FREEDOM AND FULFILMENT

“JESUS is perfect theology” is one of my favourite quotes from Bill Johnson, Pastor of Bethel in Redding, California.

Jesus worked as a village carpenter until he began his ministry at the age of 30. He became an itinerant preacher. 

Everywhere he went, he healed the sick and cast out demons. 

• Everywhere his challenging words and his amazing miracles restored broken lives but provoked the indignation of religious leaders. So it is today when men and women of faith dare to believe God and release the miracle power of God. Little has changed.

Acts 10:38 (NASB)   "You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him. 

Jesus was prepared to be misunderstood and hated by religious leaders because he loved people. 

• Some people today are strangely offended by extreme miracles. If God uses a ministry to heal cancer patients and make blind people see, there are always many people who quote the Bible and attack the ministry.

What does God want? 

• First of all, he wants to save you from hell, forgive your sins and give you eternal life.

Jn 3:16 (NASB)  "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. 

So many of us stop there. We want people to be converted and we hope they will join our church. 

But Jesus had a much higher aim. 

• There were some Jews who, according to our standards, were already converted but Jesus did not comfort them but provoked them with a tough challenge.

Jn 8:31 (HCSB)  So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, you really are My disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” 

Jesus was not satisfied with converts. He wanted disciples.

We have so many shallow believers today because we just look for people who will say YES to a preacher. 

Jesus wants followers, people who will live as he lived, knowing God for themselves in a deep personal way.

Jesus spent much time alone with the Heavenly Father. Although he himself was God, he lived as a man and he needed guidance from the Spirit of his Father. He talked to God and God talked to him.

So it is with us. Christians who change the world talk to God and God talks to them. 

• This is not a special gift to chosen Christian leaders but the will of God for you and me.

Jn 10:27 (NASB)  "MY SHEEP HEAR MY VOICE, AND I KNOW THEM, AND THEY FOLLOW ME;

• and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. 

PARTNERSHIP WITH GOD

Ro 8:26-27 (CJB)  Similarly, the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we don’t know how to pray the way we should.

• But the Spirit himself pleads on our behalf with groanings too deep for words; 
• and the one who searches hearts knows exactly what the Spirit is thinking, because his pleadings for God’s people accord with God’s will. 

It is so important that we recognise the limitations of our human nature.

• As a man I am only a very imperfect part of a pitifully fallen creation.

• As a man, I can make a great effort to resist the corruption of this world but the results will always fall far short of the goodness of God.

• As a man I cannot save the people around me because I myself need to be saved.

Jesus said to His chosen Apostles:

"Yes, I am the Vine; you are the branches. Whoever lives in me and I in him shall produce a large crop of fruit. For apart from me you can’t do a thing. Jn 15:5 (TLB)  

The Apostle Paul reminds us:

...And what do you have that you did not receive? ...1 Corinthians 4:7 (NKJV) 

God created you to enjoy a close personal relationship with himself.

• He loves you completely. His love for you is so warm and tender. 

If you have not experienced the warmth and tenderness of His love, you have hardly begun to understand who Jesus is, no matter how much Bible knowledge you might have.

• He wants you to experience the comfort and security of this deep love every hour of your life on earth.

1Jn 4:16 (TLB)  We know how much God loves us because we have felt his love and because we believe him when he tells us that he loves us dearly. God is love, and anyone who lives in love is living with God and God is living in him. 

Some will protest that the love of God is not just feeling. That is true but if we do not experience and feel the love of God, we are like men and women who are alive but blind and deaf.

• We are called to be partners of Jesus in expressing the love of God on earth, to make His love known, to let His love be seen and felt but those who don’t know Him at all.

1Jn 4:10 (NIV)  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

We can only live in God’s love by receiving and experiencing His love and presence in our lives. 

Someone will probably accuse me of preaching a sweet feeling Gospel. 

Love I practical. Love looks like something. 

• The next step is to choose to love our fellow believers, ALL our fellow believers, Catholic, Protestant, Pentecostal and Evangelical. 

1Jn 3:16 (TLB)  We know what real love is from Christ’s example in dying for us. And so we also ought to lay down our lives for our Christian brothers.

• 1Jn 4:11 (NIV)  Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 

You may try to define who can and cannot be saved by measuring other believers against the doctrine of your denomination but does God judge this way? 

Are you an Evangelical Christian? Do you love suffering men and women like Mother Teresa?

• Are you a Roman Catholic? Do feed on the Holy Scriptures as you daily bread?
• Are you a Pentecostal Christian? Do you personally study the Scriptures for yourself with the diligence of a Baptist or a devout Jew?

Romans 14:4 (NKJV)  Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he will be made to stand, for God is able to make him stand.

• Jn 13:35 (NKJV)  By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another." 

Am I suggesting that all Roman Catholics are born again believers? No, I am not.

• However I believe there are also many Baptists and Pentecostals who are not ready for heaven.

God is calling us to live in partnership with His HOLY Spirit, loving Him, loving one another and loving a lost world with His love working in us.

THE BEST OF TIMES, THE WORST OF TIMES

"Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbour, Pressing him to your bottle, 

Even to make him drunk, That you may look on his (or her) nakedness! Habakkuk 2:15 (NKJV) 

In this chapter we also see the most horrible sin dominating the world in the darkest of times.

• It speaks of evil men using violent coercion and alcohol (or drugs) to sexually abuse powerless victims (male or female). 

  • In today’s world rape, kidnapping and trading slaves for prostitution is out of control. It is a huge global industry.

Liberal humanist governments have legalised prostitution in many countries, hoping this will prevent and help control violent criminal sexual abuse but such laws has often have often produced the opposite result.

The democratic freedom we rightly value comes from Western Europe, Britain and former British colonies. These are the countries where the Bible once had a profound influence on culture.

• It is true that classical Greece was pagan but that country only gave democratic rights to the male citizens, who were a privileged class ruling over women and slaves.

• It is also true that the French Revolution also proclaimed faith in Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. However the French Revolution was the scene of the most depraved mass slaughters, horrific wars and an epidemic of arbitrary executions.

Liberal democracy is only fully effective when there is a measure of respect for Biblical truth and moral goodness.

• When the God of the Bible is ignored or despised, Western Society, once known as Christendom, falls to pieces. That is what we are seeing today.

• All Western Countries are sinking under a mountain of debt and moral confusion.

Habakkuk Chapter 2 vividly describes this chaos. However, in this chapter we also find the solution to the problem.

I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, And watch to see what He will say to me, And what I will answer when I am corrected. 

• Then the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.

• For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.

"Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith. Hab 2:1-4 (NKJV) 

In the traumatic End Times, faithful believers will seek personal encounters with the Living God of Israel and He will not disappoint us. 

• God will share profound and powerful truths with those who love Him and listen to Him.

When God gives you a message to share, don’t wait until your pastor invites you to preach on Sunday because it probably won’t happen. 

• God calls you to share His messages with the people around you, at home, at work, on the bus and on the Internet.

• But don’t just preach. Live by faith. In these difficult times, only a profoundly personal faith in God will get you through. 

  However, the End Time is not only a time of darkness.

• God will answer our heart cry for His presence in a way we have not yet seen or understood, although many of us are beginning to experience fresh revelations of His glory.

For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the sea. Hab 2:14 (NKJV) 

We see a similar message in Isaiah.

Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. 

For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; 

But the LORD will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you. Isa 60:1 (NKJV) 

It is time for us to begin to see the glory of God in more dramatic abundance than ever before. 

• I believe we will see extreme miracles which will surpass the miracles of Moses and the Miracles worked by Jesus when He lived as a man.

Never before in history has the earth been FILLED with the KNOWLEDGE of the Glory of God but it will happen. 

• And it will happen in the midst of darkness and strife before Jesus returns.

A Time for Courage

Fear not, for I am with you; Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, Yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.' Isaiah 41:10 (NKJV) 

Many times in the Bible, God says to His people: “Fear not” or “Do not be afraid.”

• In some texts, God is telling His people their fears are imaginary, that there is nothing to be afraid of at all.

In Matthew 14, the disciples were in a boat in rough weather. When they saw Jesus walking on the water, they thought He was a ghost.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid." Mt 14:27 (NKJV) 

When the angel Gabriel came to Mary, he reassured her.

Then the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God. Lk 1:30 (NKJV) 

God’s people have nothing to fear from supernatural manifestations of heavenly glory.

On the other hand, there are situations where we have real reasons to be afraid but God calls us not to be afraid anyway.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Mt 10:28 (NKJV) 

Here Jesus is saying Do Not Fear even though you face savage persecution and possible martyrdom. It is a call to courage and faith in God’s salvation. 

• It is also a warning to remember God’s punishment for cowardice.

God Is Love

As we read the Bible, we see again and again, that there are two essential aspects to the love of God. 

These are comfort and challenge.

And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen.  

Then He said to them, "Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men." Mt 4:18-19 (NKJV)

What a blessing, to be invited to live full time with Jesus and to be given the power to get men and women saved, to rescue them from damnation! 

• But what a challenge to leave the security of a successful family fishing business and to live by faith in God’s daily provision!

I have a friend who was once a committed Muslim in Saudi Arabia. 

• Muslims have no assurance of salvation. They live in the hope that they might be good enough to escape hell fire. 

When George came to know Jesus, he had the comfort of knowing the God who really loved him as His dear son. 

Some Muslims desire such a personal relationship with God but their sacred writings offer no hope for such a fulfilment.

• But it was a challenge to be rejected and persecuted in his own country. It was a challenge to flee to Australia as a refugee.

God called him to study for a doctorate at an Australian university where there are a lot of Arab Muslim students. Not one of them escapes Georges personally targeted preaching of Jesus.

Once George spoke to an Arab Muslim missionary on campus, one of many militant Muslim missionaries sent around the world financed by oil rich Arabs.

“Why do you preach Islam?” asked my friend.
“Because I want to go to heaven,” replied the Muslim missionary.
“That is very selfish!” said George. “I know I have a home in heaven. I preach Jesus because I want OTHER PEOPLE to go to heaven.”

We have the comfort of knowing God has prepared a home for us in heaven.

We have the challenge or reaching others with the Good News of God’s kindness.

HOW TO ACCESS GOD'S WISDOM

Jn 9:1-2 (NKJV)  Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And His disciples asked Him, saying, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"

The disciples expected Jesus to explain why the man was blind but Jesus did not directly answer the question or give the explanation they expected.

Jn 9:3 (NKJV)  Jesus answered, "Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him.

God teaches us many things but if we expect Him to explain everything, we will be disappointed. 

• It is good to want to understand more but God’s thoughts are often very different from ours.

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NKJV)   "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

In spite of this we often expect our pastors to understand and explain everything. How foolish, when we consider that even God does not explain everything on the spot.

Pastors are often tempted to appear that they know everything. I love this story from a well known preacher.

A pastor answers a difficult question. Then the Heavenly Father turns to Jesus and says: “It was very interesting what that pastor just said. I never thought of that. Jesus, did you tell him that?”

In many churches, pastors claim to teach divine truth but in reality the people are being fed with human ideas.

That is very dangerous if a Bible believing pastor has excellent Bible knowledge and gives the impression that he understands everything, so he must always be right.

In Pentecostal churches, many preachers may have good Bible knowledge and also prophetic gifts. The people may be tempted to expect him to always have a word directly from God. 

God often gives a word of revelation but not always. 

• If the prophetic preacher makes a mistake and the people do not know how to seek God for discernment and confirmation, they can be misled. 

• Even a true word of prophecy can be unhelpful if people to not learn how to hear from God themselves and seek wisdom from God to apply his revealed truth.

We need to hear from prophetic people, but we also need to hear from God ourselves.

Jesus understood these dangers very well. 

Many Jewish Rabbis were looked up to as infallible sources of divine truth but Jesus warned against this.

Matthew 23:8-10 (NKJV)  But you, do not be called 'Rabbi'; for One is your Teacher, the Christ, and you are all brethren. 

• Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.

• And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ.

This still applies to us now. It make no difference whether the preacher is called “Rabbi” or “Pastor.”

In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit was WITH the Jewish people. He spoke to the people through the written Word and also through prophets, priests and kings, who had more direct access to God.

But when Jesus died, rose from the dead and then poured out His Holy Spirit on all believers, everything changed.

James 1:5 (NIV)  If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him.

Now every believer has direct access to the wisdom of God to guide him in his life. Wisdom comes through faith in God Himself. 

We should not despise preachers and leaders and there are times when it is good to seek wise counsel from others, not necessarily from pastors. 

But the most important source of wisdom is God Himself.

Isaiah 55:6-7 (NKJV) Seek the LORD while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near.

• Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts; Let him return to the LORD, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God, For He will abundantly pardon.

The two key essentials for growing in wisdom are faith in God and a willingness to obey Him.

   

JESUS, MUSLIM PROPHET OR THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD?

God so loved the world...

Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 
This is he who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. 
And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 1 John 5:5-6 (ESV)

When the beloved Apostle John wrote these words, there were false teachers who declared that The Son of God did not really die on the cross.

The “Christ Spirit” came on Jesus when He was baptised in water and the same “Christ Spirit” departed back to heaven before the man Jesus was crucified and poured out his blood. So these false teachers said and they deceived many.

About 500 years later an Arabian religious leader named Mohammed came and taught the Arabs also to honour Jesus (Isa in Arabic). But Mohammed’s Isa is not the Jesus of the Bible.

The Muslim Isa was the son of Mariam and he was a great prophet and miracle healer. But Isa in the Koran was a man and not God. He did not die on the cross. Another man took his place before the execution.

• In Islam, Jesus did not die for your sins. Allah has no son. 

• Allah did not sacrifice his son to pay the penalty for your sins. 

  • Muslims are taught they must try to be good obedient Muslims in the hope that their good deeds might outweigh their sins. If not, they will burn in hell. 

• This terrible uncertainty is a thousand times worse than the Roman Catholic fear of a time of temporary punishment in Purgatory. 

• In Islam there is only one way to sure you are going to Paradise. You must shed your own blood for Islam.

Mohammed taught a Muslim martyr can go directly to paradise by shedding his own blood in holy battle against the infidels. 

• In the Palestinian territories in the Holy Land, Palestinian televison shows sexy girls calling teenage boys to become suicide bombers or terrorists. The reward is the assurance of a very carnal salvation, the instant transportation to Paradise where they can immediately lose their virginity with sexy girls and continue in the same manner for ever and ever.

But the Bible tells us that salvation comes not by pouring out your own blood but by believing in the Holy Son of God who poured out His blood on the cross to pay the penalty of your sins.

• If you believe and trust in the Son of God,

• if you are willing to receive the grace of God to transform your character,

• if you are willing to receive the supernatural eternal life that God gives as a free gift, 

  • you can not only be saved but you can be sure you are saved.

Jesus was born by water and blood. 

• As a natural human baby, he left his mother’s body with the flowing of water (amniotic fluid) and blood. As a Jewish baby boy he shed his own blood when he was circumcised and he was of course washed with water.
• As a young man he was baptised in the River Jordan and the Spirit of God came upon Him to empower Him for His supernatural ministry.

• As He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, His sweat came as water and then blood. 

• When He was whipped by Roman soldiers, the blood poured from His back.

• When they pushed a crown of thorns onto His head, the blood flowed again.

• When He gave up His spirit on the cross and died, a Roman solder thrust a spear into His side and out of the wound flowed water and blood, a sign of extreme torture and trauma.

All this is recorded in the Holy Bible, which was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God. 

Many Muslims have read the Bible and the Koran side by side and decided the Bible is not mistaken. 

They have been converted to Jesus Christ by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God who inspired the Jewish and Christian Scriptures but who did not inspire the Koran.

END TIME REVIVAL, FALSE PROPHECY OR BIBLE TRUTH?

We hear so many people prophesying and teaching about The Great End Time Harvest of souls, of the global revival which is coming. 

On the other hand, there are people who question these prophesies and for two reasons.

The first reason is the Bible prophecies that speak of terrible times and spiritual decline before Jesus comes.

Mt 24:12 (ESV)  And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 

 

2 Timothy 3:2-5 (NKJV)  For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, 

• lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 

• having a form of godliness but denying its power. 

• And from such people turn away!

Mt 24:5 (NKJV)  For many will come in My name, saying, 'I am the Christ,' and will deceive many.

This last text can have two meanings. The usual interpretation is that the false preacher claims to be Christ.

It can also mean that the preacher affirms that I (Jesus) is the Christ but then deceives many with bad doctrine and manipulative and controlling leadership. 

• There are indeed many false cult leaders who affirm that Jesus is the Christ. 

• There are also many preachers who teach correct doctrine regarding the Trinity and salvation but they behave like cult leaders, making their members into mindless slaves under the control of church leaders.

The second reason for doubting the prophecies of a Global End Time Revival is the actual experience of the negative prophecies coming true before our eyes.

All of the countries which were Christian before the 20th Century are now either Post Christian or under attack from powerful Anti-Christ culture. 

• Lukewarm Christianity has poisoned all Western societies which were once known as Christendom. Church attendance and moral standards are catastrophically low.

However, there is another side to the story.

• The number of fervently believing Christians in formerly unreached,  or non-Christian countries is hundreds of millions and growing rapidly.

• In Africa, the Christians Gospel is accompanied by signs and wonders which challenge witchcraft and Islam.

• In China, the Communist government has not been able to contain a powerful, believing, miracle working underground church with over 150 million members.

• As in China, so in North India, there are new churches planted every day, thousands of souls saved every week and miracles are a way of life.

It appears the Great End Time Revival has already begun but most of the old Christian countries have not yet realised it.

But what about Bible prophecy?

The same text that correctly warns of lukewarm Christianity in the West, also predicts a global End Time harvest reaching, reaching every nation.

Mt 24:12-13 (ESV)  And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

14  And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

People of every NATION, every TRIBE and every TONGUE must be reached in this great End Time harvest.

Rev 5:9 (ESV)  And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.

Up to now, there are many millions of people in unreached people groups. 

• There are languages and dialects which have never been used to speak the name of Jesus.

Only a global revival can bridge the gap between present reality and the fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

What will this End Time revival look like?

Jn 17:22-23  (NKJV)  And the glory which You gave Me I have given them, that they may be one just as We are one: 

• I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, 

• and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

Eph 5:27 (NKJV)  that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.