This message is very much part of a wider discussion among God's saints that comes up again in Rob Rufus's Grace messages given in January and February this year in Hong Kong City Church International - see link.
What I am calling the third level...is a completely different Christian walk. It is a walk founded on what Christ has accomplished. It is about changing our inward believing. Grace is the butterknife that is currently slicing off at this entire previous false way of existing. This life of works in our own efforts. Rob Rufus is grounding people in grace. Without this grounding you can forget ever building anything of significance...of advancing the gospel in any significant fashion...of building churches that literally take-over spiritually in their localities. This was expected in the apostleship of St Paul. And when it didn't happen, as in the letter to the Corinthians, he took the church to task.
Secondly, in Part 2 of Peter Stott's message we start to see about man's key function in the Earth. How we are to literally open the Gates of the Kingdom that have been shut for generations. It is a further excavation into how we operate as human beings.
A whole swathe of us were swept into a charismatic version of Christianity , many in small revival situations in the 70s and 80s. In my case as an overachiever....in the context of our free state grammar school Dr Challoners. The yearlong depression that resulted, realising that all my efforts counted for very little...ultimately opened my heart for the truth of the gospel through Billy Graham, then opened me to receive the teaching about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit.
But immediately this thrust me into conflict between what I now call a left-brain academic training as taught in the grammar school and discovering the true tri-partite person that God has made every human-being. In Amersham we were grounded in Watchman Nee's teachings. By the 80s Bob and Rose Weiner, who were converted Jews, and Tony Fitzgerald (an Australian ministry who came out of YWAM to establish his own churches) had got as far as identifying A JEWISH/HEBREW mentality versus our western GREEK mentality. But this did not go back far enough. And I, by means of Norman Grubb and Zerubbabel began to see that the real problem is spelled out in Genesis 3. Over 10 years of being in Havant Church, God has not given me liberty to share anything outside of prophecying, in the church or with leadership. It has been truly fantastic to watch as everything has started to unfold in the church and church conferences. Can you then understand my excitement when Peter brought this message.
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Part One
Before I begin I would like to pray…and with your permission I would like to pray in a particular way…..I believe what the Lord wants to impart today through His Word is actually to change a mindset. Our minds are supremely important. How you think conditions so many things…and I’d like to pray that mindsets would break today…so that we can receive what God wants us to receive…..
Father, we have acknowledged the greatness of our King, and Lord You felt the passion that in our hearts as we were declaring how great You are and we want together as a people to submit to you…submit our wills…and to submit our minds Lord. Lord I want to pray that a spirit of wisdom and a spirit of revelation in the knowledge of You will be ours Lord . I pray for that Lord…Father that with revelation will come wisdom…and Lord in Your Name I tear down strongholds of thinking that have been raised up against a pure Biblical knowledge of You. In the Mighty name of Jesus I break down traditions, I break down mindsets and understandings that we have gleaned from so many different places that may actually stand in the way of us really entering into what you want Lord.
God I want to pray today that You will show us who we are…Lord that we will leave this place as a people convinced Lord of who we are because we’ve had a glimpse of who You are….because we are in Your image and Your likeness. So I pray for that…release your Spirit Lord….and God I just ask Your help…in the jumble of revelation and stuff that’s inside of me somehow something coherent will come out.I ask it in Jesus Name…Amen.
We titled the conference “Who is the King of Glory?” and the kind of strap phrase was “He trains my hands for battle”. And we want to be looking at some aspects of spiritual warfare in this session. and Father I just pray that You’d help us and rid us Lord of some stuff from our history where we’ve perhaps indulged in practices that have not been helpful…and we’ve rejected them probably rightly…but Lord I pray that You would bring a fresh understanding to us Lord.
I want to read a prophetic word. A number will have heard this before. But as one of you shared about Godfrey Birtill’s visit on the first night…how you’d sung things before, but now in their present context they were making a lot more sense. I believe we need to revisit things because when we receive them in a different context we hear them differently and they impact us differently. A lot of you after hearing Clive Jackson (Shaftsbury) on the Fatherhood of God said how much more it had meant to you. Revelation is something that unfolds. God adds glory to glory, He adds revelation to revelation. And anybody who says I’ve got that in the bag…well think again because there is always more. Even what you think you know…about what you know..there’s more to know.
So I want to re-read a prophetic word that a number of you will have heard because I believe it has a context now that we will understand differently than when we first heard it. This word was given in 1987…it was not given to Derek Prince but it was brought into the country by him believing it to be a word of God to our nation and it was first published in Renewal magazine. When we are talking about prophecies over nations we have to understand that they can be decadal and we really don’t often understand the time context of prophecy. And that’s why we get frustrated and disillusioned often. We need to understand that when God speaks His word is creative and sets something into motion, but it’s time of fulfilment will wait until the context is ready. In other words there is a fullness of time and then God will move.
The years of the unravelling and outworking of prophecy may be decades in the case of nations – but then when the fullness of time is come then we move into a different timeframe….and we come into the “suddenlies of God” and I want to suggest we are getting very close to a suddenly of God.
And so for those of us who have hung in there for revival…and for me God first spoke to me about revival in a Brethren church when I was 9 years old.I’ve hung around for 54 years waiting for this. And I know…this is the season of the “suddenlies”.
But listen to this again and see if you identify any of this in your world.
Prophecy brought by Derek Prince and first given in America
early in 1987 To the Church in America: (and worldwide?).
"The Spirit of God will say to you that the wind of the Holy Spirit is blowing through the land. The Church, however, is incapable of fully recognising this wind. Just as your nation has given names to its hurricanes, so I have put my Name on this wind. This wind shall be named 'Holiness under the Lord*.
Because of a lack of understanding, some of my people will try to find shelter from the wind, but in so doing they shall miss my work. For this wind has been sent to blow through every institution that has been raised in my name. In those institutions that have substituted their name for Mine, they shall fall by the impact, of my wind. Those institutions shall fall like cardboard shacks in a gale. Ministries which have not walked in uprightness before me shall be
broken and fall. For this reason man will be tempted to brand this as a work of Satan, but do not be misled, this is my wind. I cannot tolerate My Church in its present form, nor will I tolerate it. Ministries and organisations will shake and fall in the face of this wind, and even though some will seek to hide from this wind, they shall not escape. It will blow against your lives and all
around you will appear crumbling, and so it shall, but never forget that this
is My wind, saith the Lord.
With tornado force it will come and appear to leave devastation,……………
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Beloved think over your own llife. What has it been like over the last decades. Like Clive was testifying -1991 for him everything in his world fell apart. and I’m looking at people and a lot of the dreams in your world have fallen apart at some point…..
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but the Word of the Lord comes and says "turn your face into the wind and let it blow, for only that which is not of me shall be devastated. You must see this as necessary. Be not dismayed, for after this My wind shall blow again. Have you not read how My breath blew on the valley of dry bones? So it shall breathe on you. This wind will come in equal force as the first wind. This wind too will have a name. It will be called 'The Kingdom of God', it shall bring My government and order, along with that it will bring: My power. The supernatural will come in that wind.
The world will laugh at you because of the devastation of first wind, but they will laugh no more for this wind will come with force and power that will produce the miraculous among my people and the fear of God shall fall on the nation. My people will be willing the Day of My power. In My first wind that ( is now upon you I will blow out pride, lust, greed, opposition and jealousy and '
you will feel devastated but havn't you read "blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven"? so out of your poverty of spirit, I will establish My Kingdom. Have you not read "The Kingdom of God is in the Holy Ghost" so by My Spirit my Kingdom will be established and made manifest. Know this also, there will be those who will seek to hide from this present wind and they will try to flow with the second wind, but again they will be blown away by it. Only those who turn their faces into,the present wind shall be allowed to be propelled by the second wind.
You have longed for revival and a return of the miraculous and the supernatural. You and your generation shall see it, but it shall only cone by My process. The Church of this nation cannot contain My power in its present form but, as it turns to the wind of the holiness of God, it shall be purged and changed to contain My glory. This is judgement that has begun at the house of God but it is not the end. When the second wind has come and brought in My harvest, then shall the end come.
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If we were to track that and try to put some kind of time context to it. I would believe that we are in the kind of vortex of the two winds changing.And there is a wind that is blowing right now. it’s the dust storm – the gold dust of God’s glory blowing towards Europe. We’re at the swingpoint of that prophecy. And when we put up that thing about Wembley stadium, my heart leapt because I thought…thankyou God that Wembley Stadium has been built for the glory of God.And I prophecy to you that Wembley Stadium will be filled again. Yes?!!
D’you know that in London in 1954…It was in Haringey and I went there with my Dad, sat on the platform and watched what was going on. And there was a move of God in 1954 6 weeks in Haringey…20,000 people came to Christ . And my Dad said to me all through the tubes and buses of London there were the praises of God being sung. Can you imagine it now? And I said to God why did it happen there? And he said “It happened because two things came together. There was a convergence. The nation was ready and the anointing came in. We were bankrupt after the war.We were still on rationing. There was so much grief because of men who’d been killed on the warfronts of the 2nd World war. And God brought a young evangelist who was criticised to death because he wore bright ties and was a bit flashy. Heard of that before??? Why not a few tattoos or whatever he has (Todd Bentley)…I couldn’t care less. God brought this flashy young American into London and what happened was the anointing hit the national psyche and I prophesy to you It will happen again.Because God is setting up this nation not for 20,000 in London..but He is setting up this nation for a national move of the Holy Spirit and the difficulties we’re going through as a nation – and believe me the economy has not seen anything yet…..( NB spoken May last year remember…before September’s slide in the UK)…because God will break every idol that needs finance to support it and then the Church which is now being renewed will stand up in the GLORY of God …and it will be thousands who come to Christ …why? Because God has been preparing the Bride, and God has been preparing the nation and there will be a convergence and the two will come together. Eh?? That’s what we were born for!! (Cheers) So God we prophecy over Wembley Stadium and we thankyou that you raised up men to build that edifice for their own glory…But Lord we claim it now and we say that Wembley is going to be for YOU LORD GOD!!! (tongues under breathe) I believe that we are on the swing…on the change…in the the vortex as the wind is changing.
I want you to notice the name of the 2nd Wind. It is called the kingdom of God.
And I believe that we are going to hear again teaching and preaching about the Kingdom . There’s been an awful lot of teaching about me and my….and I am not gainsaying any of it …but I tell you there is something greater : there is the purpose and the cause of the King in the earth…
And so the Kingdom as it says in the prophecy will bring in the Power of God and the Glory of God
and so God is going to be changing our thinking to become Kingdom People.
The Kingdom of God is the Will of God being done on the Earth as it is in heaven.
And the connection between Heaven and Earth will begin to make sense. Because
what is happening in Heaven will begin to be happening on Earth…ie it’s not just a matter of simple obedience to what God is saying although that is implicit in it, it’s far more than that…it’s the dynamic of heaven which will touch the Earth.
Hey! Read the book “When heaven invades Earth” ( Bill Johnson) I’d love to teach on it but we haven’t got time.
And do you know a few months ago God sent out a dove over the dark waters of our continent, just as Noah sent out a dove over the troubled waters in his day. And the dove has been watching and waiting for places to settle. Places where the glory of God can come down to the Earth. And He’s found one in Lakeland Florida. And he’s preparing them all over this nation. There are wells in this nation where people have never given up, they’ve dug in, they’ve cried out and they’ve said God we believe You for something we’ve not yet seen. And there’s a load of us here this morning who are sitting in that bucket…yeah?
Well I’m telling you ..the Paloma..the dove…she ‘s flying and she’s waiting and watching.
I believe one of the key issues of the Kingdom as far as the Church…(you and I) is concerned..is an understanding of spiritual authority. The Key issue in spiritual warfare is authority. And jesus made some incredible statements over us. He said ALL authority in heaven and on Earth is given to Me. Go ye therefore!!! And I give you authority to tread upon snakes and scorpions and over ALL the power of the Enemy. And I give you authority over ALL kinds of sickness and ALL kinds of disease. That’s Kingdom language. That’s a delegation of authority. And this revival will not be great names…yes there will be firestarters..but it’s going to be every man woman and child who takes on the culture of the Kingdom…who begins to understand their authority in Christ and who moves out and sees the glory of God in their shops, in their offices….whooaoo! this is a grassroots revival. For what God has planned it cannot possibly be done through a few anointed evangelists. They may pave the way. They may pass on anointing. BUT THEY AIN’T GONNA DO IT.
So it’s very important that we understand who we are.
Having put that in as background can you now turn to Psalm 24 please. Pause. Laugh.
I find it uncanny that guys from this area are up in Wembley today (Portsmouth in the FA Cup 17th May 2009…they won!!) It’s like first in the natural. Does God have favorites???
2 comments:
Excellent!! Thanks for posting that Chris.............
very uplifting, Chris. Celia
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