than any of our previous Grace and Glory conferences that we have had in Hong Kong or Australia before. When a whole congregation comes or the majority comes it is far more than what you can get from one Sunday to the next. What you have is four days - 2 meetings in the glory and we just focus on the Person of Jesus Christ, grace and glory, signs, wonders and miracles. You have one meeting and it takes you to another level in the anointing. Come back and have another m eeting and it takes you further. Thats Day 1! And then you go to Thursday, Friday and Saturday! Last time we had it here, whole churches were changed and never have gone back and are still moving the move of God around the world. I want to encourage everyone in City Church International to take some leave and make some arrangements to be here. Galatians 3. I am so excited about this message! We are talking about a series on being established in the gift of righteousness. I want to say this - we have done two messages in the series so far. Both are pivotal and foundational for the way that God is positioning this church this year. I believe they are prophetic and pivotal for the church around the world, as I gave that message on the first Sunday of this year and last week about being established in the gift of righteousness - it will answer a lot of questions about why Isaiah 54 is relevant. How no weapon formed against you will prosper and all those promises God makes that are not working in many Christians lives because there is one condition; Not that you are holy enough or obey enough or are good enough but that you are established in the gift of righteousness. Isaiah 53 is the picture of the Cross and the fact that Jesus was punished for our peace, He took our transgressions and our judgements - He was smitten for us and Isaiah 54 - God took an oath never to be angry with the New Covenant church again. Never to withdraw His love or His peace. And He says; You will be established in righteousness- your righteousness is of Me. He is talking about the gift of righteousness - not your works and when you hear about righteousness and hear a bit of teaching on it so it is in your sphere of thinking it will not reside and stay with you until you are ESTABLISHED in it! Those are pivotal messages for 2009 to position you to inherit what God is planning. But today is even more pivotal! Get today! Today pivotal to connect you to the last two. Today what we are talking about is the currency of heaven that connects you to the fullness of grace. What we are talking about is the currency of heaven that connects you to the blessing of the power of God. Just because I speak calmly doesnt mean that you have to be calm in your response! You can know about grace and you can know about the gift of righteousness but if you dont have the currency of heaven to connect and plug into those realities then all they are is academic theories to you. All they are is Bible information that you can win arguments and religious debates with. God is not interested in us winning religious debates on grace and beating the Pharisees up[ with religious theological debates. God wants us to have the currency of heaven that connects with the manifest power of God and the blessing of God and when we walk in the blessing and walk in that power then the fruit is seen in our lives and THAT is the most convincing argument of all. I am so tired of the Western world mentality of thinking - where its engineering and architecture of theological ideas
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or debates. That is not Hebrew culture and it is not Kingdom culture! Kingdom culture is Can you do it? Can you demonstrate the power of signs and wonders? Can you demonstrate that God can meet all your needs according to His riches in Christ? Can you demonstrate the prosperity of God? Can you demonstrate how to have good relationships and a good marriage and a good life? Can you demonstrate joy when going through the tough times? Can you demonstrate happiness and miracle healing in youre your body? Thats all I am interested in! I am not going to seminars that talk about theories and theological debates. The greatest debate is raising the dead, opening blind eyes, seeing the deaf hear and seeing God pour in multiplied millions of dollars that we can resource orphans and feed the poor and do whatever God has called us to do! We can put many men and women out on the field in China! Millions is too small! I am talking about BILLIONS while the economic downturn goes down, the church will go up while we have this currency! The exchange between heaven and earth is a currency of heaven called FAITH. If you havent got faith it doesnt matter how much knowledge you have got about grace and righteousness or how much Bible knowledge you have got - there are people who know the Bible back to front but have zero faith. In this room everyone would believe and recognise how important faith is - I know that. Do we realise how important faith is? Most know that the Bible says in Hebrews 11:6; Now without faith, it is impossible to please God. Do we realise how impossible it is to please God without faith? The Bible says there is only two things that God cannot do. God is sovereign-ly by His unlimited capacity of His own self-existence - He has chosen to limit Himself in only two areas. 1. The Bible says it is impossible for God to lie. 2. The other area is actions into the earth - Without faith it is impossible to please God. I dont care how moral or religious you are or how much Bible you know - that doesnt please Me. That doesnt produce a currency that produces a supernatural exchange into the earth realm. The Bible doesnt even say without love it is impossible to please God. Love is more important than faith (Galatians 5:6) - the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. If you dont have love then the only thing that can please God wont work. Because faith expresses itself through love. If I have got faith that can move mountains but I have not love - I have nothing. Faith is the only thing that pleases God. And it has to be expressed through love otherwise it wont work. We have got a modern charismatic church that just says; Its love. And they turn biblical godly love into a sentimental, syrupy, passive, shallow niceness. People with no authority to press into miracles, no authority to press through opposition or rejection. They are just sweet. We dont need the love that dies on a Cross. The love that lays its life down for friends and Gospel that can forgive people when they spit on you and reject you. We dont need a sweet sentimental love. We need a love that loves the world so much that we will press into God to get this currency of faith that when we have faith in something, the love of God expresses itself in a way that carries the faith to the target itself and it manifests because God is love and then you will connect with Him - the God who is love. You can love one another and if its not done in faith then it doesnt please God. It is impossible to please God without faith. (Romans 14) Anything that is not of faith is sin. So all around the world where religious things are happening today and are singing songs and reading Scripture and doing religious things - if there isnt a faith in a miracle working God - a faith to connect with the living God and pull heaven down to earth then it is sin. And it is not pleasing God. All the law obedience and
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external trappings of religious holiness - it is IMPOSSIBLE for that to please God! This great God is a loving just God and for Him to require us to have faith to please Him is not unfair and unjust because faith is not irrational. Neither is faith intellectual because children can have faith and uneducated people can have faith - but faith is not irrational. Faith is not believing what you know is not true. The reason why I believe certain things is because I have researched it intellectually and have enough evidence to know it is not true. I dont have faith to just make it be true. Things are either true or not true. Faith doesnt make things true because you just believe. That is modern existentialism. Truth is whatever you want truth to be - wrong answer. I have heard Christians say; If the archaeology and science proved that the Bible isnt true then I would still believe - No! I will take the Bible and throw it away! I have heard His voice and seen His miracles! For 32 years I have heard His voice too many times! I was standing in Jerusalem years ago and such unbelief came over me and I had unbelief in Jesus in the Bible, in the existence of God and I am standing and have to go through all my intellectual evidence where I researched the Bible and went through the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, all the intellectual evidence. Then I went through all the times I have heard the audible voiceof God and what He told me was so true and accurate. And faith rose up in me! At the end of the day faith is not illogical or irrational. Faith is not a blind leap into the dark but a leap into the light. (Hebrews 11:1) says faith is the evidence of things not seen. Faith has to do with evidence. This is what faith is - faith is from the heart - a recognition by you of the goodness of God. Faith is a recognition that God is absolutely good all the time! That Gods nature is fully to bless you! If you have thoughts going through your head that argue with that then it shows that you still have trouble with heavenly currency. True faith is absolutely fully persuaded that God is good all the time and that He never acts in evil or makes you sick. God never curses and never judges you. Gods whole disposition and His whole being - His whole attributes and His entire nature wants to love you and do you good and bless you and help you fulfill your destiny. Thats what faith is! How come so many Christians struggle with faith for miracles? Probably the majority of Christians in this world today have retreated into a rationalistic camp - a camp that says miracles have passed away - a camp that reasons away the supernatural. Why is it that so many Christians struggle to have faith in the God of miracles? The answer to that question is the title to this sermon: The Law Is Not Based on Faith. Lets read it. (Galatians 3:2); The law is not based on faith - herein is the ultimate insight to the real issue and the real problem as to the absence of true faith in many Christians lives. The law is not of faith - the law of God - the moral law the 10 Commandments - the ministry of death written on tablets of stone that brought death - that law is not of faith. Its not based on faith - it cannot produce faith in fact the law will KILL faith. The law will destroy faith (Romans 4:14) - says the law makes faith of no value. Last year we had 3 healing meetings where we advertised healing. Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning and we had an amazing turnout with a lot of visitors. In the testimonies in the week after we had several dozen healings - certainly 12 that were clear and undisputable miracle healings. What was interesting to me was that most of the people healed were from City Church International even though we had many other precious, precious Christians from other churches come and join us for those 3 or 4 meetings. When we were praying for the sick, one of the things I began to diagnose very quickly was that many of our visitors were struggling to have the faith that connects with the power to get the healing. It is very simple and not derogatory or unkind but compassionate. The religious world that they were visiting us from - the context they were coming out of for a little visit into City Church International.
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Their world was a world of law and rules and performances and the have-toos to earn the blessing and the law is not based on faith. The law doesnt produce faith and it kills faith. The law says you have to be good enough to get good from God all the time and He gives me what I dont deserve so the law can never produce faith! It is anti -faith! There were only two people in the entire Bible who Jesus commended for having great faith -not just good faith or big faith but great faith. He said; I have never seen such great faith in all of Israel. There was a Syro-Phonecian woman - she pressed into Jesus and said; My daughter is vexed with demons, she is oppressed with demonic powers. The disciples pushed her away and yet she pushed through the disciples - the thugs - the henchmen - the bouncers and she pushed into Jesus and said; My daughter!. He said What have I got to do with you? I havent come for the dogs (meaning the Gentiles) yet the next verse said that she worshipped Him and said; But even the dogs eat the scraps from the Masters table. He said; Go your way, your daughter is made well - I have never seen such great faith in all of Israel!. What a miracle! The other was the Roman centurion that came to Jesus and said; I am a man under authority and so I say go and they go and you need to just speak the word and my servant will be heale d. Jesus said I have never seen such great faith in all Israel. Now I hear people say an erroneous thing - they say the reason the centurion had great faith was because he was a man under authority so he knew Jesus would speak the word with authority. There is a truth in that faith dynamic. But what has a Roman centurion got to do with a home-maker Syro-Phonecian woman? What do they have in common that Jesus could say; They have the greatest faith in all Israel - greater than the high priests, priests, bishops, ach-bishops, arch-deacons and arch-demons. Greater than all the hierarchy of the Pharisees and Sadducee, Couldnt-Sees and Wouldnt-Sees! These two people had the greatest faith in Israel and what did they have in common? They were both Gentiles and they never grew up into the law because the law is not based on faith, the law kills faith. If you grew up in Israel in the time, the law was like your mothers milk. They would strap it to your wrists and your forehead and recite law. It was all about the law but the law is not based on faith! In Galatians 3:23 it says that before faith came we were held prisoners by the law - law will lock you up. It will kill your faith - it is not based on faith but on human effort, human earning, human deserving which is all anti-Gospel and it is anti-Christ and anti-anointing and it opposes the reality of the purpose why Jesus came to the earth. Yet today there is a Gospel being preached around the world that mixes that which kills faith with grace. So they have got the thing that will give you some help mixed with poison that will kill what you have. You will have faith for a while and then you will hear the next half of the message and that half will be the antidote that will kill it. So you will have faith for a while and then the law will kill it. Thats why around the world today there are people who can fast and pray for 40 days and come out and produce a week or two of a few miracles and signs and wonders because they are operating in a fading glory. They are operating under an Old Covenant fading glory that gives you a momentary glory.

We need to have miracles everyday - not once a week but every single day for the next sixty to seventy years! If you have got to go and fast for 40 days to produce a miracle then you may as well go and live with Moses and go and put on sackcloth and ashes and practice all the rituals and go and get
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circumcised and go to Jerusalem and pray at a certain place at a certain time and do all of that stuff! Or you can come over to what a Jewish apostle saw by revelation when he was caught up into the 3rd heaven. The champion of all champions who hated grace and opposed grace and killed and persecuted Christians and breathed out threats and slaughters against the church then ran into Jesus and fell to the ground under the power! Is falling under the power biblical?!!? The man that wrote most of the New Testament fell under the power and he heard a voice saying; "Saul, Saul why are you persecuting Me?". The man that was opposing grace was opposing Jesus and Jesus got a bit upset by it. So He opened the glory realm just a little bit and such piercing light came out at mid-day. What kind of light could out-shine the mid day desert sun!? And a voice came and Paul said; "Who are you Lord?". He asked and answered his own question inthe same sentence. Later on when he gave his testimony to the religious hierarchy, he said; "I met Jesus on the road to Damascus". He met Grace Himself who said; "You who are against grace are against Me". Grace is not a theology - Grace is a Person. He is Jesus. Now if this great legalist Paul can get saved and become the greatest champion of grace then there is hope for every person in Hong Kong who has grown up under law. Whether you are a Christian in Hong Kong or not, the majority grow up under secular humanistic controlled laws or religious laws. If you grow up in Great Britain then you will have grown up under religious laws. If you grew up in South Africa in most denominations thenyou would have grown up under religious laws. You would have to keep religious calendars and ceremonies and certain things, fast on certain holy days of themonth to become good enough for God. All of that is not based on faith and what is not of faith is IMPOSSIBLE to please God! All those billions of dollars spend on religion have got nothing to do with eternity - it is just dead works and nowhere in the New Testament does it say that we must repent for our sins. It says we must repent of dead works (Hebrews 10). The Church is confessing their sin and repenting of their sin. No repent of unbelief! The only sin in the New Covenant is unbelief! Every other sin was dealt with at the Cross. This sounds radical but this is the New Testament! Look at Galatians 3:5-6; "Does God give you His Spirit" - the Greek word there is "supply" which is the present, continous tense. "Does God continually keep moving in power by His Spirit and work signs and wonders among you - because you observed the law or because you believed what you heard?". This faith currency in grace and not being under law is about the moving of the Spirit and the working of miracles that God KEEPS (present, continous tense) supplying. We shouldn't have occasional miracles! There should be daily healings of the sick, daily miracles of financial provision, daily deliverance from depression, daily miracles in marriages, daily miracles of people being saved, of people living in joy, of acts of love and kindness and service! But when you go back under law then it is not based on faith and without faith it is impossible to please God. What do you think is the number 1 hindrance to signs, wonders and miracles and the power and Presence of God in the earth today? It is LAW. If you take the law off God's people long enough (and it takes years because they have been under it for centuries) thoughit comes back regularly, you keep getting it off. The preacher must keep preaching and eventually you get it off them completely. There is NO more condemnation, no more law thinking, no more earning and deserving and thinking to get the
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blessing! Once that has gone then; "I have never seen such GREAT FAITH in all of Hong Kong". That church will get such commendation in Hong Kong one day that FULLY gets the law off God's people. Why can you go to a country like South Africa and grow churches into the thousands without being a book of Acts church? Without signs and wonders and miracles? Because they are preachinga mixture of law and grace - but then if you have slick services that are short, not too inconvinient for people with sophisticated musicians that are up-tempo, no heavy powerful anointing, just a light anointing to make you feel good - then a nice little talk and people will come in because it is not distracting for their week. That is not the Kingdom and that is not what Jesus died for! He died for what you see in Acts 5! A church full of glory, full of Presence, full of signs, full of wonders! I don't want to go on T.V and argue theologically about grace in Hong Kong. I want to see this church so broken free from the law thatwe have such great faith that miracles become like pop corn and signs and wonders and then go on T.V and give the testimony of the miracles! I am tired of theological debates! Go to Luke 13. Luke 13 is one of my favourite passges. I have to stay calm because if I don't I would get so angry when I read some of these things. And I shouldn't get angry because I was nearly a Pharisee once! I never quite became a Pharisee but about 12 years ago God said to me; "You are nearly becoming a Pharisee" and that was the turn around of my lifeThis year many Pharisees like Paul are going to be turned around and many churches that are labouring under that which kills faith will be turned around! Go to Luke 13:16. Sorry oh sorry my goodness go back to Galatians 3! This is going to leap in your heart and will help you understand what this grace thing is really all about. (Galatians 3:9) - "So those who have faith" heavenly currency. The thing that without it is impossible to please God. " ... those that without faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith". What is faith again? Faith is a recognition that God's whole being and desire is one of TOTAL goodness to you and His desire is to heal you, give you blessing, give you health, establish you, strengthen you and give you success in the destiny that He has called you for. "Those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith". How many years before the law of Moses did Abraham live? About 430 years. There was nothing in the earth when Abraham was there that killed faith. There was nothing there that was not based on faith, that nullified faith. There was no law for 430 years! Abraham was not a Jew - he was a pagan and an Iraqui. He is a heathen more than likely worshipping idols and living an unholy life. He doesn't even know what it is to be obedient to God and is minding his own business when one day the Bible says that El-Shaddi (the God who is more than enough) showed up. Not the God who is "just enough". Not El-Cheapo! El-Shaddi! We always try and do things the cheapest way as Christians. This is the church and let's save money and have cake sales because God cannot provide. He blesses people when they bring tithes and offerings into the house of God - there is enough! I repeat that we do not tithe under Malachi 3 but we do tithe the way that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob tithed 430 years before the law. We do not tithe to get the curse off us. Jesus got it off us at the Cross. We tithe into the local church where we are fed because we are partners with God investing into eternity so that the storehouses always have more than enough for the purposes of God. Abraham meets with the living God and the opening words of God to him (who doesn't know anything about law) is; "I will bless you - I will make your name great - I will make you a blessing - I will bless all that bless you
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and all that curse you I will curse and I will make you a blessing to all nations". Abraham does not have any law to measure up to whether he thinks he deserves it or not. He is not thinking law - the law is not based on faith! He is having a promise that is coming in the Presence of God and Abraham just says; "YES! I believe it!". If he had been under the law he would have said; "Can't you see that I am not good enough or not deserving enough?". But he had GREAT faith BECAUSE he was not under the law! He was like those two Gentiles in Israel who just believed and the Bible said that "God credited it to him as righteousness". What is a righteous man? A righteous man in the New Covenant is someone that believes that the nature of God is to bless you. That's what faith is! I believe that the nature of God is not to judge me or to kill me or to beat me up but to make me a blessing, to make my name great, to make my name influential in the nations of the earth and to protect me when people come against me and curse me so that they get dealt with by God. Be careful when you attack righteous people! I am not talking about self-righteous people, lawkeeping people but someone who has got faith that they are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus because their faith says; "I know God is good to me all the time!". (Genesis 13:1) says that God made Abraham very wealthy in livestock, in silver and gold. Genesis 14 and 15 - Abraham is winning battles over greater armies than him. He is prospering and expanding - he is a friend of God and living in the blessing of God - there is no law! 25 years of total blessing and then in Genesis 17 God requires him to be circumcised. Then the legalists jump in! "See! He earned it through circumcision". Paul argues against this so well in the New Covenant. That circumcision came 25 years after God had already declared Abraham to be righteous and had already made him wealthy and a friend of God and given him victories. He was not being circumcised to be a keeper of the law. The law was still 430 years away! The circumcision in Genesis 17 is about his connection to the land of Israel that God was promising to his descendants. Then Abraham dies and Isaac is born and unbelievably blessed as was Jacob. Then we have got Joseph and the12 brothers who became the 12 tribes of Israel. Joseph ends up as the Prime Minister of Egypt and a descendant of Abraham so that his brothers come down in a time of famine because a seed of Abraham is giving wisdom to a secular, ungodly nation who have stored up grain though 7 years of abundance and have saved for the 7 years of famine so that they can resource the nations of the earth because they are not in debt through greed but a wise descendant of Abraham was there who knew how to prosper an ungodly nation. When you are blessed, Hong Kong is blessed. When you are blessed, the company that you work for is blessed. Whoever is with you will be blessed if you have faith like Abraham had faith! But if you have faith like the people of Israel hadfaith under law - then it is not based on faith but on how hard you can work to deserve it. Now all of Israel is prospering in Egypt and growing and becoming wealthy and increasing in number. Then a Pharoh emerged that knew not Joseph. Joseph had been dead for a while and now a Pharoh appears on the scene. He says to his government; "Look how these Israelites are prospering!". Why? They were still under the covenant of Abraham! "Look how they are prospering - we have got to do something or they will take over Egypt!". I wish that Hong Kong would say; "Look how the church is prospering in the economic downturn! They are becoming more wealthy! Miracles! Healings! Blessing on their marriages and on their children!". So this Pharoh says; "We had better put them into slavery".
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When grace brings prosperity into your life - the devil says; "We had better put them into slavery. Let's bring them into the slavery of religion. The slavery of churches that look successful (because they have got a lot of people turning up) but there is no book of Acts signs and wonders! Or the mighty Presence of God!". Slavery! So they are in slavery and are crying out to God and the Bible says in Exodus that; "God heard their groans and He remembered His covenant with Abraham". What was that covenant? Law? No Mount Sinai had not arrived yet! Just grace! He raises up Moses in Exodus 3:3 and says; "Go and tell the people of Israel that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will bring them out of slavery". God brought them out with signs and wonders and miracles and split the Red Sea open! He did miracles in the desert in grace - He poured down manna from heaven and turned the bitter waters sweet. Yet Israel murmered and complained and rebelled and not once did God judge them or punish them or reject them but He continued to bless them becasue they were in Abraham! But eventually Galatians 3 tells us why the law was introduced. "Because of the sin of unbelief". Romans 5 says that the law was introduced to increase the transgressions. Why did God introduce the law? Do you think He wanted to bring the law in? I hear people say that God brought the law for the moral government of society. No! God brought the law in because of their unbelief. They did not believe in Abraham or the grace and goodness of God - they did not believe in His kindness so finally God said "Okay if you won't believe in grace then I will give you something that is not based on faith and grace - I will give you the law". Paul says that the law was introduced to increase sinning because of their unbelief in Abraham. After they took the law they started to sin more - while the law was still being given on Mount Sinai they were already worshipping a golden calf! They were already into idolatry because they said to Moses; "If God wants to give us thelaw then we will do whatever He tells us!". That is self-righteous arrogance. Galatians 3:15-17 brings good news however! When the law was introduced - the covenant of Moses did not nullify the covenant that God made with Abraham which is grace and faith. So now God has got two covenants that Israel can relate to Him through. 1. A covenant of grace and faith and be blessed along with Abraham with faith like Abraham that God is good all the time. 2. The law. They chose primarily to relate to Him through the law. Every now and then you see prophets of faith rising up and you see seasons of revival - temporary seasons but then a whole long period of low level anointing. You know what little seasons of revival are? Not the fasting that they went through or the warfare and the beating themselves up. Somewhere in the middle of that they got a glimpse of grace and they believed in the goodness of God and that pulled heaven down and for a year or two there were miracles and you then you watched while every revival STOPPED. It was because legalism came in. The law is not based on faith and without faith it is impossible to please God. So Israel goes through little seasons of signs and wonders and revival and then back to law and death. By the time Jesus arrived - and remember that all four Gospels are still under the Old Covenant. The Cross hasn't happened yet! The New Covenant started on the Day of Pentecost just as Moses covenant of law started on the Day of Pentecost. Pentecost is 50 days after Passover after they came out of Egypt through the Passover they arrived at Mount Sinai. There they were given the law and it was called Pentecost! After the Passover of Passovers when the Lamb of God was slain on Golgotha instead of the law being given from Zion, the Spirit of God was poured out on Jewish people! In the Gospels Jesus was still preaching under an Old Covenant. He came to a society that had the option to go the Abrahamic way or go the law way but the Pharisees and the Sadducees had so blotted out Abraham that they had moved all Israel into the law. How do I know that? No miracles had
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happened for 400 years. No one had heard God for 400 years! What is that? That is law and it is not based on faith. To hear God you have got to have faith. No miracles in Israel for 400 years! In Luke 11:52 Jesus said; "Woe to you scribes and Pharisees - woe to you experts in the law - you have taken away the key to knowledge". What is the key to knowledge? Abraham! He had disappeared off the scope to Israelites as a way to get blessingfrom God. They were now fully under the covenant of law even though the law (Paul says in Galatians 3 did not nullify the covenant that God made with Abraham and any Israelite during those centuries could have said; "I am not going to live under law - I am going to live under Abraham! God gives a promise and I believe the promise with faith and grace gives me a manifestation of the power". The Pharisees and Sadducees had taken away the key of knowledge - the revelation of Abraham and they did not enter in themselves as well as stopping others who were trying to enter in. The biggest break of my heart is to go to conferences and only have a few shots at believers who have been under law for years. You se them come up to you and say; "For years I have known something was wrong and I wanted to get into the Presence of God but I just couldn't seem to get into it". I want to ask - who are your leaders and what is the contentthey are preaching? I am not anti-leadership! I am for leadership! But I am anti-controlling leadership. John Maxwell said; "Leadership is influence". Yes that is true but only up to a point. We need to be careful! Leadership is primarily to give people influence to empower the people and take control off the people and have fewer leaders in the church and have a mighty powerful priesthood of all believers - a royal priesthood! Under Old Covenant they were called just priests. Under the New we are a royal priesthood! Experts in the law don't enter into the miraculous or grace or the supernatural. They hold slick, well-oiled and well run effective services with a lot of loud music and sophisticated music that is impressive but you have an encounter with music and not an encounter with anointing! I have been in meetings where the music is so good that even the world can't do it that good but I come out crying and saying; "I didn't feel Your Presence at all - You weren't there. There was a lot of sweat and dancing and sophisticated music (which I love) but when I go to church, I don't want to encounter good music. I want to encounter God! I will go and watch the Rolling Stones if I want good music! Leaders must get so full of grace and must get their hearts so free from fear of condemnation and so free from fear that maybe I am being deceived. "Maybe I am preaching a false gospel, maybe I am going too far in this". No you aren't going far enough! One of the leading theologians in the world today - Michael Eaton - sat with Glenda and I at breakfast in July last year and he looked across, having listened to me preach the whole week. He had studied transcripts from the website that people had sent him hoping that he would criticise me. After a week of hearing me preach, he looked acorss the table and got up - walked over and said this - the leading theologian in the world today who reads his Bible in Greek and Hebrew - and he said; "Rob you are not preaching grace extreme enough!". Then he gave Glenda and I a prayer and left. The law covenant never set aside the Abrahamic covenant. It came in because of Israel's unbelief in the goodness of God because the law is not based on faith whereas Abraham was based on faith and
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those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham. (Luke 13:16) " ... a daughter of Abraham". Abraham had been dead near 2000 years! " ... 18 long years" - Jesus could have said, "18 years" but He was making a point. "On the Sabbath Day" - that is the law! How did this woman find out that she was a daughter of Abraham? The synagogues would have been full when Jesus was preaching. The woman sat at the back and was bowed over and crippled and had been so for 18 years and it wasn't by God but by Satan. As a woman back in the male chauvinistic society wouldn't have even been visible to Jesus. But while He is preaching He was preaching about Abraham. Jesus would have preached the law to the self-righteous and Abraham to the broken and to the hungry. How did she find out that she was a daughter of Abraham? It was the content of His messag.e He would have been telling them about the covenant of grace. He preached first to remove unbelief and wrong thinking! That is why long preaching is good! Thinking needs to be changed. (v10). Jesus taught, explained and unpacked truth. (vv7-9) - He is talking about the fig tree that needs to be cut down because it is not producing fruit. The fig tree represents Israel. There are two trees that represent Israel in the Bible. The olive tree and the fig tree. The fig tree represents the death of the law - the abscence of the supernatural, dead religion of Israel. Adam and Even covered themselves with fig leaves. It was their human effort. Jesus cursed a fig tree in Mark 11. If you want to talk about the supernatural however - the line of Abraham in Israel then you look to the olive tree. The olive tree is the life of God. If you go to Romans 9, 10, 11 then you will see that it talks about the descendants of Abraham - not all are descended from Abraham. He had Isaac and Ishmael. Ishmael was the child of human effort and the flesh. Issac was born through the power of the Spirit in the supernatural of God. In Romans 11 it says that we - the Gentiles - have been grafted into the olive tree. The olive tree is the anointing - the life of God. If you read the context going back to Romans 9 then he is saying not about the law - the olive tree is a result of Abraham. True Israelites are descendants of the faith that Abraham had not the law! We are grafted not into the fig tree but the olive tree! We are not grafted into the law of Israel but into the faith of Abraham! We have got Christians today trying to be grafted back into the fig tree. How will Israelites get saved if we get grafted into the fig tree? They will get saved and envy us when we get saved and grafted into the inheritance of Abraham! The olive tree! So Jesus is preaching Abraham! But when He gets to the arrogant self-righteous then He lays the law on them to expose how arrogant they are in not keeping it! Don't take the outlandish things that Jesus says in the gospel and say 'I've got to live by that!'. See the context is that He is saying this to the arrogant people! Christians say; 'That is the new law of the New Covenant!'. Jesus Christ is preaching under the Old Covenant that you must not commit adultery but under the New Covenant even if you look you have committed it! Oh pleaseeeeee! There is no faith in that! We are all dead if that is the case! He was preaching Abraham to the broken and the hungry for God and He was preaching the law to the selfrighteous and to the arrogant". He was preaching Abraham to the broken and hungry for God. (v11); "Bent over" - she could not straighten up at all. You will never be able to straighten up under the law. "When Jesus saw her". How did He see her? She was sitting at the back, crippled and bent over. "You are set free from your infirmities". He is speaking in past tense but she is still bent over. (v15); "Praised God". As Jesus was preaching the wonder of Abraham suddenly in this woman's mind she realised that I don't have to be a daughter of the law! This wonderful Messiah is saying that I am a daughter of Abraham! Abraham's covenant is still available! I don't have to come to God through the law - I can come to God through Abraham! And I imagine that she got a little angry. She probably
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thought; "I have never heard the synagogue rulers tell me that I am a daughter of Abraham. All they told me was that I am a daughter of the law! They told me that to get the blessing I have got to keep the law and deserve it and be good enough and they told me that the reason I am sick is that God is against me and punishing me!". (Because the law is not of faith but rather kills faith). But she said; "Today I realise that I am a daughter of Abraham! This means I can get healed today without deserving it!". I can get out of financial debt without deserving it! I can get out of depression today without deserving it! I can get out of bondage and addiction today without deserving it! When you reaon and think in your heart that I can get the blessing without deserving it then you are thinking the thoughts of faith - you are thinking faith. The law is not based on faith. The law will just tell you; "Forget about faith - just get good enough to deserve". When you preach Abraham - people realise that they can get the blessing without deserving it! That is what produces faith! Smith Wigglesworth said "God will ignore 10 million people in a crowd that don't have faith and find that one in the crowd that does have faith". There was a whole synagogue full and Jesus found the one woman! She was sitting there and thinking; "Wow I am a daughter of Abraham! I am not a daughter of the law! I can get things from the Father who loves me! Things I don't deserve and they are available now through the currency of faith!". This is the tragedy although the story ends well. On the first day that this daughter of Abraham got sick - healing was available that day. The 2nd year healing was available. The 3rd year healing was available and the 4th. But she never got it because only when she had a clear message on grace did healing kick in. For 18 years she had no capacity to have faith for her healing because the law is not based on faith. She saw herself as the daughter of the law not a daughter of Abraham. 18 years of bondage ended the day she understood grace! 18 years of bondage ended the day that she understood I am the daughter of Abraham. I am no longer a daughter of the law! I hate it when I hear pepole say that miracles are only for a certain time. "One day in the right time". The right time for this lady was 18 years ago! Why did Jesus say "18 long years?". Isn't it amazing that Grace Himself said; "Should not this daughter of Abraham be healed on the Sabbath?". Why is He saying that? Who is He saying that to? He is saying that to the synagogue rulers. Jesus is saying that to the law people who have robbed the church of faith. Should not this person have come out of financial debt? Should not this person have a healing in their body? Should not they get a better job? Should not they prosper? He is saying that they SHOULD but theyare saying you should NOT! All heaven is obligated once they come out of law and rise up then heaven can't help but heal! I don't care how big the tumour is or how crippled the person is- we cannot bring them in here after years of law and lay our hands on them and they are sons or daughters of law in their mind and not thinking they are good enough and faith will not and cannot work because they are under the law. Those who are of Abraham's faith are blessed along with Abraham - when the law is taken off people then we can get them all healed. That's why we preach this message year after year - it is important that you and I get to know this message. I pray every day that God will show how to share this message with the lost - how to share it with the unsaved. How to share it with Christians! I cry out to God - give me multitudes of people who are on their way to hell and a Christ-less eternity. Help me to move in the revelation of grace as a son of Abraham - that we may bring all the hindrances of faith off people. It THEN doesn't matter how big the tumour is because it is no problem to God! It doesn't matter how many years he has been crippled - it is no problem to God!
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Let me say - God doesn't do miracles because man has needs. I say that categorically. God never does miracles because people have needs. If that is the case then God is a cruel God. If God would just do miracles because we have a need then why doesn't He do it? Why are so many crippled and broken and poor? The Spirit of God only moves where there is faith! I am sorry to say that - but that is the truth! Without faith it is impossible to please God. With law over your mind it is impossible to have faith. You may have faith for some minor miracles such as a sore shoulder or an ear ache but to see tumours drop off people's faces without effort? It takes not a great preacher coming to Hong Kong to hold a crusade. I welcome someone doing that. But that is not what it takes for they are just men and women with a powerful gif on them and while they are here miracles happen and when they go, the church goes back to normal. It takes local churches to consistently embody the New Covenant and consistently look to God to have their minds cleansed of the stinking thinking of the law. So that in community God will anchor a lightening rod of unprecidented miracles. When that happens you won't need to go on T.V. There won't be buildings big enough. Have you been to the hospitals in Hong Kong recently? They are like war zones. People lying in the corridors at 02:00. People are dying! There are so many dying of incurable diseases. All of those that died this year and last year didn't have to. 18 long years. She couldhave been healed on the first year. I hate law and I hate it because of what it does to God's people. We are living with a hangover of Israel that God had to bring the law in. Now Jesus came on the Cross to redeem us from the law that the blessing given to Abraham can come on the Gentiles through the power of the Spiritby faith. We are still living under the law 2000 years later in the abscence of the greatest signs and wonders and miracles. 18 long years. 18 years is the number for bondage. In the book of Judges it says that Israel will be in captivity for 18 years. 6-6-6. 3 = perfection. 6 = human pride and human effort. The mark of the beast is 666 so what is the mark of the beast? Legalism. Human effort. Babylonian religion. Not the Gospel of the New Covenant! She was bowed over for 18 years by a demonic spirit. She attended church for 18 years and the Pharisees didn't heal her. They made her a daughter of the law not a daughter of Abraham. When Jesus came she discovered that she was a daughter of Abraham. 18 years! What was she looking at for 18 years? Dust. The Bible says in the book of Genesis that God said to the serpant; "Dust you shall eat". She spent 18 years looking at the food of Satan. All she saw was human effort and people's feet. When Jesus touched her with grace, the first thing she saw in 18 years was Jesus. Messiah! When you live under the law you spend your life psychologically looking at dust and human effort and condemnation and disappointment and struggles. When the revelation that you are not a son or daughter of the law but a son of Abraham comes - when that revelation comes to you you will see that lovely face shining on you every day and you will move in a new realm of freedom and glory. Can you believe that these synagogue leaders tried to oppose Jesus and stop Him bringing a member of their congregation out of bondage? That's how this religious demon has opposed you and me for 4 and a half years in Hong Kong as we preach this message. A pastor in the synagogue tried to oppose grace to keep a member of his congregation crippled! In the name of religion! (v14); "Indignant". Jesus responded? (v15); "You hypocrites!". Don't you like Jesus attitude to religious people?! He doesn't get sweet and back off. He just says; "You hypocrites!". This is the Jesus we love. I love Him! "All His opponentswere humiliated but all the people were delighted". In any culture Jesus was not ashamed of humiliating people that oppose grace because His eyes were on the broken multitudes that need grace. He didn't hold a board meeting and discuss law and grace. He just preached grace and produced faith in the people. I promise you this lady would have got healed if Jesus had preached the law there
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because the law is not based on faith. He preached Abraham and she realised in that flash of revelation that I am a daughter of Abraham and that God gives me what I don't deserve!

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How to Fly Your Life by the Instruments of Grace How many of you know that the most precious commodity that you have got is time? Once it has gone - then it has gone. You can lose money and get it back. If you are a millionaire on the inside and have a million and lose it then you will get a million back. If you are not a millionaire on the inside - by your attitude and confident expectation - then you can inherit a million from your parents but in a short space of time you will lose it and never get it back unless you are a millionaire on the inside. Once time is gone then it is gone. Time for me is the most precious commodity you have got on the planet and we need to spend it and steward time very wisely. Another year has gone and we are on the threshold of a new Chinese year and look back and there is nothing that we can do about our past if we have wasted it or made less than wise decisions. If we have done things that ended up in disaster or debt or struggle or disappointment then there is nothing you can do about the past. The way you deal with your past is to look into your future with great hope and great expectation that God can turn the things from the past into good for your future. So we want to use this time we have got now in this meeting very effectively. We want to use it with excellence. I give you this guarantee - I will speak to you with all the grace and all the anointing of the Spirit of God that I can produce by faith. I am not here to speak casually to you or to waste your time. I am here to invest into you the excellence of the treasures of heaven that will give you advantages in life to succeed and overcome in every area of life. But that is all I can guarantee you. I cant guarantee that you will listen with the same excellence that I speak to you with! That is up to you! I guarantee that I will not speak to you with unbelief or with the poison of a sceptical mind or a cynical attitude or the attitudes of negativity. I will speak to you from being in the Presence of God from 04:00 this morning. I will speak to you from the Presence of the Throne Room of grace. I will speak to you by faith and with the love of God. I will speak to you with a vision of great success and blessing for your life. If you will listen with the same excellence then we will connect and kiss in the Spirit and there will be an explosion of the glory and liberation in this place today! The grace of God simply means two things; 1. It means God though the New Covenant and through Christ accepts you and loves you and wants to bless you and wants to deal towards you with such kindness and such favour - not because of what you deserve and not because of what you merit but because of what Jesus deserved and merited for you. Grace means Gods riches to you at Christs expe nse. It means God will never stop loving you. He is always for you and He will never judge you or criticise you or disapprove of you. God is for you all the time! 2. Grace also means Gods empowering Presence in your life so that He can empower you by grace to do things you never thought you could do. With grace you can love people you never thought you could love. You can have attitudes that you never thought you could have and you can do signs and wonders - you can lay your hands on the sick and they can be healed and you can do things by grace that you never thought you could do. In grace! Todays message is called; How to Fly your Life by the Instruments of Grace. The pilots here will understand exactly what I am saying - how to fly your life not by your feelings but by instruments of grace. And to look at your life through the lenses of grace. Jesus said in Luke 8:18; Be careful HOW you hear. He did not say; Be careful WHAT you hear. We regularly question what we hear but we seldom question how we hear. We regularly question what we see but seldom question how we see. If I have got scratches on my glasses then everywhere I look I will see scratches until I question how I am seeing. I can then take the glasses off and remove the scratches. If I have got scratches over my
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heart then I will see scratches everywhere I look and if I dont question how I am seeing then I will condemn myself to sabotage my success by the scratches I continue to see because I am not obeying what Jesus said. He said; Be careful HOW you see. The legalistic church is in the bondage of WHAT. Dont look and dont touch! They are not saying what Jesus said - He said; How. You can pride yourself on wearing New Covenant glasses but if you have got Old Covenant scratches on your New Covenant lenses then you will see Old Covenant legalistic law of Moses - condemnation - judgement - wrath discouragement - isolation - I will never make it. If you have got scratches on your New Covenant lenses then that will cause you to see God in an erroneous way. It will cause you to see God through the lenses of the law and God is not relating to you through law anymore but always through grace. If you have got scratches then you will look at circumstances happening in your life and you will see them in a way that is not accurate and not helpful to you. If you are a New Covenant believer and you believe you are in the New Covenant but you still believe that if you sin then you think God will be angry with me because I never confessed my sin and you think God wants to punish me - because you are looking at it through the wrong lenses. When you are late for an appointment and you drive and get a flat tyre half way there you will think that it is God who arranged your flat tyre. If you are looking through the wrong scratches on your lenses and you get sick, you will think it is God who is giving you that sickness because you didnt confess your sin when you did something wrong. If your business goes into bankruptcy you will believe it is God punishing you or your marriage gets into difficulty then you think it is God! But when you look at it through the right lenses and are careful HOW you see and HOW you hear then you will look at life through different lenses - scratch-free lenses! There is another condition that (and we have six pilots in our church who could explain this better) I understand at ground school in your first week in pilot training, they will train you when you fly into storm clouds you NEVER trust your feelings - you trust your instruments. If you trust your feelings in that storm you will feel like you are flying upside down. I have got a case as to how we should fly our lives into the storms of life by the instruments of grace and not by feeling. Your feelings - if you are flying by feelings - could make you flip your life over when God has got you right side up in the cloud. The grace of God has got you right side up but because of your failures, your sins, your mistakes, your disappointments, the breakup of relationship, financial pressures - grace says You are okay - I have got you coming through the storm. Your instruments of grace are telling you that it is okay - God still loves you and is with you and will never give up on you but your feelings and the religious world is telling you and most of the church is telling you and the devil is telling you that you are wrong. He doesnt have to flip your life upside down - you do that all by yourself and you crash and burn. The casualties are strewn across the wayside of the world and millions of Christians are not walking with joy and glory and peace in God. They are bitter and cynical and have crashed and burned not because they are bad people but because their leaders taught them so. The leaders may have known the message of grace but out of fear of being criticised about preaching grace - they pull back and preach a bit of law and a bit of grace and mix them together. You can see now why we have to be established in grace and Gods free gift of righteousness because it has nothing to do with religion or being a good church-goer. It is about being successful in your marriage, your kids, your life, your health, your career, and in advancing the kingdom of God in the earth - it has nothing to do with churchianity! It is about enjoying life and inheriting blessing.
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How many of you want to hear about the instruments of grace that you should fly your life by? Imagine saying to a pilot; Dont be radical - this thing about flying ONLY by your feelings - that is a bit extreme! Balance it with a few feelings as well. That will be a life lived like a rollercoaster! Lets fly with instruments of grace but lets also fly with feelings!?! That is schizophrenia and the church is full of schizophrenics that go from Old Covenant law to New Covenant grace. James 1 says; The double minded man will receive nothing from God. To try and mix Old Covenant law of Moses and the New Covenant grace of Jesus is INSANE! I have spent 3 years teaching you the difference! Let me say this because it help you some that are still wondering what is so bad about the law of Moses? Let me give you one today. Under the law of Moses you showed your zeal for God by killing sinners and I can show you many examples of that and God would say; Well done that is great. Under Old Covenant law you showed your zeal for God by hating people that sinned and wanting to kill them and stone them and spear them. Extreme Islamic jihadists are simply being consistent with Old Covenant law. They will kill everyone who doesnt want to surrender to Allah because they are sinners and must be killed! It is in the Koran! They are flying their lives by the instruments of the Old Covenant law. Jesus said; It has been said to you. Where was it said? Under the Old Covenant. It has been said to you hate your enemies - but I say to you love your enemies and do good so you will shine like your Father in heaven. It is a New Covenant! It is not the Old Covenant! The disciples thought that they were under the Old Covenant so when they came to Samaria and the people didnt come out and worship Jesus - Peter and John said Should we call down fire from heaven to destroy Samaria?. Jesus said; No you dont understand - you are of the wrong spirit. When you want to prophesy judgement on people and see God judge and kill people, when you want to see God burn Hong Kong because of the prostitutes or the homosexuals - when you want to see judgement and hate people who are sinning then I promise you that you are of another spirit and He is not the Holy Spirit. Anyone operating under an Old Covenant - when the Old Covenant is redundant (Hebrews says it is obsolete - it has gone - it is nullified - it doesnt exist) then you are not operating by the Holy Spirit but a demonic spirit that is flying your life. When we judge others we put ourselves back under the law. When you fly your life by the law, you are going to crash and burn because law is all about how you feel and how you are doing. The law will condemn you all the time - no matter how much good you are doing - the law will say it is never good enough because it is NEVER good enough! The law demands absolute perfection off you. Jesus gave you perfection - the free gift of righteousness - He measured up for you and He redeemed you from the curse of the law. (John 1:16-17) We see that the law was given through Moses but grace came through Jesus and from the fullness of His grace we have received one blessing after another blessing! Under that Old Covenant law if a leper touched you then you were unclean. Under the New Covenant if you touch a leper then they are healed. The Old Covenant was a message of judgement. Under law there had to be judgement. The New Covenant message is that the judgement has passed! Because judgement happened at the Cross and judgement is satisfied and fulfilled. John 3 says that Jesus didnt come into the world to judge the world but He came into the world to BE judged FOR the world. These people saying that God is pouring out judgements around the world havent read their New Testaments. The New Testament - 2 Corinthians 5:19 - says God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself NOT COUNTING MENS SINS AGAINST THEM. The Bible does not
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speak about days and days of judgements on the earth - it speaks a lot about the last day and every time it talks about the last days it is talking about the great outpouring and power of the Holy Spirit! The great ingathering of harvest! Whenever the Bible talks about judgement it talks about a day - singular - of judgement. The Day of Judgement comes at the end of this age. God is not judging the planet or causing earthquakes. He is not destroying people or bringing diseases. He doesnt want half of California to drop off into the sea although half the church would want that because they are of the wrong spirit. One day I will teach you about the book of Revelation and how to interpret that correctly. You cannot live in schizophrenia! It has to be decided - is God predisposed to judge sinners because if He asks you to love them but He wants to kill them but God is confused! God is asking you to be holier than He is! You cannot live in this - God is judging sinners and hating sinners but God loves the world! God is not wanting to judge one city on this planet - God doesnt want to judge the Muslim world and He didnt send earthquakes to Indonesia. This whole planet is groaning and creaking through the fall of man in the Garden of Eden where God brought frustration on the very DNA of the planet. God is not judging individual people and whole nations. He is here to see billions come into the kingdom of heaven. There is a day at the very end of the age that those who have rejected Jesus or neglected Jesus or didnt show any interest in receiving Jesus - there is an eternal hell - a Christ-less eternity. But God is doing everything in His will to save every person on the planet from that one single day of judgement that is coming. For the Christian 1 Corinthians 3 says we do not face a Day of Judgement but a day of prize-giving and we will be praised by God because we have already been judged in the Person of Jesus Christ. We died with Christ on death, burial and resurrection and we are ascended with Him and we are co-seated with Him in heavenly realms! We have been justified, sanctified and glorified already - past tense - according to Romans 8:31. There is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus! No separation from the love of God to those in Christ Jesus! You have got to fly your life by the instruments of grace! That flat tyre wasnt God punishing you because you didnt confess your sin! Your sin was dealt with past, present and future before you were EVER born! It was ALL dealt with at the Cross! Colossians 2 says having forgiven (past tense) all your sin - He took away the rules and regulations that were opposed to you, He disarmed them and gave you His gift of righteousness as a permanent standing before God. Do you want me to show you what your instrument panel is? It is just one verse. Romans 5:20. Here is the instrument panel that shows the difference between law and grace. The law was added so that the trespass (thats sinning) might increase but where sin increased - GRACE INCREASED ALL THE MORE. Put that on your instrument panel and fly your life into storms! When sin increased then grace increased all the more! When your sin and Gods grace met in the boxing ring - grace wins every time easily! That word for increase- the word associated with the increase of sin is a different word in Greek from the word for increased grace. The word sin increased simply means that sin increased. But grace increased is the word hupo in the Greek and it means superabundantly. Kenneth Wuest is one of the leading Greek scholars and he said that Romans 5:20 literally says; Where sin increased, grace already existed in super abundance and even more grace over and above and upon that abundance of grace!.
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How many Christians enjoy the integrity of the inheritance that Jesus gave them legitimately on His death on the Cross? People ask me why I am extravagant? I was born again at the age of 23 and I conceived in my spirit the DNA of an extremist God. He is extremely good and extremely gracious and extremely joyful and in an extremely good mood all the time! He really likes me and He really enjoys being with me! How can He like me - I am a sinner!. That issue has gone! The sin issue was dealt with at the Cross! The more you focus on trying not to sin, but I have found out the harder I try, the more I do. Because when law comes - then sin increases! Get the law off the church - get guilt and condemnation off the church! Come into the New Covenant! Lets translate that to all the redemptive richness of the finished work of the Cross. Where sickness and disease increased - health and healing already exist in superabundance and even much more health and healing for you over and above and upon superabundance of healing and health!. When SARS hit Hong Kong a few years ago those who knew this verse in signs and wonders know that whenever the devil does something, then it means that God has already from heaven released a new and higher move of healing. Whenever I see economic downturns I know in the heavenly and spirit realm for those with ears to hear what the Spirit is saying and are careful HOW they hear and HOW they see - there is access for them into the abundance of heaven. I am not a citizen of earth - I am a citizen of heaven the Bible says! I am passing through this world creaking and groaning because of mans rebellion against the goodness of God. Where financial debt, difficulty and pressure increases then Gods prosperity for you already exists in superabundance of prosperity for you and even much more and over and above and upon does that prosperity exist for you above even super prosperity !. Remember I taught last week what faith is - very important what faith is! If you missed last week, you have got to get what is faith because faith is the currency that connects you to heavenly materialitys. lets put it this way - because we all live in a real world. Where people rejecting you - where people misunderstanding you - where people side-lining you - where people taking you out of the loop because of some bitter political agenda, some conspiracy of unkindness, some demonic strategy - a plot, a scheme and a ploy to make you feel like you want to flip your plane upside down and crash and burn. When rejection from man increases against you - glorious, tender, kindness of acceptance already exists in superabundance from the Father and from many gracious people and even upon that great acceptance and inclusion and love and understanding, over and above and upon that acceptance of superabundance does the Father! Everyone will not like you - I am sorry, but there is also going to be a lot of people that do like you! Dont worry about those that dont like you -stop running after them! Your value and your esteem does not depend on a few shrivelled up and distorted people that live in fear and duplicity and double-faced chameleons that change their colour to suit the crowd they are in! I like consistent people - what you see is what you get! The reason why these last years the devils strategy has been for Christians - has been to so overwhelm us with the extent of looking at, scrutinising and investigating our sins. Listen - to the day you die, you will always have some sin going on in your life. When you inherit your immortal body - when you go to the realms of glory, you will never sin again! But in the meantime God has adequately with all sufficiency of all abundance dealt with the sinning issue! The more you live in grace - the less you sin! But if you do sin, then grace already exists in superabundance and much moreover and above and upon that does grace exist!
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The devil wants you to think sickness and disease and plagues - I cant stand these eschatology teachers that are fear-mongers. They are making Christians so afraid that the world is going to be so evil. The Anti-Christ is going to take over! The mark of the Beast is going to be on your forehead - oh please! Stop it now! Read the book of Revelation properly - the Anti-Christ and the Beast dont take over - Jesus takes over! The Kingdom takes over! Have a look at Daniels interpretation of Nebuchadnezzars dream and the statue with the little stone cut witho ut human hands. That smashed all these five kingdoms! That little stone cut without human hands is the virgin-born not conceived by the sperm of man - and He grows and the Kingdom of heaven will take the world! I am not saying that everyone will be a Christian when Jesus comes again - I am just saying that Anti-Christ and the mark of the Beast and the European Alliance will not have taken over the world! They will try to and not succeed for the book of Revelation says - and you need to read it to reveal Jesus to you and the blessing of Who He is! There is only one day of judgement. It is not months and years of God judging and wrath. When that day comes it says people wont repent, they will just even be more angry. God doesnt pour out wrath and judgement to make people become Christians! That is a lot of nonsense. Romans 2 says the goodness of God leads people to repentance. Repentance is not oh sorry sorry sorry! I will never sin again - I am so disgusting and so horrible!. no repentance means just to change the way that you think. We are not under law - we are under the grace of the New Covenant that where sin abounds. How many Christians have committed suicide - they have flipped their plane because they did not go by instruments of Romans 5:20 but they went by the instruments of their religious feelings. And their church helped them to feel condemned! It is criminal! We should have some people put in courts of law for what they have done to people! Now many dont commit actual suicide but they commit emotional suicide or relational suicide. They commit going to a good church suicide and dont go to church anymore because they have been burnt! They crashed and burnt their own life! They withdraw from God, withdraw from the Kingdom, withdraw from His purposes and eat food, take up space, pass it through their body and die. We have got destiny - we are here to leave footprints in the sand of history. We are here to change history - there are history books waiting to be written! History is waiting in the balance to people who will not fly their lives by their feelings but by the instruments of grace! People are not so concerned with what they here and what they see but how they here and how they see and get those old covenant scratches off your new covenant lenses and be established in the gift of righteousness once and for all! Let me try to close with a few bible back ups on this. David was a man after the heart of God. The Bible says that in the last days God will restore the fallen tent of David. That has got nothing to do with how you govern the church but to do with law and grace! Under that Old Covenant they were under law but James says that in the New Covenant anyone that comes to Christ are not under the law - they are in grace and he used Davids tent of Zion as an example. David was living under the law and under those judgements before the Cross. But David was a prophet in many places in that Old Covenant and he saw down the corridors of time and in prophetic insight he saw the New Covenant coming and his faith pulled dynamics of the New Covenant into his time/space world. God does not live in time otherwise He would be limited by time. God lives outside of time and He breaks into time and faith affects the actions of God into the earth. Whether God does something now or something later, faith often is the administrator. When Mary came to Jesus and said turn the water into wine, He said My time has not yet come. But Mary gave Him that look that only mothers can! And Jesus looked up to heaven an d said Father I know You are not doing the wine thing now - its not our time - Mary after all changed My nappy!. She
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would have because He pooed like anyone else! The Father said; I will do it. Marys faith pulled something for the future into the now. God wants revival in Hong Kong NOW - He wants signs and wonders NOW - He wants the blind eyes and deaf ears and the cripples and those with AIDS to be healed NOW in Hong Kong! The Church is saying no - in the Millennium He will do it. We have no right to put off to the future what God says is NOW! All God is looking for is one congregation. He doesnt need a thousand - He just needs one that understands this New Covenant and fly their lives by the instruments of grace. David saw into the New Covenant and pulled it into the now and put up a tent that had instant access to the Presence of God without the law. Moses Tabernacle was still down there and they were doing blood of bulls and of goats - but David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Zion - He didnt bring it back to Moses tent. Yet this great man of God - this king who God said is a man after My own heart. God looks at your heart. Politicians look at your exterior whereas God looks at your heart and He sees what you are after. David loved God and he knew Gods love because he was a man who understood grace. He lived a gloriously holy life and gave everything he had. But one night David went up onto the rooftop to just have a look. He didnt go up there to perv or to spy - just to get some clean air. And while he was there he saw a U.F.O. an undressed female opportunity. And he did a stupid thing that he later deeply regretted. Let me repeat that - he regretted. I have heard people preach against sin and yet it doesnt help! It doesnt stop the sinning - it just makes the sinning go underground! He committed adultery and she conceived a child that later died. He had her husband Uriah killed in battle - so adultery and murder. The lady that was undressed and having a bath was Bathsheba. If you look in the geneology of Jesus - the ancestral lineage of Jesus the Messiah - those people in His lineage you will see that Bathsheba is there. God is not ashamed to use Bathsheba. The very womb that was used in an adulterous relationship was the same womb that conceived Solomom and the line that produced Jesus the Messiah! You will see four women in Jesus ancestral lineage. We want to see that everyone in our lineage is highly educated, good, got a great life and those that were really bad we cut them off from the family tree! Parents disown their child if their child has done something wrong. But in Jesus lineage He says - put them all in! In Jesus lineage in Luke and Matthew you will see four women. One woman seduced her fatherin-law in Jesus lineage! You have got Rahab - she was a prostitute in Jesus lineage! You have got Ruth - a Moabite woman and you have got Bathsheba. I think that where sin increased, grace did in superabundance. In religious life and much of Church life when peoples moral wings break - we want to shoot them and kick them out. Even in the military in South Africa when we were in action, in contact with enemy - you NEVER left your wounded behind! It was a thing we were drilled - you carry your wounded out! You never shoot your wounded and you certainly dont leave them for the enemy to shoot! As swearing soldiers surely we should not be superior to the Church! But in the Church if you get caught in some act of adultery or immorality or even homosexuality or whatever - my God! Run for the sinners and the atheists because they will give you more love than the Church! Find those who dont believe in God at all - they will love you more! In the religious world - if you break your wings then they will hate you. They will dress it up as I am d isciplining you this is for your good. Yes but they will have you under a cloud of disapproval and watchfulness and now you are under their control. When you are ready to be released they will still remind you; We are watching you!. In the grace of God and in the Kingdom of God when
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your wings break and Gods grace comes in superabundance much more above your sin when He fixes your wings again, you will be able to fly higher than you could before your wings broke. In Romans 8 - not Romans 6:1. People misquote Romans 6:1 where Paul says; Shall we sin more that grace may abound? God forbid. he was not talking about sinning - it is a noun there and a whole other argument! In Romans 3 - Paul does refer to what people think he is saying in Romans 6:1. In Romans 3 he says that some people are saying he was teaching should we do more evil that more good should come? And he says what a scandal! That is not what we are teaching! What Paul is teaching that this gospel is so good. This champion of grace - Paul the apostle - is that this grace is so super-abounding that it gives everyone hope all the time! That no one has to ever doubt that their sinning can EVER supersede the grace of God! Theres no second, third, fourth chances - no He gives you infinite chances! It was all dealt with at the Cross! Where sin increases, grace already exists in superabundance and much more grace over and above and upon that - that is the end of all arguments! So that when you are flying through moral storms and mistakes and sickness and disease and failure, you dont flip your plane because you are going by your feelings. Fly by the instruments of revelation and grace! Let me say this and we are finished. You need to have an encounter with the love of God - you need to experience His love personally. That is the bottom line. No one can persuade you into it. You have got to experience that. When Jesus took five loaves and two fish and He had five thousand to feed from five loaves He took the loaves and blessed them. Why was He blessing them? Because He could see where hunger has increased in this crowd, provision has already existed for superabundance. He broke five loaves and through the disciples fed five thousand. We think thats the only time He did it - but did you know that He did another of those miracles? The other time there was only four thousand there! One thousand less! Four loaves? Five did for five thousand? No - He took seven loaves to feed a thousand less! Because in the economy of God the more difficulties you are facing, the worse the situation you are dealing with, the easier it is for God to come up with a miracle! It was easier for God to destroy the enemies of Israel - a hundred, thousand Mideanites by reducing the army of Israel down to three hundred from thirty thousand. He said to the thirty thousand - go home, you are afraid, have a holiday, put your feet up - I just need three hundred. Because God would get more glory with three hundred than with thirty thousand. We are living with an arithmetic that does not calculate by grace but calculates by the strategies of humanistic logic. That is the problem with the Church - it lives out of its mental, academic, religious faculties and not from the heart. Everything to do with the supernatural comes from the spirit of man, the heart of man and NOT from the head of man. Head is for thinking and heart is for drinking and revelation! People say why dont I see more miracles in my life and more signs and wonders and greater breakthroughs of the power of God in my life? Very easy! When Jesus came to this earth and He walked on this planet and He walked amongst people - would He say Go on the Mediterranean diet, thats a good healthy diet?. Stop being so stupid! Jesus healed thousands of peopl e and they were ALL on the Mediterranean diet! You may as well eat red meat and enjoy it! They were there and eating fish and vegetables and olive oil and they were very sick! These Christians come up with these ideas as to how you should live and its all based on laws and principles. If you want to stay healthy because you exercise you are relying on works to stay healthy. Not faith! Some people are going praise God! You have got people exercising every day and they die young because they are focussing on what
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they can do and not what Jesus did at the Cross. They are man-centered and they are religious and go to church! Now do you exercise Rob? Yes regularly because I enjoy it. I do it as an outlet and get some endorphins flowing and love the walk after a good hard run up the hills, love talking to God. I love being with my Father after exercise out in the bush with no cars or noise. Thats why I love exercise. Should you eat wisely? Yes of course. But if your faith is in that then your faith is working for health and not receiving from the eternal realm what happened at the Cross. There is so much works programme in the Church! When Jesus walked this earth in Jerusalem these places were full of sick and oppressed people and paralysed and broken and in financial debt and suicidal and depressed - and He did great signs and wonders and miracles amongst them! Can you imagine if Jesus came to Israel and while He was walking through the streets of Jerusalem, through villages and towns, every person covered up and pretended that they werent sick and they werent struggling with sin and were all okay to everyone all the time and to Jesus and came to church and sat in church like this. During the worship they were formal and religious. Yes I am doing fine!. If they all did that then Jesus would have been utterly useless. Utterly useless! The Pharisees and experts of the law asked Him why He sat with the sinners and the prostitutes and the tax collectors and He said; Only sick people need a doctor - I have not come for the self-righteous but for the sinners. If you dont see the power of God flowing in your life - miracles and breakthroughs - then you are flying your life by your feelings not by the instruments of grace. You are being religious and trying to pretend you are holy. You are trying to pretend you have got it altogether. For you Jesus cant do a thing but for you who dont what others think of you and you are not self -conscious and not all about you but all about how good He is See the Presence of God is coming on me right now. He likes what I am saying. You humble yourself and stay open to God and say I dont care if people see me jumping around and waving my arms around - I am not showing off how holy I am or pretending how spiritual I am but showing how good God is. My side is winning and Jesus is my champion and He won the victory at the Cross!. As religious people sit in church while people fall under the power and get drunk with the joy of God and the power of God comes into the room, they frown and say This is weird - I want to say, No you are weird because you are just like a Pharisee that would have sat there while Jesus brought forgiveness and love and miracles and you are rejecting that saying you are okay and a self-made man or woman. Then you will never see miracles or signs and wonders but eat food, pass it through your body, make money that passes through your pockets and you will not have access into the glory of God!. But those who like Paul the apostle say; When I am weak then H is power is made strong in me!. People think Samson was a strong man and took those big gates and ran with gates weighing tons. Imagine you are the Philistines behind gates of hell that cant prevail and a man runs up and pulls them off their hinges and smashes them up! Another time he killed a thousand Philistines with a jawbone of his mother in law. I mean of a donkey. And people say well Samson must have looked like ten Arnold Schwarzenegger put together. He must have been a brute of a man! No he wasnt - he was pathetic and weak. How do I know that? Because Delilah didnt know the secret of his strength and she was a spy trying to work out how is this man so strong! Everyone would have known if he was big! It was because of his covenant with God - and the Bible said that the Spirit of God would come upon him with power! Then after the Spirit was off him he would be weak again! Then when he needed it the Spirit would come. I felt the Spirit come on me last year in front of wheelchair cases and I am standing there weak and know I cant do it but then I feel like fire - heavenly voltage - comes! And they come out the wheelchair! And you are as shocked as everyone else is because it works! It is too late to tell me that God doesnt do miracles - I have stood in front of wheelchairs just months ago! I have seen them!
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Samson was weak but the Spirit came on him in power. One day he was walking by and a lion came out and roared at him. And the Spirit of God came on him and he went to the lion and ripped him apart! When the power of God comes on you - you just start having fun! How many of you know what happened last Thursday night? When the power of God comes down, joy and liberty comes and you dont care what people think - you are so full of love for God and you know that grace is super abounding and you are safe! Safe from the storm! You are watching your instruments and then my feelings start feeling good! The Bible says that Samson came walking by a little later and he saw that the carcass of the lion had a swarm of bees had made their hive inside its dead carcass. And Samson wrote a riddle that said; Out of the devourer came something sweet. In 1st Peter 5 it says Be vigilant, be watchful, and live a well balanced life of joy because your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he MAY . May I devour you? No! You may not! Christians who are not careful how they hear and how they see and what the instruments are saying say - yes you may. Thank you very much - I will take your marriage and your health. Yes take more - I am so bad, Ive failed God, take it all, I dont deserve any blessings. That is someone who has flipped their life upside down! He goes around like a roaring lion seeking who he may devour. Who he may! He may not devour me! I have been going for 32 years and I havent backslidden! I am not a casualty on the side. And it is not because I am so strong I am a coward going somewhere to manifest! I am not brave! I am not holy! If it wasnt for the grace of God I would have murdered by now and robbed banks! I am red-blooded and I feel tempted and it is the grace of God! That is all! For 30 years I havent backslidden because I was born again into a church that had quite a good insight into grace and I heard Terry Virgo teach on grace in 1984 and my life became a quest to understand grace. I look at people who have backslidden and hate the church and are bitter and have given up on Christianity. I dont judge them and know exactly why they are in that state - because they flew their lives by their feelings and not the instruments of grace. They need to get off the self pity trip because they didnt need to suck everything that preacher said. You dont have to believe a thing I say until you have checked what I am saying fro m the Bible in context and challenge me if I am preaching out of context and I mean that! Challenge me! You have to take responsibility for those listening by the website if some pastor deceived you with legalism. Something sweet came out of the devourer. Where the devils attacks increase, the victory already exists in superabundance and out of the devourer will come something sweet. Out of every negative experience you have gone through God can bring something sweet! Isnt God good? Think about this! This jumps up in my heart! You that dont like trials and tests - you wouldnt know a great king like David existed if it wasnt for Goliath. David was a no body. He didnt grow up in the palace of King Saul - he wasnt groomed or recognised by his dad. He was hated by his brothers! If anyone had a right to have a hangover and a woe-is-me-my-dad and my brothers-my brothers accused me! When Samuel came to choose a king I wasnt even included among the choice! I was just out there - an uneducated boy looking after sheep. But David had a heart for God because he found out that God is good. All political and double-faced people trying to climb the hierarchial ladder and look good wont worship God extravagantly because they are bound by the law. They are! Look at anyone who cant worship God extravagantly and you can know a stronghold of law is there . Jesus is sitting in a Pharisees house and He was eating. And a woman came in who was in serious sin
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and Jesus forgave her and wept over His feet and dried His feet with her hair. Dont you think that is extravagant? Dont you think that is like dancing? Simon didnt have the guts to say out loud but in his heart, he said; If this man were a true prophet He would know this woman is a sinner - why would He let a sinner touch His feet?. Jesus knew His thoughts supernaturally and said; Simon if a man is forgiven 50 denarii debt and another 50, 000 denarius debt - who would be most grateful. Simon said the one with 50, 000. Jesus said; He who is forgiven much - worships much. I came into your house and you didnt even give me a bowl of water to wash My feet!. The Pharisees think that they are holy. They pretend they are holy but their lives are full of secret sin. Those that live in grace know they are not perfect and know they have got sin. They know that they have got problems. But they are honest about it and tell people they can trust about it. They dont cover it! If you dont think you have been forgiven much because you think you are holy enough then you wont worship God extravagantly - it is a sin. Here is David rejected and hated. He was a nobody and when Goliath appeared, the people saw Goliath. They were terrified. But where a giant increased, the increase of grace and the authority to destroy giants was in a simple unknown boy called David. And David came in with a giant killing anointing on his life. When he killed Goliath, he didnt just kill him but he took Goliaths own weapon and cut his head off and ran through Israel with a bloodied giants head shouting the triumph and greatness of our God. God said that is the champion I want governing my people! A passionate man - a man after my own heart but later committed adultery. And God cleansed him, forgave him and David went onto greater greatness because his broken wings were fixed and he flew Israel higher in the grace of God and expanded the territory of Israel in his generation! How are you going to live? You have got one life and it is dangerous to play it safe. Israel kept on the wrong side of Goliath. They were all panicking and wanted to give David their armour! He didnt want it - if it doesnt work for you then dont give it to me. The church and the religious world and denominational world - dont give me the stuff that isnt working, I dont want to be under your fences. Dont give me your armour! I will take what works for me - the anointing. The anointing of the Spirit of God! I dont care who rejects me or misunderstands me or runs away from me because where rejection increases, then the acceptance of Gods love and many others around the world and in Hong Kong is constantly increasing! Oh Father I want to live this life by the instruments of grace and dont want to waste one more moment in folly or conceited vanity or self-righteousness. I dont want to boast anymore or trust in luck. its the grace and goodness of God! Father we open our hearts to you right now and we pray that the abundance of the finished work of the Cross will manifest in our hearts and minds right now. And that from this day we will fly our lives only by the instruments of grace and when we have those feelings of condemnation and feel upside down then we will declare that we are not upside down. Circumstances may be going crazy and moving and feel upside down but I am not upside down and God is bringing me through this. A champion has arrived! One who is greater than David came to the Cross and triumphed on my behalf and delivered me from all judgement and all sin and all consequences of sin - I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and I am going on to greatness in my God - I am going to make a difference in human history! I am not just living for me or for my little world. But I am here to touch the world around me by the power of Gods grace. I am for signs and wonders and miracles to see the blessing and power of Abraham overtake me. To be full of the supernatural! Father when I am weak and failing and struggling, I will be weak and vulnerable and be transparent and then Your power will increase even more in my life!!

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"Living Free from the Fear of Judgement". "Please open your bibles to 2 Corinthians chapter 5. We are in a series and this is number 5 on being established in righteousness and I wanted to start teaching on a lot of other things like how faith works and how the anointing works yet God said 2009 is going to be the best year you have seen. Last year was the best year we have had in momentum in the 4 years in Hong Kong but God said that this year we are going way beyond that in being established in grace and on that foundation the power of God is going to move even stronger. So today in number 5 I want to talk about living free from the fear of judgement. many Christians have heard a bit about grace and heard a bit about the gift of righteousness but really arent free from the sense that maybe God will judge me and maybe God will be angry with me but lurking behind that conscious thought is the worry that if I sin or make a mistake or mess up then God will be angry with me and make me pay for that. I know that Jesus died on the Cross but somehow years of conditioning of do wrong = get wrong, that law of cause and effect has conditioned us in a propaganda that robs us of a posture of peace and calmness to operate from. God wants us to be free from even a hint of fear of judgement. I believe today He can do that! When you go to a conference you often leave very tired because communication is not just speaking. Listening to someone speak is a high level form of communication. The way you listen is good communication. Communication technicians are not just about the transmission but are also about the receivers. Communication means focus and concentration on working to listening. When I have finished speaking like I do every Sunday I will stand here and look like I am okay but I will be exhausted, all my adrenal glands will be used up, I will fight a mild form of depression because of the anti-climax of being up at 04:00 preparing in the Presence of God to speak but if I have delivered what God called me to deliver and you have received it then it is all worth it! THIS meeting can be the change of your life! It can literally bring you into greater joy and confidence than you have ever had! The Bible talks about the foolishness of preaching - while I am speaking divine words, while I am speaking Gods heart to you I am going to be changed and I am going to be ministered to. Are you ready? Bring it on Lord! 2 Corinthians 5:21; God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in Him we might become the right eousness of God. We can see that God gave the gift of your sin to Jesus who had never sinned so that God can give the gift of Jesus righteousness to you and me who have never done anything righteously. So we have this great exchange - the perfect righteousness of Jesus has been given permanently, irreversibly and eternally to me! 2 Corinthians 8:9; For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor so that you through His poverty might become rich. Now the word rich there I know it angers religious people but if you look in 1st Timothy 4:16 it is the same word that Paul is using when he commands rich people not to put their trust in uncertain money but to put their joy in God who gives us all things to enjoy in life. That money is powerful and you cant live without money - you cant do the gospel without money - it will take billions to reach the lost around the world. So money is a powerful servant but a terrible master. Jesus said you cannot serve money and God. Those that are greedy for money are finished and will never be able to walk with God. He said if you are not faithful with finances then you will not be able to be faithful with true riches.
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So money is the lowest form of wealth and the anointing is the highest form of wealth. Having a love for people is a wealthy thing. Money is a form of wealth although its the lowest level. The word here for riches and the context of the chapter is money. So when did Jesus become poor? When He was in heaven He was wealthy and had infinite wealth. When He walked this earth He could pay for thousands of people and could feed thousands of people just by multiplying loaves. He had a treasurer but when He was on the Cross in the same place where He became your sin He became poor with your poverty so that you can become rich through what He did at the Cross and rich in every area of life. So simply summarising - what is the heart of the Father through you to Jesus? He loves and cares about you so much and He is so committed to you that He has a desire to bring you through into the security that you have a sons righteousness and that you have the sons prosperity and the sons riches as you receive and you believe - you begin to walk increasingly in that abundance. Now every religion in the world - and I have studied Islam, Buddism and Hinduism and I lived as a Hindu priest for nearly a year so every religion has a God that requires you to suffer to make that God happy. In the Kingdom of heaven our God is willing to suffer for us to be happy. He who became rich became poor so you can be rich. God is not trying to take away from you or trying to steal from you or judge you or curse you God is trying to make you rich, make you secure, fill you with peace and give you calmness and bless your life with a well-being that is psychological peace, emotional peace, joy, happiness, inner security! This is the issue - if you have any traces of the fear of being judged by God then all of what I have just said gets neutralised. All of what I said becomes in your mind a nice idea or we live confused and schizophrenic wavering between thinking that God wants to bless us but suspecting He also wants to judge us when we sin and mess up. That fear of judgement is what hinders your faith. Do you know that I have given up trying to have more faith? Do you know that you have enough faith to raise the dead today and open the blind eyes and see financial miracles happen through your life. You have got enough faith to do the works of Jesus and greater works. It is not lack of faith - the issue in your heart is the unbelief that hinders the operation of the faith that is in your heart. The man said to Jesus; Lord I believe - help me overcome my unbelief. So you can have faith and unbelief in the same heart at the same time. The unbelief you have got is neutralising or lessening the operation of your faith. Dont try to get more faith - focus on dealing with the elements of unbelief in your heart. When unbelief leaves, faith leaps into full operation and you will see the power of God in your life. Andrew Wormack said that and it was a great revelation the other day but it is something that God has been speaking to me for many years. Dont try to get more faith - get rid of unbelief. Now if you want to get rid of unbelief you have got to rid of the fear of judgement. I will show you in a moment the Scripture that shows that is the problem. It is the fear of judgement that squashes the operation of your faith in God. How can you have unlimited faith in an unlimited God when you suspect He may be angry with you and may want to judge you? As soon as this fear of judgement totally leaves your life, you will have full assurance of faith and your faith will operate at the level it was designed.
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Go to Hebrews chapter 10. The Bible says in 1 John 4:17; When love is made complete among us we will have confidence on the day of Judgement for perfect love drives out fear of judgement. What people dont realise is that the entire Old Covenant of Moses law was deliberately written to drive fear of punishment into your heart. The New Covenant was deliberately written to fill you with a revelation of the Cross and the love of the Father and the change into the New Covenant that would drive all fear of punishment out of your heart. The fact that there is any fear of punishment in your heart means there is not enough revelation about what the New Covenant is and you are still operating with Old Covenant thinking. It is that thinking that stinking and the Holy Spirit wants to come by the power of His word and eradicate. 2nd Timothy 1:7 says that God has not given us a spirit of fear but a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. Romans 8:15 says you did not receive again to be in slavery of the bondage of fear again but you received a spirit of son ship by which we cry Abba! Daddy! Now why is he saying that we didnt receive a spirit of fear again? When was the first time you feared? The first time you lived in fear of judgement was when you realised that God was angry with all those who had broken the law. That fear then came on you and me before we were Christians. As a Hare Krishna I was nearly totally celibate in marriage. I was so committed to not having any fun! Ryan as you know exists today because I backslid as a Hare Krishna devotee and my wife tempted me and I sinned and Ryan was literally conceived and I know because we only had physical intimacy once in 10 months as a married couple! Dont tell me I havent tried legalism! I was 23 and when you are 23 as when you are 54 you have got a lot of red blood! I knew when I saw the Law and I saw how way below I fall in my arrogant self-righteousness, not even in marriage, no alcohol, no meat, no bed, only a few hours sleep a night because too much is too indulgent! 7 days a week working for Krishna, farming, evangelising on the streets! Then in my self-righteousness the Holy Spirit showed me the law of God and how far I fell - and for 3 months I was nauseous with terror and fear of the judgement of God because under that Law you are facing genuine wrath and genuine judgement! With the Law God has to judge you because He is holy. But we saw a few weeks ago that God never wanted to bring the Law into the earth at all. It was through Israels unbelief in the grace of God and Israels unbelief in the grace that God gave Abraham that made God finally have to give them the Law to show them how useless the Law is for the blessing to come. The Law will only bring curse but it is grace that brings blessing. Now the Cross was to redeem us from the curse of the Law - to remove all possibility of Law bringing wrath on your life again! When I got a revelation of the grace of God and got born again in a Hindi temple with clay and Hindi clothes on me - from that day the Spirit of God came into me in 1977 and I have never again feared judgement! Because the Spirit on the inside of me let me know that I dont have to fear again! I heard Bill Johnson say something interesting recently at a conference in Australia. He said we are in a grace revival in the church today. He said wherever the church turns its focus away from grace and back onto judgement, the anointing for miracles lifts. Why doesnt Hong Kong have plenty of churches where people are regularly having healing miracles? Why do we have to wait for Reinhard Bonke to come in and then a few miracles take place? Why arent we seeing every week in all the churches in Hong Kong signs and wonders and miracles? Whenever fear of judgement or a judgemental spirit comes into the church the anointing lifts. Then the judgemental people say the anointing lifted because of the sin in the church. The anointing would have never come if it was waiting for our absence of sinning! If God anointed
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us because we werent sinning then we would boast that we deserved the anointing ! No - He became poor so that we can become rich. He became our sin so we could be seen perfectly righteous in the Fathers eyes. This church is going to a new, much higher level of the anointing. We are going from a 2 to a 7/10 this year as we deal with the fear of judgement and any judgementalness towards one another. I want to read two verses out of Hebrews 10 and when we read them you are going to be terrified and are going to panic and think everything you have heard for the last few years is a complete lie and these two verses will seemingly contradict everything I have said. I am going to do what some preachers do. I will do it for a little while and test you. I will read verses in the Bible out of context and then I will preach them in context. When you take a text out of its context then that text will con you. That is what happens! When you take texts out of context then you are the worst criminal on the planet. There is no greater crime than taking the Bible out of context. It is like choosing to write your own Bible and it is saying the Bible isnt finished - that is what preachers are doing! They are quoting the Bible but writing their own because a text out of context is a text that will con you, condemn you and confuse you. They are putting their opinions above the opinion of God. These two verses have bullied and abused Gods precious sons and daughters and held them hostage to fear for centuries. Fear always has the same evil effect on Gods people. Faith can only gaze at grace. Faith has got no eyes for gloom and doom and judgement. Faith watches with wonder and awe because faith is focused and fixed on the Lamb of God. Faith looks at the perfection of Jesus sufficiency and sacrifice and fills the soul of that person with peace and calmness and no fear. Faith takes the focus off your unworthiness and puts the focus on His worthiness and the fact that you are in Him safe and secure and that releases a grace in your life that literally empowers you to be far more loving to others and far more good and very kind to people and you develop a sensitivity of considering others greater than yourselves and actually understanding them in a completely non-judgemental way that attracts the anointing into your life and through your life and attracts people around you to Jesus Christ. It is impossible to live in faith in Christ and in the New Covenant and not attract heathens and pagans to Jesus Christ. It is impossible! If heathens and pagans arent attracted to us when we are with them for more than a few days then we are not living as people totally free from the fear of judgement. Because fear always has this opposite effect. Fear of judgement brings the focus off Jesus and brings the focus onto you and your insufficiencies and your inadequacies and your failures and releases in your soul a frustration that gives you a striving and an unhealthy drive to try and improve yourself - that causes you to judge everyone else and try and control everyone else. They can feel it even if you are acting lovingly to t hem. Even if you say No I dont judge you they can feel what is in your heart is measuring them and disapproving them. But when you are full of calmness because you have got faith and no unbelief or fear in your heart then there is something that tangibly comes out of your life that people around you feel and want to know this Jesus. If you have been working for months with them and know them and they dont sense this calmness and this peace anointing then something has gone wrong. We are here to see the lost saved. We are not here to be introspective and analysing our performance. We are here to look away from ourselves and
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look to the Lamb and let that peace come into your life. Hebrews 10:26; If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left but only a fearful expectation of judgement and of a raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. What a verse! Some people try to get out of that by saying Yes but its if you keep on DELIBERATLY sinning. But if you sin by accident then that is okay. There is no sin by accident. All sin requires the operation of your will. You make a choice - all sinning is deliberate! In the book of Exodus when Israel sinned with the sin of idolatry Moses was up on the mountain getting the :Law and came down Mt Sinai and there they were worshipping a golden calf. Moses went to Aaron and said What is going on?!. Aaron said; I dont know! All we did was take our gold and threw it in the fire and this golden calf came out!. No - they deliberately made that calf. No sin is an accident - it is deliberate. Since you got born again and you received the knowledge of the truth - how many of you have sinned? Everyone who is born again since you got saved in thought, attitude or deed if you were judged by the Law have sinned - and sinned deliberately and therefore this verse applies to you. And you must live your life with a fearful expectation of judgement and the fury and the wrath of God coming after you. This Scripture bothers so many people! The devil has got them in fear and wrecked them and no one is being led to Christ through them because they are driven with a fury to improve themselves! And they are being judgemental to the lost! So let me push it a bit further as I take it right out of context. How do you KNOW when you have done enough deliberate sinning? Obviously people know that God doesnt kill the first or second time we sin but there is an invisible line and if we cross that line then He will kill us! People think that is how Jesus is treating the Bride of Christ - that there comes a point where grace will let you get away with one or two deliberate sins but then there comes a point where if you have done too many deliberate sins and especially of a particular kind whoever defines which are the worst ones I dont know because the Bible doesnt but finally you come across a line and when you cross it - all you can wait for is a fearful expectation of judgement! Who defines where the line is? There is nothing in the New Covenant to show me where that line is. So who defines the line? The Pharisees define where the line is! The Pharisees decide a circle where it is safe sinning. In this circle there is safe sinning. They never exclude the sin from this circle that Galatians 4 speaks about as the works of the flesh - gossip, lying, jealousy, envy, selfish ambition. Those are put on the same category as having sexual orgies in Galatians 5! But in the Pharisees mind - just one sexual orgy and that is it! Let me say this - I have been married for 33 years and never committed adultery and neither has my wife so I am not promoting sin. Anyone in this church or around the world who thinks that Rob Rufus is preaching to promote sin - I just want to say to you go and have a brain operation because you are an idiot. So there are safe circles. The trouble is that everyone outside their circle is in danger of wrath. They begin to warn you - its okay to sin but in the safe circle! And they start getting self-righteous because they are keeping the laws in that circle. There are whole churches that are defined by circles! Some denominations have quite wide circles and some have quite small circles. I promise you in that denomination most of the churches will have the same circle. Eventually if you live outside the circle for so long and the demonic spirit begins to make you fear again and you think its the Holy Spirit then you are mistaken! The Holy Spirit only ever convicts you of one sin and that is the sin of unbelief in Jesus. Then
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He convinces you that you are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and the devil has been judged (John 14:8). So when you feel so unworthy and in danger of wrath then you know it is not the Holy Spirit. That is a demonic spirit. But under pressure and coercion and guilt and you may finally come in without faith or joy. Then you start thinking that you are better than those guys out there. Judgement! And anointing lifting off the church. We in this circle talk about how we have got to get the people in the outer circle into the safe circle of sinning. There is no faith in that! But then the devil comes to you in your circle and says This circle is too big and you are still in danger!. And without faith and without joy and being incredibly unhappy because you are looking at yourself alone being motivated by fear - you make that circle smaller. As soon as you make your circle smaller then it increases the number of people outside your circle and now you have more people to judge. In the Christian world today there are Christians and are born again but they are a cult. In their circle they believe they are the only ones going to heaven. Everyone else born again has deliberately sinned too much and they will face the wrath of God. You may say well look at that religious cult but if you look and point but still think incorrectly about these verses then you are only a few circles from them. Your circle is only a bit bigger by degree. If someone doesnt get to these people with grace then the devil will make sure you keep shrinking your circles and then you cant stand being in the circles because it is spiritual claustrophobia and you break out and have some rip-roaring sin! And your life is a fear of judgement and is not calm or peaceful! I want to show you now how to read the Bible. Context Number 1: What covenant is this? I know that Rob - its Old Covenant or New Covenant. Wrong! You have got two covenants under the Old Covenant. You have got the Abrahamic covenant of grace and the Moses covenant of law. When you read Abraham - you read grace. As soon as Mt Sinai comes read law and wrath! When you read New Covenant read that Jesus suffered everything so that you can have everything and be safe forever. What is the New Covenant? Isaiah 54:8-9; God takes an oath in predicting the coming of the New Covenant and He said it will be like in the times of Noah never to judge the world with a flood. Now God says; I swear by Myself in this New Covenant that I will never condemn you again and I will never be angry with you again!. Under the New Covenant if God gets angry with you then He has broken an oath that He swore and a promise He made under oath. Remember Romans 5:20 and when you fly into a storm - you fly by your instruments of grace! Where sin increased, grace did much more increase. How can there be a limit to the deliberate sinning? The word for increase regarding sin is different to the word regarding grace. Wh ere sin increased, grace already existed in superabundance and over and upon that superabundance, grace did even more increase! So there is absolute infinite increases of grace and sin has got total limitation! There can be no way that an invisible line in the sand comes that makes deliberate sinning finally wear the grace of God out. When you have sinned you are actually in the most advantageous of places because if sin comes then grace is already existing and in superabundance and even more grace upon that superabundance! Fly your life by that Scripture and you wont crash and burn! Context Number 2: Who was this book written to? To Jews. It was written to Hebrews. It was written
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to people living in the time that Jesus had come, died and been raised, the Day of Pentecost had come and the power of the Spirit had been poured out and the temple still stood in Jerusalem. Do you know that before Jesus went to the Cross He told the people that all of these stones will be torn down? He prophesied that! And it happened 40 years after Jesus death on the Cross. It happened in A.D 70 and the Roman armies came in under General Titus and came with a clear agenda and smashed the Temple and pillaged and raped and stole the gold and overturned every stone. The Western wall is still there but all of that was below ground. No stone was left standing! But there was a 40 year window from the time Jesus died in about 30 A.D to the time that the Temple was destroyed. In those 40 years they were having blood sacrifices of bulls and goats every single day in that Temple. A priesthood of an Old Covenant order was operating in that Temple. They were preaching the Law in that temple. They were the shadow and the symbol but not the reality. On the Day of Passover Jesus the ultimate final sacrifice died on that Cross for which afterwards there is no sacrifice for sins needed or can be EVER AGAIN and when Jesus died - the Bible said He cancelled the Law and took away the Law and abolished the Law for those in Christ. He gave you His righteousness, His blood wiped away all sin in the Fathers eyes in time and eternity and that blood forever cleansed you from all sin for all time. On that Cross the Bible said that Jesus fulfilled the burnt offerings of the Temple and fulfilled the meal offerings, peace offerings, transgression offerings and everything of shadow and type of the Temple were made instantly obsolete! They were the Nothing that was pointing to the Substance and when the Substance came and people saw the Substance - and then Hebrew apostles like Paul and Peter preached to them the Substance that the Law is over and offerings are over - blood has come! Stephen preached to these Hebrews and they stoned him and rejected him! The Bible says if you keep on deliberately sinning. What is the deliberate sin? It is not general sinning it is specific sinning, it is choosing the inferior blood of bulls and of goats and choosing the inferior priesthood and inferior Temple and choosing shadow and symbols above Substance and Reality that is in God! That is the deliberate sin! You in Christ can never commit that sin! It is something people dont even think about ! Under the Old Covenant the blood of bulls and of goats could temporarily cover you from the wrath of God. As Ryan said - they had license to sin! They went and sinned and went to the priest and got goats blood and stopped wrath. But your guilt didnt go - you constantly felt guilty and out of touch with God but at least that shadow blood could stop the wrath of God coming on you! But once the ultimate sacrifice for which there are no more sacrifices for sin left - when that sacrifice happened at the Cross from that moment, when the Day of Pentecost came and the New Covenant began the blood of bulls and goats no longer worked, no longer covered you from wrath, no longer would protect you - it is obsolete, redundant and passed away! The New has come! What was this deliberate sin? Not general sin! (v29) Not generic sinning. Not living in a safe circle of safe sinning. It had nothing to do with general sin. It had to do with a specific sin of choosing animal sacrifices above Jesus and choosing animal blood above Jesus and that was what was insulting to the Spirit of grace. (Hebrews 10:29); How much more severely do you think a man needs t o be punished who has trampled the Son of God underfoot and treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, who has insulted the Spirit of grace. To insult the Spirit of grace is legalistic, law-preaching, guilt manipulating preachers who have no idea
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how seriously dangerous it is to insult the Spirit of grace. How do you insult the Spirit of grace? Legalists will tell you it is by sinning too much. You cannot insult the Spirit of grace by sinning because the Bible says that where sin increases, grace does much more abound. So you cannot insult the Spirit of grace by the amount of sin because God gave you superabundant grace because He knew that you werent going to act perfectly overnight and He knew that it would take you years and years to change and when you are 98 there will still be some areas that you need to change so that at the end of your days you will still need superabundance of grace! So you cannot insult grace by your sin. How do you fall from grace? Galatians 5:4 says you who are trying to be made right with God through the law have alienated yourself from Christ - YOU have fallen from grace! Who is insulting the Spirit of grace? The grace preachers of the New Covenant or those who are telling people to rely on a religious system of priests, to rely on the Law and on keeping the Law and on selfrighteousness. They are deliberately sinning against the Body and blood of the :Lord and they are mixing Old and New Covenant together. Paul says in Galatians 1 that if you preach a gospel that mixes the Old Covenant and New together then may you be eternally condemned! You are insulting the Spirit of grace, you are misrepresenting the New Covenant, writing your own Bible and putting millions of people in confusion and fear and in unbelief. And that judgemental spirit is stopping miracles, signs and wonders and the healing power of God in the world today which is stopping millions of people getting saved! It is a dangerous thing to insult the Spirit of grace! Look at (v8). I said to Ryan yesterday I wanted prayer that I wont look too angry! When I talk about religion I get so angry - not because I am taking it personally but I have seen the effects of religion around the world. I want you to see that these are passages that you need to become familiar with. You need to know these passages not to win religious debates but for hungry and frightened people and show them in context to help them. (vv8-14) show Jesus talking to His Father and saying look I know that the Old Covenant is not what you wanted or desired. I hope the legalists listening to this website find that it proved that the Father never desired to bring the law. He never desired to bring the Temple system and He never desired to bring the priesthood system or burnt offerings. He wanted all of Israel to be priests of God under the power of the grace He gave Abraham! There was a constant self-righteous arrogance not believing in the grace of God that God finally had to do what He didnt want and bringing the Temple system. (v8); Nor were you pleased with them although the Law required them He sets aside the first (covenant) to establish the second once for ALL the same sacrifices which can never take away sins one sacrifice for sins since that time He waits by one sacrifice He has made perfect FOREVER those who are being made holy. If you are in Christ then the Father sees you as perfectly righteous all the time and there is no more confessing your sin like under the Old Covenant because all sin has been blotted out and dealt with and can never separate us from the love of God ever again - you are perfect forever in the Fathers eyes! There are still Christians on the planet today who if Israel re-built the Temple on the Dome of the Rock - they will be excited about that? Israel already has plans to build the Temple on the Dome of the Rock. Top orthodox Rabbis and leaders have already got the plans and have already declared once they do that they will start blood sacrifices again. Many Christians know about this and think it is fantastic. When they do that they will be insulting the Spirit of Messiah and the Spirit of grace. Animals blood being seen as superior to the blood of Jesus! That is the wrath of God! He blew that thing down with
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the Roman armies who came in and smashed it. He doesnt want a Temple in Israel - Jesus was the final temple - we are the Temple of the Holy Spirit! Both Jew and Gentile in Christ - WE are the seed of Abraham! Jew and Gentile in Christ! Becoming like Abraham (Romans 10) makes you more Jewish and more Christian! Those very same Christians that will rejoice at a temple being built will turn to fellow Christians and tell them to stay in this particular circle of sinning otherwise you are in serious danger. Why do they teach that? Because they do not understand the book of Hebrews and do not understand the New Testament and they are preaching a false and a confused gospel. I want to read Hebrews 10:1-4. It is in some of your religious thinking and religious programming that God actually wants you to be sin-conscious. I want to prove it to you again that He does not want you to be sinconscious but grace-conscious, life of God-conscious and conscious of the Lamb. Keep looking to the Lamb and you will keep changing from glory to glory! Dont be conscious of yourself or your sin but keep looking to Him! What about if I do something wrong to Wesley over there and sin against him? Do I have to confess my sin to God? No I have to confess my sin to Wesley! I need to say sorry to him! When we talk about not confessing your sin or being sin-conscious like under the Old Covenant we are talking about Godward! James says confess your sins one to another! Let me tell you if you are looking at the Lamb and living in that peace of no fear of judgement you will find it easier to say I am sorry to someone. You are not defensive anymore because there is just grace! If I know I have done someone wrong and treated them badly in a financial deal or a business deal and said something behind their back then I will go and say sorry! I will keep grace alive in my life! But when it comes to my relationship with God there is no desire to have a covenant that makes you feel guilty for sin. He had to institute a covenant under law that He didnt want or desir e it and He calls it weak and useless! He did it because of mans unbelief in the grace of God! He brought in something that He doesnt want us to live under but rather something that we will never feel uneasy or guilty every again! Hebrews 10:1-4. ... it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin. He didnt want a covenant that reminded people of their sins! The Church is full of reminding people about their sins! We think God is reminding us of our sins because we have not understood which covenant we are in and the devil took advantage of that and speaks to us in an audible voice and tells us; I am God and I am angry with you. He is not God, he is the devil! If I hear a voice saying he is God and he is going to bring fury for that sin - then I say Well you are not worth serving because Isaiah 54:9 says you took an oath that you will never be angry with me - how can I trust a God who lies under oath? You are guilty of perjury! I am angry with You!. My God can never be angry with me - if He is then He hates His Son for His full anger was poured out on His Son so He has got no anger left for me! Jesus was made poor so I am made rich! He was made sin so I am made righteous! By one sacrifice - perfect forever! Why are so many Christians struggling with guilt problems and condemnation problems? Inferiority problems - self conscious in the worship - cant worship God extravagantly? I feel unworthy. Why? Didnt pray enough this week. This week I hardly read my Bible and sinned a bit and had ugly thoughts so I dont deserve to worship. Old Covenant deception! You have got a default setting that is so dangerous when you read this Bible without a proper teacher who is the Holy Spirit then you will read vv26, 27 and think there is some point if I keep sinning then wrath is coming my way! It is not just about you that I care but those who could get saved through you if you are free!
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The Old Covenant prophets saw the New Covenant by revelation hundreds of years before Jesus died on the Cross. (Jeremiah 31:17); Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more, and where these have been forgiven there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. You dont have to confess your sin to the Father or make right with God. God will not remember your sin - this one sacrifice has made you PERFECT FOREVER! When I sin do I ignore it? If I sin against a brother or sister then I make right and repent and say sorry. What do I do if I sin in Gods eyes? I say; Father I thank You that in 1st John 1:9 speaks abo ut before I was saved and while I was trying to be righteous by the Law and the priests system of temples - while I was doing that I was under wrath and under judgement. And there came a place where I had to realise that I am a sinner, no matter how many laws I am keeping as a Hare Krishna and I cant deny it. I confess my sins to you and ask you to cleanse me from ALL unrighteous and You are faithful and just. And on that day I confessed ONCE and He cleansed me ONCE and there is no other verse in the whole New Covenant that says Christians must confess their sins to get right with God. I challenge you - go find one in Pauls writing to confess your sins to God. That was an Old Covenant mentality and the more they did it, the more guilty they got because it reminded them of how sinful they are. Under the New Covenant it is written to remind you of how perfect in Christ you are, how safe you are and how bold you can be before God all the time! Ryan will take Hebrews 6 next week and show you it in context and you will sing and dance and then you have got Hebrews 10 and 6 sorted and the whole book is open to you! He has got amazing insight - it blew me away - I had never seen the context like that! When God says (and it is a promise) Their sins and lawless deeds I will never remember - that in the Greek is the double affirmative. It is a double NEVER! It is not just forgetting your past sins! Jesus died before you sinned once. That means He has died for all sins (Colossians 2)! If you are in Christ then God will never, ever remember anything you do that is wrong or any transgression. All He sees and all He remembers is every act of holiness and obedience and love and humility you did. That He will reward you for! You dont get blessings as rewards! They come as part of the New Covenant! But when you go to heaven you are sowing up acts of obedience that will have rewards! God will never look at you or relate to you or have vision of you with the knowledge of your sins. He wont relate to you thinking about your sins - He never remembers them. Under the Old Covenant of law God says He will remember sins and will visit them on the 3rd and 4th generations. That will go even further because the 3rd and 4th sin and it continues. Ancestral cursing!? Absolutely for those not in Christ! But when I came into Christ I came into the perfect genealogy of Christ and my past, present and future was redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. I am NOT part of a cursed lineage and I dont care how many alcoholics are in my past - I am not living in that but in the genology of Christ. I am redeemed with the genology blessing of Jesus Christ! In the New Covenant it is the opposite - God promises He will not remember our sins or lawless acts and therefore will not pass them on to our seed! By one sacrifice! The law was a shadow of the good things that are in Jesus. Under the law God was righteous to remember your sins. Under the finished work of the Cross, the New Covenant God is holy and just to remember your sins no more and your lawless acts
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no MORE! (v23) Hope - confident, expectation of good. You can walk into the Presence of God and can say that we hold unswervingly to this hope. Fear will come automatically. Most days I get up and somewhere within the first 20 minutes I tell my Father I expect GOOD things to happen today because I am in the New Covenant. I dont have any fearful expectation of judgement because judgement is passed! I expect good today! Who is insulting the Spirit of grace? Those who are preaching the finished work of the Cross or those who are making the people weird in church but outside in the real world they are far more relaxed. This should be what you look forward to all week! At least when we get to church we can let rip and go mad - I have got no sin against me! The more you believe this, the more you will pray, and do His will! The world is your parish and you walk through territory free from wrath and the fear of judgement! My Father loves me and doesnt remember what I have done! He took an oath never to remember but only to bless! His Son became poverty on my behalf! We are princes and royal priests in the house of God! I did not come to Hong Kong to have a nice little church - I came as a divine bulldozer - I came as a prophet and came with the call of God, came in weakness, fear and trembling but I came to rip Hong Kong open - to see it broken! I dont want to see people with emptiness in their eyes! No destiny, no power of God! Just living for something that is not the power of the gospel but empty religion! We have GOT to see the power of God move! Stir your faith! Let all unbelief in the gospel get out of our hearts, let our hearts be full of absolute freedom from the fear of judgement! City Church International - what are you hoping in? The blood of bulls, goats, priests, Law, selfrighteousness? No! Therefore you are not committing the deliberate sin! You are honouring the blood! That blood declares we are righteous forever! We are going to stay free in the power of God and honour the Spirit of grace!

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