I have finally got round to transcribing as much as I possibly could of Rob Rufus's final session at TOAM 07. It was quite an emotional time as his ministry had really made the entire week for me. Mark Heath has commented on some of his concerns with Rob's ministry and some of the stories he told. I think even Rob was aware that a lot of what he was presenting to us as possible was new and strange to many of us. I liked this one particular quote where he addressed cynics;
"Cynical people ask “What’s the point of that?”. I never ask what the point is – ask did God do it? God knows what the point is and why He is doing it! Some people are more afraid of the devil than of God – the counterfeit signs and wonders are so pathetic! The Bible warns about the counterfeit – they always lead away from Jesus! If you are born again and cannot pick up a devil making a sign and a wonder then that is weird!"
Let's be careful not to allow our cynbicism to make us miss what God has for us!
Rob Rufus – Session 3 – Main – TOAM 07!Its not just fire or holy whirlwinds coming down – it is God coming down Himself! It is God’s government – the New Jerusalem – coming down among us!
(Acts 9). We are with the Mobilise wild ones tomorrow so really looking forward to that! I was in the room out there preparing for this meeting and was sitting on the couch relaxing – then the manifest Presence of God came into that room and I began to weep. It began to remind me of things in the past. I grew up in a home where my dad was an atheist and my mum was an agnostic. It was a happy home but no faith in God at all. There was no legacy of faith at all. We had a legacy of witchcraft but no faith. Without any experience the Presence of God came upon me as a 5 year old boy and I felt so special and so precious.
When God’s glory comes over you He brings His favour and all His manifest goodness shines on you, and the divine attention loves you not for what you have done or can do but just as your intrinsic value as a created one of God.
1977 surrendered life to God in a Hindu temple and the Presence of God filled the place. After that the pursuit of my life is the Presence of God. Never promote seeking the power of God because that will lead to a life of utter unfulfillment.
God hides His power in His glory – He hides His power in His Presence.
His Presence is who He is! You will find your hearts satisfaction in who He is. Many of the healing evangelists died in immorality and disappointment because they went on 40 day fasts to seek His power. In the New Covenant we do not have to fast to get the power.
When we pursue the power instead of the Presence you will wreak your lives, families and you will become irrelevant, weird and insane! God wants us to live in the supernatural with a degree of sanity!
John G Lake planted 500 churches in South Africa and took the witch doctors business away through the living power of God. People would put bubonic plague on him and they could watch the plague dying through the power of God.
We miss the best of God by being captured by the phenomenon of God rather than the Presence of God.
Acts was the infant church – the baby church. 500 years ago God came to restore the church but wants to take us beyond the power and manifestation of the book of Acts. Not because we are more holy or moral than them but we are uniquely placed to see what God will manifest at the end of time. Out of the riches of His glory He strengthens us with might from power coming from His Presence. He strengthens us in our inner most being and God is able to do more than we can even ask or imagine according to the power at work in us.
It is in the glory that His hidden power comes out.
Want to talk about the timelessness of the glory – to live as much as we know how in the manifest glory of God. The glory is the nature, the very naked Presence of Almighty God tangibly encountering you. In the glory you change! (2 Cor 3) says we are ministers of the New Covenant by the Spirit of life. The Old Covenant was a ministry of death and condemnation. The ministry which brings righteousness as a gift and in the midst of that glory is a spirit of liberty. The Old Covenant glory was God’s view and opinion of us through the law. The people couldn’t see Moses face shining because it condemned them.
(Hebrews 10:14) but in the New Covenant God sees us as perfect forever! We have to learn from the past!
I prophesy this with all integrity - we are about to go into manifestations of signs, wonders and miracles but we must see it isn’t about seeking the power but the Presence of Almighty God.
You can’t live for the crowds and high points – you will never be satisfied with the power. You will only be satisfied with knowing His Presence. Lose touch with the Presence and get more involved with what God does and you will find greed and insecurity and self-promotion comes in and God has to lift the cloud of glory off like he did in the Healing Revivals of the 40s and 50s.
I prayed for four hours in tongues before a meeting and it was the worst flattest meeting ever whereas I have spent five minutes in His Presence and that is what satisfied me. Some people live for the high voltage of a conference but are bored and tired in between. If you live for the Presence – you will become His closest friend, know Him.
It is okay to read about His attributes – but we need to have God encounters. Experience Him – know Him – hear His voice.
[Time of much laughter while trying to read Scripture!]
(Acts 9:1-20). “Meanwhile …”. (*laughter and applause*). “A light from heaven flashed around him” – that’s the glory. God always speaks in the glory.
Many suicide bombers are going to be targeted with glory nuclear bombs in our days and are going to be turned from haters into lovers.
“Brother Saul”. Saul was instantly born again in that encounter in the glory on the Damascus Road.
It is very important when we have an experience in the glory of God we still need to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
“At once he began to preach in the synagogue that Jesus is the Son of God”. Paul says in Galatians 1 – “God set me apart in my mother’s womb and called me to be an apostle”. While Paul was witnessing Stephen being stoned and martyred and Stephen saw the glory of God and Jesus standing giving Stephen a standing ovation – so when he encountered Jesus on the Damascus Road he knew this was Jesus.
In that instance Paul was commissioned and activated and began to preach. When you come into the glory, you come into the place which is the eternal realm – the eternal now. God does not live in time – He does not even live in eternity. Eternity lives in God. Time is a temporary parenthesis in between eternities and when the light of the glory comes you are in the eternal now of God! “Arise shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord arises on you”. This was said to people whose light had come but they had not arisen and shone. When the glory comes we must instantly arises.
The Cross was God’s secret wisdom destined for our glory before time began. In the eternal realm it is timeless! He is the great I AM! We need to take illegitimate limits off God. He is not in a box! His glory is His eternal now! His timelessness is the glory! How many of you have gone into the glory and thought it was five minutes but found that an hour had gone by? Maria Woodworth-Etter stretched out her hand to make a point and went into a trance. Trances are for us – not the New Agers! Peter went into a trance on a rooftop and saw visions in the heavenly realm. She froze like this for three days – her bodily functions were suspended.
Cynical people ask “What’s the point of that?”. I never ask what the point is – ask did God do it? God knows what the point is and why He is doing it! Some people are more afraid of the devil than of God – the counterfeit signs and wonders are so pathetic! The Bible warns about the counterfeit – they always lead away from Jesus! If you are born again and cannot pick up a devil making a sign and a wonder then that is weird!
The best way to combat counterfeit signs and wonders is to envelop ourselves in the glory!
The true prophetic sees the future and becomes the future in the now. How? By coming into the cloud of the glory.
The Bible says that He can “redeem the years the locusts have eaten”. “He will renew our youth like the eagles”. What will we look like when we live regularly in the glory? Maybe in the glory we will age a bit slower! David encountered God in the glory so often that God began to show him the future. David got to see the New Covenant era centuries later but in the glory David pulled the New Covenant age into his age and so put up a tent and you could walk into the glory. If you did that in Moses tent you would die. David went back in time in the glory because God had given promises to Abraham about what he was to inherit. There was an anointing that God gave that generation – but they didn’t fulfil it or utilise it. It is waiting there for a future generation to pick it up and go back and pull it into their age.
We stand at the climax and consummation of the ages. We need to see that the church must come at least to the anointing of Acts. Look at the last 103 years. The restoration of the anointing over the last century would shock the baby boomers if they knew of them. That anointing was pushed aside by a Pharisaic approach.
The Pharisees stopped others entering into the glory which angered Jesus.
If people bury their talents, God will take the talents and give them to people who will use them. In the Azusa St revivals the encounters fizzled out because legalism came in and corrupted it. The anointing of Azusa Street is still here for us to catch. The anointings of Maria Woodworth-Etter and Aimee Semple McPherson are still here. Find DVDs of Kathryn Kuhlman, Oral Roberts – these ministries that walked in glory and power!
William Branham was baptising in a river and a cloud of glory came down upon him seen by thousands of people.
Three pillars to Branham’s ministry – a movement in his wrist that would identify what the sick person had. A video of Branham proved a whole goitre would disappear. Secondly Branham would see visions. Remember these anointings are for us. He would see open visions of who the people are, where they lived. The third stage was that the angel of the Lord would come and stand with him on the platform and would tell him what was wrong with the people. The people who travelled with Branham said they never saw him miss once.
But near the end of his life Branham began to believe that he was Elijah raised from the dead. God told Kenneth Hagin that Branham would die at the end of 1965 and gave it to Gordon Lindsey to lock in a safe. Sure enough in October 65 he was killed in a car crash. Kathryn Kuhlman died of a swollen heart. A A Allen also died prematurely. This generation hasn’t even seen these things but God began to lift His hand off the Healing Revival because jealousy and competition began to creep in and legalism began to drive the movement. They went to heaven but never finished the course. That anointing is still in the earth for our generation to catch.
We need to trust God. We could go on – the Charismatic Movement with people speaking in tongues across denominations but mankind wouldn’t allow the new wine to be fashioned in a new wineskin.
God was pouring out the new wine to give the denominations a chance to catch up with restoration. That wine is still here!
The Faith Movement became a “Name it and claim it” and took people into a world of unreality. The founders were genuinely after God though. God does indeed just want to bless you because He loves you! But that faith is back – God is talking faith again.
In the 1970’s there was much angelic visitation in this planet but cynicism drove them back to heaven.
The Toronto Blessing was sadly called the “Laughing Revival” and Toronto was mocked and ridiculed. Some embraced it but they didn’t have the wineskins in place. There has been a restoration of apostles and prophets but some have turned them into dictatorial controllers. As we get into the glory we will go into the past and restore the years the locusts have eaten – we will see churches operating in revelatory giftings like that. We will see humility and grace and we will steward the supernatural in an unprecedented way if we can seek the Presence.
In the wilderness you are thinking about survival – when you cross the Jordan it is about possessing.
The Cross was God’s secret wisdom destined for our glory before time began. In the eternal realm it is timeless! He is the great I AM! We need to take illegitimate limits off God. He is not in a box! His glory is His eternal now! His timelessness is the glory! How many of you have gone into the glory and thought it was five minutes but found that an hour had gone by? Maria Woodworth-Etter stretched out her hand to make a point and went into a trance. Trances are for us – not the New Agers! Peter went into a trance on a rooftop and saw visions in the heavenly realm. She froze like this for three days – her bodily functions were suspended.
Cynical people ask “What’s the point of that?”. I never ask what the point is – ask did God do it? God knows what the point is and why He is doing it! Some people are more afraid of the devil than of God – the counterfeit signs and wonders are so pathetic! The Bible warns about the counterfeit – they always lead away from Jesus! If you are born again and cannot pick up a devil making a sign and a wonder then that is weird!
The best way to combat counterfeit signs and wonders is to envelop ourselves in the glory!
The true prophetic sees the future and becomes the future in the now. How? By coming into the cloud of the glory.
The Bible says that He can “redeem the years the locusts have eaten”. “He will renew our youth like the eagles”. What will we look like when we live regularly in the glory? Maybe in the glory we will age a bit slower! David encountered God in the glory so often that God began to show him the future. David got to see the New Covenant era centuries later but in the glory David pulled the New Covenant age into his age and so put up a tent and you could walk into the glory. If you did that in Moses tent you would die. David went back in time in the glory because God had given promises to Abraham about what he was to inherit. There was an anointing that God gave that generation – but they didn’t fulfil it or utilise it. It is waiting there for a future generation to pick it up and go back and pull it into their age.
We stand at the climax and consummation of the ages. We need to see that the church must come at least to the anointing of Acts. Look at the last 103 years. The restoration of the anointing over the last century would shock the baby boomers if they knew of them. That anointing was pushed aside by a Pharisaic approach.
The Pharisees stopped others entering into the glory which angered Jesus.
If people bury their talents, God will take the talents and give them to people who will use them. In the Azusa St revivals the encounters fizzled out because legalism came in and corrupted it. The anointing of Azusa Street is still here for us to catch. The anointings of Maria Woodworth-Etter and Aimee Semple McPherson are still here. Find DVDs of Kathryn Kuhlman, Oral Roberts – these ministries that walked in glory and power!
William Branham was baptising in a river and a cloud of glory came down upon him seen by thousands of people.
Three pillars to Branham’s ministry – a movement in his wrist that would identify what the sick person had. A video of Branham proved a whole goitre would disappear. Secondly Branham would see visions. Remember these anointings are for us. He would see open visions of who the people are, where they lived. The third stage was that the angel of the Lord would come and stand with him on the platform and would tell him what was wrong with the people. The people who travelled with Branham said they never saw him miss once.
But near the end of his life Branham began to believe that he was Elijah raised from the dead. God told Kenneth Hagin that Branham would die at the end of 1965 and gave it to Gordon Lindsey to lock in a safe. Sure enough in October 65 he was killed in a car crash. Kathryn Kuhlman died of a swollen heart. A A Allen also died prematurely. This generation hasn’t even seen these things but God began to lift His hand off the Healing Revival because jealousy and competition began to creep in and legalism began to drive the movement. They went to heaven but never finished the course. That anointing is still in the earth for our generation to catch.
We need to trust God. We could go on – the Charismatic Movement with people speaking in tongues across denominations but mankind wouldn’t allow the new wine to be fashioned in a new wineskin.
God was pouring out the new wine to give the denominations a chance to catch up with restoration. That wine is still here!
The Faith Movement became a “Name it and claim it” and took people into a world of unreality. The founders were genuinely after God though. God does indeed just want to bless you because He loves you! But that faith is back – God is talking faith again.
In the 1970’s there was much angelic visitation in this planet but cynicism drove them back to heaven.
The Toronto Blessing was sadly called the “Laughing Revival” and Toronto was mocked and ridiculed. Some embraced it but they didn’t have the wineskins in place. There has been a restoration of apostles and prophets but some have turned them into dictatorial controllers. As we get into the glory we will go into the past and restore the years the locusts have eaten – we will see churches operating in revelatory giftings like that. We will see humility and grace and we will steward the supernatural in an unprecedented way if we can seek the Presence.
In the wilderness you are thinking about survival – when you cross the Jordan it is about possessing.
4 comments:
I really must listen to that one! Sounds amazing...
It was! Especially when Rob became too drunk in the Spirit to keep reading the Scriptures!! And his suicide bomber prophecy .... WOW!!
I remember that sermon vividly, it really was amazing ! The suicide bomber prophecy was awesome. It took a few moments for everyone to register what he had said, because it came out of the blue, in the middle of his sentence, but you could tell that at that moment the Spirit was on him. Great stuff !
I've just listened to this mp3, and it's truly wonderful. I was so excited to hear him talking about David pulling grace from the future into his day -- Bill Johnson spoke on exactly this, within the past year! And the charismatic teachings on David's tabernacle pointed to this pulling-on-grace aspect as well. Obviously the Spirit is trying to make a point about salvation-through-faith having been available long before Jesus' death.
During the 90s, the late Ruth Ward Heflin (a classic pentecostal) wrote 3 books on Glory. I highly recommend them. One of the stories she told was about the power of being in glory for evangelism: her ministry in Jerusalem was spending time in long, harp-and-bowl-type worship meetings, in which God would give them prophetic prayers for Muslims and the nations. She found out later that at the same time they were worshiping in the glory, other groups were witnessing to Arabs in Jerusalem and experiencing amazing breakthroughs. Ruth believed God was using her group's worship as warfare, that broke down walls preventing others from understanding the gospel message.
Though I'm a neophyte concerning the glory compared to Rob, I'm convinced God has endless surprises waiting if we will commit to "wasting time" in "soaking" prayer with Jesus, invited into the throne room to sit on Daddy's lap and hear secrets from his heart.
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