Together on a Mission 2011 - Day 1!

As I mentioned previously, we are attending select sessions at the "Together on a Mission" conference in Brighton this year - namely Terry Virgo's three afternoon sessions each day, the Thursday Evening Prayer Evening and Dave Holden closing the conference.

So have just come back from the Day 1 afternoon session with Terry Virgo. I am glad to know that although I haven't been to Brighton since 2007 the wonderful heavenly-adjectives like "awesome!" and "amazing!" still very much describe this conference.

Simon Brading lead worship and I was amazed at his massive growth in maturity and experience to lead us into the Presence of God. We learned two new songs which were wonderful celebrations of the Cross and glorious ascension of our Lord and also sang the wonderful short song that I first heard Michael W Smith sing; "Alleluia, for the Lord God Almighty reigns". Amazing!

Terry Virgo then came up to speak and began as is customary for him - by recommending Dave Devenish's new book; "Fathering Leaders, Motivating Mission - Restoring the Role of the Apostle in Today's Church". Terry said;

"Laying aside the biblical role these apostles took is a serious loss to the New Testament .. I have never seen such a through Biblical approach to apostles as David's book. We have been waiting for this book for decades!".

Terry's text was Hebrews 12:1-3 and here's what he said;

We are looking at themes God brings to us as we go into unprecedented way into world mission. I have been drawn to Hebrews 12 - R T Kendall in his excellent book said;

"Hebrews 11 would have no revelance or meaning to me at all if it were not possible to do what they did".

Then we come to chapter 12. "Now therefore". There are many turning points in the Bible (Romans 12, Ephesians 4:1). The uniqueness of our faith is that we come after what God has done. "Cloud" is a better word than "crowd". We are surrounded by voices speaking to us! Watching what they have done speaks to us. The Bible is their stories.

The Bible reveals itself in relationship - not in abstract theology.

The whole deal is stimulating faith. God wants us to be affected by them. "Witness" is "bearing witness" in the Bible - not so much watching. Not sure that the cloud of witnesses are actually physically watching us like as in an amphitheatre. They have something or Someone far better to watch than us! But through deed - they still speak.

"By faith the walls of Jericho fell down". It is worth it. It is worth trusting when we don't see the answers! Hebrews 12 is also saying; "You are not alone!". They say; "Keep going - He is faithful!". As we run this race (or contest) we must realise it isn't an 100 metre sprint - it is a marathon. This imagery of conflict is there for us! "Lay aside the weights/encumbrances/everything that hinders". Get light - get free from everything that would entangle you. He distinguishes between things that would entangle and sin.

(Galatians 5:7); "Who hindered you?". When Paul left, the legalists moved in.

Legalism stops you running in the race.

Why would you put on a heavy coat that weighs you down? But there is also a danger of a misapplication of grace. It is phenomenal freedom but we can trip over that freedom! All things are lawful but will it help you in the race? Sometimes the tragedy is - we lose the race because of grace! This is another value system and it does cost.

Fundamental things like "honour your father and mother" - from a biblical perspective this is a principle but there are other perspectives Jesus brings. "Let the dead bury their dead!". Jesus' mothers and brothers were worried He was out of His mind! He was saying; "I am in the race and nice and tidy principles have to be submitted to another truth". Does this principle entangle? This isn't sin - but things that entangle. Costly choices - Hudson Taylor fell in love with a girl before he went to China but he realised that China was not in her heart. He had to go. As we move into global mission, many will ask questions like; "Will this mean I never get married?". Things that hinder - lay them aside.

"Also the sin that can so easily entangle".

Paul does NOT write; "To the sinners". He writes; "To the saints"! You are new creation people! You are now; "in bondage to righteousness". You are completely free people! "Sinner" is NOT our identity.

But ... Paul wrote of "sin that can entangle". But he also wrote of sin that can "easily entangle". He furthermore wrote of "sin that can so easily entangle"!

The world will bombard us with it's value system - we need to find a glorious freedom by which the world was crucified to me. The wisdom of this world is foolishness to us! "Demas left me having loved the present age". This was the last reference in the Bible to him. Both guys came to the end of the race but so differently. Do not let sin reign in your mortal body!

We need apostolic doctrine to show us who we are in Christ. God BROKE the power of sin at the Cross. Lay aside Satan's accusations - his chief weapon is trying to get you despondent and depressed.

He bombards you and you either take it on board and say; "I am a wretch" or you resist the devil. "We overcome Him by the word of our testimony". Satan will constantly whisper to you; "I am a dead loss". Will you listen?

Group early photographs in the Charismatic Movement can be a sobering reminder - who has left the race.

"The sin" - which sin? Hebrews has the greatest deal to say about one sin - the sin of unbelief. Hebrews 3:12; "an evil heart of unbelief". When the Israelites came to the Promised Land they said "we are not able to go in". God was FURIOUS with them and instead allowed their children to go in.

If we will press into the nations, this is the victory that overcomes. Our faith! The book of Hebrews has to do with overcoming and inheriting our promises. Live and overcome with faith. Don't draw back! Let us believe God for Rio and Delhi! Run the race that is "marked out for you". The masters of the race have marked out a unique race of each - Moses, Elijah and Noah. We don't have to build Arks necessarily but we do have to believe God.

"God delights to deal singularly with us as though there was no one else to love". (R T Kendall).

You run the race that is marked out for you. "Run with perseverance". It is possible to slip into passive mode. Don't get passive - this word has patient expectancy about it. Be imitators of those with patience and faith! The whole Creation stands on tiptoe to see the unveiling of the sons of God. Resignation is not believing any more! Elijah sent the boy to look for the cloud 8 times. But he kept believing! "Looking (ahead) to Jesus". Don't get besotted with the things in your face - this one - the pioneer and perfecter.

Jesus was handed over and brutally crucified but He perfected faith! There are a lot of people who pioneer but do not finish a work. Jesus both perfected and pioneered faith!

Crucification was not a religious process. It was foul, it was nothing but shame. It was all of that but more for Jesus - it was loss of fellowship with the Father. God completely withdrew and He was alone. Yet He held the promise that God would raise Him up! Jesus took the curse. The curses in Deut 28 are terrifying! Yet Jesus took them all for us! "Despising the shame" - Jesus ignored the shame of the Cross as almost as though it were not worth thinking about. "For the joy set before Him! He looked ahead!".

There was something joyful behind this black day. What is the prize? He came for a glorious Bride! Millions of believers reconciled to God! He will wrap it up with a new heavens and a new earth! All will praise Him! The whole earth will be redeemed and be like the New Temple - nothing unclean! Babylon will be gone. New bodies! The devil will be in the Lake of Fire. God will know us all by names and know our story! He will dwell with us and Jesus will be enthroned - He will reign forever!

He didn't take much notice of the Cross - He was so besotted with these people He was bringing in! We are the Bride! What has He got for us?

"The greatest labour of love that ever happened was possible because of the greatest imaginable joy" (John Piper).

Let's run this race and glorify Him and be to Him a joy! We are at the end of the beginning and have barely started!

Rob Rufus on "The Flow of the Anointing"

I did publish this transcript on the "Rob Rufus blog" but this truth is one so vitally important that I felt led to publish it here too (I think Ern Baxter would approve!). Until I heard Rob begin to teach on the anointing at Brighton 2006, I was always of the legalistic school of thought that impartation of the anointing was for the "gifted" (meaning men of God like Terry Virgo and Rob and William Branham and so on) - not plebs like myself. After hearing Rob - I see now that is actually a proud get-out clause to excuse myself from expecting great things from God through MY life!

Whatever our understanding of Mark 16, we cannot get away from the challenge the Lord Jesus left for us as the New Covenant Church;

"And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them, and confirmed the word by the signs that followed".

Rob Rufus preached this message at the recent "Grace and Glory Conference" in Manila in the Philippines;

"Open your Bibles please to Acts chapter 19.

An apostle has a government over their life to set the church in order - to bring a grace government to liberate and work with pastors and to help pastors coming alongside them. To lay foundations for churches. The Bible says in Ephesians 2 that the church is built on the foundation of apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus as the chief cornerstone.

Jesus is a living Saviour, a living Lord - and the church is built on the foundation of a living Head but also on the foundation of living apostles and living prophets. It is not built on the foundation of apostles who lived and then died and prophets who lived long ago and then died. These living apostles and prophets need to get into churches and lay foundations of a living Christ and a foundation of what the church is in Christ and the foundation of grace.

This is the last session here and I was hoping to speak on the "Seven Ugly Faces of the Grace-Hating Spirit" - we will not have time to do that and I feel that is for another time. I want to talk about the transference of the anointing. I was in the faith group and Kenneth Hagin was the man that God used to bring me into encounter with the power of God in 1981. I want to talk about this because the anointing is the grace of God - the anointing carries grace and we want to speak about how the anointing is carried in your words. I want to talk about how the anointing is transferred through the laying on of hands and other ways.

When you leave here I believe God wants to spread the supernatural aroma and flavour and perfume of grace wherever you go. He wants us to see that the anointing can be transferred. The anointing is transferable, transmittable and tangible. The anointing of God is like supernatural electricity. The anointing of God is like heavenly materiality - it is real. You can feel the anointing. You can feel it on your hands and you can feel it on your face. You can feel it leaving your body and going into someone else's body.

I was in Holland just a few weeks ago and we taught on the transfer of the anointing. I said; "Any five people who are sick - I don't care how sick you are - I want to show you the transfer of the anointing and I will pray for you". So five people came out and within a minute or two three of them were completely healed. The fourth had to go for a checkup and a few weeks later we got the email saying they were healed. The fifth one I don't know about - but four were healed about them understanding how to receive the transfer of the anointing!

How many want to know how to give the anointing into people's lives after receiving it? We are all called to be competent ministers of the Spirit that gives life. When we walk in the gift of righteousness and speak about the gift of grace we should be able to back that up with the transfer of the ministry of the Spirit of life.

We should be able to give away the Spirit of life. Some years ago a man invited me to go to the United Kingdom and

preach to a big outreach in London. The network was called "Pioneer Ministries" and they were doing an amazing work with people suffering with HIV/AIDS and they were ministering to them. So they knew many many precious homosexual folk - people who were lesbians and homosexuals. I want to tell you that God loves homosexuals and lesbians the way He loves adulterers and murderers and every unsaved person. Jesus has died for the whole world! Somehow Christians have put homosexuality in a different category and said their sin is worse. I don't know - everything is bad! Under the Law everyone falls short and everyone has missed the glory of God!

The church has not been successful in reaching homosexual people or gay people. In the Western world the church has not had a good result with the gay community. Much of the church has bashed the gays and marched with big "anti-gay" slogans. That doesn't represent Jesus! I really believe Jesus walks amongst the gay people and wants to love them into the freedom of the Kingdom! So I was going to minister to hundreds and hundreds of people who hated church - hated Christianity and didn't go to church and certainly didn't trust Christians and are in the gay community.

Now I had never preached to hundreds of gay people at once - so I went to the United Kingdom and went out to the forest to pray and wait on God. I began to pray and wait on God for 1 hour, 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours until I got the breakthrough in prayer. Now the breakthrough came at the Cross but I was praying the victory of the Cross into this community. While I was in the forest, I felt the breakthrough of God. I had a white T-shirt, white running shorts on and was so happy when the breakthrough came and knew the victory had been released and I was running and jumping in the forest and even rolled down the hill and rolled down into a big pile of cow dung and my T-shirt was covered in cow dung but I was so happy I kept running and knew tonight there would be blessing and liberty and people saved tonight!

I heard God say to me; "Son, the anointing of blessing is all over your white T-shirt which was now the colour of green cow dung. Tonight I don't want you to preach for more than 10 minutes - I just want you to go to the meeting and wave it over the crowd and I'll do the rest". So I said; "Jesus please don't ask me to do this! These are British people with stiff upper lips and won't appreciate this!". He said; "Okay Rob - don't worry but you will be preaching on your own". I said; "No Lord don't leave me on my own!". But you see - sometimes to do the miraculous we have to do the ridiculous. That is why grace liberates us to become bold and adventurous. We can step out in faith when we hear the voice of God. We do things people are too afraid to do but we do them because we are walking in the grace of God.

So that night I went to the meeting and there were 100s of people there. Someone was trying to lead them in worship but they were not interested. They were angry and mad and upset. I came out and began to speak and spoke for 10 minutes. Everything was so tight and unfriendly and hostile and terrible that I wanted to run out the meeting. I thought; "Lord I will just preach for a little longer to get their faith up". The Lord kept saying; "Son I am telling you - just wave the T-shirt over the crowd". I had the T-shirt in a plastic bag and hidden it under the pulpit and was dressed in a clean shirt and trousers. But nothing was happening - it was getting worse. So finally I said; "Ladies and gentlemen - I just want to say to you that I have been disobeying God for the last 20 minutes". As soon as I said I had been disobeying God all these unsaved people - I had their attention. I said; "The Lord told me to only speak for 10 minutes and then He told me to do .... this".

I was feeling embarrassed and nervous and felt no great faith. I pulled the T-shirt out which was green and yellow from cow dung. And I said; "The Lord told me to do ... this" and as I waved the T-shirt over the crowd the power of God was released across that room and hundreds of people fell from their chairs. Demons began to come out. People began to scream and repent. Then I said; "He told me to do THIS!" and then they went hysterical. When God told the disciples to feed the masses with fish, don't think Thomas was breaking the loaves in half and throwing them out. They were taking little crumbs! When they saw the bread and fish was not running out - then they got bolder. And I began to get bolder and bolder. Literally 100's of people - I have a video recording of this - 100's of these people without me asking them to do it, got up off the floor, fell on their knees at the front, taking their lovers rings off and throwing them onto the pulpit and repenting and calling out on God.

I was amazed! But I saw one man standing in a pin-striped suit standing by himself. Everyone was on the floor kneeling and weeping and repenting. I ran up to this very British man with the white T-shirt and went pow in his stomach! He fell and began to cry out and weep before God! I didn't realise that man worked at Buckingham Palace and was the legal advisor to the Royal Family. God got him! I wanted to give him my white T-shirt and ask him to take it and wave it over Prince Charles!

There is an anointing that flows out of grace that will radiate out of our lives and through our churches. We just have to learn how to release it and many Christians have to learn how to receive it. So let's have a look at Acts chapter 19. You remember Elisha had the double anointing of Elijah. When Elisha died in an open grave and his flesh rotted away until it was only bones left - when a dead person was dropped into his grave, the dead body touched the bones of Elisha and the dead person came to life. In the bones of Elisha there was still enough anointing resident or present in his bones enough to raise a dead person.

If the bones of a dead prophet can raise someone from the dead - how much more the anointing of Jesus Christ in the church of the living God moving in resurrection power in supernatural signs and wonders?!

Many people have misunderstood 1 Corinthians 12 and the gifts of the Spirit. They feel like some people have special gifts and other people do not have those gifts.

Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers have a mantle of Christ to equip God's people to do the works Jesus did and to come to the full stature and measure of Christ.

Ephesians 4 Ministries are not superior - they just have a mantle of Christ and their job is to serve and equip the church and become full in the operation of the works that Jesus did! Every believer has the Holy Spirit inside of them! I do not have any gifts of healing. Rob Rufus does not have one gift of healing, working of miracles, gift of tongues, speaking in tongues, prophecy - I don't have any of those gifts but I have the Person inside of me who has all nine gifts of the Spirit and whenever they need to be manifested, He will manifest them inside of me. You can do the works Jesus did and greater works because you are a son and daughter of God! Life gets exciting when you are living secure on a foundation of grace - you don't have to prove your sonship with miracles or turn stones into bread to prove you are a son. You don't have to jump off a building to prove you are a son. You don't have to do anything to prove you are a son! When you are secure in acceptance grace, there is an adventure to step out and go for it.

In Matthew chapter 10 Jesus said; "Go and preach the Kingdom - raise the dead, cast out devils, heal the sick and tell them that the Kingdom of heaven is near".

So how are we going to raise the dead if we don't pray for some dead people?

Lord give me the power to raise the dead! He already has! You have to give it a go - maybe you will pray for 10 people and they don't come alive but maybe the 11th will and then a whole village will hear about the power of Jesus Christ! Sometimes you have to do the ridiculous in order to see the miraculous. How many blind people have you prayed for? How many deaf people have you prayed for? We have got to step out and just go for it! Acts chapter 19:11;

"And God did extraordinary miracles through Paul so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that touched him were taken to the sick and the illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them".

Handkerchiefs and aprons became like supercharged batteries with the anointing and carried miles to a distant city and placed on the sick and they were so full of the anointing that they would drive out demons and heal the sick. This is a New Testament practice - driving out demons and healing the sick with hankies or the laying on of hands. I want you to look at Mark chapter 5 - the famous Scripture. The doctrine of the laying on of hands (and we are not talking about Hebrews 6 - that's another story and we can't go there) but there is a New Testament ministry of the laying on of hands. Now in religious circles it is empty hands on empty heads.

If you don't give something away through the laying on of hands it is just a ceremony. It is just an empty ceremony.

When we lay hands on people there is meant to be the currents of heavenly electricity that supernaturally comes out of our hands and flows into someone or flows into a handkerchief or an apron and into someone's body and they receive it.

I want to encourage you to listen to how to receive and how to give the anointing. When Peter was walking past the Gate Beautiful and a man begged him for money he said "Silver and gold we don't have right now" but in the next chapter they will be throwing piles of money at our feet - but right now we don't have silver and gold but such as we have we give to you. "In the Name of Jesus Christ rise up and walk" and the man stood up and went leaping and praising God. Peter said; "Look at us - such as we have - we give you!". You have got to know that you are loaded with heavenly power, you have got to know that such as I have - I give to you! So you will hear about how you are forgiven and one with Christ!

You have got to let go, you have got to give in and give the power out to the world around you! "Such as I have - I give to you" - that is what Peter and John said. So we are going to release that anointing - there is going to be an anointing release as we end this conference. There is going to be an anointing that will go out and be released into people's lives here and activate people. Let's read Mark chapter 5:21;

"When Jesus had crossed over to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around Him while He was by the lake. Then one of the synagogue rulers came there seeing Jesus, he fell at His feet pleading earnestly with Him; "My little daughter is dying - please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live". So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around and a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for 12 years. She had been under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had. Instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus she came and touched His cloak. She thought; "If I can just touch His clothes I will be healed". Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realised that power had gone out from Him, He turned around to the crowd and asked; "Who touched my clothes?". "You see the people crowding around you - and yet You can ask 'Who touched Me?'" His disciples asked. But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. The woman came and fell at His feet trembling with fear and told Him the whole truth. He said to her; "Daughter your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering". Now this is an amazing story here because Jesus did not walk through the crowds and say; "The Father has given Me a revelation in the crowd here somewhere there is a woman who has an issue of blood here and it is your lucky day - your name has come up in the computer of heaven and God is just in the mood to heal you today - this is your lucky day - where are you lady?" and then gave her healing.

No! That's how many people think of healing - of some kind of sovereign mysterious thing that God does when He heals you. He gets in a good mood when He heals you and we don't know why He doesn't heal anyone else! Today the reporters would have said - you see, it's not God's will to heal everybody! But Jesus healed one man and everyone else could have jumped up and said; "Hey - me too!" and He would healed everyone! Because over and over again it said - "He healed them all". Jesus healed all who came to Him - and He is the perfect will of God. He didn't pray for this woman - He didn't give her healing! He didn't lay His hands on her - it was illegal for her to be in a public place and she could have been stoned by Jairus the Temple ruler if they had known she had an issue of blood. But she had heard about Jesus and she heard that Jesus was healing everyone and she heard that power was going out of Him and healing them all. So she sneaked up behind Him and touched Him and her faith made a demand on the anointing.

Her faith pulled the power out of Jesus and went into her and she felt the power come into her and knew she was healed. What she thought was that she could sneak away and no one would know. What she didn't realise was that the anointing is so like electricity and you can know and feel - she didn't realise that Jesus would feel it leaving Him and said "Who touched Me?". Everyone was around Jesus - they were all touching Him and all touched Him! They were all curious and hoping to get healed! They all were curious for some kind of experience yet no power flowed to them but one woman touched Him and pulled the power out of Him and she was healed. What does this mean? You can have hands laid on you hoping you will be blessed - this woman was not hoping or curious - she knew if she touched Him she would be healed - she knew if she touched Him her faith would make a demand and that her faith could pull the anointing out of Jesus. You have people come and think you are the guru and they come and stand passive in the prayer lines and are closed and think you can do it.

Jesus wants to heal all and at the Cross has healed all on the planet. But when He went to His home town - He could there do no mighty works. Why? Because they didn't pull the power of God out of Him but this woman did! She pulled it with her faith! She wasn't pleading or praying - she didn't even ask for healing! She sneaked up behind Him and with her faith pulled the healing out of Him. 12 years of bleeding was finished! It amazes me that hundreds were touching Jesus and they didn't get the same result.

This is what I believe - if we as a Church begin to learn how the anointing flows and if we learn how to give the anointing and start seeing the increase in grace anointing then we more and more will see people hearing about and know that the grace message is ministers of the Spirit releasing the ministry of life through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is how the disciples in Luke 17 understood it - "Lord, teach us how to have faith - Lord give us great faith". Jesus said; "If you have faith like a mustard seed then you will speak to mulberry trees and they will be pulled up by the roots and thrown away". A mustard seed is a small little seed and Jesus was using farmer's language.

You don't need a quantity of faith - you need quality of faith.

Today I believe Jesus would say if you have faith as small as a little fuse, a little electric fuse - then you can release resurrection power and receive resurrection power when hands are laid on you.

An electric fuse is a small little thing and the metal of the fuse is chosen because it has low resistance to electricity. Electricity will not flow through lead or through wood. There are certain metals and substances that do not conduct electricity. Unbelief does not conduct the anointing or receive the anointing. Copper is a good conductor so many electric fuses are made with copper so when you switch your light on at home and the power comes from a nuclear power station or a hydro-electric station - it comes down the power lines and the power lines are the Word of God. It gets to your home, comes through the electric fuse and then lights up your house and your fridge and television. If suddenly that electric fuse has got too much resistance to the electric fuse then the fuse will short circuit and your house will be plunged into darkness and your television won't work and your fridge will die.

It would be a foolish thing to drive to the power station and say; "Hey why have you closed down? The power isn't flowing anymore!". No! The first thing you do is go and look at your electric fuse to see if it's been broken. And then you make sure that you put a new one in that has low resistance to the electrical currents of God. I believe we all have the faith of God but that we are not all operating in the faith that God has given us. There is little faith, great faith, strong faith and weak faith the Bible speaks about. I believe that as you learn to have a fuse that has no resistance to the anointing then as soon as the anointing comes to you - you just surrender. You don't resist it - you just receive it.

If you have got high resistance because you are afraid of the Presence of God or the power of God and resist and push away then your electric fuse will break down and you will short circuit the flow of God's power.

The more people that have low resistance and receive the anointing ... you see;

The anointing is Spirit-life and the power of God. You cannot understand the anointing with your head. You cannot receive the anointing with your brain. You have got to receive the anointing with your heart.

When I lay hands on someone I can tell immediately if they are in their head or in their spirit. If they are in their head, they are all analytical, all tense and all trying with their head. If someone is pulling the anointing (like this lady) from their head - then as you lay your hands on them - BOOM! They suck it out of you and the miracle happens so easily! Because their electric fuse has no resistance to the anointing. Then when they lay hands on people they just release the awesome power of God by the spirit of faith and words of faith.

I want to close now by reading another passage. I want to show you that once someone breaks through with faith - once a local church breaks through with faith or a community of churches break through then you will see that the reputation spreads and spreads. This woman was the only one who got her healing - though hundreds were touching Jesus, they got nothing from Him! But one woman got her healing because she touched Him with faith. Once people see an example - they begin to realise; "Boy I need to touch Him with faith - not hope or curiosity or desperation but a low resistance and receive that anointing and see miracles leap to a high level". So let's go to the next chapter - Mark chapter 6.

This is one chapter where a whole crowd got nothing and one woman did. Look at the difference following this woman's example. Mark 6:53; "When they had crossed over, they anchored there - as soon as they got out the boat people recognised Jesus". People recognised Jesus. People recognise your church - the priesthood of all believers in your church and it is then known as a community that is known how to release the anointing into people's lives. "They ran throughout the whole region and carried the sick on mats to wherever they heard He was. Wherever He went into villages and towns, they placed the sick in the marketplaces and begged Him to let Him touch even the edge of His cloak and ALL who touched Him were healed".

What is the difference here? Before hundreds touched Him and they didn't get healed. One touched Him and got healed and now they release power is coming out of this Man - all we have to do is touch Him with faith. Everyone who touches Him - all were healed. God wants churches to get to that reputation where if you can go into that atmosphere in worship - there is a release of the anointing of God, where hands are laid on you - it is not symbolism or screaming and shouting and nothing happens - there is a release of heaven's voltage, a release of the currents of God. The power station in heaven is more powerful than a nuclear power station - the Cross has set the power station forever on and the power lines is the Word of God. The power has been flowing ever since Jesus said "It is finished" - ever since He said that and redeemed us from sickness and disease - ever since the Day of Pentecost, the power has never had to increase or be switched on. It's always on and always flowing! Every second heaven's power station will never break down - full voltage of heaven's life and power!

The Word of God will never fail - Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever! The only difference is - you can have the nuclear power station and the power coming to your house but if your resistance is too high then you will short circuit and lose the power. Then you can say; "The power station has passed away, the power station is no longer doing miracles".

God is still doing miracles today - the power station is as flowing today as it was 2000 years ago when Paul's handkerchiefs and aprons were supercharged. The power is as strong and available as when Jesus ministered and when the apostles ministered.

The power has not decreased and there is no problem with the power line - the problem is with the faith fuse in the church because of lack of understanding! You cannot stand there passively and receive something - you have got to reach in and seize. You don't even have to ask Jesus! She just crept up behind Jesus, grabbed His garment and pulled the power out of Him.

Jesus can I have permission to get prosperity or a good wife or be blessed or have a good job? You don't need permission! Everything is yes in Christ Jesus! He has given it to you - you just need to reach in and take it because it's yours already! Sometimes you lay hands on people and they are in this grey matter called the brain trying to figure the anointing out - I can't get this into them.

When they don't receive it by impartation then you have to resort to the authority command. I have had people healed who didn't pull the anointing out of me, I have had to speak to the cancer and command it to go - it was the authority command that brought the anointing not their faith.

You can get people healed if they are in unbelief, but if people don't get enough faith. If someone has got their car in park - you can't push it forward. But even if it's in neutral you can push it forward. Even if they don't have great faith, they can receive the anointing from you. I want us to stand please and let's demonstrate the release of the anointing and go out of this conference full of the revelation of grace and righteousness. Full of the revelation we have received fullness in Christ. Let's go out of this place to give it away and release the anointing.

We - the church - want to become the garment of Jesus that the world is always trying to touch to get the anointing!

My job is not to do the ministry but release others to do the ministry. Ephesians 4 Ministries are to train you to do the ministry of Jesus otherwise the pastor goes on a big ego trip because he burns out. We had a lady come into our church 2 years ago and she was wheeled in a wheelchair and I didn't know she had been in the chair for about 20 years. I thought; "I wonder if I will have a chance to get her out the wheelchair". When I had finished preaching I started walking towards the back of the hall and saw this lady out of this chair and walking! And I saw 2 members of our church smiling because they had prayed for her and seen her come out of the wheelchair. Almost everyone in our church pray for the sick!

The Phillipines can be saved by a people living at rest in the grace of God and the acceptance - from that place of rest they can release the anointing! If you pray for someone and they are not healed yet die - don't blame yourself for killing them. They were on the way to the grave anyway! Without being hard on them you have got to say "next"! I prayed for 5 people in 1981 who were blind and saw 2 healed. I have had to pray for many people with cancer and seen many of them not healed. Now we see many healed. We have gone on TV in Australia because we saw a lady in a wheelchair with doctors saying she will never walk again. She was wheeled into our church totally paralysed. I said; "In the Name of Jesus Christ come out of her". A man's voice came out of her saying; "I'm not coming out". I laughed and said; "You are coming out - I'm from Africa and we see devils out". They are all coming out because of the Name of Jesus.

The primary ministry of an apostle is government of grace and laying foundations and the primary sign of an apostle is signs, wonders and miracles. Apostles equip the church for miracles as do evangelists!

Are all apostles? No not all are. Not all are prophets or evangelists. Their job is to equip the body of Christ but every priest can move in signs and wonders and miracles.

Expecting God to Come!!

The last few blog posts have been sharing personally about my current spiritual walk and my battle to re-discover the "first loves" of a relationship with God in Jesus Christ. My personal feeling right here in the UK at the moment is that I don't "see" much happening in the spiritual realm. I think Simon Cowell - the famous music mogul - summed it up personally last night in the UK's biggest music reality show - the "X-Factor". He was explaining why he chose quite a colourful act and he said;

"I think the world has become a boring place over the last few years ... I'm just so bored!".

I agree! The world is boring. It is full of misery, depressive news and dreary endlessness. Of course Cowell seeks his excitement through new and exciting acts - because frankly there's not much more excitement seen around in the church! Or is there? My thoughts fly automatically to my hero - Ern Baxter - and his prophetic statements on the church. Even though he lived, preached and died in the 20th century I still believe he is one of the most prophetic preachers on the church to walk this earth.

Terry Virgo wrote his special conference edition for the Brighton Leaders Conference in 2004 and it was about Ern Baxter. Here's the complete document. Terry wrote;

"Ern's expectation was just as Saul's kingdom collapsed so would the religion that regarded the Bible contemptuously, explained away it's unique authority and inspiration and failed to honour the activity of the Holy Spirit".

There is a move abroad I think to lay emphasis on the unique authority and inspiration of the Word of God. But I still think many churches fail to honour the activity of the Holy Spirit - simply by rendering Him redundant. It's not so much that Christians purposefully blaspheme Him and His work. It's just that church life has adapted swiftly to coping without His manifest Presence. As R T Kendall used to say - if the Holy Spirit was completely withdrawn from the church then 90% would carry on as normal.

Terry closed his Firstline article by saying;

"Welcome to our Leadership Conference where we intend to celebrate Biblical Christianity, honour the King and welcome the Holy Spirit. Let's gather full of anticipation that God has so much more to show us and so much more to accomplish in our day".

Sadly this expectation is unusual in so many conferences these days - and even more sadly next year will see the last Newfrontiers Leadership Conference in Brighton. Here's a few other conferences around the world that seem to lack this active anticipation of both the Word and the Spirit;

1. Sovereign Grace Ministries conferences refer to;

" ... Teaching is central to this conference ... Most of all we gather as pastors, around God’s Word, to celebrate the glorious gospel".

2. John MacArthur's Shepherds Conferences refer to;

"These are times when we gather ... (to) sit under the teaching of godly men".

3. The Together for the Gospel conference has a singular aim;

"They began a conference which occurs every two years and aims principally at encouraging other pastors to do the same—to stand together for the gospel ... The goal of these friendships, conferences, and networks is therefore to reaffirm this central doctrine of the Christian faith".

4. A little closer to home, the local head SGM church Christchurch held a conference called "(Co)mission" and they;

" ... gathered to enjoy the gospel of grace and be stirred by God’s passion for church planting".

5. Alternatively of course - the outstanding "Glory and Grace Conference" in Hong Kong happening this month;

"Whilst our focus is not on miracles but on Jesus, this conference will see far more miracles than any other Glory and Grace we have experience before! There will be greater impartations of freedom and assurances to access and activate the treasures of the unsearchable riches of Christ in an effortless administration of His grace".

So what's your point you may say? My point is if there is no expectation for God to actively visit His people during these times then it's most likely He probably won't. If conferences gather to "situ under teaching" then all they will hear is teaching. Don't get me wrong - I love teaching. But I'm so hungry for His Presence that I find I can't commit my scant resources to going to a conference where that expectation is not present. I've got thousands of sermon tapes at home where I can "gather to hear teaching". I want to feel His corporate manifest Presence!

My initial reason for writing this blog post was to re-introduce Ern Baxter's prophetic ministry and to re-publish some of his writings and think about some new transcripts. But I got distracted by this theme of "conference expectation". That translates surely into our day to day life - if we don't expect God to come in active Presence then the question is will He?

Let's increase our hunger for more of Him! Even though hunger pangs hurt so bad at times - the pangs are a sign that our hunger can be filled by God!

Worthy is the Lamb!

I'm writing quite a hard post about suicide and the Christian at the moment - someone I know who loved Jesus Christ but wrestled with depression all their lives took their own life in the last few weeks. I've admitted a couple of times before that I've had suicidal thoughts at times at the depths of feeling depressed. And I'm staggered there is so little encouragement, guidance, or sermons dealing with this - yet many Christian greats dealt with depression including William Cowper (the hymn-writer who actually committed suicide himself) and C H Spurgeon.

But I've been amazed again at the power of Gospel-centered worship for lifting the soul. I felt so incredibly and utterly low yesterday after a hard weekend - and made a deliberate and concerted effort to soak in Spirit-filled worship (particularly Hillsongs and Newfrontiers) and have felt such a breaking of the clouds of darkness! I cannot urge anyone like me who struggles with feeling depressed and maybe even suicidal thoughts - to soak and find and hear and sing to worship songs that are focused and obsessed with the glorious gospel.

Here's my favourite at the moment - "Worthy is the Lamb" from Hillsongs;



"Now ALL I know is Your forgiveness and embrace!".

That is the Biblical fact of our current experience! Why is it that the main course of most Christian depression comes from doubt and fear that God is less than thrilled with them? Or worse is angry with them? The sad fact is that many church leaders actually proudly preach the wrath and anger of God at people who are covered by the blood of the only Son of God? It's a sobering thought that some churches have blood on their hands because they have allowed the lie to continue - rather than preaching the unadulterated gospel of grace.

"The Darling of Heaven crucified!".

I wonder if Jesus hung upon the Cross and saw each and every son and daughter that His blood would redeem flash before His eyes? I wonder if His already broken heart broke just a little bit more at the premature deaths of those redeemed beloved ones who just couldn't quite "get" His love and adoration for them? What a price! Surely that most precious price of all DEMANDS that we fight depression, suicide and any emotion that robs the true wonder of Calvary?

"Thou art worthy!".

Something occured to me yesterday. Most Christians believe and utter the Westminster Confession that the "chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever". Or of course as John Piper puts it; "Glorify God BY enjoying Him forever". I wonder what happens if Christians do not enjoy God and therefore are not glorifying Him? I wonder what happens if Christians cannot remember the last time they enjoyed God? Does that suggest that actually the reason for living - the chief end of man - has gone and really why continue living?

This is why worship is so key to me and so essential in the battle to win against depression and suicidal thoughts and feelings. Worship lifts our spirits and focuses our attention off ourselves and our struggles and onto God and His love and passion and beauty and Being. Let's never, ever allow ourselves to stop worshipping!

A Truncated Gospel?

It's been a few months or so since I have spoken about a subject very close to my heart - the "neglected" resurrection. It's never far from my thoughts though - just like my other favourite topics of theological discussion. Such as the Holy Spirit, His baptism, filling, gifts and Presence or the Song of Solomon! It doesn't take much for me to begin considering the importance of the resurrection though. Usually an over-use of the word; "The Cross" achieves it.

That's happened twice this week. I read a blog post that quoted Chris Tomlinson who asked the question;

"Can we talk about the Cross too much"?

My thought was - no surely we can't if we are talking about the WORK that Christ accomplished on the Cross. The taking of our sin in place of us. The pure and spotless sacrifice. But if we are talking about the Cross as a sentimental icon and sing emotive songs such as "The old rugged Cross" - about a Saviour hanging "there" - then yes, I think we can.

The second thing that brought this issue of the gospel and the neglected resurrection to my mind was reading a blog called "The Wartburg Watch". It is a blog written by two Southern Baptist women in the USA and of course is named after Martin Luther. They take an critical look at some of the church's more legalistic and assumed practices (it won't be to everyone's taste). But the particular blog post that caught my eye was titled; "A Deficient Gospel" - reviewing C J Mahaney's small book; "A Cross-centred Life". The interesting thing is that I have read this small book some years ago but even I didn't notice this (not being Mahaney's greatest fan).

Mahaney builds his book premise around the verse - 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 - that he cites as saying;

"Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you…. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins.”

From that Mahaney builds his theology around what he calls; "The main thing". However the "Wartburg Watch" saw something;

"Here’s why I believe Mahaney teaches a “deficient gospel”. Did you notice that he places a period after the phrase “that Christ died for our sins”? Paul, who was writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, places a comma after the word “sins”. Well, maybe the translators actually inserted punctuation, but what is of vital importance is what Mahaney fails to include.

Now let’s go back to his original question: “What’s really the main thing in your life?” In other words, what is of “first importance”? Here is Paul’s complete response in 1 Corinthians 15:3-5 (ESV): “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.”

And this was their comment - that I loved so much I posted it today on my Twitter account.

"You see, a crucified “Saviour" ... is of no use unless He is resurrected".

Sounds obvious doesn't it? And many who speak adoringly of "the Cross" will impatiently probably snap that of course they know that Jesus Christ is resurrected. But I've discovered that one's theology and living tend to adapt to the vision of Jesus Christ that you persistently speak of and think about. If we as Christians (I believe) persistantly visualise Jesus Christ hanging broken and naked on a Cross, neglected and alone - then our theology will adapt to that belief. You will not develop a powerful optimistic missiology or eschatology and you may not have an adequate view of the Holy Spirit either.

Am I wrong? Prove me so. The emphasis of popular evangelicalism by "homies" such as Mahaney or Mark Driscoll urge us to spend much time at the foot of the Cross. Indeed Mahaney wrote in his book;

"When you’re tempted to doubt God’s love for you, stand before the cross and look at the wounded, dying, disfigured Savior, and realize why He is there. I believe His Father would whisper to us, “Isn’t that sufficient? I haven’t spared My own Son; I deformed and disfigured and crushed Him – for you. What more could I do to persuade you that I love you?”

It sounds incredibly emotive doesn't it? But is it actually biblical? When Stephen the first martyr was being stoned for his belief in Christ - I suspect that he may have been tempted to doubt God's love. No one who believed in Messiah had died for their beliefs and maybe Stephen wondered for a second if it was real. But he didn't see; "A wounded, dying, disfigured Saviour". Rather he saw;

" .... gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God ...Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God."

It is a vision of the fully alive and ascended Jesus Christ as Lord that will give us cause to NEVER doubt the love of God for us. Not trying to imagine what it looked like at Calvary. After all - let us never forget this compilation of verses from the New Testament that lead us inevitably and unquestionably to the understanding that it is the ASCENDED and resurrection Lord Jesus Christ who pours out the Holy Spirit that really gives us certainity of the love of God for us.

"Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing (Acts 2:33 - ESV) .... For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father (Romans 8:15 - KJV)".

For me there is a complete gospel that leads me on from staying stuck considering my indwelling sin. It leads me from deep appreciation and awe and wonder at what Jesus did for me back 2000 years ago but on to the empty Cross and empty tomb and the thrill of hearing the victory echoes of heaven as He entered in with a host and sat down at the right hand of the Father until all His enemies have been put under His feet.

So a complete Gospel?

1. He came to earth in the incarnation - very God and very man.

2. He lived a perfect and spotless life - "tempted in all points like as we - yet without sin".

3. He died a death - taking our sin upon Him and becoming sin for us.

4. He rose victoriously binding principalities and powers by taking away the Law.

5. He ascended on high taking "captivity captive".

6. He sat down enthroned on high until His enemies are made His footstool - and poured out "this which you know SEE and HEAR" - the promised Holy Spirit who cries out "Abba! Father!"'.

Why live a Cross-centred life when you can live a gospel-centred life and take the most glorious message to the waiting and desperate lost?

How Do We Nullify Negativity in Our Lives?

Rob Rufus spoke recently on the danger of negative thinking in our lives. He made a hugely important point - and it's one I've been thinking about a lot recently. In "days of small things" - or in days when nothing much seems to be tangibly happening in the spiritual realm, how do we respond? How do we react? Do we stick to methodically preaching and expounding? Or do we continue hungering and thirsting after God Himself? Rob said:

"How do we position ourselves to let that wonderful miracle take place? I have come to the conclusion after 30 years of being a pastor that nothing in the Kingdom transacts or happens unless you come under the hovering, moving, manifestation of supernatural Holy Spirit. Nothing can happen unless Holy Spirit's manifest power comes tangibly over your life - for the Kingdom is in the Holy Spirit".

Sermon: "How Do We Nullify the Negative Things in Our Lives?" - City Church International, Hong Kong - 11th October 2009.

When was the last time you felt His tangible, manifest Presence? It was never meant to be a "special" or "unique" thing. Experiencing Him is meant to be a normal, supernatural part of every day life. Oh for more, so much more of Him!

The Flight of the Eagle

I want to apologise for a somewhat cranky last post. That'll teach me to write a blog post just after having got home from work after a rubbish day. I was gently chastised by a friend asking if I was back into "swiping at SGM-mode" and I can assure everyone I'm not. My family are still very much involved in SGM as are some people I care deeply about. I think my frustration comes from seeing a people who used to believe in restoration and in the Holy Spirit and His power and His work - and now seem so different, so reformed and so theology-focused. That's not an excuse for being cranky!

My main annoyance was that my grouching may have distracted from my key point about a positive eschatology and evangelism! How ironic is that - I'm pleading for a more optimistic end-time world view and writing very grumpily. Anyhow - that being said I want to share a frequent dream/vision I have at times when I'm sleeping. It comes frequently especially after reading Isaiah 60; "Arise shine for your light has come ... nations will come to your light". I keep seeing myself flying in my dreams over country and cities and everywhere I fly - people are worshipping exuberantly crying out; "He is good and His love endures forever!".

I've looked on You-Tube and the closest I can come is this to what I see in my dreams;



It's so easy in day-day life to get bogged down in the trials of what life brings. But look at the eagle! He glides above and beyond and he sees so much more than we do. Can he see the nations coming to the dawning of the light of the Bride? I think he can! So, so much more than we can! We can so easily ge depressed and down-cast by life. The eagle doesn't get down-cast. He soars high above the clouds near to the sun.

There's a reason why "Life on Wings" is the name of this blog and the name of my favourite sermon of Ern Baxter's. It embodies everything that the Christian should be!

Forgotten Restoration?!

I was quite humiliated at the gym today. I was running on the treadmill and have put together a playlist on my IPOD for the half-marathon I'm running in Birmingham on Sunday 11th October. I put a couple of surprise tracks on the playlist from "Salvations Song" - the Together on a Mission live worship album from last year. One of my favourite songs on that is by Louise Fellingham called; "From The Rising Of The Sun". I love it. I love, love, love, love, LOVE it!

Here's the lyrics;

FROM THE RISING OF THE SUN

To the place it sets again

All can know that You alone are God

You have shown the sweetest grace

Not forgetting those You've made

Saving all who turn to You in faith

Heaven rain down

Bring salvation to this place

From the ends of the earth

The nations will come

Every knee bowing down

To the Holy One

Creation will give You praise

The Name that's above all names

There's a people You have called

And You're drawing them to come

This Your church is growing day by day

Only one way You have made

It's through Jesus, God the Son

sent to carry all our sin and shame

Heaven rain down

Shower righteousness and grace

Why did I humiliate myself? Because I started getting very excited. So excited that tears started rolling down my face. I think I probably hid it well among sweat! But some thoughts began occuring to me. But what excited me so much was the thought of nations coming to the light of the church - as the Bible promises. Here's what I thought;

If you don't believe truly in restoration then you can't properly get truly passionate about the Great Commission.

Before we get distracted by terms let me quote the passage of Scripture from which this beautiful song comes;

Isaiah 60:1-7; "Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the Lord has risen upon you ... But the Lord will rise upon you - And His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, And kings to the brightness of your rising. Lift up your eyes round about and see; They all gather together, they come to you. Your sons will come from afar, And your daughters will be carried in the arms ... The wealth of the nations will come to you ... And I shall glorify My glorious house".

So with this glorious promise there in the Word of God, why is the church so darkly pessimistic about it's future? Of course we all know we're going to heaven - that's assured. But it's the bit in-between that seems to flag up some questions. Much of religion that I have experienced tends to take the analogy of a medieval castle. We raise the drawbridge - post a few "prayer" archers on the roof and hope that the devil and the powers of darkness don't scale the walls. Or even worse - that sinners come knocking trying to come in and get saved.

It seems crazy to me! Jesus said "I will build My Church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it!". That's not a defensive promise! Ern Baxter always asked the question, since when did you see a pair of gates jump off their hinges and chase a screaming church down the street?! No! This promise is Jesus Christ promising His church - there is not one stronghold that is able to stand against My advancing church! Not even hell itself!

Now - back to restorationism for a minute. Lots of Christians pray for revival. Two examples: My former senior pastor Dr Stanley Jebb commented on it in a recent blog, yet I have a tape where he spoke very strongly against restoration in our old church in Dunstable - after decades of believing in restoration passionately, singing wonderful choruses about it (Does anyone remember "I hear the sound of rustling"??!) and of course going to the glorious Dales Bible Weeks to hear Ern Baxter preach on it!

A former friend of mine - ex-blogger Jesse Phillips used to talk about revival a lot (he may still believe in it - I'm not sure). But Sovereign Grace Ministries would not be classed as having a positive end-time eschatology as I understand it from their resident theologian/'apostle' Jeff Purswell. So I confess myself a bit confused - what is the point of praying for or hoping for revival if there is no active expectation that the Church is destined to grow gloriously to a degree that not only the nations will "flow to it" but also that the nation of Israel will be wonderfully provoked to come in?

Church history is almost united in the understanding that revival means a "re-viving" of the church. The Holy Spirit being poured out in unprecedented power so that the church is corporately affected. I like Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones definition that it is "a corporate baptism of the Holy Spirit". The result of course is that the world cannot help but come. But it all begins with the church! It must all begin with the church!

My point - let me state again:

If you don't believe truly in restoration then you can't properly get truly passionate about the Great Commission.

Perhaps a bit controversial and I'm ready to stand corrected! But let me ask what mentality you have when you go out to witness and spread the Gospel. Do you really believe that we are saving them "one by one" and any convert is a bonus (which of course is true) but we are really working to a rapidly coming deadline and hell is going to be more full than heaven anyway? Or do you walk out of your house daily KNOWING that we are on the winning side and that God is more capable of saving millions through one outpouring of revival than we are with our evangelism techniques and "crack squads" or "hit teams" imported from the USA (or whatever they are called) or maybe adopting Mark Driscoll-esque techniques in your church and uttering the odd profanity or crude joke from the pulpit?!

I believe that a positive eschatology can absolutely transform your life. It can affect how you go to work, it can affect your worship at church - singing celebratory songs of triumph rather than bleeding heart ballads hoping God might show. It can most definately affect your evangelism in ways we can't even dream of! When we are simply "hoping for the best" - I suspect our evangelism cache will only spread to white, middle-class "safe" people. We will leave the "dangerous" lost to the few evangelists who dare to go into prisons etc. But if we really believe that we are on the winning side and that the principalities and powers REALLY were bound at the Cross and disarmed - and we KNOW that we have a glorious message to take - that God is reconciling the world to Himself not counting men's sins against them, then we will surely want EVERYONE to hear!

Let me get really practical for a minute. As a children's nurse there is no horror I hate worse that paedophilia. If there was still the death penalty, I probably would be tempted to call for it for this alone. The thought of children being hurt or damaged breaks my heart. But can I deny them the gospel of grace? That God wants to reconcile THEM to Himself and is not holding their sins against them? There are two incidents that make this more than just theory.

A paedophile who used to work for my old hospice - Acorns in Birmingham - is awaiting trial. Now it doesn't surprise me that this happened. I experienced enough at Acorns to know that the management is entirely ineffective with archaic screening processes who waste more time and money on "investigations" such as they used to bully me for months, than to ensure that their standards are upto scratch. But that's an aside - he was there. And he did this. But he needs the gospel! And the arms of Jesus Christ stretch to him! And you know what? If I really allow the glory of restoration to sink in - I can see him coming into the church.

Or the paedophile ring that were caught in the UK just this week. This one upsets me just as much as the man at Acorns. That a woman can work at a nursery and misuse her position like this - just staggers me. But she and they need the gospel too! And are we really going to leave it to a prison chaplain (who may or may not believe the gospel anyway!) or some evangelists? No! A restored church is the only hope! As Lex Loizides wonderful song went;

"It is the Church! The hope of the world!".

And I am sorry - but at the moment, it looks rather like the world has no hope. When someone like C J Mahaney puts the onus for an effective pastoral ministry on the church by stating:

"The effectiveness of pastoral ministry is dependent upon a proper response TO pastoral ministry".

It just seems a recipe for disaster, condemnation and legalism to me. Not to say completely unbiblical. The apostle Paul had one of the most effective New Testament ministries short of our Lord Jesus Christ. He not only was completely full of grace in his doctrine but he performed signs, wonders and miracles. Yet can we say that the Corinthian church were completely supportive of his ministry? They gossiped and criticised him and it seems didn't even give him any monetary support (2 Corinthians 11:8-9). They thought they were more spiritual than he was. Did that affect the effectiveness of his ministry? Not in the least. So it's another Mahaney-typical "catchy" summary - and a gift he is very good at. But it's not Biblical.

Again - another digression. But my heart and my passion in this is to call for a bit of optimism. I've spent so much time over the last few months typing up Rob Rufus's sermons and anyone who has read them will know he is grace-obsessed. But without a positive eschatology to set that doctrine ablaze, I find myself wondering what the point is. Fortunately I know Rob Rufus's eschatology is ENTIRELY positive!

Maybe you shrink back from the term "restoration" and can't quite get the "post-millenial" eschatology that I am pleading for here. But if I can at least make you re-consider some of the glorious promises in the Bible - particularly in Isaiah 60 - then I think we will find our hearts full of hope and our prayers for revival come alive!

Come Lord Jesus! Pour out Your Spirit we pray!

Why John Piper (and Dan Bowen) Tweets ...

I loved this blog entry of John Piper's - "Why and How I am Tweeting". There's a rebel in me somewhere that really dislikes the latest "fad". I know that may be a surprise to some. But there is! It explains why I am always one step behind everyone else. I'll get on board if I feel there's pluses to it but until my heart is in it, I'm not very good at it! Traditionally my sort of heroes don't tend to be the sort of men and women who tweet/blog/facebook (although some do - such as Stanley Jebb recently beginning his own blog thanks to Mark Heath!).

I was thrilled and encouraged to read this by John Piper - and be re-challenged by his biblical/God-obsessed perspective and focus on all of these mediums of technology. I've seen some facilities that you can post on your blog saying "This is the 999,999th post I've blogged consecutively" (or something like that) and at times I've felt pressurised to do that. What rubbish! There's only one proper vision to blogging/tweeting/etc-ing and it's expressed by Piper as such;

"Dangers, dangers everywhere. Yes. But it seems to us that aggressive efforts to saturate a media with the supremacy of God, the truth of Scripture, the glory of Christ, the joy of the gospel, the insanity of sin, and the radical nature of Christian living is a good choice for some Christians. Not all".

Piper accurately sees two approaches to these forms of technology;

"One says: These media tend to shorten attention spans, weaken discursive reasoning, lure people away from Scripture and prayer, disembody relationships, feed the fires of narcissism, cater to the craving for attention, fill the world with drivel, shrink the soul’s capacity for greatness, and make us second-handers who comment on life when we ought to be living it. So boycott them and write books (not blogs) about the problem.

The other response says: Yes, there is truth in all of that, but instead of boycotting, try to fill these media with as much provocative, reasonable, Bible-saturated, prayerful, relational, Christ-exalting, truth-driven, serious, creative pointers to true greatness as you can".

Obviously Piper (and I) lean towards respose 2. I think I found that summary really helpful. There is an unhealthy and narcisstic Christian attitude to "come out and not be part of them". Piper for example has chosen not to have a television and I respect and applaud and understand that. My mum and dad never allowed us to have a television when we were growing up and I am forever grateful - it made me the bibliophile that I am! I do have a television now and enjoy it. The absolute key is that legalism is kept out of it.

Not having a television does not make you "more spiritual" and "more accepted" in the eyes of God than having a television. Not drinking alcohol does not make you "more spiritual" or "more accepted" in the eyes of God than those who drink alcohol. These are decisions that should be reached personally and I think we should be cautious of pastor/teachers who try and influence such participatory decisions for you.

I love this poem of John Piper's to end;

The sovereign Lord of the earth and sky
Puts camels through a needle’s eye.
And if his wisdom see it mete,
He will put worlds inside a tweet.

I will try and see this in the future. I won't blog or tweet unless the sovereign Lord puts words there. Otherwise they are just my words. And frankly the media world is saturated-full of people and their own words! I don't want to add to that - I have nothing to add to that. But if the Lord chooses to speak through me then I will indeed "speak what I see".

Oh and John Piper tweets here!

Rob Rufus Prophesies of the Glory ... !!

I was listening to last Sunday's worship at City Church International in Hong Kong and during the singing Rob came and prophesied this;

"For there are coming days in the earth when My people will not know momentary mantles of My power, brief periods of manifestation of My glory. But it will become a normal thing to spend most of your conciousness walking under an awareness of My Presence and My power on you. I am the God who manifests! But the degree and how often I manifest is determined by the hearts of My people and their desire to see heaven in the earth.

I have raised up a people in this place who's burning longing is to see heaven come! Not in momentary moments, not in visitation but to bring habitation to ALL of Hong Kong! To see the city with My glory paraded down the main streets! Through the back streets and the back villages and even onto the islands and the fishing villages! My glory will reside! My glory will remain! My Presence will stay! Even in this hour it is coming to the people of God that want heavenly experience on the earth!".

How awesome is that?! That echoes our deepest hearts desires! I heard Iain Murray say rather categorically at the Jonathan Edwards conference that John Piper hosted; "Well revivals always end". And I found myself quite cross and thinking - well yes historically they always have ended. But why do they HAVE to?! Why can't they continue?! Why can't they last and spread from sea to sea and shore to shore?! Why can't they last until the nations and far off shores see the light of the glory of God?!

The Prophetic Seals It ... Hong Kong Here We Come!!

I love, love, love the prophetic!! WHAT a gift from God!!

Essentially there has never been any question in my mind that I really, really MUST be at the "Glory and Grace Conference" in Hong Kong with Rob and Glenda Rufus, Joshua and Janet Mills and Fini and Isi de Gersigny. I've been listening to the glorious, life-saving "Established in Righteousness" sermons from City Church International and the prophecies that are starting to come through about the conference and what God is going to do there. The conference has never been in question!

But the means to get us there has been another matter. I still haven't been giving the gift of "jumping" yet (teleporting). So it's been relying on the airways - and they aren't cheap! So the reason that I haven't made public that fact as to whether I am going or not has been due to a struggle in my own mind as to whether I can afford to go - or whether I can afford to miss this heavenly opportunity to encounter God's glory in ways I haven't even dreamed of!

So I texted Pete Day yesterday and laid out my struggle. Is it faith to ignore the financial cost and trust God's extravagant grace - or is it Christianly responsible to pass by the opportunity to be at "Glory and Grace" and devote my time to paying my financial obligations here in the UK and trust that another conference and another opportunity will come? Pete Day is virtually the only long-term friend I would trust to objectively go before God and speak honestly - whether that be yes or no!

Here was the text response;

"I really think God wants you to act madly and trust His extravagance. I feel He is saying; "Go on son, enjoy yourself, let your hair down, laugh, cry, dance, have a ball! Responsibilities can wait until you return to face them with fresh glory!".

I have been well-trained enough in the prophetic to know that it is silly to act solely on one prophetic word. But this word came with such power that I sat shaking and laughing in the car - at God's "extravagance"!! I have always known I can't miss "Glory and Grace" - but for me this prophetic word from my dear friend clinched it! Hong Kong here we come!

I am taking Scott with me this year (and paying for him to go) because I sent him almost three daily emails when I was there in October telling him every detail. This year - I told him - he had to experience it for himself! And I am trusting in the thrilling fact as well that my awesome friends Julie and Lydia will be there as well! We are going to share the same hotel if the girls can be released to go and I am SO looking forward to the post-conference day fellowship as we continue glorying!

What makes it even more exciting is that in October I very much went "incognito" and didn't go and meet or introduce myself to Rob or Glenda or Ryan or Kylie or indeed anyone from City Church - even though they were aware of the "Rob Rufus blog". I am really reluctant to draw attention to myself from any Christian leaders. I've seen it happen in the church world and I hate it. It's fine if it's a "God-appointment" - very much like how Ern Baxter met William Branham. But the idea of standing in line and then shaking Rob's hand and saying; "Oh hello I'm Dan - author of Rob Rufus blog" .... EUGH!!

However I am under strict orders from all of them this year not to escape this year without saying hello! I've kind of promised. That's why I am hoping Julie and Lydia will be there, so they can drag me by the hair if necessary! I can't rely on Scott - he hates it as much as I do! Also in the course of transcribing Rob's sermons I have emailed a couple of CCI members including my fellow transcriber Heather. So I cannot wait to meet people I count as friends this year. It will really add to the glory and the wonder of God's Presence Himself - if that is possible!

Also today I brought a small laptop which I am going to be taking along with my new digital camera. We are going to stay in a hotel with internet access so my plan is to live-blog the whole thing along with pictures and videos! This conference must be heard around the globe!!

Hong Kong ... are you ready for the nations to come?!?! Are you ready for God's Presence and glory to fall like a pillar of fire?!!?

Rob Rufus on "The Blood - Substance or Shadow?"

I don't normally tend to mix the blogs up if I can - that's why "Rob Rufus - Grace and Glory!" was created so that there was an appropriate forum for publishing his sermons - 120 as Lydia recently pointed out! However the most recent sermon I typed up was of sufficient weight and value to re-publish here. It must be read! What Rob does so powerfully is to bring together the truth of the Gospel and why the natural outworking of the truth of the Gospel must be supernatural manifestations - signs, wonders and miracles.

Here it is;

This sermon was preached by Rob Rufus on 1st June 2008;

"Total triumph and total victory is our total inheritance in Christ Jesus! It is an utter delusion and utter deception to ever begin to come to a place where you accomodate and begin to just manage pain and administrate pain and defeat and discouragement. It is your absolute legal right in Christ to live with joy, with peace in the power of the Holy Spirit every day of your life because of the government of His peace. So in whatever area the the enemy is trying to make you feel helpless - and I hadn't realise that there was an area I did feel helpless in and was getting passive in that area - I thought I was passionate in every area of my life and the Lord began to show me this one area - accepting the unacceptable. Once He puts His light on it - you realise you have given way in that area and just accept feelings of powerlessness, helplessness but every fibre in our being is meant to pulsate with passion of a God of victory and triumph and I trample my enemies underfoot and we live in victory!

The other thing is that the devil lies to us - he is the accuser of the brethren and he wants to insinuate lies in our minds about one another or other people. In other words he will say; "This person is thinking that about you" or feeling that about you and it is not true about you! It is a total lie. He is trying to deceive you to have a wrong perspective of someone else so your attitude changes to that person and you expect them to be unkind to you and then you look for evidence and your imagination finds it. Only the Holy Spirit can give you a word of knowledge that can identify or warn you about someone else's strategy and plans against you that are not good. When the Holy Spirit gives you that, He gives you faith and gives you grace and peace and a sense of a powerful way out to a solution. But when the enemy is accusing you and lying about other people, it's a feeling of oppression, insecurity and a total lie and the Lord wants to break that off everyone of us in this place before we go any further.

Song;

"Looking at Your face, knowing You see mine.
Magnificent in grace, Jesus, You're so kind,

You are the wondrous One I love - so strong.
You are the wondrous One I love - so strong.

You lift me with Your voice - Your glory is my choice,
You could have judged but instead You lift My head,

You are the wondrous One I love - so strong,
You are the wondrous One I love - so strong".

Open your Bibles to Hebrews chapter 9. Two opening comments I want to say here. I believe God wants everyone to know that everyone in this church needs to be celebrated and not just tolerated. I mean that about these accusations that the enemy brings brother against brother and sister against sister. That we can sometimes tolerate people instead of celebrating them. We can all see it - you don't need to be a prophet or spiritually discerning to see the ideosynchrasies, the flaws, the failures in all other people. There's nothing holy and noble about that. The devil is very good at that. So I hope you are not good at it because then you are in parnership with someone who is the accuser of the brethren and he scrutinises believers for their faults. The devil is a prosecutor so he will not see anything good about you because he has to prosecute your case, accuse you and judge you and condemn you.

Our Father declares that His Son is our great High Priest and our heavenly advocate. He is our lawyer and our justifier.

When you look at people through the eyes of Jesus then you stop tolerating them and start celebrating them.

It is worth the full package of their failures and flaws and idiosynchrisies - if you can do that to yourself then you can do that to anyone. So I believe we need to celebrate one another. Secondly I believe God is positioning every member in City Church International to move into a much higher level of signs, wonders, healings and miracles. I do not believe miracles follow a gift - they do not follow a gift. Jesus Christ had no miracles for 30 years because He couldn't do anything unless His Father did it through them.

So miracles, signs and wonders do not follow a gift - they follow a message. The unfading glory of the New Covenant. The anointing comes on people who understand what I am going to talk about today.

How many of you know that Jesus was not anointing for 30 years? There is no evidence in the Bible that when Jesus was playing outside as a little boy Mary and Joseph came to the door and said; "Jesus come inside now and do Your homework - You can't walk on the water all afternoon! Jesus stop turning all the water into wine! We just want a little water to drink! Don't raise the dog from the dead for the fourth time - this is an old and bad dog now and it stinks! Let it die next time!". He never did any miracles! That's what it said in Luke 3 and Matthew 3 that He never moved in signs and wonders. He was a carpenter with all of His divinity totally restrained within His humanity and He was just like you and me having to trust the Holy Spirit.

So He got anointed by the Holy Spirit and began to preach a message of the kingdom and then signs and wonders began to follow Him.

I told you last week - not to boast but to make you hungry that Glenda and I saw dozens and dozens of notable miracles that God did through Glenda and my hands and what we spoke in different parts of Europe and in the UK. So when someone comes to me and says; "One day we are going to start doing healing" - we started seeing miracles in 1981 and we saw blind eyes open - so it is not new to see deaf ears open for us. But we are now in a new climate! We saw much more healings than what I talked about but there were dozens and dozens of notable miracles with the lady coming out of her wheelchair that was incurable.

Everyone had seen her running and walking in the conference - a miracle! Many other crippling diseases we saw melt off people's bodies.

We saw demons coming out of people's bodies as we spoke the word of command. In that moment there was an authority on us that was by the anointing and I knew I wasn't operating in my gifting - I was operating under a mantle that was confirming the message of the New Covenant. You can get under stronger and stronger mantles that can enable you to go way beyond your gifting. I have a preaching gift but you see that is not enough to raise the dead and open the eyes of the blind. I have an equipping gift to equip you - because the truth is I would rather see miracles happening through your hands than through my hands.

I mean that with integrity. In many ways that's what happened a lot in the UK because I got others to pray for other people. I believe there is a stronger mantle and a stronger anointing that is coming on us today and on people.

Everyone of us in this room hungers not only for God but we hunger for His world. We hunger for His world to break into this world. Every time a miracle takes place it is because God's world has broken into the darkness of this world and the superiority of His world and His light has done something wonderful!

The kingdom of God is the "King's dominion". So when the king's dominion comes into a room or into a street in Hong Kong or into a toilet or into a train - that is the dominion of the king just comes in and shows the superiority of His world over this world. God wants our faith to be anchored in a superior world - not in this world.

Anytime you get depressed or discouraged or feel hopeless or helpless and powerless - it is because my faith is not anchored in His world but in the world of the earth realm.

Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom everywhere He went. He said this and the disciples preached the good news of the kingdom. Matthew 10:7; "The Kingdom of heaven is near". He then said once you have told them the good news of the kingdom - tell them to think differently (to repent) and know that the kingdom is touchable, is tangible and is near. Then He said heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and cast out devils.

Yet sadly and tragically for the last 100's of years much of the church has not been preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. It has been preaching the gospel of salvation. There is a big difference. The gospel of the Kingdom includes the gospel of salvation but it is much more. The gospel of salvation is primarily focused on going to heaven. The gospel of the Kingdom is primarily focused on bringing heaven into the earth realm.

So we must not confuse our assignment with our destiny. Our destiny is to go to heaven. Our assignment is to bring heaven to earth.

What does that look like? Every time Jesus healed the sick, opened a blind eye, every time He cast demonic spirits off people who were tormenting them, keeping them awake and night - suicide spirits and deaf and dumb spirits - every time He did things like that, He said the kingdom of God has come among you. Then He said everyone - I want you to do the works I am doing and even greater works.

I told you about the last lady I prayed for in the UK - I told you about my failure where she had been crippled for 38 years and hadn't walked for 38 years. She hadn't been able to stand up or have movement in her legs - I prayed for her for about 20 minutes and after 20 minutes she was laughing and crying and giggling because she was starting to move her legs and move them forward. I didn't like leaving her in that state because she still couldn't stand or walk. So I left her there knowing that if Jesus had prayed for her, she would have got out of that wheelchair that day and walked around and ran. But she just got me and didn't get Jesus!

Now that is a problem isn't it - they get us!

That's why God is saying that the more you yield to Me, the more hungry you are for Me, the more you come into partnership with Me, they will get more and more of Me when they come to you.

So Thursday night Millie told me and had stayed on in the the UK - that lady has begun to stand. She hasn't been able to do that for 38 years. Now she can stand and the next step - she's walking. Jesus would have got her standing on the first night and you know what's going to happen as this greater mantle comes on us - WE are going to get them healed on the first night. We are coming into is the same level as the works Jesus did. In the future - they will be even greater works because He has gone to the Father. This is not rooted in illusions of grandeur - this is rooted in the Word of God.

So we need to hunger for a world that is superior to this world. Heaven is the pattern - heaven is the model and heaven is the substance! And when heaven comes crashing into this world then the darkness of this world collapses. And by darkness I mean poverty, sickness, disease, condemnation, oppression, guilt, inferiority complexes, political oppression - all those things. Lostness is not being born again. The kingdom of heaven is breaking through more and more and more!

So we need to stay fresh in the supernatural because if I can stay fresh in the supernatural then I can stay happy! When I am not fresh in the supernatural - I can (now and again) get grumpy! I know it's hard to believe - but it's not often! If I get stale in the supernatural I get grumpy. What I have found is that the more fresh I stay in the supernatural - the more joyful and happy you are and the more miracles happen through you. I have never been blessed by an unhappy person. I have never had an unhappy grumpy person pray for me! I have never met an unhappy, stingy person that brings people out of wheelchairs. We have seen lots of people over the last 30 years come out of wheelchairs and I tell you what - if it happens to you once, you are ruined for the rest of your life.

They can offer you millions of dollars for position and fame - you are ruined. You will pursue this one thing - to see broken human beings blessed. Orphans fed. People with HIV/AIDS healed. You the instrument in partnership with God! You! Being used of God for these things! So stay fresh in the supernatural - you will stay very happy and joyful! We got back from the UK and were so tired from jetlag and were so tired but realised that the first thing I had to prioritise is - "Oh God I must get fresh again - otherwise I am in trouble!".

How many of you know that the devil seems to speak with an amplifier when you are tired! When you are fresh in the anointing - hey!

You know what they do for sheep in Israel to stop flies? Flies are a huge problem in Israel - they anoint the sheep's head with oil so that the flies can't bite them. David says He anoints my head with oil. When the anointing gets stale the flies can get to you. But the more you walk in freshness of life. God is the glory and He is the lifter of our heads and He is our ever-present help in our time of need! David said though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil because His rod and His staff they comfort me and He anoints my head with oil and my cup overflows. The secret of life is having an overflow in your life! Not living in "just enough" but in "overflow of the life of God coming out of your life!".

Living in overflow! With the business, we live in Hong Kong we don't have time for hours a day in prayer. That's a fact! God understands that. So there has to be a way to live in a busy city and stay fresh in the supernatural. I do believe you need times to get away to solitary places where there is little noise and you get alone with God but you can't do that every day. I want to talk about staying fresh in the supernatural and could give you many practical things today like recreation, give yourselves a reward every day - how to take holidays, how to rest, the secrets of learning because Hong Kong people have to be specifically trained in how to take a holiday. You can spot the Hong Kong tourist anywhere in the world. They are the one's scheduling in tours, putting on alarm clocks in the resort to get up at 5am to go on a bus all over the place and they need practical stuff on how to get still and learn out to re-create.

Nature has rhythms, nature goes dormant and has hybernation in it, fields lying fallow so you can become more productive. There is a a Sabbath rest in Christ Jesus. But city dwellers do not know the rhythms of nature and are driven by technology and don't know these things.

I don't want to talk about those practical problems today because I believe most of our problems stem from spiritual dryness and when we're not living in the freshness of God then we can run into all kinds of problems.

I want to talk quickly about the substance of the blood.

I believe that by understanding by revelation the significance of the blood of Jesus is instant access into the freshness of God's Presence.

It has been a life-source to me - understanding the blood. The Bible says in Leviticus that the life of the flesh is in the blood. I do not want you to think of the blood and the blood covenant of God as something primitive and brutal. The ancient Aztecs had a lot of blood in their religion because they worshipped demons. Those demons demanded the sacrifice of human beings. Their own children at times - thousands of people were sacrificed because demon gods demanded human blood. People compare that to Christianity. It is utterly opposite to Christianity - our loving God did not demand we spill our blood or the blood of our children or anyone.

Our God came and made Himself man and shed His divine blood on behalf. The life of the flesh is in the blood. When you go for a blood transfusion it is not seen as primative and brutal but rather kind and gracious and life-saving. What we are talking about is the greatest blood transfusion in all of the universe. The blood transfusion of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The value of the blood corresponds to the value of the life that is in it.

The blood that makes an atonement for the soul. Andrew Murray said this; "The power of the blood of Jesus is nothing less than the eternal power of God Himself. To talk about the blood is to talk about the eternal power of God Himself". So while I talk about this blood right now, I want you to open yourself out to get ready to see the power of God come fresh.

The anointing will come and "mantle" you with freshness.

This is a subject the devil hates more than any other subject - the blood of Jesus. It is so seldom preached in churches. You will almost never hear any messages on the blood anymore. Yet it is the scarlet thread that runs right through the book of God and without revelation of the blood you have no revelation of Jesus, kingdom, the power of God and the realm of the glory.

The Bible speaks about shadow and substance.

God went to great lengths under the Old Covenant to show us the shadow and prepare generations over 2000 years for the arrival of the substance. So when you see a shadow of an areoplane on the ground, you don't point to that shadow and say "There's an areoplane". But you see a shadow and that points to the fact that the reality of the substance exists. So you look up and see the substance and the substance is INFINATELY superior to the shadow. Now I want to quickly show you on a quick tour (no time to look up the Scriptures - I will quote them and you can look them up). Test the Bible yourself. Don't just accept it because I say so.

God went to almost mind-boggling extremes to show us the shadow blood of bulls and goats almost in a display of extravagance that makes my cynical mind go; "God that's a bit of overkill you know?!". That is pretty extreme God!

Yet it is the reason it is because He wanted to get the attention of a New Covenant generation of the centrality of the blood and power, Presence and glory anointing and intimacy with Almighty God.

So let's look at it - we know that Adam and Eve walked with God in the glory - they had the Presence of God on them every day - they heard God's audible voice and didn't have a Bible They had God and they talked to God face to face, eyeball to eyeball, conversations with God.

So when man fell he was really falling from the Presence of God. He sinned and lost the Presence of God. So restoration - salvation is really about a restoration to face to face intimacy with the Presence of God on your life every day!

It's one thing to come into a meeting where people have fasted through the week and had got before God and interceded and got down the glory and wiped themselves out in the background - yet you come into a meeting having not met with God all through the week and you come in and can experience temporarily an anointing and enjoy it for a while and then go out and spend another week and then go out and spend another week without God's Presence - which is your inheritance!

It's one thing to enjoy a glorious Sunday meeting and get anointed and another thing to know how to walk in the Presence of God on Monday through Friday and wake up in the morning in the Presence. Life in the anointing is different to life outside of the anointing!

What is religion? The absence of power and Presence = religion.

I don't care if there are 10, 000 people on a Sunday morning - with incredible programmes and incredible music and incredible speaking and preaching with great eloquence and persuasive words - if there is no demonstration of power, if there is no cripples walking and blind eyes opening or deaf ears opening or people being set free from demons then you have just seen a very impressive modernist demonstration of religion. You can have an encounter with expert musicians but not an encounter with God. Music is not there to entertain us or impress us - music is merely a servant to facilitate the manifestation of the glory of God.

I have walked out of services weeping and saying; "Jesus You are not there". But there were 1000s people there and everything was expert with smoke machines and presentation and lights and everything was so good - everything is hyped up in the soul realm. I walk out weeping and broken - I can't explain how horrified I am!

It is such a massive deception taking place because principles and cognitive cerebral ideas have replaced the Presence of Almighty God.

In the book of Acts there were glory and signs and wonders and miracles there. There is nothing judgemental about what I've just said about programmes! In my heart I MUST see His Presence! I want His Presence! When Adam and Eve fell, they fell from the Presence and glory of God! They didn't fall from the evangelical gospel; "Repent and live without the glory for the rest of your life". Sickness and disease is from the Lord - hallelujah. It's not from the Lord - its from the devil! "One day you will go to heaven and it will all be worth it" - that is the gospel of salvation - it's not the gospel of kingdom. I know one day I'm going die. I am not in total kingdom now.

The kingdom has come, it's coming and one day it will fully come at the return of Jesus!

(I just thought I would put that in for the heresy hunters and Pharisees and Sadducees, Couldn't-sees and Wouldn't-sees!). Adam and Eve covered themselves with fig leaves and it was the wrong cover and the cover must be blood. God was basically saying any other cover but the blood will leave you feeling guilty and will leave you feeling shamed so He slaughtered animals and put bloodied animal skins in order for them to find the peace of God.

Their son Abel understood the blood and Hebrews 11:4 says that by faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain through which he obtained witness that he was righteous. God testifying to His gifts and through it "He being dead speaks today". That's an amazing Scripture! That through blood Abel FELT righteous but Cain brought just fruit from the land and God was not pleased with his sacrifice so at the beginning of humanity, we see that Abel though he is dead, still speaks today. That without blood there can be no approach to God, no favour of God, you cannot know God experientially, you cannot walk with God - there is no grace, no blessing, no power in your life without the blood - the manifest Presence of God is absent.

Except that if you go to church and God turns up and the faith of some of the other people draws Him. That for me is not good enough - I want to carry His Presence every day. I know I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't for carrying His Presence.

I have carried His manifest tangible Presence every day for 30 years. There has not been one single day where I haven't felt the Presence of God. I am so concerned when some people are impressed by that. I am SO worried about that! Because it is a normal Book of Acts inheritance - to walk in His Presence!

I don't walk in His Presence every day, all day, all the time. I like to watch movies and read a book. But I am saying that I MUST feel His Presence every day and so must you! Noah (Genesis 7:2). How many of you know that God told him to bring the animals into the ark two by two? God said actually to bring the unclean animals in 2 by 2 - but to bring the clean animals in pairs of 7. Most don't know that. God puts nothing in His Bible for nothing and He's got shadows in there to help us look and see what the substance is. The unclean animals could not be sacrificed in a blood covenant but the clean animals - the superior number in pairs of seven - they were brought in so that after the flood (Genesis 8:20) after the judgement was over - Noah got off the ark and sacrificed the animals on Mount Ararat.

One from each. That's a lot of animals (v21). It says God smelled a "soothing aroma" and God took an oath not to destroy the earth again or curse the ground again. Why? Because of the blood. Then you get Abraham in Genesis 12:7. God shows him the future Promised Land of the people of Israel. God showed him the Promised Land and says; "I will give this to your descendants" and Abraham built an altar and makes a blood sacrifice in response to the promise of receving the Promised Land. Genesis 26:24-25 - Isaac.

I was preparing this yesterday and felt God say; "Preach on the blood". As I was putting these thoughts together and preparing this, I felt the Presence of God come on me as I was preparing and I must say as I am speaking now I feel like I am wrapped in this beautiful atmosphere of God and His Presence. We talk on the blood and it is a soothing aroma because of our faith in the blood - it is a soothing aroma to heaven and it brings such a Presence of rest and peace. Can you feel that? It's so wonderful.

Isaac - he also sacrificed blood in (v24-25) of Genesis 26.

So notice Adam and Eve - not without blood. Abel -not without blood. Abraham - not without blood. Isaac - not without blood. Notice who is without blood. Ishmael and Cain and what happened to those 2? Cut off. Those with blood - prosperity and peace and friends with God and His glory-Presence. Those without blood - cut off.

(Genesis 33). Jacob is on his way back to the Promised Land (v18) and built an altar and made a blood sacrifice. Jacob had 12 sons - all of which ended up in Egypt with their wives and children and they stayed for 430 years and became Israel. But they did not know God. In that 430 years they went into darkness and there is no mention of blood for those 430 years. Without the application of blood, they go into slavery and into bondage to the extent that they have no concious knowledge of God at all. So that when God appears to Moses, Moses has no idea who God is (41:11); "Who are You?". It's hard to believe because of how intimate Moses became with God and how close to God he was. But God turned up and Moses did not know God at all. He commands Moses to go and set His people free. But when Moses first went back to the Israelites, they didn't believe He was from God.

When people aren't under blood, they are in darkness and are religious and in slavery and are so discouraged. As Christians we are meant to live so full of hope and so full of confidence and so full of purpose and certainity. You live under Old Covenant thinking and you will not have that unless you come fully over to the New Covenant. They were in darkness for 430 years - and how did they get out of slavery? How did they get out of darkness? They applied the blood of the lamb on the doorposts and to the lintles.

Now God had applied blood to Adam, Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and now the power of the blood covenant is revealed to Israel and God says; "When I see the blood, I will pass over - I will not bring judgement". He did not say; "When I see your holiness or when I see how well you perform". He said; "When I see the blood ...". There are so many Christians trying to impress God - with how much they are not sinning and "I am not sinning and I am searching my heart to see if there is any sin in me". Don't go down that route to search your heart for any sin! It's depressing to look in there! Look out and up! Look into Jesus - the Author and Perfector of our faith! Don't look in here!

I get very discouraged when people start a meeting by getting us to look in and see how much sin there is in there and repent of everything. 3 hours later you won't be finished! And when you have finished, you are so negative that you won't know how to worship! Thank God that woman didn't know anything about searching her haert - she knew she was a sinner but that wasn't what she was about. She walks in and throws an alabaster jar on Jesus's feet. She just worshipped Him and knew nothing about Hong Kong's religion. "Let's check our hearts before we worship". At the end of that He said; "I forgive you". The religious people say; "Doesn't HE know she's a sinner?". Of course He knew! But the law came through Moses and grace and truth came through Jesus.

"When I see the blood, I will pass over in judgement". Psalm 105 says the people came out laiden with gold and silver. So the blood brought them out of darkness and slavery and into a knowledge and encounter with God and into freedom and prosperity and into assignment on their way to the Promised Land. In Exodus 24:4, 9 - 3 million people were to be sprinkled with blood. We are talking shadow so we can see the importance of substance. We will never slaughter cats and dogs and put blood on you! Shadow. All 3 million were sprinkled with blood - can you imagine the amount of calves that were slaughtered? Now don't get angry with God for that - if you eat red meat! City dwellers should go and see how animals are killed and still enjoy their red meat. The book was to be dripping with blood and all 3 million people had to be dripping with blood. It says in (v10) that they encountered God and met with God through the blood.

(Exodus 25) - God tells Moses to build the Tabernacle which is a mobile Tabernacle as they were travelling the wilderness. It had 4 coverings and around it stood a fence of linen. Blue, purple, scarlet - at the gate. At the gate they came into the Tabernacle - those colours spoke about Jesus very clearly. Don't have time to go into the details there. The priests would come in through the gate - and right before them stood the altar of sacrifice. The first thing you saw was a blood sacrifice altar - all ordained by God. Beyond the altar was a big laver-like cup that priests would wash in - it was full of water and beyond that was the tent divided into two sections. The Holy of Holies and the bigger part - the Holy Place. We think that is Old Testament stuff and we don't need to know about it. It is shadow that God took time to put in through the reality of the substance more alive in our faith for daily living.

We have to understand the Old Covenant so we can leave the shadow and come into substance. The larger section of the tent - the first section as you come in through the door was the Holy Place and you would see on your right the Table of Shewbread. On your left you would see the lampstand - the 7 minora full of oil. Straight ahead you would see the Table of Incense. Beyond the Table of Incense you would see the veil that seperated the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies. In the Holy of Holies there was the Ark of the Covenant that had 2 cherubs with their wings nearly touching and a gold covered mercy seat and under that was the literal law written on tablets of stone with Aaron's rod that had budded.

God said; "I have to put the law under the mercy seat of gold referring to royalty and I have to cover that with blood otherwise I will have to kill all of you". They had to be hidden. Once a year the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle blood seven times on the seat. This is what would happen; here are some shadows that we need to catch and we need to see. Every day the priest would come through the gate, he would face the altar of sacrifice and then blood was offered from morning until night every single day. Blood was offered on the altar and then he would go in beyond the laver and the priests would wash themselves in the laver and then blood was splashed on the Table of Incense, on the veil itself and blood on the mercy seat once a year. Every day in the Holy Place - every day the priests would come into the Holy Place and would put fresh bread on the Table of Shewbread and make sure the wicks of the candles were clean and trimmed and filled with fresh oil and they would put fresh blood on the Table of Incense which refers to worship.

Our worship is unacceptable without blood. How often do people come into praise and worship on Sunday clue-less about the blood of Jesus and just go through the mechanical motions of praise and worship and God is a million miles away from them in their experience because they just cannot worship God without blood?

Daily they would spray the veil with blood - the veil between the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies and then once a year the mercy seat. Now what is God saying in all of this?

The blood is at the centre of His Presence, the blood is at the centre of open fellowship, living contact, communion with God and fellowship with God is only through the blood.

This continued for 1, 500 years. The mobile tent came to an end - the various temples but more than 1, 500 years later at the temple in Jerusalem, blood was still offered every day for 1, 500 years. Think of how many animals had been sacrificed and blood was shed? God was going to extravagant lengths to get a New Testament people to understand grace, to understand Presence and fellowship and how to hear His voice and walk in His glory and how to see signs and wonders and miracles and have an unfading glory - the reason they had to put blood there every day was that the blood of bulls and goats was a fading glory. The glory came and it faded so more blood, came and faded, more blood. That is the Church today!

Revival? Fade. Years and years of dead religion. Then re-discovery of the New Covenant, re-discovery of grace and revival and then back to law, back to Old Covenant thinking - we need another revival!

The church is meant to go from one degree of glory to the next because the devil has deceived the church and confused the majority of the Christian world today. The majority are deceived - mixing Old Covenant and New Covenant together. It is a confusing cocktail that is crippling the church of the supernatural. They believe in the New Covenant - the problem is that they do believe in grace. They believe in enough grace to make them believe they are New Covenant believers - but also believe in enough of pressure to perform to earn, to deserve the blessing by their own actions that they have enough Old Covenant there to nullify and neutralise the power and the authority of the New Covenant.

Let's look at Hebrews 9 - we are there and we can close in a little while. After 1, 500 years of this suddenly a Jewish prophet points to a Man born in Bethlehem and says; "Behold the Lamb of God - the true Passover Lamb - who takes away the sins of the world". Jesus at the Last Supper - the Passover Supper - takes the cup of wine and says; "This is My blood of the New Covenant for the remission of all sins". That's what we are going to see. Hebrews 9 and we will close with this.

We don't want to miss the substance. Despite all of those blood sacrifices no-one ever got free from guilt or condemnation under that blood.

How many of you know Christians today who live when they sin or make mistakes and then live with guilt or condemnation. In other words they are living under an Old Covenant mentality.

I want to show you in the substance that a Christian is never ever meant to live in or feel sin conciousness - never meant to feel guilt-conciousness - never meant to feel condemnation. That doesn't empower us to sin or live rebelliously or disobediently. That empowers us to love God and walk with God. We are not preaching a sinning Christianity - we preach a Gospel that empowers people to be free from the control of sin.

Hebrews 9:9; "Were not able to clear the conscience of the worshipper". That's Old Covenant. Now today some Christians live as though the blood of Jesus was not able to clear their conscience because they think Old Covenant. (v10); "until the time of the new order". You and I live in the New Order called the New Covenant. "When Christ came as the High Priest of the good things that are already here - He went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle". (In other words not Moses, tabernacle or the temple in Jerusalem). "That is not man-made - that is to say not part of this creation. He did not enter with the blood of bulls and goats and calves but He entered the most Holy Place once and for all and by His own blood on the hand - having obtained eternal redemption".

What kind of redemption did Jesus obtain for you? Eternal! So why do people keep asking me if I believe in eternal redemption? Of course I believe in eternal redemption! I don't believe in the blood of bulls and goats! I believe in a salvation/redemption that was purchased and got me eternal redemption. Not redemption on probation or in instalments - do you believe in eternal security? What kind of other security is there? Temporal?

I believe that people say; "Well you can lose their salvation" - absolutely have no idea of how horrific hell is. I have had a revelation of hell and I've studied the Scriptures on hell. If I thought there was some chance of me falling into hell and I was saved now but could one day get lost then I tell you I would have a nervous breakdown and psychiatrists are telling me and many other pastors more and more that the majority of their parents are Christians who live with a fear of losing their own salvation.

He brought us eternal redemption. I want you to look at (v13);

"... the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean, sanctify them so they are outwardly clean - how much more then will the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God?".

How many of you want to serve God, see signs and wonders and miracles and serve the purposes of God with a clear conscience?! Most Christians do not see signs and wonders in service to God because they always do not feel worthy enough. This is the blood of Jesus - not your good works! Not your; "I will never sin again - I promise you I will never sin again!". The clear conscience is based on the fact that the blood of Jesus will and is able. The Greek means; "He will cleanse your conscience from meaningless and useless ceremonies". So the blood of Jesus doesn't just cleanse your conscience from condemnation but from all Old Covenant thinking. All the meaningless ceremonies they did, that they still feel guilty after pouring out, all that blood the worshippers still felt guilty. This blood - the substance blood brings an unfading glory and a permamently second by second, week by week, year by year, decade by decade clear conscience!

This blood doesn't have to be offered ever again - it was offered once! I don't want to have to come every day and pray "Lord clean my conscience with this blood!". No - one application of this blood and your conscience is cleansed for the rest of your life!

Any condemnation, any sense of insecurity or guilt is a sign that you are still living under something of an Old Covenant mentality and I want to nail that in now - prove it and then finish. I want to show you that they were never free from guilt with shadow blood being applied through all of that millenia. (Hebrews 10:1); "The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming". How many of you want to live in reality? I don't want to live in classroom Christianity. I don't want to be standing here 5 years from now talking about how we are going to move in signs and wonders and Hong Kong has not changed. I am expecting the sick to get healed in the streets - I am expecting people to get saved - I am expecting millions of Chinese people in Hong Kong to come to know Christ! I am expecting that!

Everyone knows when the church came to town 2, 000 years ago! The Church has been in Hong Kong for over 100 years and people ignore it.

Let one book of Acts church appear in true signs, wonders and miracles that don't happen just once every few years but happen every week and every day and not through some super-guru but through the ordinary priesthood of all the believers. ALL believers because we understand the blood. I don't want the shadow! I want the reality - the good thing!

Look at the next phrase. "For this reason ... worshippers would have been cleansed once for all". Why is he saying that? If all those blood sacrifices for 1000 years have cleansed the worshippers - then it is in God's intention and desire to have something that cleanses our consciences from guilt and condemnation not temporarily but once and for all! So God goes to millenia of shadow of the plane - look to the substance, you can get in that plane and fly around the world and do amazing things but with that shadow you can do nothing! So God takes millenia to show the inferior shadow that is not the realities so we can see the substance.

The majority of the Church lives in the shadow! Then it lives in a bit of the sustance, then a bit of the shadow, then the substance! It is spiritual schizophrenia!

Almost every meeting I go to nowadays outside of here, there is always some point in the meeting where we are told to be quiet and check the sin. That is shadow! There's nothing good about checking me - I want to check Jesus!

The shadow says that when the priest came, he didn't check you - he examined your lamb or your sacrifice! That's shadow! The Father isn't checking you out and analysing you - He's analysing the Lamb - Jesus. Perfect. Come on in! Glory Presence is yours! No condemnation!

You are in the New Covenant! Rob that is preaching license to sin - no it's not! The more you come into this glory Presence through a clear conscience the more you want Him, the more you don't want to sin, the more you want His glory Presence! For the worshippers were cleansed once for all - but these sacrifices were an annual reminder of sin. So that Old Covenant shadow was a reminder of sin and is false to the New Covenant people. Those sacrifices were an annual reminder because the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin. Look down at our famous theme of City Church International in (v11);

"Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties again and again ... which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God and since that time He waits for His enemies to be made His footstool by one sacrifice, He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy".

Does the Holy Spirit convict the church of sins? No! Read the next verse; (v15) "by one sacrifice He has made us perfect forever!". That's what the Holy Spirit testifies to. We are perfect forever! Yes but Rob the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin - we've been through that boring stuff. John 16:7-8 says that the Holy Spirit will convict of righteousnss, sin and judgement. Sin because the world doesn't believe on me, righteousness because I go to the Father and judgement because the prince of this world has been judged. If you are a believer He will not convict you because you are a believer. What righteousness will He convict you of? That you are the righteousness of God because Jesus went to the Father and He is the great High Priest mediating for you a better covenant and the Holy Spirit is testifying that you are perfect forever.

What is the judgement about? Judgement because the prince of this world - the devil - (John 14:30) - has been condemned. So condemn the condemmer, accuse the accuser, grab guilt by the throat and float, get out of the religious boat and float and wear your Father's glory coat! The Holy Spirit puts the law in our hearts - not a law that we have to live upto but an empowerment of grace. Then he adds (v17) that their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more. Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more. The Holy Spirit testifies to that! So when you sin and say; "I must go and confess that" and go and say; "Holy Spirit I want to confess to something". He says; "I don't know what you are talking about - I don't remember anything!". Then (v18); "Where these have been forgiven" ... what has been forgiven? All your sins and lawless acts! "Has been" - past tense. Where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin.

(2 Corinthians 5:19); says God is not counting your sins against you. (Colossians 2) says God has forgiven your sins. God says you are perfect forever in the Father's eyes through the blood. So when you go and confess your sin and say; "Father I have just sinned" - it is an Old Covenant mentality and I have shown you the only place that says if you confess your sins He is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from all unrighteousness - the only place is 1st John 1:9 - John is writing to Christians under the teachings of Gnostics and there is a confusion there that sin doesn't exist in the world. Now if sin didn't exist in the world then why did we need blood sacrifice for cleansing? So John is writing and saying; "If you say you have no sin, then the truth is not in you".

He is writing to people to GET saved in that community! And he says if you confess your sins then he is faithful and just to forgive you and cleanse you from ALL unrighteousness. How much? All. That's salvation! ALL - past, present and future!

He is not talking about the Christian that every time you sin; "Oh I've got to confess my sin now". The devil is teaching this doctrine in many churches that if you sin as a Christian and don't get a chance to confess that sin before you die, then you are going to hell. That's insane! The Holy Spirit is testifying to the opposite! That your sins and lawless acts He remembers NO more!

Did you notice that when Jesus finished all this He sat down? Do you know that if you study the tabernacle of Moses you will not see any chairs - you will see lots of tables. But no chairs because those priests never finished their job. They couldn't sit down! This One finished the job! "It is finished!" - He is sitting down and is not sitting in heaven saying; "I hope they make it - I hope they don't sin and lose their salvation!". No He is sitting down with confidence.

So then He says; "I want you to be seated with Me in heavenly places. Right now! Not one day when you die and go to heaven. In Christ we are in Him and seated! So you wake up in the morning and realise you are seated! What about if you do sin? Well look through every epistle that Paul wrote and he never once talked about confessing your sins - never mentioned it. This great apostle who knew the Law so well but also knew the revelation of the New Covenant. Not once did he instruct the believers to confess their sins to God. Confess your sins one to another - yes. But no instruction in the entire New Testament on this big confessing your sins - that is an Old Covenant mentality. You need to do that if you are under shadow blood. You sin - and relationship is broken! You need to get some shadow blood and a temporary relationship is formed. Sin again? More shadow blood!

But this thing of confessing sin every time you sin is just making you more CONCIOUS of sin.

That is the shadow friends! We are in the good things - we are in the realities! We are in the substance! We are in the unfading glory! So what do you do if you sin? You say;

"Father I want to thank You so much that You love me and I thank You that Jesus blood has got me eternal redemption and I thank You Holy Spirit that You testify that I am perfect forever and I thank You Holy Spirit that the Father never remembers my sins and they are not being counted against me because they have been blotted out, past, present and future - and I worship You Lord and I praise You God!".

That's empowering sin? No - it's empowering righteous living! It means we will have 100% believers turn up on Sunday and just come boldly into the Presence of God! I don't care if you messed up five seconds ago. You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus! Somewhere, some congregation has to fully embrace the fullness of the New Covenant and fully reject and renounce the fully redundant and obsolete Old Covenant that is based on inferiority and shadow. We have got to see what the Old Covenant was for - shadow to point to substance! Get out of the shadows and step into substance!

"Therefore brothers since we have CONFIDENCE to enter the MOST HOLY place". What does confidence look like? Have you seen people that are religious going into a cathedral? Once a year the High Priest used to go into the Holy of Holies and they say they would tie a rope around his ankle in case he died in there and they could pull him out. There was great fear - but our great High Priest has gone through as an anchor of our souls beyond the veil - not of a human tabernacle but of a glory realm so that we can confidently come into the most holy centre of the universe! Even if you have sinned 5 seconds before! It's not about you - but about Jesus and His blood and His worthiness! You have got to live in this every day!

I tell you I'm so happy now. I just feel like it's another day where God's people said; "I believe this!". It's so fantastic! Hope you guys listening on the web are getting excited and we want to bless you guys all around the world! We look like we could go over 300, 000 downloads this month - we heard last night. We preach and affect nations around the world. This message is getting out! (v19-20); "Open for us through the curtain, that is His body ... let us draw near to God" (not an idea about God, a theory about God, an intellectual theology about God but the living God) " ... in full assurance of faith having our hearts sprinkled ... and having our bodies washed with a pure water, let us hold unswervingly ... for He who promised is faithful".

When people get under guilt like these Hebrews are doing, then people stop coming to church because who wants to keep coming to church when you are being discouraged all the time? This was a mixture of born again Hebrews and some who were not saved.

To the unsaved Hebrews he is writing to and the saved, he says if you have heard the knowledge of the truth (but haven't been converted yet) if you keep trampling this blood underfoot and therefore wilfully sinning (and this is in the context of the chapter) and is putting the blood of shadow above the blood of substance! He is saying you are trampling the blood of Jesus underfoot and you are using the blood of shadow and law. All sin is deliberate! Noone sins by mistake! It was deliberate! So you are on your way to hell according to how some intepret that! He is warning against going after shadow. You won't see any blood sacrifice going on in Israel today. Yet the Scriptures teach that there is no forgiveness of sin without the shedding of blood. That's why you can't to heaven through Mohammed or Buddha - because you can't get to heaven with blood.