Forces that Work in You

Mike Connell

Forces that Work in You (1 of 2)  

Sun 8 Jul 2012 AM « Back to Top

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Sin is a living, spiritual entity. When sin is in your life, it's not just something that sits there. It is something alive, operative, active, wanting to increase its hold over your life and produces death. The Holy Spirit works to energise us. What does He energise us to do, and how do I get that happening in my life?

I want to just share something with you, to get your spirit up. Let's open up our Bible in Philippians - I want to speak on forces that work within you. So let's have a look in Philippians 2:12-13, particularly Verse 13.

"Therefore my beloved, as you've always obeyed not only in my presence, but also more in my absence; work out your salvation with fear and with trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to do, for His good pleasure".

God is working in you to do something. We're going to look at that whole area of what God is doing. God has a plan - He planned you before you came into this world. He planned something for you to accomplish.

God has wired us. Everyone is created for a purpose. We found in Ephesians 2, that every person, God has created us for accomplishing something with our life. We're not called to just breathe in and out, and expire. We're called to do something, and to do something significant, and to do something that takes a little bit of risk.

So God has prepared an assignment for us, and it unfolds through our life; but I want to talk about forces that work inside us, because if we don't understand how God gets this assignment out of us, we never end up fulfilling it.

There are some practical ways you can discover the assignment was that God had for you; and one of them is to connect with the Holy Spirit, and begin to listen to the voice of God.

So notice what it says: "it's God who is at work in you, both to will and to do of His good pleasure". That word 'work', is a word in the original language. It's the word energayo, from which we get the word 'energise'. Let me give you a definition of it: it's to be active; to be efficient; to be mighty; to rouse into activity.

So let's read it again: It is God who energises you, and rouses you up into activity, so that you will choose to do the things that please Him; and it says: not only will He rouse you up, but He'll put it in your mind to choose (or to want to choose) the things that please Him; and not only to want to choose them, but He says: to actually do them; and it's the same word 'to energise', or become active doing things.

So let's read it again, and put it in simple terms. It says: God works, or energises you; so you become aware of, and choose, what He wants; and then are empowered to work it out, and get it done. That is an amazing scripture - so we are joined to the spirit.

So the Bible tells us, we get born again in the spirit of God; we are joined spirit to spirit with God. When it says: God works in you; its meaning: the Holy Spirit is at work in you. The Holy Spirit energises you.

Now if you are highly energised, something that you energise is alive. Have you ever seen that TV ad about the Energiser batteries - just keeps on going. So that's the word energise. God energises you.

Now the problem is, I don't see that happening in too many Christians, so I wonder why that is so. I don't want to focus on this today, but it's obvious there are other forces at work to de-energise us.

So the Holy Spirit works to energise us, and what I want to focus on today, I want to give you four simple things you do, that cause something to happen inside you - that activates the Holy Spirit to energise you.

You haven't got a different Holy Spirit to anyone else. You've got the same Holy Spirit. He didn't give a little bit to you, and a little bit more to him, He gave a person - the Holy Spirit. We are joined to the spirit of God, so it's the spirit of God that energises us.

However, my question is: what does He energise us to do; and more specifically, how do I get that happening in my life? That's the most important part - how can I move from where I am, to there?

But before we do that, I want to look at some forces that actually also work inside you, and these are quite negative. Let's have a look in Romans 7:5, and here's another force that works inside you. It says in Verse 5:

“For when we were in the flesh, sinful passions, which were aroused by the law, were at work in our members, to bring forth fruit unto death”.

Notice something else is at work: sinful passions, or sin; and that's the same word 'work' as the word energise. So what its saying is: when we think of sin, we tend to think of it as something we do: I got angry; or I said words I shouldn't have said; or I did something wrong. We tend to think of it in terms of something you did.

What we seldom think is to actually think from a spiritual perspective; and what we don't realise is that sin is not something you did. It's more than that. Sin actually operates like a living entity in your life, and creates energy inside you. You have a think about this.

We know the Bible tells us that there's anger, which is sin. Now when you get really outrageously angry, have you got energy working inside you? What kind of energy have you got? You've got the energy of sin - and is it real? Oh oh oh, it's real! Wound up there, it stiffens your whole body, and your eyes start to glaze, and your nostrils start to snort, and you're saying and doing things you shouldn't be doing.

You go: oh, I shouldn't have been doing that. That was something energising your whole body; and did you remember the Holy Ghost, when that was happening to you? Not at all! He wasn't anywhere round. Now there's a different form of energy, and it's firing up inside you, and you're: grr-grr-grr, and kicking something, and there you are. Then you calm down again; now we can pray nicely and become aware of God again.

So - how many understand that experience? You probably had it on the way to church! You drove there and someone got in the way and grr-grr-grr-grr! Oh, I'm going to church, that's right, you know? Had a big row between husband and wife, grr-grr-grr and then coming up here - smile, I'm going to church - but the energy is still working inside you.

Sin is not some thing - it is a living, spiritual entity. When sin is in your life, it's not just something that sits there. It is something alive, operative, active; wanting to increase its hold over your life, and it produces death. It produces death! That means you become disconnected from God, and from people; and you become numbed or cold or insensitive; because a person who's dead is disconnected, and they're cold, and they're insensitive.

So when sin is operating in your life, there will be parts of your life where you are disconnected from people, where you're numb and dead, and there's something working in there to try and gain ground, like cancer.

So sin is not some thing. It's actually a living, spiritual entity that just grows; and if you let it, it'll rise up, and it'll dominate your mind. You can think of unforgiveness. Unforgiveness is not just something from your past. Unforgiveness is a living energy, that continues to work in your life, and it continues to try and reproduce itself so more unforgiveness is there.

Envy is the same. If you've got envy - ever remember when you got envious of someone? Oh, did you turn green? Was there energy flowing? You know, just get furious at something - the injustice of it!

So sin works in us. How many know sin works in us? How many notice it works in you, quite regularly? Yeah, especially when you're outside of church, and you’re not so nice then - so sin is there. Now here's the thing you've got realise: while we're in this body, that thing is going to be operating.

Think about lust - there's something about lust that just keeps operating. I reckon it only stops operating about half an hour after the person's dead, and they start to stiffen in their body and get cold then they're safe now! There's no energy going now! That lust has stopped, once and for all, see. So lust is actually a strong, driving energy.

When you start to look at something you shouldn't be looking at, you'll find whether it's got energy or not. It'll rise up inside, and dominate your mind. It'll take some effort to try and stop sinning. Have you noticed? And when we try to stop sinning, do you notice it actually gets worse? You know a lot about it?

It just - I do know a lot about these things. I've wrestled most of them all my life; just didn't know how to get the victory, that was all. But I've discovered something that'll help you.

One of the things is, it says: the strength of sin is the law. You shouldn't do that you know. You shouldn't do that. Now every time you say: you shouldn't do that, I want to do it! Well you just put a sign up over there - 'Wet paint, don't touch' - you know someone is going to touch it. We'll come out of church, and it'll be covered with fingerprints.

You put a box in the middle of a room, and it's a box and it's got a lid on it, and it's got a sign up: 'Do not open'; and we leave you alone in that room, it won't be long, because you will be insanely driven to open the box and have a peek. It's not because you really ever came in wanting to do it, it's just the fact you couldn't open it, and it looks like it's interesting. The more you think: I can't do that, I shouldn't do it, I mustn't do that - I'll just have a quick peek, I'm sure it won't matter. That's what sin is like. It's an energy!

Trying harder to stop it, isn't going to help. It just makes it stronger. Here's another energy that works in us, Ephesians 2.

He made us alive, who were once dead in trespasses and sins; in which you once walked, according to the course of this world.

It says: how we used to live, just like the unsaved did, presuming we've changed that; and we were according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.

Evil spirits work in you. That's the same word: energise. So they don't come and announce: hey, I'm an evil spirit, and I'm here. They just fill you with energy that drives you to sin, and if there are areas of sin in your life that are already energised, they just get in there, and ride in on top of them, and make it really hard for you to get over it.

So now, not only have you got a sin, you've got a devil pushing on you as well. There'd be a lot of people here who've got that happening, a lot. Well there's a lot. Now come on, don't be like that. You know that's true. You'd be a living a lot differently if there wasn't that happening; and we have a deliverance sermon every year, and we get people come in, and some of them are the same people that were there last year. Good on them for coming back. They've recognised they've got something going on in their life, and there's a sin energy that's defeating them, and making their life miserable and disconnected; and there's also demonic spirits, which are oppressing and energising the sin, making life very difficult, because as good Christians we know what we ought to do. And Paul wrote that in Romans 7. He said:

I know what I should be doing, but I find there's a law in my body, or in my flesh, that goes counter. There's something de-energising me from doing what God wants - and there's not a person here exempt from both of those things, not one of us. There's not one of us exempt from the sin energy, and demonic energy, that tries to depress you, hold you down, get you apathetic, and get you locked in.

Apathy is not just a word. It's a spiritual thing, with a life of its own, that when you've got apathy over you, it sits over you like a wet blanket; and oh - this is what you'd say: I can't be bothered; or another way of saying it: I haven't got the energy to do that.

So when spirits oppress people, they haven't got the energy to break out and be different, so they live life low-level. Now the answer to it is not lots of laws, and focussing on demons.

The Bible tells us in Romans 8: there's now no condemnation. Jesus does not condemn you because you've got the struggles of sin energy, and demonic energy. There's no condemnation whatsoever, Jesus doesn't condemn. Why on earth does most of the church condemn people and judge people that have got things wrong, as if we didn't? Hello! If you didn't have any, if you were as free as you claim to be, you'd be doing a lot more for God.

So it's because we've come under the law ourselves, we bring others under the law; I should be doing this, I mustn't do that, I must do that. It's the law. There's no power in the law. You can't get energised for God with the law. All it does is defeat you every time, because the thing you shouldn't be doing, you end up doing; or you're so consumed with fighting it, that you've got no energy left for anything much else.

That's why many Christians live absolutely miserable lives, because they come under the law, and they're trying to fight, and they can't. They haven't got enough of the world to be happy; or enough of God to be happy. It's just miserable. So what's the answer to that?

Well it's very, very simple. It says: the law of the spirit of life in Christ sets me free from the law of sin and death. In other words, I have to activate something else, and then I get the victory; and it's the activating something else that requires you to co-operate with the Holy Ghost.

It says: God works in you, both to choose to do what He wants; and then empowers you to actually do it.

So here's the question: How on earth does that happen? Glad you asked - that's a good question to ask. How does that happen, because it's not happening much for me, you say.

Let's go in Ephesians 3, and let me give you the keys for that, because they're so simple, and you've already heard them over and over, it'll be like reminding you of things you already know; and you just forgot, that's all. So what I want to do is, encourage us to just remember the basics, and do the basics again; and it's not so hard, because they work. It always works, and you try harder to overcome your sin, you just get worse into it, because you come under the law.

But if I actually acknowledge that sin is there, I can activate the spirit of life in Christ - so how can I do that? First thing to realise is: I'm positioned already in a place of victory, with Christ. We are already - it tells is in Ephesians 2 - seated in the realm of heaven with Him.

We're joined to the overcomer. You're joined to Him already. You're joined to Him already. Nothing can separate you from Him. You have the spirit of God inside you. You have to find a way to activate the Holy Ghost inside you! He is willing. It's just we're not doing what we need to do, that would arouse the spirit of God to flow more powerfully through our lives!

So in other words, it says in Ephesians 3:16, in Paul's prayer, he prayed first of all we'd have revelation of the power that is available to us; and then in Verse 16 he says: that God would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with Dunamis - supernatural, miracle, Holy Ghost power by the spirit of God in the inner man.

So the Holy Ghost makes available, to you and I, Dunamis - supernatural ability. The Holy Ghost works in us. The Holy Ghost energises us, and when there's more energy from the Holy Ghost than there is sin and demons, you win!

It's like a plane. You have a look at a big jumbo jet. Now a jumbo jet theoretically couldn't really fly. It's far too big and heavy, and there's the law of gravity says: stay on the ground; but if you get the thing moving fast enough on the ground, then another law arises, and you get an aerodynamic lift.

Now you have one law lifting it up; and another one pulling it down; and here's the thing: so long as the lift upwards is bigger than the downwards, up the plane goes, and away it flies with all those people on it. If at any point the lift upwards diminished and stopped, it would just go into a dive and crash.

Now notice this, that while the plane is flying, the law of gravity is still there - it did not change. It is still pulling on it. It's just there's a greater lift from something else, and it overcomes it.

Now for the people inside the plane, it doesn’t work like that; we've got to overcome gravity. We've got to really work hard to overcome gravity. Thou shalt not pull me down! You know? This is not going to help you. There's only one thing will help that plane stay in the air, and that's a greater lift upward; and so long as it keeps moving, it'll have the greater lift upward. Forward motion, and it starts to get a lift, and it goes up.

Now get this: the only thing that'll keep you victorious over sin, is not trying harder not to sin. It's actually having a life inside you, that's greater than that, keeps you lifted up, so continually you're above it. And if you do fall the occasional time, you're quickly back up there, activating that law of life again.

So the first thing you've got to recognise, God doesn't condemn you, if you fall over. Boom, hit the ground; boom, back up again - quick! Back up again! Up, up, up! Elevate, pull up, pull up! You know, that's what happens in a plane, when it starts to go down too near the ground. The cockpit recorders: pull up! Pull up! Pull up!

So you start to find you're losing energy, and you're starting to go down into the pit, starting to fall down where you normally would go, before you get there and fall down into that deep hole - PULL UP! So how do we pull up? Well there are several things you can do. All of them will activate the movement of the spirit of God in your life.

Here's number one. You notice here it says: that you may be filled with the fullness of God, now to Him who's able to do exceedingly abundantly, above all that we ask or think, according to the Holy Ghost power that works in you, energises you.

So how's it going to happen? Here's number one. Number one: pray in tongues. Pray in tongues. Why pray in tongues? Because when you pray in tongues, your spirit is praying, your spirit is engaging the Holy Spirit, and spiritual life begins to arise in you, and flow out of you. It lifts and energises your spirit. Pray strongly. Pray forcefully, and pray as much as you can.

Now that would be such a simple thing. Here's the thing - you can pray as much, or as little, as you like; but I tell you: if you stop praying, the energy will diminish.

You get praying strongly in tongues, and you get up, and I guarantee if you were to rise up every day and over a period of two or three weeks, build your praying in tongues strongly every day, and build it up so you're praying in tongues strongly and forcefully, between 15 and 20 minutes, and you're giving yourself into that praying in tongues, you'll start to feel the energy and life flowing.

Of course you'll have some reactions from your flesh. It will start to try and pull you down. Old problems will stir up, but you've got the throttle, and you're pulling back and as you pray in tongues, you are now co-operating with the Holy Spirit, and enabling Him to do what He does, which is build you up.

It's sort of, so simple. It's not rocket science is it, but it's just in the doing of it, you get the results. Pray in tongues, pray in tongues. Know what you're doing. Let your spirit rise up! Move your body! Pray in tongues until you feel your spirit rising up, and energy flowing in you. Now that's not all we need to do but it's a great start.

Here's the second thing that we need to do, and you find if we just go back to that Philippians passage again, Verse 13. It says: God who works for you, both to will and to do good pleasure; do all things therefore, without complaining or disputing.

Now they go together. When you read verses, you should read them together, read them in context; and it when it says: its God who's working inside you, to will and to do for His good pleasure, so therefore don't go around moaning and whinging and whining! What could be clearer?

Moaning and whinging and whining will de-energise you! The complainers always de-energise the atmosphere, and they de-energise you, if you hang around complaining people. You have to make a decision: if I hang around complainers, and if I give voice to complaining, then there's unbelief is stirred in my heart, the Holy Ghost is quenched. I am being de-energised - oh, oh, oh pull up! Pull up! I'm going to a bad place - so you have to make a decision:

I will refuse to give in to complaining about anyone, or anything. I will refuse acting like a victim, and passing judgement and blame on anyone or anything. I will start to do this: I will start to show gratitude and praise the Lord!

The Bible tells us, in Psalm 69: magnify the Lord with thanksgiving! Make God bigger in your life, by magnifying Him, by expressing gratitude for all the blessings you have.

In Psalm 69:30, it says: I will praise the name of the Lord with a song. I heard Ray praise the name of this Lord. Did you get stirred up this morning, when we had that sound of joy, and there was a spirit of faith in that song? Well you see that's what this is talking about - that lifts your spirit - that energises you.

How many got energised? See, yeah, you're energised if you decided to, but you get energised as you begin to praise the Lord, and thank Him, show gratitude.

If you were to decide for one week: I'm going to do all I can not to complain, and to catch my complaining out; and I'm going to start to show gratitude to God, gratitude to people, start to thank God for all the things I have, the blessings I have.

What a great place to live in; and as I start to adopt an attitude of gratitude and praise to the Lord continually, you know what will happen? You'll energise the moving of the spirit inside you. I guarantee it. Why? The Bible tells us, that's how you access the presence of God: "Come into His presence with thanksgiving, enter His gates with praise" - so I come in being thankful and praising, I can enjoy God.

Now we tend to think of that as just at a church service. Oh well, we'll come in and say: thank you Jesus, and honour Jesus. No - this is how you live in the flow of the spirit. See, Paul and Silas were beaten up. Now they could have said: oh, it's not fair. These Romans, you know, they're persecuting us, and the devils out to get us. They didn't say that, they just praised the Lord, and there was an earthquake, and the whole prison opened up, and there was some family got saved.

New Zealand has got a real issue, in the DNA, of being negative and critical. You've got to decide: that's over for me, and if people around me are negative, goodbye. Goodbye! I just want to elevate my life. I don't want to go down into the sinkhole of your negativity, and unbelief, and complaining.

I want to stay in a positive place, where I'm enjoying the presence of God, and I'm highly energised, because I have a mission to fulfil. You hang around too many negative people, and they will de-energise you in pursuing God, and fulfilling what God called you to do with your life. It's absolutely certain.

There's an example of it in the Bible, in Numbers 13, where two to three million people lost their way, because 10 people gave a negative/critical report. It's written for our learning. So there's two things - you just do those two things - to help you a lot.

I'll give you two more things, here's the next one, the third one: learn to tune into the voice of the Holy Spirit, and listen to Him, and do what He says. Learn to tune in to the Holy Ghost. Why? Because in Galatians 5:6 it says: He who supplies the Holy Ghost and works - there it is, that word again - energises the miraculous or supernatural.

How does he do it? By working hard to be a goody Christian; or by the hearing of faith? It's the hearing of faith. So every time you tune in to listen to the Holy Spirit, and start to do what He's telling you, and start to act out on what He's saying, energy comes into your life. You become energised.

It says: he who ministers the spirit to you, and energises miracles to happen, how does He do it? Does He do it because you just came to church? No. It says: it's by the hearing of faith; so when I've stirred my spirit up, I must practise constantly, and just in a moment, just turn in and say: God, just speak to me. Holy Ghost, just talk with me. Talk with me Holy Spirit, speak to me; and so you could just, from one minute, you could just stop; begin to show gratitude and praise: I want to just thank you, you're a wonderful God. I thank you for your presence here with me Holy Spirit. Thank you Lord, you're in me. I just honour you and welcome you Lord. I open my heart. Now Lord, begin to just speak to me, encourage me, show me some things I need to do.

Now I can immediately start to access the presence of God; but if I let negativity get around me, it shuts all of that down. The miraculous flows when you hear the voice of God; so if you want a greater level of the life of the spirit, you've got to activate your spirit, maintain an attitude of gratitude and praise; and learn to listen for the small impressions of the Holy Spirit, and act on them, and you'll start to get in a river of life. You just get it in flow, and the more you act on it, the more you get and the flow starts to increase and to grow.

Here's the last one that we need to do. Probably there's more, but this is one I felt the Lord put in my heart. You need to learn to give voice to God's word. Now this is something that's incredibly missing among so many believers.

In 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 13: You received the word which we preached unto you, not as the word of men.

Ah well, who's up preaching on Sunday? Oh okay, well I don't like that preacher, I'll stay home. I don't know if I like that message you know? He said: that you didn't receive it by looking at the people speaking, and how they spoke. You received it, as it is in truth, the word of God which works - there it is - energises or creates activity in your life, if you believe it.

Now in Hebrews 4:2, it tells us: they heard the word of God, but it didn't do them any good whatsoever, because they never believed on it.

So believing is not: well, that's nice, that was a good message, I agree with that. No, no, no - that's not believing! The demons do that, they believe in God, and they tremble, but it doesn't save them. Believing, from a Biblical point of view, is that you embrace what you have heard, and start to operate it in your life.

So to speak the word of God - so when we say speaking the word of God, the word of God works. The word of God releases energy in your spirit. It releases energy in your life. The word of God will activate the Holy Spirit to move.

Remember in Genesis, the spirit of God "brooded over the abyss"; and when the word was spoken, the spirit moved. Now that's the first time you see the spirit moving, and He moves when the word is spoken with faith.

Now think about your own life. If you started to get the word of God in your heart, and start to speak God's word over your life and circumstances regularly and consistently, the spirit of God will begin to move in a different way through your life.

It's not just that you rabbit on the scripture. You need to wrap your heart in it, through meditation, and speak it. You see words communicate language, but our voice communicates the spirit.

So you can read a scripture, and just: it's read, and then it's gone just like that; but when the word is spoken, you manifest your spirit when you speak the word of God; so you notice that most of the miracles in the Bible, where the Holy Ghost moved and changed things, someone spoke, and they spoke forcefully and strongly. So learn to speak the word of God over your life.

Take the Bible and begin to pray scripture: I thank you, I'm accepted in the Beloved, I am redeemed, and whom I have forgiveness and so on. You begin to pray the Bible out over your life: I thank you Lord today you're filling me, and strengthening me, with might in my spirit by the Holy Ghost; today my - and then you start with a scripture, and then personalise it, and get in a flow of prayer. Your energy will rise massively; so start with a scripture, declaring the scriptures, and then begin to pray around that scripture and make it personal.

The Bible says: the same spirit, that raised Christ from the dead, dwells in you; and shall quicken your mortal body. Now take that scripture: I thank you Lord today, the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, dwells within me, and quickens my mortal body.

I thank you Lord - now you see, as I've done that, I've meditated, and I've held a strong belief that I will give to the Holy Ghost! He will quicken my body with energy and life, and I'll stay young and lively and vigorous. People who yield to sin energy will grow old quickly.

People who stay full of the Holy Ghost stay very young and youthful. People who just let sin and negativity get over their life, age quickly. It shows - because sin is an energy. Sin causes decay and death.

You see some people, and you think: I can't believe you're only that old. You're carrying on like an old person. It's all in what's going on in their mind and spirit. Now I know, and I understand, that sometimes there are physical sicknesses, and limitations around people; but it is also true that the spirit of God, when I get it in my spirit, will cause my spirit to come alive, and my whole body will respond!

So you could take scripture, and start to speak it over your life, start to speak: Today I speak over my day, I say this is the day the Lord has made! I will rejoice and be glad in the Lord today! I thank you Lord today, I will bless the Lord at all times! His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make a boast in the Lord, the humble shall hear and be glad! Today Lord I will praise you and bless you!

You start to get into a flow, praying scripture, and then before you know it, the spirit is flowing through you. You become highly energised in your prayer, your prayer life changes.

If you make sin your focus, failures your focus, faults your focus, ten sin energy will overwhelm you, and depress you, and your spirit will not arise and be released. You'll have no lift. You may have done your time, but you'll still be on the ground. It's like not getting up enough speed to lift off, and it doesn't take much to lift off. All I've got to do is just activate what God has put inside me.

It's really clear: I can pray in tongues, and allow the spirit of God to rise in me. I can praise, and demonstrate gratitude to everyone and everything. I can be a very, very happy person, thanking people and appreciating people, and being glad about what people have done, and saying: thank you Lord for this great day, and lovely people. See, I can do that, and my spirit will arise!

In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God, and Christ Jesus, concerning you - in everything just be thankful. God, you're with me!

Well that's a bit of a downer that thing happened, but you know what? I thank you Lord you're going to use it for my good, so I'm going to grow in this. It'll be a stepping stone to something better!

Now you see, that gives you a different winning attitude, that stirs your spirit, energises you with life - and we need to be energised with life. Isn't that right? Anything less than God will let you down.

Summary Notes

Formatted » Back to Top »

1. Introduction
· God is at work in you!
· Phil.1:13 “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure”.
· God has planned a purpose for every believer – our responsibility is to discover and fulfil it.
· God is at “work” – within you.
· Work =NT1756= to be active, efficient, mighty, to energise and empower your life.
· We are joined to the Spirit of God – our spirit with Him (1 Cor. 6:17)
· What does the Holy Spirit do?
· Energise you to will (be resolved or determined) and to do (put forth energy) the things that bring pleasure to God – this is His mission and assignment.

2. Other Forces that Work in You
(a) Sin Works in You
Rom.7:13 “But sin that it might appear sin working death in me”
· “Working” =NT2716= to thoroughly work.
· Rom. 7:5 “For when we were in the flesh the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death”.
· Work =NT2716= energeo = to energize, to rouse into activity.
· Sin works to create strong negative energies within us that influence us and bring about death – spiritual isolation and separation from the Life of God.

(b) Evil Spirits can Work in You
Eph. 2:2 “In which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, that spirit now works in the children of disobedience”.
· Evil spirits work =NT1756= energeo = to energise, to rouse into activity.
· Evil spirits work to energise sin and disobedience within the lives of people.
· They use sin (disobedience) as the gateway to enter and ‘energise’ people to live in bondage.

3. How can I co-operate with the Holy Spirit to increase His working in My Life?
(a) His working releases supernatural energy
Eph.3:16-20 “He is able to do more exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us”.
· Power =NT1411= Dunamis = supernatural power and ability.
· He is talking about the Holy Spirit at work with us.
· The working of the Holy Spirit is to strengthen us with ‘dunamis’ in our spirit.
· The key is activating the moving of the Holy Spirit within us.
· The law of life (of the spirit) is what overcomes the law of sin and death.
(i) Speak in Tongues
· 1 Cor.14:4 “When you speak in tongues you strengthen and build your spirit”.
Speak fluently – speak strongly – speak often.
· Speaking in tongues activates your spirit to flow with the Holy Spirit.
(ii) Practise Praise and Gratitude
· Ps. 69:30 “I will praise the name of the Lord with a song, I will magnify Him with thanksgiving”.
· Lack of gratitude and honour creates disrespect.
· Constant gratitude and honour expressed creates room for the Holy Spirit to move.
· Ps. 95:4 “We enter (experience) His presence with gratitude and praise”.

(iii) Tune into the Voice of the Holy Spirit
· Gal.5:6 “He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you does He do it by the works of the Law or the hearing of Faith?”
· Practice turning in to impressions from the Holy Spirit, words, thoughts, pictures.
· Obey promptly – this releases life - tune to spontaneity – tune to flow

(iv) Give Voice to the Word of God
· 1 Thess. 2:13 “…the word of God which works effectively in you who believe”.
· Works =NT1756= Energeo = to energise
· The Word of God works – but only if we respond to it with faith (Heb.4:2)
· We take in the word of God through mediation and speak it forth.
· Jer. 23:28-29 “He who has my Word let Him speak it forth faithfully”.
· Is. 40:9 “Lift up your voice with strength”.
· Words carry information but your voice carries your spirit.
· It’s not what you say but how you say it that releases the anointing. Speaking forth the Word of God stirs your spirit and gives room for the Spirit of God to work in you!

Gods Word Works In You (2 of 2)  

Sun 15 Jul 2012 AM « Back to Top

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The Bible says if I don't do the word of God, if I don't apply into my life what God's saying to me, actually I end up quite deceived. I think I'm doing real well, because I measure doing real well by the information I know - I've got three folders worth of Bible notes. I've been to Bible school. But none of this, until it's applied, changes my life. So the Hebrew way of thinking is very simply this; what you are doing, is what you know.

Let's open our Bibles then at Philippians 1. Last week I started to speak to you, a series just on "forces that work within us"; and let's just pick up the scripture that we started with, and I want to pick up one aspect of it, and share with you something that's going to help.

So here it is in Philippians 2:12, and it says: it is God who works in you. God works in you, both to will and to do for or of His good pleasure. In other words, it says: God energises you.

It's the spirit of God that creates energy, passion and motivation in you, so this is not just about doing things that will pep ourselves up, and motivate ourselves. There is a reality, He says: where God's spirit will energise you so powerfully, that your mind begins to want, desire and choose the things that are going to please God; and your life reflects - you actually end up doing them.

That word 'to do' is the same word, energise; so putting it again, it is the spirit of God, when He's working in you, who energises you, to make choices in line with what God has for your life; and then energises you to work them out.

That's very, very powerful, and that's not the experience of most Christians by the way, because these things don't just take place in a vacuum. There are some things we have to do. There's a part we play, in co-operating with God.

Notice the context, it says: you work out your salvation. There are parts we play in it; and we looked last week at some forces that work in us, or energise us. Some are very negative, so we looked at sin, and we saw that sin works death in us. It actually creates an energy that's quite negative, depressing, brings isolation, brings us into a place where we don't want to be.

We saw also that evil spirits work in us. It's the same word, energise; evil spirits create negative energy flows in our life that depress us, frustrate us, irritate us; and strengthen sin working in our life. But we saw also that God works in us, and I'll talk a bit more about that, but I want to pick one aspect of it that we touched on last week, and it's found in 1 Thessalonians 2:13.

For this reason we thank God (and Paul's saying) without ceasing, because when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works.

There it is again, the word 'works'; the word of God works in people. It may not be working in you, but it can do, so don't bring the word of God down to your experience. Have a look at what God says, and begin to expect your experience to come up to that.

It tells us that God's word energises us. Now that's interesting, so I always think: how on earth does that happen? What part do I play in this, because for a lot of us, when we read the Bible, we find that you read it, and you've read three or four pages or chapters or whatever, and then you don't sort of remember much, and it hasn't really done much either. Probably you're sleepy by then, and that's the experience of many people.

But there are some things we can do, which will cause God's word to create energy inside us, and to effectively strengthen our spirit, so our outer life begins to change, but we have to co-operate with God.

Why can God's word do this? Because Jesus said, in John 6 verse 63: the words I speak to you are spirit. So the only thing that can energise your spirit is spiritual substance, something spiritual energises you.

For example, how many this morning - you may have come in heavy or tired or weary or whatever, or problems living; but as we've been in this atmosphere, where there's been strong praise and exalting God, you felt yourself becoming energised on the inside? How many have found they're quite energised? Good - a lot of people. That's normal when you come into an experience of worship. That energy is a spiritual energy.

It comes about, by the way, as you participate; not as you spectate. You can come into a meeting like this, and you can be absolutely unmoved by everything. We can be in the most wonderful worship time, and God's presence is touching some, but He's not touching you. That's because of a failure to participate. It's always about participation. That's why when we come together, often it's very slow and sluggish to get started, because we kind of come in as spectators; passive, leaning on the musicians to do something for us, rather than arising in our spirit to engage with God. That's something we could speak on another time. I want to speak in this one here, of the word of God energising us. The question we have then: how does the word of God energise us? So let's go back into the verse.

The first thing is: you have to place value on God's word. I wander around, I look around, I watch people coming in. I find how many people don't have a Bible. Now I know we put the words up on there, but I like to have a Bible. I like to have my own Bible, and I like to mark my Bible, and I read my Bible and mark it, and take notes of what God is saying; because the word of God can ENERGISE ME! The word of God can bring MIRACLES into my life, you see?

And so I want you to notice something here, the first thing is: you have to place value on the word of God. Notice what it says here: you did not receive it as the word of men; so it says something they didn't do, and then something they did do. Just have a think about what that might mean.

If we're talking about some words being the words of men - in other words, someone is just sharing their opinions and their ideas - it's a lot of information. You can go on the Internet and get a lot of information. You can download words. You can download pages of words, but they may not do you any good whatsoever, and particularly in terms of your spiritual life.

They can help, or not help. The problem is in how we receive them. Now if you receive just the words of men, here are some things that you would automatically think: well it's just his opinion, and so immediately you dismiss the words as having much authority. There's no authority in this.

We think then: it's just someone's opinion, it's someone's ideas, it's quite interesting information, and the attitude is: you take it or leave it. So if I agree with it, I'll take it; if I don't agree with it, I'll leave it; and that's the mentality we have, with the things that people say. Not only that, many people say things which are either not true, or exaggerated; so we have a tendency, when we hear messages, to filter them all through, and just pick on little bits that we like or agree with, and we're receiving it as if it's the word of men.

Now it says here: you did not receive this word as though it was the word of men, or just people preaching. You received it as the word of God. Now to receive something as the word of God means: I am listening for God to speak to me. In other words, it doesn't matter who's up there preaching. I believe that: God, if His word is preached with boldness and strength, that I can receive something from the word of God.

So if I come into a place where someone's preaching, they may be preaching a particular message, but I'm listening for what God wants to say through it; and I know that at certain points in the message, He will start to speak to me; and I always have a pad, and I write down the things that God is bringing to my attention. Now that's what it means - to receive it as the word of God.

Receive it as the word of men - well it's nothing. It's very, very clear from experience, that about 70 percent of what you hear, you'll forget. That doesn't leave much that you'll remember.

So we can have great messages, but what really counts, is what is God speaking to you in the midst of it? You've got to value the preaching of the word, not: well who's the preacher? Who isn't the preacher? But what is God speaking to me, in the midst of it? Now that's a heart issue.

That's why we have worship. It's to prepare the heart; and loving God, to be open to respond, and hear what God wants to say, through whatever message is preached. Otherwise it's the words of men, so you'll look and you'll judge, and we have this person preaching: oh well, that's so and so. What we do is, we treat it all as the words of men; and we don't come with the right attitude, so we can't receive.

So firstly, you have to place value that God's word, no matter who preaches it, and how badly they preach, can still speak to me. That's nothing to do with how good the preacher is. That's the belief that God's word carries power, and that when it's spoken, and when it's preached, it will have ability to bring about some fruit in my life.

It says in Isaiah 55: my word shall not return to me void. It will not return without doing something - unless of course you actually don't take it in; so it's all in valuing the word of God.

So if I treat the message that comes as the word of God, then there's authority in it. There's the power to change my life. There's power to give me hope. In fact, out of any place I go, if I would have a right heart and attitude towards God, and look past the speaker to listen to the spirit of God, the He will speak. He will speak! I've been in all kinds of places, with some of the worst preachers in the world, and God still spoke. It had to do with the heart attitude. So value it.

In Psalm 119:105 it says: Your word is a lamp. It'll light up my way. In other words, when I'm struggling to know what to do, if I'll just hear your words, they will give me inspiration, and show me what I need to do.

There's another one here in Psalm 119:89. Forever O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven. So if God's word says it, it is settled like a decree, demons will yield to it, circumstances will yield to it. It's settled. There's no arguing. It's established in the realm of the spirit. I've got to bring it into the realm of the earth.

Jeremiah 23:29 says: Is not my word like a fire? Oh, you imagine a burning, blazing fire. The word of God is like a fire! It's when the Holy Ghost gets it, that it can start to burn in you. The disciples said: when Jesus spoke the word to us, did not our hearts burn inside us?

He said: is not my word like a hammer, that breaks in pieces the rocks? Every hard situation, God's word is like a hammer; that can bash it, and break it open, and shift it. That's what God says His word is about.

Well, you may agree with it; or not. If I don't agree that it's a hammer, then it's not a hammer. It won't be a hammer for me. It'll be a hammer for someone who can believe. If I believe that God's word is the fire, then if I learn how to take it in, and get it in my life, it can burn inside me until I ignite!

If I believe God's word is a lamp, then I can get it into my heart, and at the right times it'll speak to me, just like that. It'll speak to me, if it's in me.

It's so important to get the word of God into our lives and hearts. You need the simple skills, and the ability, to get God's word in. Why? Because the word of God can energise your life mightily! That's what God says. So you're going to be receiving it right now as the word of God, or something else.

Here's another thing. Have a look at this in Hebrews 4. How you receive the word determines whether it can do any work in your life. There are so many aspects of this, but we'll just pick up this one here in Hebrews 4:1.

Since there remains a promise of them entering His rest, let us fear lest any seem to come short of it. Now here it is: For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as them; but the word they heard did not have any value to them whatsoever, and produced not a bit of fruit.

Now that's an extraordinary thing to say. Now He's talking about the Hebrew people coming out of Egypt, redeemed by the blood, walking through the wilderness with the promise of inheritance; and this is what the Bible says: They heard the gospel. What did they hear? What gospel did they hear? They heard the gospel of the kingdom, that there is a realm of inheritance for you to possess, that advances God's purpose on the earth. They heard the same gospel as we have heard.

The Bible says: though it did them no good, because of one factor; it was not mixed with faith in those who heard it. Notice what it said: They got the word, but it didn't do them any good. They got the message, but it didn't do them any good. Now why did it not do them any good? Because something was missing in their response; and it says: they were not joined to it by faith. That word joined is to be mixed. It's to be connected. They were not joined to it by faith.

So Hebrews 4 - so they missed out on what they could have had, because they weren't joined to it by faith. God's word is powerful. Hebrews 4:12, it says: it's like a sharp sword. It says: it's alive or quick. It's full of the life of God, breathed in by the spirit of God.

This Bible that you have in your hands, or don't have in your hands, men died to get it to you. Men shed their blood to get it to you. They were tortured and burnt and suffered to get this word to you in a written form; and the Bible says in Hebrews 4:12: the word of God is quick. It's alive with the life of God. It is sharp. It's sharp like a two-edged sword. In other words, it's so sharp, it can just penetrate through with one slice, without hacking.

I saw in a movie, and they were trying to get this guy's head off with a sword - a lot of hacks to get that head off. He said: shwoosh! like that. That's what the word does - goes straight to it. Straight to it like that, no hacking with the word of God. Nice and sharp! Bible's full of pictures like that. Some people don't want to think about them, because they're too nice - but I'd like to think that when I speak the word of God, it'll hike the head off again! That'd be great wouldn't it?

Sharper than any two-edged sword, quick and powerful. The word powerful means - here it is again - energayo: to be energetic, or life-giving, or energising.

We tend to love experiences that are created in group situations, but there's something that can only be done in our life with God, and that's get His word into our heart.

Get His word into our heart - so it's says: this word did not profit them. It was no use. It didn't do any good - not because it couldn't do it, but because how they responded - they did not receive it.

Notice what the Thessalonians said. Here we come to the second thing in 1 Thessalonians 2 verse 13: you did not receive it as the word of man, but as the word of God, which works powerfully in you who believe.

So I must first of all value God's word. Your Bible, this Bible you carry, you may not understand all of it. There's a lot of it I don't understand I can tell you now - but there's some I really do, and it's the bit you really do, you've got to be working on in your life.

We can expand what we understand, because knowledge comes to those who apply what God has given them already, so I need to receive it as a friend. Take your Bible - this is my friend! It can help me. Bring the word of God near into your heart. Take hold of it, see?

Now here's the problem with Western thinking, it goes something like this: to believe something, I believe it. So what I mean when I say: I believe it - yeah, I read that verse, and I agreed with it. That's what we think. That is Western thinking, and it's informational or cognitive based, and we think: because I know it, that I know it; because our Western thinking is: if I've heard that story before, then I know it.

So if someone stands up and reads a passage - well I know that. Someone tries to share with you about something - I know that. Isn't it great? Good for you. You know so much - but not Biblically. From a Western point of view, we've got heaps of information. In fact, there's so much information, you can overload.

The problem is, what to do with what you have; and in the kingdom of God - little is best - a little, because you get a little, and put it into practise, you get more. But if you have a lot of information, and don't do anything with it, you end up in a bad place; because you believe you actually are in a great place with God, when you're not.

That's why the core of the Bible says: if I don't do the word of God, if I don't apply into my life, what God's saying to me, actually I end up quite deceived; because I think I'm doing real well, because I measure doing real well by the information I know - and I've got three folders worth of Bible notes. I've been to Bible school - I've got a whole folder full of notes - and the CD!

But you know what? In in the end, none of this, until it's applied, changes my life. So the Hebrew way of thinking is very simply this; what you are doing, is what you know. What you're doing, is what you really believe.

So we can say we believe all kinds of things. In James 2, it says: well the demons believe in God [brrrrr!] They really do believe, you know, but it doesn't save them. So knowing about God, and even believing the things about Him, that's one thing; but actually to apply it into your life is where - that's where energy comes. That's where traction comes. That's where real change comes, the day you start to do something you weren't doing before. That's when the change takes place.

There's so much knowledge. You get on the internet today, and on the tv, just there's so many messages; but you know what I'm interested in? I'm not interested in all those messages. I'm interested in what God is saying to us here. Because all those messages may be great, and many of them apply to what God is saying in other parts of the world; but what is God saying to us here in Hastings, and Napier, and Hawkes Bay, and New Zealand? That's what's important. That's what you want to be tuned into. What is God saying to us as a community? What is God speaking to us; and more important, am I hearing it, and am I responding? That's what really counts.

Oh, getting all very quiet; and so we saw in Hebrews 4:2 - the word didn't do them any good; and I've seen people come into church and be totally transformed. Others come in, been here for years, didn't seem to do them any good at all, because of response.

Have a look with me in Numbers 14. You can always tell whether the word's impacting people. There's actually evidence of it. There's evidence. Would you believe there's evidence to show, if someone's in the word, and the word is living in them?

Let's have a look at the example of Israel. Remember we had the verse: the word that was preached didn't do them any good. Now they had Moses - imagine having Moses up here every Sunday preaching; and you know, the water parts - he goes out there and all the traffic stops. He holds his hand up, traffic all stops, everything just is amazing! Puts his hands up and stuff falls down, all manner of things in the meeting - wonderful! However, they saw it all, and still didn't believe.

Miracles can assist your faith, and power-boost it, but they don't necessarily generate faith inside you. The word is: what brings faith into your heart; and it says clearly they heard the word, saw the miracles, and still they never got anywhere. You don't want to be like that: meeting after meeting, Sunday after Sunday, never got anywhere. That's just like spinning your wheels, isn't it really? Going nowhere!

Now here's a few things you can tell, very clear evidence, when unbelief lies in their heart. Now in the Bible, when the word uses the word “unbelief”, it's exactly the same as the word translated “disobedience”; so to believe, means to do. To not do, means to not believe - that's what the Bible says. They hated Him, because of unbelief, because they actually didn't do what God said to do.

Now have at look at this here. It shows up in their life, and the people come back with a negative and evil report. Now look at this, Numbers 14:1.

So all the congregation lifted up their voices, and cried and wept that night. And the children of Israel complained against Moses, and Aaron, and the whole congregation.

Oh, if only we'd died in the land of Egypt! If only we'd died in the wilderness! Why has the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword, and that our wives and children should become victims? Wouldn't it be better for us to return to Egypt? So they said: let's get another leader, and go back there where we're familiar with.

I just want to show you that unbelief always shows up in our life. Here's the first way it shows up. It shows up with self-pity, and self-preoccupation, when we face difficulties in life.

Difficulties of life, they're common to everyone. How many people are going through a difficulty right now? You're facing some challenging situation? Okay, there's a lot of people facing challenges: financial, family, marriage, personal, all kinds of issues.

Here's the thing: How you respond - these things are there to help you grow. How you respond in it, is what determines what's going on in your heart.

Notice the first thing they did: they felt sorry for themselves; second thing, they started to complain. They gave voice to the unbelief that was in their heart, and they found someone to complain about.

You hear someone complaining - I hear unbelief. If I complain, you know what I'm really saying is: actually I cannot trust God, in the midst of this, to work out some good for me, and for all of them. That's what I'm saying.

That's why we saw in Philippians 2, that Verse we saw said that: God is working in you to will and do; He says now: do everything without murmuring and complaining.

Now how many heard that today? How many thought: that's for someone I know? See, that's the problem. We sit in here: alright, someone needs to hear that - I better get them that tape.

Well what about you? If you've got your attention drawn to it, you needed to hear it. You understand? We just think: we don't need to; but actually God - our attention gets drawn to it.

Then the next thing that comes in: oh, someone else needs to hear that one. Man, I know they need to hear that, I must get them that tape. And actually, God's drawn your attention to it, because He wants first of all for you to consider: are you the one murmuring and complaining, and negatively talking?

Now faith is in your heart. I've worked for, and with, and under, the most outrageous people. I've always believed that God could do some good in the middle of it all. It's all about keeping your attitudes right. It's only about attitudes.

Third thing you notice is they started to blame; they had to find someone to blame. If you hear someone blaming, they're in unbelief, I'll tell you right now. A person who's blaming someone else for their misery and problems, is a person who's not trusting that God is sufficient for them, to help them arise and win the victory in it.

Then finally, they drew back. They started to build walls and defences, and drew back from the path of journeying forward with God. Well that's a whole story just of its own, but I don't want to focus there. I want to focus on building the word of God in your life.

Now have a look in Verse 9, at the contrasting attitude of Caleb. Whoa, look at this! He said: don't rebel against the Lord. Don't fear the people of the land. They are our bread. Their protection is gone from them, and the Lord is with us. Don't fear them!

So a person who's got faith in their heart, has got confidence that if God has said: I can do this; then He's going to give us something, it will come about. The fact that there's a giant is there is an inconvenience.

It's a temporary obstacle, and He calls it, or redefines the giant. He redefines it as a Big Mac. Whatever giant you're facing is a Big Mac. It's there for you to eat, and grow on.

He said: these giants are bread for us. They're just actually an opportunity for us to grow, because they look much, but their power is gone. God is with us. They look much, but their power is gone. That problem looks great, but the devil's power is broken! God is with you! God is with you!

I will never leave you, not forsake you; as the word says. If I was to meditate: God never leaves me or forsakes me, the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead is in me - my spirit rises with great strength. That's what the word says. We need the word in our life.

So how am I going to get the word into my heart? Let me give you some simple keys. It's not enough just to read it. You've got to build it, and incorporate it, into your life. That's why, if you're an internet scanner, you'll be full of information, but not much substance. You've got to actually slow down the pace, and focus on applying one thing at a time into your life.

Things in the kingdom take place one step at a time. There's no being swamped with information. One conference a year is about enough for me, because if I were to apply what I've learnt, it'll take me the rest of the year to do it. If you go from this one to this one, then another one, all you've got is this big high; but at end of the year, there's not a lot built. This is what is going on. We're living in an information age, and people are buzzed out, and overwhelmed with information.

If I was to ask you simply this: what two things are you currently working on in your life with God, believing Him for breakthrough? If you can't say anything, then you're not in faith, because you need some giant or challenge to apply the word of God, and stretch your faith over to defeat. That's what ensures you're in faith.

The Bible says: examine yourself, and see if you're in faith. It says: contend for the faith.

There's a challenge of us, in Christian life, and it's not one thing that does it. It's a combination of these things. Firstly, read the word of God. Learn to listen to the word of God. Two ways you can listen; why don't you get CDs and just listen to them, people who don't read too well, it's a great way, get them in, just listen to them. Janice just listens to them for hours, and now she's finding she's having encounters with God off what she's listening to, and she can remember large amounts of things, because she just listens and listens and listens and listens for God to speak. Put a CD on when you're driving. Let the word of God just be playing while you're wandering around, driving around. Let the word of God come.

The other one you can listen to is yourself. Speak the word of God. Pray the word of God. Get the Bible and read out the word of God, give voice to the word of God, and listen to what you're saying. That starts to affect you. You are speaking it out for yourself.

Second thing is: read the word of God, but when you're reading it, read with expectation. Ask the Holy Ghost - the Bible's not an ordinary book. It's written by someone, written by the Holy Ghost! So what better than to have the author living inside me! Holy Ghost, stir yourself up in tongues.

As you get the Bible, open it up, and say: Holy Ghost, I need you to speak to me, draw my attention to something you want to talk to me about today. You start to read, keep yourself alive, stand up and read as you walk around. If you sit down too long looking, you get snoring - Have another cup of coffee and away I'll go again, you know? I just get tired if I sit down too long, just looking at something. Get it and start to pray: Holy Ghost, speak to me. Read it out loud.

Another thing you need to do is to meditate in the word of God. Now when you meditate in the word of God, all of your brain is active. Your whole heart engages with the word. When you're studying, only the left part of your brain is active. A lot of people will read it, and then will study it; but actually don't take time to reflect on it, and muse over it.

In Psalm 39:3, David says: as I mused, or meditated, the fire began to burn. Now to meditate takes a bit of time, and it takes a bit of discipline, because everything in you wants to get busy. It's: hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry; quick, tell me, give me the message now, quick. This kind of lifestyle is not a spiritual lifestyle.

You've actually got to find, and create, moments to slow down your whole inner being, so you can begin to ponder the word of God, and let it get into your heart; and the first area of difficulty you'll have in doing that is: your mind will race, your body will race.

You've got to just begin to bring them down, say: no, I love the word of God. God is speaking to me out of His word, and you begin to meditate. To meditate, just take it, and begin to imagine it; so read a story two or three times, or read a Verse if you're drawn to a Verse, start to ponder it, start to just go over it and over it. Then begin to ponder on the Verse, look at it and imagine it; see what it would be like, if it was true in your life. Allow your heart and mind and soul to welcome it, like a friend, into your life. Allow your imagination to begin to flow. Let the Holy Spirit quicken things.

I found with some of the stories, for example, as you meditate on them, and dwell on them for a while - they get a life of their own. They begin to talk with you; so meditate on them. What is God wanting me to do?

For example, just a simple truth: I'm redeemed by the blood of Jesus. For most people, the word 'redeemed' has no meaning whatsoever; for a lot of Christians - it's got no meaning at all.

Or the blood, covered by the blood. Now you see that's a lovely church term, but what does that mean inside? If I don't have a way of engaging with what that means, it won't mean anything except: oh, we're redeemed by the blood; and the person's thinking: yeah, we are, we're redeemed by - let's sing about it! Well singing about it is good, but it's not a substitute for embracing the truth in your heart - I am totally ransomed. Everything that needs to be paid, has been paid; so I can belong to God, and walk close and intimately with Him, and stand in His presence, totally free of any corruption, disease or any decay in my life! I stand there now, totally clean before God! That's what it means.

So imagine that, and ponder on that; let that get into your heart, and wrap around yourself the truth of: standing before God, absolutely innocent and free. Let that truth change you on the inside. It takes time for truth to come settle in, because of a lot of other things we believe in our heart - so the beliefs of the heart are shifted by putting in the truth; and breaking free, or renouncing, or letting go, the things which have been dear to us, which we have believed.

See a lot of people don't pray. I'll tell you why they don't pray. It's not because we don't know how to pray, but because in our heart, one of two things is happening: one, we're overwhelmed with problems; or two, we don't believe if we pray, that anything will happen.

So I don't think I'll go to prayer. Why? Because I do not believe that "the fervent effectual prayer of a righteous man will avail much". Or putting it more personal, I do not believe that when I pray, something will happen.

Because we've had disappointments and setbacks, and we haven't processed them; we haven't meditated and engaged with God to keep our heart in faith; so keeping our heart in faith. You did not receive it as the word of men, but as in truth it is the word of God, which energises those who believe it!

So we begin to build these disciplines into our life, then we need to learn to speak or declare the word of God. There's nothing more powerful than speaking the word of God.

Bless the Lord all my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord all my soul - you start praying that, your life starts to come up. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul will make its boast in the Lord.

Start to speak the word of God: Blessed is the man, who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scorners; but who's delight is in the law of the Lord. In His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like the tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth fruit in season, who's leafs shall not wither.

I like to get in the spirit when I'm praying; and see it, and picture it. If you memorised it like that: one, you can pray it; two, you can pray it and then personalise it. The word of God is powerful - and I've got to get it into my heart by repetition, meditation, confession. I've got to get it out of my mouth, speaking.

The Bible says: the world we see was framed, or created, or formed, by the words God spoke; that if I give voice to His words, I shift the spiritual atmosphere around me, and I begin to shape my world.

People just forget it all the time. We just keep forgetting it. Think of all the miracles - they were all done when Jesus spoke a word. Jesus spoke something, and in the speaking forth that miracles are release. That's why, when you come into church, come into a gathering, one thing we need to be, is vocal. I need to give voice to my praise! I may not have a very good voice, I may have a hopeless song to sing, but there are enough people who will drown it all out, and I won't worry anyway. I'll get a new voice in heaven. Don't worry about it. I'd rather you sang or clapped or did something to exalt God.

Then finally, what must I do, to put this word into action? In other words, begin to ponder: if I really believe that word, how would I be operating in my life that is different now? What would I do, that would be different?

So take one area of your life; search God for a word on it; meditate, memorise the scripture, begin to meditate in it, begin to pray in it, begin to see what it would be like in your life. Speak it out over your life, and then walk out day after day, just doing that one thing that would make your life different. You'll find changes start to take place. They will take place, and you will find: oh my! The word of God does energise me - because when problems come, the word will come up that you've memorised. When a difficulty comes up, the word of God comes up, back into your mind, and if you'll give voice to it, you feel the energy come again.

There is nothing like the word of God to energise the spiritual man. The word energises your spirit, and when you are strong in your spirit, you prevail over the stuff in your soul, and your emotions, and your thoughts and your mind; because the life of God is inside you. Amen! Don't you just love the word of God?

Jesus said: heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away! His word! Mary said: be it done to me, according to your word. Peter said: and nevertheless, at your word I will lower the nets; and he saw a miracle. See, get the word into your life.

Here's the thing; listening will not get the word into your life, not just that by itself. You've got to do something. Let's just arise in our hearts, say: I'm going to get into the word of God, I'm going to start to give myself to it.

Listen, just before we finish, there may be someone here who doesn't know Jesus Christ. This would be a great day for you to get saved, a great day for you to have a relationship with Jesus Christ. We'd love you to come up after the service and talk with us, or talk with someone near to you about what it means to follow Christ, to walk with Him, have a life connected to God and with purpose in your life. We'd love you to know how to do that, but church, why don't we arise? Why don't we arise, and let's magnify God together. Bless the Lord oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord oh my soul. He'll forgive all your inequities, and He'll draw you to victory.

Summary Notes

Formatted » Back to Top »

1. Introduction
· Last week we identified spiritual forces that work in you – energize and empower you.
· 1 Thess 2:13 “…when you received the Word of God which you heard of from us, you received it, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the Word of God, which effectively works in you that believe”.
· “Effectively Works” =NT1754= Energeo – to energize, to be active, to rouse into activity.
· God’s Word is unique – it has power to transform your life, to energize you with the life and power of God.
· God’s Word can energize you to overcome adversity, setbacks, temptations.
· Jn.6:63 “The words I speak to you are spirit and they are life.
· God’s Word is breathed on by the Holy Spirit and has power to energize spirit, soul and body.

2. Place Value on the Word of God
· 1 Thess. 2:13 “… received it not as the word of men”.

(a) Word of Men
= someone’s opinion, ideas – may be true or not, information.
= opinion only and having no real authority.
= I can take it or leave it – useful information.
(b) Word of God
= Source is Almighty God Himself.
= comes with power to create.
= comes with power to overcome.
= comes with power to transform me.

· Ps 119:105 “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path”.
· Ps 119:89 “Forever Oh Lord your Word is settled in heaven”.
· Jer. 23:29 “Is not my Word like a fire says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces”.
· Heb. 4:12 “For the Word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart”.
· Living =NT2198= Zao = alive with the life of God.
· Powerful =NT1756= Energeo = to energize, to rouse into activity.
· Sharp =NT3091= to cut in a single blow instead of hacking repeatedly.
· Piercing =NT1331= to penetrate right through.
· Discerning =NT380= to distinguish the core motivations.

3. Believe the Word of God
(a) 1 Thess 2:13 “received” …”believe”
· How you receive – respond to the Word of God is important.
· Receive =NT3880= to receive near as a friend, become intimate with.
· To take hold of for yourself and make your own = incorporate into your life.
· Believe =NT4100= to place confidence and trust in and act upon.
Note:
(i) Western Thinking: Believe = to agree with = I know that!
James 2:9 Demons believe and tremble! But not saved!
(ii) Hebrew Thinking: Believe = to incorporate into life and act upon.
Obedience = from heart that is convinced.
(b) Example of Israel
· Heb. 4:2 “…the Word which they heard did not profit them; not being mixed with faith in them that heard it”.
· Mixed =NT4781= to combine, assimilate, blend together.
· Numbers 14:2 Unbelief = Disobedience (Failure to put into action) (Heb.3:19)
Evidences Self-pity = “Wept”
Complaining = “murmured”
Blaming = “murmured against Moses”
Drew Back = “stopped pressing forward in obedience
· Num.14:9 Active faith speaks and acts boldly and receives God’s power.

4. Build the Word of God in Your Life
· Not enough just to read and hear – must be joined to the Word by faith.
· So often people read Bible like a book and quickly forget – no impact.

(a) Listen to the Word of God (Rom.10:7)
· CD’s
· Pray the Word aloud and listen to the words you speak.

(b) Read Word with Expectation (1 Thess. 2:13)
· Ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you.
· Read without distractions.
· Notice words, phrases, sentences that stand out to you.
· Focus on that and pray and reflect on it – ask the Holy Spirit to speak.

(c) Meditate on the Word (Ps. 39:3)
· Ponder on the Word – picture it in your imagination.
· Embrace it as truth – imagine it at work in your life.
· Determine to respond to what God says.

(d) Speak forth the Word (Heb.10:23)
· Declaring the Word of God shapes the Spirit World and impacts your spirit.
· Wrap heart around the word and speak it forth meaningfully.
· Speak it forth – not just think about it.

(e) Apply the Word of God
· James 2:22-25 – Put the Word into actions!

Speaking in Tongues  

Sun 2nd Oct 2011 AM « Back to Top

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The gift of tongues is one of the most wonderful gifts that God has given you and me, and it is vital for building a spirit dimensional life around you. Without the flow of the spirit's life within you, you're left to live out of your own efforts and willpower, and without the intuitive flow, direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit

You've got something that can change your life as a gift to you. He's called the Holy Ghost. Jesus said I'll not leave you alone. He said I'll give you another comforter. He's been with you, now He'll be in you. You've got some fire inside you and he said they were filled with the Holy Ghost, began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. It's fantastic.

I want you to get fired up with speaking in tongues, and not neglect the gift of the Holy Ghost, so turn with me to Acts 2:4.

When the Day of Pentecost was fully come, with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound like a mighty rushing wind. And it filled the whole house where they were gathered. There appeared to them, divided tongues like fire, sat on each of them; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, filled with the Holy Ghost, filled with the Holy Ghost. You're filled with something you know. Many people are filled with depression. Well that's their choice.

You've got something that can change your life, as a gift to you. He's called the Holy Ghost. Jesus said: I'll not leave you alone. He said: I'll give you another comforter. He's been WITH you, now He'll be IN you. You've got some fire inside you; and he said: they were filled with the Holy Ghost, began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. It's fantastic.

When I first went to India, one of the most interesting things I saw in India was, I stood out on this street and I looked around the street. I thought I could get lost here, real easy. I couldn't read a sign. I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying. They had traffic on the streets I'd never seen before. The shops looked different. Everything looked different. The place we were in looked different. I could say: there was nothing familiar whatsoever. It was a total culture shock; the smells, the sights, noises, everything I had to hear, horns - I thought they were just to beep when you needed them, but in India they're there all the time. They're there to announce you've arrived, and everyone's arrived, and so all at once everyone's tooting. It's a horrendous noise.

And so standing there on the street, there's this huge culture shock; and then I realised I could get lost here incredibly easy. I started to walk down the street, just to have a look around, and I realised I can't read a single street sign. It was like there's nothing made any sense. I don't know how anyone could read it. It just looked like someone sort of had a squiggle, and I couldn't read a thing. I turned a corner and started to walk, and I thought if I don't get some markers, I am lost. I'll be lost here, and not only that, I won't even find where I started, because where I started wasn't recognisable either. It was just a door into a building, you went up the stairs, and we're living upstairs. I went back, actually walked right past it. I was lost, completely lost. I had to pray in tongues in the end, Holy Ghost, help me to find it. Holy Ghost, help me, I'm lost in India on my own. This is a horrible experience.

But I realised that I was being immersed in a different culture. Now when you get baptised in the Holy Ghost, God's intention is to immerse into a different realm. It's to put you in a different culture. Most people go like this: thank you, that was nice and that's all I need. Now you've come to Christ, then you got water baptised. Water baptism wasn't just, we put a little bit of water on you. No, no, you got BAPTISED! I went down a river, was in flood, down in the river, under there, the old life - gone! Come up, it's a new life!

Now we're supposed to get filled with the Holy Ghost. Filled with the Holy Ghost, baptised in the spirit, is to step into a new world, a new realm of the kingdom, a new realm of living and experiencing; and let me tell you this: it's all unfamiliar. Why is it unfamiliar? Because your natural mind has been educated totally in how to live in the things you can see, and feel, and touch; and so we've spent all our life being trained how to live in, and engage, a natural world. When you got baptised in the spirit, you were immersed, or entered into, a new dimension; and you have to learn the language, the culture, the ways of that realm, and learn how to stay there.

We are quite unique because we can enter, live in, and experience the supernatural; and also live in the natural. We are a gateway from one to the other; and so to live there, interestingly enough that one of the biggest problems I had in India, was language. I could not speak a word. You've no idea how hard it is, if you're in a place, and you can't speak a word anyone understands. I could wave & smile - that was about it, and I couldn't do anything else much. Nothing else I could say worked.

What I needed was an interpreter. Now when you've got an interpreter - you're fine. Now he can tell me: what the street signs mean; what direction to go; what they're saying; he can tell them what I'm saying - we're right, once you've got an interpreter.

So God gave us someone to help us. He's probably one of the most neglected gifts you've ever been given. It's called the Holy Spirit.

Jesus didn't say: I'd give you a Bible; but it's great He gave us a Bible. We have the word of God. He said: I'm going to give you another comforter, called the Holy Ghost. We need to love the Holy Ghost, learn how to live in the Holy Ghost, learn how to pray in the Holy Ghost, learn how to hear the Holy Ghost, learn how to flow with the Holy Ghost.

He is the one that Jesus said: this is the one you're to wait for, because you'll be totally ineffective in changing the world without Him. You can't do it! We need the power of God, need the Holy Ghost!

So God gave a gift. Interesting, the first thing that He gave you is the gift of tongues, and that gift is a gift. So you're entering into the realm of the spirit.

Now maybe you don't know much, but you know what you can do is: you can get off base one, and have the gift of tongues, and learn how to get into, and stay in, the realm of the spirit.

So I want to share with you some simple elementary things. These are actually real basic. I want to share with you some real key functions of speaking in tongues, and I'll just give them as headlines rather than tell you too much about each one, but let me just give them to you.

The gift of tongues is one of the most wonderful gifts that God has given you and me, and it is vital for building a spirit dimensional life around you, absolutely vital. Here's one of the reasons why it's vital: because without the flow of the spirit's life within you, you're left to live out of your own efforts and willpower. You're left to try and live the Christian life in your own effort and willpower, and without the intuitive flow, direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

He said: I'll guide you into all things. He said: I'll teach you about things to come. What things to come? End time events? Maybe, but maybe it's the things to come in your life that God planned for you. Maybe it's the things that you're going to face today. Maybe it's the things that lie out ahead.

He said: I'll teach you about things to come, I'll reveal Jesus to you. You can't even get to know Jesus without the Holy Ghost. We need the Holy Spirit, need to love Him, so here's the first thing.

Notice it says in 1 Corinthians 14 verse 14: If I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit is praying.

First thing about speaking in tongues - it activates your spirit, activates your spirit man, gets your spirit man going. Now I can move my hand around, I can move my foot around - there you go, moving hands and feet, but what about my spirit? How can I get my spirit to go? Very simply - pray in tongues. Pray in tongues.

1 Corinthians 14:14 - when you're praying in tongues, your spirit is praying. Your spirit has a voice. Your spirit has eyes, your spirit has ears, your spirit has senses, your spirit actually can feel and engage and experience the whole realm of the spirit.

Your spirit man has spiritual senses, to enable you to live in the realm of the spirit, and to live directed by the Holy Ghost; so the first purpose of praying in tongues is to get your spirit activated, because if we don't activate our spirit, then we're forced to live out of our body and soul, out of the sense realm.

The interesting thing is, your spirit is incredibly important to you. Your spirit gives you life, your spirit keeps your body healthy. Without your spirit, your body dies. We need our spirit. Our spirit is vital; and praying in tongues will activate your spirit, get your spirit going. Every time you're praying in tongues my spirit is being stirred up. My spirit is coming alive.

The second thing praying in tongues does, it opens a direct line of communication with the Holy Spirit. Some people say: I can't hear God. That's not true. It's not true, you can hear God. It's like saying: I don't have ears. You have got ears, you've got a nose, and you've got eyes.

Can't hear God? Yes, you can, but recognising His voice - that's a different thing. You are wired to hear God, and God is inside you. He's inside you, so you can hear Him. He lives in you every day, 24/7, 365. Everywhere you go - the Holy Spirit is with you. God is with you, God is inside you. Everyone can hear God.

How can you build a relationship with someone, if you can't hear them? Very difficult. You say: well I don't hear God. That's just not true. God speaks. It's just you haven't trained yourself to listen. You get a room full of babies cry, mother will hear, say: that's my baby; because she recognises the sound. There's a lot of noise, a lot of things. Most people have got too much noise going in their life - that's why they can't hear God. It's quite simple to slow down, and get to hear God, and His voice is very easy to recognise. It's not very difficult.

In Acts 2:4, it says: they began to speak in other tongues, as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance.

So imagine now the Holy Spirit is joined to your spirit, two separate beings but joined, linked. That joining is like a marriage connection, like an intimate relationship, so you are joined spirit to spirit with the spirit of God. That's how close you are to God.

God is not far off. He's inside you, connected to your spirit. Now how close to God can you get! Well, I don't feel Him. Of course not - you're tuned in to something else. If you were just to stop you'd feel God. He's there with you, He's inside you.

The issue is, the development of your inner life to be sensitive to God, to be sensitive to the spirit of God, when we're so used to listening to the noise of our soul, and the demands of our body. If you could just silence those, and increase the other, wind the volume up on the inside, then you'd start to find you're hearing God a lot more easily, a lot more frequently, a lot more quickly.

So let me just talk about then how - so the Holy Spirit, it says: they spoke as the spirit gave them the utterance. So how on earth does it get from the Holy Ghost, how does this language of tongues work?

How is it I end up going [Speaks in tongues] and the language is flowing - oh, flowing without any effort! How does that happen? How does that work?

First of all, the words are words of a real language. They're a language of communication, it communicates ideas, it communicates thoughts, and since it comes from the Holy Spirit - it comes directly from God Himself.

So the language that you are uttering, actually originates with God. It is His words, His language. It's something He actually understands. It's something that has meaning. It's not just a babble - ba-ba-ba-ba-ba - you know, you've got to learn to speak in tongues. But it's not just a babble. It's actually a language - so how does the language get from God, to ending up coming out of my mouth? How does that happen?

Very simply - the Holy Spirit imparts that language into my spirit, so because He's joined to me, and joined to you; He imparts it from Him, into your spirit, so that language is in your spirit; and then it rises up, comes into your mind, and you give voice to what is flowing from within your spirit.

Now get this: every time you're praying in tongues, you have opened the communication flow with the Holy Spirit. Why not keep it open all the time? [Prays in tongues] Keep the flow open all the time. Keep the flow going, get used to feeling the flow of God speaking to your spirit, and then your spirit flowing through you, and expressing the mind of God out through your lips. Get used to the feel of it.

Now if you were to do this, if you were to just sort of pray very strongly in tongues, and pray strongly for 3-5 minutes, until you get a real strong flow going; and then you suddenly stop, you'll find you'll hear the language in your head.

It'll just be rattling around, and you'll hear like the language is carrying on, except the only thing that's happening now, it's in your head, and not being spoken out. Now that flow that you are encountering, is the very same flow when God is speaking to you. At this stage, you are just hearing tongues, but you can actually hear in your own language, it would be coming from the same place, the same way, through the same channel. The Holy Ghost, into your spirit, up to your mind - identical, the same.

It would come to you the same way. It would come spontaneously. It would come as a flow, not as structured or logical thoughts. It is a flow, so when you're praying in tongues, don't just babble in tongues for five minutes, and then quit and give up.

Learn to pray, and consistently pray in tongues; and feel what happens inside your body, inside your spirit, as you're doing it. Learn to recognise the flow of God, recognise the flow of the spirit, because that's what's happening. There's a language coming through you. Now that language that flows in your spirit, it's something that God has created, see? God has created it; it's a language, okay.

Here's the third thing then. The third thing is: when you speak in tongues, you will energise and make your spirit man come alive; and consequently your body will come alive, and your soul will come alive as well. People don't realise that, and I'll tell you why in a moment.

In Ephesians 3:20, it talks about the power that works in you, the power that works mightily in you. Now most people get into what I call revival thinking, so they're waiting for some power to come to them - one day, if they pray hard enough. What about the power that's already in you? What will you do with that? Will you neglect that in favour of waiting for something bigger one day? You'll wait a long time.

See, we have to take what we have. What we were given is a gift, and that gift, you can be a steward of that gift. You can use that gift, and that gift is given to you for some purposes.

One of them is to energise your spirit man, so the Bible tells us in Ephesians 3 verse 16: Paul prayed that you would be strengthened, with Dunamis (greek for energise) in the inner man.

Well what is that? Is that some experience you'll have one day? No, it isn't. It's something that comes - the Dunamis is the Holy Ghost. The inner man is where He lives, and when you pray in tongues, dunamis begins to flow. So what happens is, when you pray in tongues - and I mean pray strongly and give yourself to that - then what happens is, your whole inner man energises, becomes full of the life of God. So that word energise is like an energy battery - He fills you up with energetic life, the life flow of the spirit.

So when you're speaking in tongues, and you start to pray, you'll find your spirit energised, comes full of life, full of energy. Now some people, they say: I've never had that experience.

Let me tell you why you haven't. It's not that the Holy Ghost has failed, and it's not the gift doesn't work. It's something else. Don't bring God down to your experience. Always bring your experience up, and believe that what God says is true - so you get energised by the Holy Ghost.

I'll tell you why it is - because most people that I observe, and I've been to churches all over our nation, they live under a spirit of heaviness and apathy and unbelief. It's in the nation, and what it does is, it causes you to shut down; so your body feels a little drained of energy, and heavy, and your soul is weighed a little.

That's all it takes, and so when you begin to pray, it's actually a little bit of effort to pray, doesn't come easily, so you've got to pray, and you've got to work at the praying for a little bit.

So what I've observed with people, and I found it happens with me too, when I was starting out, I'd pray, and after about five minutes I'm a bit tired out of praying in tongues - five minutes, that was about it. There was no energy, no life, nothing of what I've been telling you at all.

Then I decided well, I'll pray a bit more, I'll just increase it day by day, so I increased it, increased it; and then I increased the flow and began to do a couple of other things, began to just shake my body, just make my body come awake - come on, do what the Holy Ghost wants you to do! Energise, come on, wake up! Wake up! Wake up! We're praying here!

I found just the simple thing of shaking my body, and then praying strongly [Prays in tongues] until I could feel it rising inside me. Then I found an interesting thing happened. Sometimes it was five minutes, sometimes it was 10 minutes, sometimes 15 minutes - took varying amounts of time, and there would come a point when suddenly I'd feel the flow unlock, and I am alive and energised and the flow is now unhindered.

So when I was starting, it would take me a little while to do that. Why is that? Simply, the body was used to controlling me. My soul was used to controlling me, and so it was a matter of making a decision: whether I'll do the work with the Holy Ghost, and energise, and just work until I broke through. It's not a matter of trying to make your body overcome your soul, it's actually just making the decision to activate what God's given you, until you get the benefits.

So I found that sometimes it can be a few minutes. Nowadays I can pray in tongues, it's a couple of minutes, I'm into it. Most days - sometimes I don't even need to pray that long. [Prays in tongues] I'm already awake and alive - but other times you can pray quite a while, and you feel a heaviness.

Sometimes there'll be a direct spirit resistance, and when you pray you feel those words are barely getting out of your mouth. In fact it's a huge amount of energy just to get anything out. That is actually spiritual resistance to you. That's a demon stepping up, right in your face.

You know what it's like when you've got your eyes closed, you go up near a wall and you can feel the wall near you? Okay, you know that feeling? Okay, well a demon can come up, and do exactly the same to you; and come up and get right in your face, and when you try and pray in tongues, inside you're going: [prays loudly in tongues]; and what's coming out is: [prays quietly in tongues]; very little coming out, and you're exhausted after about two minutes. You think oh, this is just too hard.

What's happened is, there's a spirit is pushing against you. You just decide that's what it is, and I'm going to get stronger! Push against me will ya? Okay - ooh, we'll see who's stronger here! You just push and push - you just keep praying in tongues; and what happens is, it just backs away, and the flow comes. Once the flow goes, there's no awareness of any resistance there at all.

I found for example, that week after week after week, in congregations over New Zealand, people come in, and there's a spirit resistance around the corporate body. Why is that? Because individuals in the corporate body have not sustained a prayer life to keep themselves free, so when they gather, the same resistance is there in the corporate body. That's why we have to play some very fast songs and energise you, get you clapping.

Now if you really think about it, all we're doing is just the very things I just said you just need to do in your private life; make your body move! So the purpose of getting everyone to clap is - and you may not be a clapper. It's a shame, because the Bible says: clap your hands, ALL you people! So you could write that one out of your Bible if you like - but clap your hands. There's a reason for it.

Clap your hands, ALL you people; shout to God with a voice of triumph! So the Bible tells us how to break through the atmosphere around us: clap strongly; and shout! About 30 seconds is all it takes, and you've broken through! That's all it takes.

Why does it take so long? Why don't we come every week and we're fired up? Why don't you spend five minutes before you get here, on the way in your car; instead of having an argument with your wife, why don't you just pray in tongues? It'll do you much better, do her much better as well, and pray STRONGLY in tongues!

You come in there - oh, come on! Let's get into it! Don't delay! Let's start straight away! See, rather than carrying heaviness - don't have to carry heaviness because we've been given our Holy Ghost to fill us with life!

And you know what happens is, the overflow; when you start praying strongly in tongues, your body comes alive, it gets full of energy, it gets pumped up with life! Your soul clears, your head gets clear.

Sometimes I get praying in tongues, try to go to sleep, I can't sleep. I'm lying there - just like that you just can't sleep, so I KNOW it energises you. Just get going, see? Energise yourself.

Okay, here we go, fourth benefit of it - it brings forth the purposes of God. 1 Corinthians 14:2 - He that speaks in tongues, doesn't speak to men, but speaks to God, for no one understands him. However, in the spirit he speaks mysteries.

A mystery is something concealed, something you don't know, something that's hidden, something someone's sort of covered over, so you can't tell what it is. You think: well what's the purpose of that? Well when the Bible's talking about mysteries, it's inevitably talking about the mysteries of the kingdom of God, things that God knows.

You see, it's not a mystery to God, what you're praying. It's not a mystery to Him what you're praying, it's just a mystery to you, and the reason it's a mystery to you, because if God didn't override you on this one, you'd be praying some stuff that's totally irrelevant. Think about it.

We don't know what to pray, nor how to pray as we ought; so we'll be thinking we're praying for my marriage... oh God, change that wife of mine! God, move upon her! That's how you'd be praying, see?

But you get praying in the spirit - now the Holy Ghost gives you the language, and you might find if you were to listen in, and tune in, you might be hearing: oh God, I need to grow in love and grace. I need to be a more loving person. Oh God, help me to be kind and loving, and tender and thoughtful to my wife.

See, now you see you wouldn't pray that yourself so the Holy Ghost can just override you. That's why it's good to be praying in tongues, because you know you're getting it right. You know you're getting it right, see?

You pray for your children; God, turn that rebellious son of mine - you know, so you're praying God, all this stuff, trying to manipulate God. But you see, when you're praying in tongues, and you just hold the person in your heart with love, and you begin to pray in tongues, now you can pour forth God's plan, God's will, God's purpose, God's thinking.

You're starting to call Him forth, so the mysteries are not mystery to God. They're only mystery to you, and they don't stay a mystery. They're not meant to stay a mystery.

In 1 Corinthians 4:1: we're called to be stewards of the mysteries; so when you're speaking in tongues, you're speaking out God's purpose, God's plan. You're speaking out revelation. You're speaking out things that God wants to birth, either between you and Him, in prayer - isn't it a great thing?

I don't know how to pray, so God helps me pray, and gives me the right words to pray, so He can answer the prayer. It's got to be good - how good does it get, see? How good does that get aye?

And you just don't know how to pray; how can you tell Jesus you love Him? I love You, I love You, I love You. But you see you run out of words after a while. Hard to do that for an hour - I love You. I'm telling You again, I love You. You know, it's really hard to do that; but you can pray in tongues continually [prays in tongues], and allow yourself to get stirred, and get the passion to flow. Isn't that fantastic aye?

So you notice it says in Verse 2: you speak to God. Now if you have a look in Verse 28, it says: you speak to yourself, and to God; so when you speak in tongues, you're speaking both to yourself and to God.

You're speaking into your spirit the things God wants for your life. You're speaking into yourself, and you are teaching your spirit. You say: how can you do that? Listen, when I'm prophesying, I'm actually being taught by the Lord as I speak, because there's a flow, and I'm listening to the revelation, speaking out what's coming; and the other part of my head's saying: boy, I didn't know that. Oh, that's amazing - oh, that's incredible. I didn't know all those things Lord - so you're teaching yourself.

So when you're speaking in tongues, you are speaking directly God's purpose for your life, the things He's designed for your life. You're speaking, and you're praying them to God, you're calling them forth from God into the earth, and you're speaking them into your own spirit.

So you say: well what's the use of that, if don't get to know it? Well the point is, you can get to know it. It's just you don't know it as you're praying it, because you'd be analysing it and shutting it down.

So with the flow of the spirit - that brings us to the next thing - is that speaking in tongues initiates revelation in your life. It initiates the flow of revelation; and a lot of people don't say: I don't hear from God. Well, God's wanting you to hear - it's not He doesn't want to speak - it's just learning how to recognise it.

So when you're praying in tongues, notice what's happening: you're not using your logic, you're not using your smarts to work it all out. You're not using intelligence, so that's quite good. It puts us all on a level playing field, so it doesn't matter whether you've been to university, or at least flunked out of high school - makes no difference.

That part of your brain isn't the bit that's going to be any use anyway, because the rest comes from the Holy Ghost; so it's nice that God levelled it all out, isn't it? I think it's quite good. He thought some of those fellas will be so smart, couple of these fancy falutin' prayers. Tell you what we'll do, we'll just give them all the gift of tongues, then it won't matter. They'll all be praying the same, and it won't help to be very smart, because all being smart just confuses you, because you can't understand things of God. They're received by revelation, so you don't use logic for the things of God.

The language of the spirit is a language of flow. It's a language of spontaneity, it's a language of pictures, of visions. It's a language of inspired thoughts; so as you're praying in tongues, you can begin to tune and focus your mind to listen, to receive and thoughts come.

Sometimes they come while you're praying, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they'll just drop into you a day later, a week later or two weeks later or three weeks later; and because they don't come just when we pray, our flesh gets impatient, and says: what's the use of this?

But the Bible's very clear, when you're praying in tongues, you're calling forth God's will, God's purpose, God's plan. You're speaking it into your life. You're speaking it out into the spirit world, you're speaking it to God, and interceding for it to happen.

There will come an uncovering of it, if you open yourself up to the spontaneous; the flow of the spontaneous. That's how God speaks, He just drops the thought in, but if your mind continues to govern your life, it will just shut it down, and deny it, and block it off all the time.

So for some people, there's a bit of a challenge in hearing God, because they're so used to controlling and using their mind to dominate everything; rather than just learning how to dial down and rest, and become rested inside, and just let the spontaneous thoughts of the Holy Spirit come. That's the way God speaks.

1 Corinthians 14:4 says: he that speaks in an unknown tongue edifies, builds up, his spirit man. Well I want to know how many spiritual midgets we've got here? The thing is, we've probably got heaps - because only you can build your spirit man.

See here's something that can be incredibly deceptive. You can be in a wonderful church, with wonderful worship, wonderful teaching, wonderful ministries, and still never grow - and yet you think you are, because you're in the environment where the spirit of God is moving.

Actually the only things that really make you grow, are what you put consciously into your life, and you have to apply yourself to do that. You have to do something yourself - and it's the doing something yourself, that actually is what changes you.

So we can teach you a course on spirit life, and great, I've done the course! Give me the certificate! Look - I got a certificate! But a certificate is no use if you remain a spiritual midget. You're a spiritual midget with a certificate.

God wants some spiritual giants! To be a giant, you have to edify yourself, build yourself up, build yourself up; so when you get up in the morning... how many had breakfast this morning? Guess there'll be a few people had breakfast, you want to keep your body going don't you.

How many got praying in tongues? [Prays in tongues] Get your spirit going? First thing, when you get out of bed - leap out of bed, [Prays in tongues] start your spirit going. You can get the breakfast afterwards - get your spirit building, build your spirit man.

You know when you're speaking in tongues, then the words of God are going into your spirit. Your spirit man starts to become stronger, it grows; you grow in strength, you grow in capacity, you grow in sensitivity, the more you pray in tongues.

If you only pray once in a while, how are you ever going to tune in to God? Get in the flow, so the flow's happening; then you start to develop sensitivity, start to feel God working in you, become more sensitive; and then you become a spirit giant! You may be a little person in your physical stature, but the presence of God fills the place around you.

Think about this: the Holy Ghost is dwelling in your spirit; but God wants for the Holy Spirit's influence to invade the physical world around you; and the only way He can invade the physical world around you, is if you shift in your soul and body, and the spirit of God first of all fills your spirit, then begins to start to govern your soul, then flows out into the territory around you.

So wherever you go, people feel the presence of God is with you. See again, there's a bit of a problem if you're waiting for revival. This actually gives you something to do right now, to shift the level of spiritual vitality you have, the life and manifestation of God in you, and then around you.

Revival is like the icing on the cake. It is absolutely fantastic. I just love almond icing, love those - but you've got to bake the cake, and so we need to make the cake. You need to build your life with God - and finally, the last thing is the Holy Ghost - we can speak in tongues, get filled with the Holy Ghost, you start to get filled with the spirit.

[Audio truncated - refer to Summary Notes]

Summary Notes

Formatted » Back to Top »

1. Introduction
The outpouring of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost.
Acts 2:1-4 “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them the utterance”
Jesus made a promise to His disciples – promise of the Holy Spirit, promise of power.
Baptism of the Holy Spirit – entrance experience to realm of the spirit.
Example: visit to India – everything different – culture, language, streets, traffic. Needed an interpreter – someone familiar with the language and culture of India.
Holy Spirit is familiar with the culture and language and ways of the Father, of the Kingdom.
First experience – speak (whatever has your tongue has your life – Jam.3:4).

2. Functions and Purpose of Speaking in Tongues
(i) Speaking in Tongues: Activates your spirit man
1 Cor 14:14 “If I pray in a tongue my spirit prays.
You are a spirit being living in a body – you have spiritual senses and activities.
Speaking in a tongue = your spirit is active, is functioning and operating.
Your spirit has a voice, has a mind.
When you activate your spirit you are exercising your spirit man.

(ii) Speaking in Tongues: Opens a direct flow of communication with the Holy Spirit
Acts 2:4 “..began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them the utterance.”
Holy Spirit creates the language.
Language = way of expressing thoughts, ideas.
Holy Spirit knows the will of God – he creates the language of prayer to speak.
Holy Spirit transfers – imparts this language directly into your spirit.
This language overflows from your spirit into your mind for you to speak.
E.g. Pray strongly in tongues then stop – the language keeps flowing into your mind.
This is the same channel the Holy Spirit speaks to you in your natural language.
Practice getting used to this flow of thoughts from the Holy Spirit.

(iii) Speaking in Tongues: Energises your spirit man
Eph. 3:20 “..the power that works in us …”
Power = dunamus = supernatural power of God. The Holy Spirit.
Works = energeo = to energise, to fill with energy and life.
Words we speak can carry energy and life.
Praying in tongues strongly – your spirit man becomes energised.
This flow of the life of the Holy Spirit also energises your body and soul.
Body becomes quickened with energy and life.
Soul – your mind clears and you become sinsitised to voice of the Holy Spirit. (Prov. 20:27)

(iv) Speaking in Tongues: Brings forth the purposes of God
1 Cor.14:2 “..in the spirit he speaks mysteries.”
Mystery = something concealed, covered, unknown, not understood.
The mysteries are not for God’s benefit but for ours.
You are the one who doesn’t understand but needs revelation.
Mystery = revelation of God’s Kingdom purpose for your life.
e.g. Mt. 13:11 Mysteries of the Kingdom of God.
e.g. 1Cor. 4:1 Stewards of the mysteries of God.
V2 “speak to God’ = this is a prayer to be answered.
V28 “speak to self” = teach yourself – impart revelation into spirit as you speak.
As you speak in tongues you are also teaching and imparting to your own spirit.
e.g. 1 Cor.14:19 Teach others also = also teach self.
Paul prayed in tongues continually – also received great revelation.

(v) Speaking in Tongues: Initiates flows of revelation
1 Cor. 2:11-12 Received – the Spirit that is from God that might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
Revelation flows into our mind the same way the language of tongues does.
Language of the heart/spirit is not reasoning and logic.
- Flows – spontaneous, flow of thoughts and ideas
- Pictures, visions
- Thoughts
- Inner knowings
What is Revelation?
- Ideas and inspiration - Insights to Word of God
- Insights to own life - Gifts of the Spirit
- Warnings. cautions

(vi) Speaking in Tongues: builds and edifies your spirit
1 Cor. 14:4 “..edifies himself”.
Edify = to build up a house piece by piece.
You are responsible to build up your own inner life your spirit man.
Unless you strengthen and develop your spirit your spiritual capacity is limited.
Jude 20 “..but you beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith praying the Holy Ghost”.
Praying in Tongues:
- strengthens (Eph 3:16) - Sensitises the spirit
- develops capacity - surfaces fleshy limitations

(vii) Speaking in Tongues: Fills you with the Holy Ghost
Eph. 5:18-19 “Be not drunk with wine – be filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking to yourselves.”
Drunk = Methuo = to be under the influence of alcohol, spirit.
Filled with the Holy Ghost = overflow, free, generous, joyful.

What is holding you back from speaking in Tongues?

Speak the Word of God  

Sun 22 Sep 2013 « Back to Top

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Things from the unseen realm of the spirit, make their way into the physical world, by speaking words. Your words have power to shape your world, they have already shaped your world, and shape it today. With a heart man believes, with the mouth man confesses to salvation. Death and life are imparted to people through words, because there's a spirit content to it. The word of God has power to change your life. The mixture of meditating and speaking is what causes the word to become alive, and energised in your life.

I want you to open your Bible with me. I want to share with you something I felt the Lord put on my heart, something that's been of huge value to me, and something that can be of great value to you. The message is called Speak the Word of God. Everyone's speaking something, you've just got to make a decision as to what you're going to let get in your mouth, because what you have in your mouth will affect your life. I want to start just in Joshua 1:8. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.

Notice the outcomes that God is promising: that you will make your way to prosper. Prosper means you go forward. God wants you to forward. That's His design, that every one of us goes forward, not backward; to have good success, that lives moves well for us. Now of course that's not true all of the time, but overall we can guarantee, that if we'll meet God's requirements, there'll be a river of blessing flow through our life.

Now notice what the requirements are: if you will make sure that the word of God remains in your mouth, that you meditate in it day and night; and then do it - do all that is in the law. Now you have to realise in the Old Testament, to have the blessing of God required that you just obeyed the law. For us in the New Testament, what's required is first of all faith, that we believe God and trust Him; and then we walk in the life of the Spirit, led by the Holy Spirit. It's just a different basis. On the Old Testament, you were cursed if you didn't keen the law; you were blessed if you did. In the New Testament, we're blessed because of what Christ did. Now we walk out that life, and so applying that to our life, what he's saying is: we need to let God's word get in our heart, to meditate. Meditation is what gets the word of God in your heart, opens your heart to receive, and to believe God's word. Speaking it gives utterance, and confirms what's in your heart, and begins to release the word of God into your environment. When we begin to do it, then our life comes into a flow of blessing.

I want to pick up from there, and I want to focus particularly around speaking the word of God, and the power of speaking the word of God. The first thing I want you to look at, I'm going to first of all look at one of the key functions of your spirit, a key function of your spirit. In James 2:26, every one of us, we can understand how God has designed us: spirit, soul, body. You're a spirit being. You have a spirit. Your spirit can be weak or strong. Your spirit can be lively or broken. You make decisions about what you do to build your life, and build your spirit. Every one of us makes that decision. We all have that opportunity to build our spirit, become strong in the spirit. Here's what it says: the body without the spirit is dead. Now I won't go into lots of scriptures, I want to just establish one thing. Your spirit produces life for your body. Your spirit communicates life energy, vitality into your body, and into your soul, so we are made to live from our spirit. So when God wants to change our life, He doesn't change your body, He doesn't change your soul. What He does is, He changes your spirit. He empowers your spirit; and so Micah says in Chapter 3: I am full of power, by the Spirit of the Lord!

So when God wants to change you, the place He starts is your spirit; so He puts His spirit inside your spirit, and there's a reason for that, because it's from your spirit, that life flows, to energise your body and your soul. If your spirit's damaged or weak, then there'll be an influence, or an effect, on your body and your soul. I won't go into all of that, I don't want to stay in that zone too long, but I'll just add a few things to it. So your spirit - the Bible says in John 7:38 - out of your innermost being [spirit], will flow rivers of living water; and he was speaking about the life of the Holy Spirit, so every one of us is called to bring forth the life of the spirit. It's from within you, so we need to have a look at our spirit, and see what's coming out of our spirit, what's coming out of our life. Whatever's in your spirit, in your heart, will flow out. Your spirit can be weak, or it can be strong. Your spirit can be very timid, or it can be very bold. Your spirit can be defiled, or it can be purified. Your spirit can be broken, or it can be made whole. Now we won't go into all the outcomes of that, because I don't want to stay there, but the thing to realise is this: a broken spirit dries the bones. In other words, if your spirit's damaged, it'll affect your physical health.

When the bones are dry, the bones are where the marrow and the blood, the centre of your life begins to be generated from; so if your spirit is damaged in some way, usually by sorrows and traumas - by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken - usually by sorrows and griefs, when the spirit becomes affected, then it will affect your health. It'll affect your soul, and your body, so everything is interconnected. What happens to your body will affect your soul and your spirit. If you have the 'flu, you feel miserable, you feel down. It gets really bad, so whatever's in your body affects soul and spirit; whatever's in your spirit will affect your body and your soul. We've got to realise that they're all deeply interconnected. Now God's word has a powerful part to play in shifting what's happening in our life. Our spirit is designed to communicate life, and communicate life to ourselves, communicate life to one another; and so through intimacy with God, there can be life flow into our spirit, that other people feel.

So when you're with people, no doubt they will feel what is inside you. When you come into a meeting like this, whatever's inside you is felt; so here's something that intrigues me: Why do so many Christians live out of circumstances and feelings? Because they've chosen to live in the soul and the body, rather than the spirit. You know, it doesn't really matter what is going on around you. Jesus said: in the world you will have tribulation; it's what's going on inside you that really counts. So He said: ...but you can have courage and confidence, because I've overcome. In other words, the capacity to rise above life circumstances lies within your spirit. If we don't build a strong spirit, and value the life of the spirit, and learn how to arise in our spirit, strengthen our spirit and flow from our spirit, then what will happen is, you'll live the other way. You're either living from the spirit out to the world; or from the world into your spirit. You're either living with the power of God flowing from your life outwards, changing your soul and body and the world around you, or you're living the other way. Only you can make that decision.

I've learnt that in winter, people get blue. They get down. You know what that tells us? It just tells us: you're living out of your soul, living out of your flesh, living out of your circumstances. We don't need to be blue because it's winter, and then happy because it's summer. That's not how we're designed to live. We're not designed to live that way. If things are going good, we're happy; if things are going bad, we're down. That means you're living out of your soul, out of your circumstance. We're not made to live that way. We're made to live from our spirit, and govern our circumstances, and govern the world around us; so we need to learn how to arise in our spirit, strengthen our spirit, live from inside out, not outside in. Amen.

One of the key ways that your spirit communicates around you, is through the words you speak. One of the key overflows from within you, from your spirit, are words. One of the keys ways you minister, or communicate with the world, and with everything around you, is through language, through words. So in John 6:63 Jesus said: the words I speak, they are? [Spirit.] They are? [Spirit.] Spirit and? [Life.] Life, okay, so words are - if they come from in your heart - are spirit. If it's just top of the head talk, it's not spirit, so only certain kinds of words are spirit words. You can have empty words, negative words. Negative words have spirit in them, unbelief and bitterness, all kinds of things. You can have words which are just quite empty, there's nothing in them, because they're not authentic or real; but when you speak from your heart, words that you mean, then something will happen. There's always something is felt.

If someone talks to you, and they're holding themselves in, then they're concealing who they really are, they're not being authentic, so you don't feel in those words any spiritual connection whatsoever. But when someone opens their heart, when we have authentic fellowship as believers, there's a flow from your spirit, and that flow from your spirit brings refreshing to others. That's part of coming into small groups, the power of small groups is when we open, share, share what God's doing, share testimony, share life with one another, there is a refreshing, and there is a flow. When you meet with someone and they're guarding themselves, holding themselves in, or just trying to create an impression, you can tell it ain't genuine. You can feel the lack of spiritual flow. It's absolutely easy to pick up.

I have found in working in Asia, I found even though there's a language barrier, even though I can't speak the language, I speak the heart, and speak spirit, so people are sharp. I have learnt that the Asians are incredibly sharp, very spiritual people, and so they always feel what is in your heart. No matter how slick you might look or try to be, they feel what's in your heart, and they can just read you like that; so in other words, they're spiritual people, picking up what's in the spirit. You can always feel it. You feel it. You may not be able to get words to it, but it comes out of your heart.

So let's just move from there, I want to just talk then about the whole issue of the Word of God. I want you to just look at first of all Genesis 1:2 - so the words we speak. Let's just have a look, and I want to just share some simple things which you can put into practice. Genesis 1: and the spirit of God moved, or hovered, over the face of the waters; and God said: let there be light, and there was light. So notice how God, from the spiritual realm, brought a physical world into being. There's two things are crucial; one was the movement of the spirit. The spirit of God was present, the spirit of God was moving, and within that, He spoke His word. As a result of Him speaking His word, with the anointing or the spirit of God on it, there was a bringing from the spiritual world, something into being in the physical world. Now that's in the very second verse of the Bible, so here's the principle: things from the unseen world of the spirit, make their way into the physical world, by words. I'll say that again: Things from the unseen realm of the spirit, make their way into the physical world, by speaking words. It's by speaking words. You think about that. How do you access the presence of God, and have God touch you? You speak words. He says: come to Me with words. Words are crucial for the building of our life, and so we need to think like a builder when we use our language, and not be careless with our language.

When God spoke His word, with the anointing of the spirit, some things began to change. That's how He creates. That's how He brings things from the realm of the spirit. Now here's the key thing for you. Your words have power to shape your world. Your words already have shaped your world. Your words are shaping your world today; your words will shape your world for tomorrow. Your words have power to shape your world. A couple of examples: when a person gets engaged, how does a person get engaged - which is a deep, long-lasting contract? They say words. How does a person get married, and have a contract, and now they're legally recognised? How does it happen? They say words, and why do we write down, and fill in a book, and sign a piece of paper? It's actually witnessing the words. The words created something, a bond that wasn't there before. The words created a covenant.

How does a person get saved? With a heart man believes, with the mouth man confesses to salvation. So always there's a speaking of words to set things in place. How do commitments get made? By speaking words. If you don't trust the words a person speaks, then you write them down, so they're reminded of them if they try to change them on the way - so that's an example. So the Bible very clearly talks about the power of your words. In Proverbs 18:21 it says: death and life are imparted to people through words; so you have the power to bless someone; you have the power to cut them down and deeply wound them. They're in your tongue. So think about last week - how many people did you intentionally build up, and how many did you accidentally cut down? Words have power to bring death and life, because there's a spirit content to it.

Here's a second thing about the words that we have. In James 3:3-5 it says: if you want to steer a horse, you put a bridle on it. If you want to steer a ship, you work the rudder. If you want to steer a person's life, the words they speak determine where they go. The words they speak determine the direction of their life. So your words can bring life and death; your words can direct the course of your life. Here's another thing your words can do, from Hebrews 11:3. It says: by faith we understand that the world, or the ages, were formed or shaped by the word of God; so that things which we see, were made or formed out of things not seen. So what he's saying then is: think that the word of God, which is not seen, when it is spoken, brings things into being. The word of God has power to change your life. The word of God has power to shift you, but there's a couple of things on it you've got to understand, for this to begin to work in your life.

Proverbs 16:24 - words have the power to affect your physical health. Think about all of the things that your life is affected by words: words impart life, words build relationships, words destroy them. Think about an argument or a conflict; what is the problem? Words, empowered by an attitude of the heart, by something in the spirit. So we've got power to build people, power to strengthen people, power to do good, power to build up, power to shape things. You can shape your world, which way you like. Numbers 14:27, it tells us there, that God spoke to the people of God; so see He's not speaking to the unsaved. He's speaking to people of God, and He said: as you spoke in My ears, I will do according to that. I have been listening to everything you said, and He said: I've been listening a long time; and He said: so according to as you're speaking, that's what you'll experience in your life. They said: we're not able. They said: we can't do it; it's too hard; it's too difficult. They said: oh, I can't see that we're going to get anywhere. They said: it's hopeless; there's giants. They said all those things. God said: you know what? What you said is right for you - for you.

But there were two other people, they were saying different things. They were saying: God is able. The giants are bread for us. If God is with us, then we can do this thing. Notice there was faith in the heart, expressed through the language. Whatever's in the heart, the Bible says, will come out through the words people speak; so if there's faith in your life, then you'll be speaking positively, strongly. You'll be speaking with encouragement. You'll be speaking and bringing life. Everywhere you go, people will like to be with you, because there's faith arisen in your heart. It's wonderful to be around faith people. I remember the first time I met Clark Taylor. I just loved being in his presence, because the message was so strong - of faith. I could literally feel faith being built inside me, being with him, just hearing him talk. I didn't need to talk to him; just listening, there was a flow of faith from his heart.

Notice in these people here, in Joshua and Caleb, there was faith in their heart. In one part in Joshua, Chapter 14, after 40 years wandering in the wilderness, Caleb said this: My strength to come in and go out has not diminished! I am 80 years old, or whatever it was; he said: I'm as strong as I've ever been. Now that's a strong spirit, and it's affected his body, and his health. It's affected his life; and so he's able to say: oh, don't give me a plain, give me a mountain! Don't give me the place where it's easy, give me the place - I want to take the giants that stopped everyone 40 years ago! Forty years ago they saw the giants, and he said: I've been wandering in the desert for 40 years because of those wretched giants, let me at them! You see, that is a faith kind of thing. So many people live just out of the circumstance. The circumstances change, their world's falling apart. Your world has not fallen apart! Changed yes, but now you need to be planning, dreaming, and speaking about what else is happening. You must decide how you will face life, and what you will speak about your life, what will you speak about the circumstances? What will you speak about God, and what God is doing?

See the people in the wilderness, He said: as you've spoken to me, I'll do to you. It'll be just like that. You were right, they are too big for you, or putting it another way, every opportunity I gave you to grow, you didn't take it, and now you're declaring what's reality. You're too small to handle these things, which by now you should be able to take. That's interesting isn't it? I wonder how many people here, there's things which you should be able to tackle, take on, and get victory over - and you still can't, because each time it comes around, you didn't respond with faith. Now I've been around long enough to know that this is true for every one of us. We all have our challenges. No one is exempt. You might see people, and they sit and smile in church, but you don't know what they're facing behind the scenes. You don't know what issues with marriage, with children, with finance, with work, with all kinds of things - but there they are, praising God! In other words, their spirit was able to arise, in spite of the circumstances; and I've noticed with such people, after a while everything shifts and changes, and the problem that was there a while ago has gone.

Think about some of the ones you've had Brydon. I remember praying with you, over your land, that bit of land for the house. Oh there were set-backs and set-backs and set-backs. Even when you had it signed up, it looked like it - it just fell over. Disappointment, but I remember Brydon just standing believing God ,and even when the thing that he should have got, and legally could have pushed for it, fell over he said: no, God's got something better for us. I like that, and I've seen the better, and it is much better than what he originally had in mind, because he never let go of faith, that God was at work. I don't always see God at work, can't always understand what He's doing sometimes. What I do know, is that He's faithful; and if you hold His word, and hold faith in your heart, you come out just pretty good at the other side of it. You may have matured a bit, lost a few hairs, and got a bit greyer, but you come out much better in your spirit, much better in your spirit!

So the Bible tells clearly of the power of words, and God's word, if you'll speak that, has got even more power. Hebrews 4:12 - now the word of God is living and powerful! God's word has power to change your life; so the Bible says: it's ALIVE! It's not just an empty book. Now the problem is, we read it and don't get anything out of it, and we think it's a dead book. I don't understand, this is hard, too hard for me, and so we quit and give up. But here's the revelation of it: God's word is quick, it's alive, and it's powerful, and it can sort you out. You've just got to let it. There's some things you have to do, to let it. You've got to value it. It's a sword. It's a sword. You speak the word of God sometime to someone, and you see if it isn't a sword - they'll bite you back. You start to share the word of God with people, you'll be quite surprised - it's a sword alright. No matter how nice you say it, it's still a sword. It gets a bite from people, it gets a real big bite.

In 1 Thessalonians 2:13, what is required for God's word to work in your life? The problem is never the word of God; the problem is faith in the heart. It says: now He said you received the word of God, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth the word of God, which works effectively in what? You who believe - so there must be a believing the word of God, in the heart, for it to actually have impact in the life, and that's where some of the problem is - we believe lots of other things to be true. You see, we know God's word says He loves us. God loves the world, but your heart may believe something completely different; actually I know that in my head, by my heart's saying: I'm unloved. We might see the word of God say: God is faithful; but then your heart is saying: I don't trust anyone, I've been let down too many times. So what is in your heart has to shift, has to change; so notice it says: it works effectively. That word 'works' is the word 'energise'; in other words, God's word can energise your mind, your soul, your body, your spirit. It can do it, but you've got to believe it.

So how am I going to get that to work in my life? God's word has got power to energise me, fill me with life, fill me up! How am I going to do it? I've got to work on heart belief, and I've got to work on speaking the word of God, resting and believing His word, and also making a conscious decision to speak it. Now one of the problems that's come up in the past, with people confessing the word of God, is: they put their trust in confessing, rather than their trust in the word; so they end up striving, and don't get results, and get disappointed. So the key thing is to recognise: God's word itself, carries the power to change you; all that's needed is for me to believe it, and that takes place as I meditate, and embrace it, and declare it, and speak it. So the mixture of meditating and speaking is what causes the word to become alive, and energised in your life.

Train yourself to speak life-giving words. Train yourself. Now why say train yourself? Because the tendency is for us to speak negatively, and live out of feelings. We need to live by faith. It's faith that pleases God. We need to live by the words God speaks, not by experience. You can have great worship experience, you have ones that aren't so good, it doesn't really matter. God never changed; I can still trust Him, still walk with Him. Notice what it says in Ephesians 4:29. It says: now let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but rather that which is good for the use of edifying - that it might what? Now you know this scripture, I want you to think about it - that it might? Minister grace. So what He's saying is essentially this: you have the power, as a believer, to release the life of God into another person - grace, so they become empowered by your connection with Him; or you have the power to defile them, by speaking negatively. He's saying: let no corrupt communication; don't let your words be negative, because you'll defile people, and set them back; but rather choose to speak words that bring grace, and build people up. He says: that way, you won't grieve the Holy Spirit.

One of the reasons so many Christians are not strongly empowered, is simply this: they keep grieving the Holy Spirit, making Him sad. He's there when you went, wherever you went, He was there with you. Whatever you said, He heard you say it; and the word of God says: don't grieve the Holy Spirit. In other words, choose good words. You may not feel like it, but just zip the lip, zip the lip. It means you've got to speak some good things. There's a time to speak honestly, but you have to zip the lip, so we can choose. So here's the thing, here's two things I'd like you to consider doing: number one, start speaking to yourself. Now that sounds crazy doesn't it? Speak to yourself! Everyone's talking to themselves. You're listening to yourself talk all the time, but choose intentionally to speak to yourself. Here's some things you can do: pray in tongues. Pray in tongues, you're speaking the words of God, your spirit becomes energised. That has to be good for you. I love speaking in tongues. I can't do enough of it. Speaking in tongues, you can turn it on and off whenever you want. Speaking in tongues will lift and energise your spirit, it's got to be good for you, got to help you, strengthen you.

Here's the second thing you can do speaking to yourself: start to speak God's word over your life. Speak His word over your life. Don't make it general, you know: I am blessed. Well that's great, that's a start point, but don't stop there. Get it down to specifics: Today I am blessed in my decisions. Today Lord, You were leading me in right paths, You are leading me in the paths that I'm taking. You are helping me make good decisions, and even bad ones work out together for good. Get the word of God and speak it, apply it to some aspect of your life. I remember one guy who was working in law, and every day when he would go to work, he would say: thank you Lord, You are speaking to me, and giving me the ability to speak and to see to the root of the problem, and bring wise answers. He became known for seeing to the root of the problem, bringing wise answers. So speak God's word over you.

Another thing, prophesy over yourself. Speak in the spirit over yourself. Ezekiel was told to prophesy to dry bones - you probably know some. Maybe you are some? So if you're dry, speak to yourself. David used to speak to himself. This is what he'd say: bless the Lord, O my soul. Now who's he talking to? He's talking to his soul. Why is he talking to his soul? Because he's down. So where's he talking from? His spirit, so your spirit has a voice. When you speak in tongues, your spirit is giving voice; but you can arise in your spirit, and speak to your soul, and speak to your body. Bless the Lord, O my soul! You can speak to your heart, direct your heart, speak to your body. I speak to my body and soul every day, and my spirit man. Spirit, arise and come to the lead! Be filled today, pray in tongues, and trust the Holy Ghost to come and fill me; speak into myself, speak into my body. Every part of my body, speak health and energy and life. Why not? Why would you not do that, if it clearly is something God said is a way you can build life? Death and life in the power of the words; why not speak to your own body?

Speak words into your body of life: Live! Live! Live! Speak into your body, speak life into it. Arise in your spirit, so you can speak to yourself in a way that shifts; and here's the other way to speak: speak over your circumstances. God said to speak into the storms. Most people have a whinge - storm comes, what's my response? A whinge of unbelief. You don't know, that the very storm you're facing, was an answer to a prayer you prayed: God, I want to grow stronger in You. [Exhales sharply] Wah, where's God? Why does no one love me? You know, all that pitiful stuff comes up out of your heart. It's pitiful, especially being a believer for a long time. That's what we are, believers, believers you know. [Laughter] Believers. Come on, speak into your circumstance; arise, begin to speak, arise in your spirit, then begin to speak God's word. Speak to mountains in your way, speak God's word. Grace! Grace! Grace! This shall turn to my good! This shall turn to my good. All things will work together for good. Speak to that problem. I command you to depart in Jesus' name! Learn to speak, speak, speak.

Use your voice. Practice speaking God's word; and then speak to others. Speak to others encouragement, edifying, imparting grace. How good is a word in season, it refreshes the soul. It really does refresh people, when you get a word. Bring a word of encouragement to people. If someone comes on your mind or heart, speak something that lifts them up. Come on, you can do it. These are simple things to do. Ask God to give you prophetic words. Ask God to give you something to encourage them. You say: oh, well I haven't got much. [Laughter] Stop that bleeding whinging, come on. Arise inside. God gave you His spirit, no doubt about that; and there's another promise of God: He said the gifts of the spirit are given to all men, every believer! So I can say today: thank You Lord, I wait upon You, Your giftings will flow through me sharply and accurately. Thank You today for prophetic words. Thank You today for words to help, words to bless, words to build. Thank You bringing people into my life, that are all ready for it.

In other words, here's the thing you do is, you shape your world with things you speak, intentionally. All the gifts I flow in, I intentionally speak them into being over my life, most days. Most days, so you say: what would that look like? I can say: well Lord, I thank You today for the gift of prophecy flowing in my life. Today I declare I hear Your voice clearly, and I instantly respond. Thank You Lord, You're showing me destinies, You're showing me in people's life, the things that You are doing. I begin to lay out what things I'm believing God to flow into in the prophetic gift, in the areas of power ministry, same thing, every day. Thank You Lord that blind eyes will open, the deaf will hear; as I lay hands upon people, I thank You lame people walk, sick people get out of wheelchairs. I speak it. Do you see it all the time? No, but I'm not living out of what I'm experiencing now, I'm living for another day, and I'm seeing more of that other day coming near to me. Do you understand? You see you're framing your world, not by what you see, but what is not seen.

If you frame your world, or interpret your world, out of what you see, you'll always misinterpret. If you interpret your world, and respond to your world out of what God says, you'll have a whole different life. If someone blows up, there's a big problem comes, then its: God what are You teaching me in this? How do You want me to respond? It becomes another opportunity to learn. It's no wonder David could say: I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I won't fear evil, You're with me. You're with me, You're with me. I meditate in that truth, You are with me. I see it. When I'm with the sheep every day, You're with me, every day. Then he says: You prepare a table before me. In other words, whatever happens, whatever difficulties come, it's a table of opportunity.

So why don't we just close our eyes right now. I'd like you to just think about a couple of questions. I want you to think just how you respond. God's trying to talk into our lives today, to shift us, to shift us, so here's the first question. Have you observed negative speaking coming out of your mouth? Where, when, and why? What could you do about that? It doesn't mean we don't talk about our struggles and problems with someone, that's an environment for sharing and caring, building connection and support. I'm just talking about mouthing-off. In what ways could you speak into your own life to build yourself? What could you do, to begin to intentionally build your own life; speaking into your body, your soul, your spirit, speaking into your circumstances, speaking God's word over your life? It has to be specific, don't be general. Get it more specific, and try to picture it, because your soul can't handle things that are not concrete. If you just say: I'm blessed; that's not going to cut it with your soul. What would blessing look like? Oh, I see people smiling, I see favour, I see God's hand drawing and attracting people, and I'm influencing them. Now that's specific, so try to be very specific, not general.

And what about others, how are you responding to others? Are you intentionally looking to impart grace and empower people; or are you finding often there's a negative flow in your interactions? Why is that, and what could you do about it? If there's a negative flow, then what does that say about what's in your heart, that you may need to examine, and to address? Nothing much happens unless you engage your own heart. Listen to yourself through the next week; what is coming out of my mouth? Am I intentionally building my life and that of others; or subtly, have I lost ground, and there's a lot of stuff coming out which is not good? What am I going to do about that?

Jesus, I will hold my confession of faith with You, believing and trusting, that what You began, You will complete; and trusting that in spite of weaknesses, lacks and failures, Your grace is sufficient for me. Today I receive that grace to change; and I release grace to others. Thank You Lord. What I'd love you to do, if you feel comfortable with it, is just to pray for someone next to you. Maybe God will put a verse or something in you, just to speak some encouragement to them, just something that would just strengthen them today. To you it may not be much, but to them it could be a life changer. You don't know if the person sitting next to you has decided: I've had it with God, I'm giving up; and your word could change that. Why don't you just pray for someone next to you, speak a word of encouragement into their life; I see this in you. I see good things in you. God bless. Have a fantastic rest of the day.

Summary Notes

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Speak The Word of God
22nd September 2013

1. Introduction
• Josh 1:8 This book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do all that is written in it. For then shall you make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
• Notice the important promises to Joshua - prosperous, success.
• Keys to this happening are: speaking, meditating and doing the Word of God.
• Meditating enables the truth of Gods Word to penetrate our heart/spirit - faith.
Speaking and doing shapes our world.

2. A Key Function of the Human Spirit is to Communicate Life.
• Jam 2:26 The body without the spirit is dead.
• Your spirit is important to every part of your life.
• A primary role of your spirit – communicate life. (Micah 3:8)
(a) Life to your soul and body.
(b) Life to people around you.

• One important way life is communicated from your spirit is through words spoken.
• Jn 6:63 The Words I speak to you are spirit and they are life.
• Whatever flows from your spirit can bring life and death to self and to others.
• Gen 1:2,3 The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters and then God said “Let there be light”.
Creative power was released when God spoke and The Spirit of God moved.
• Spirit empowered words bring forth physical realities.

3. Words You Speak Have Power to Change Your World
a) Example:
– saved. – engaged. – married. – financial commitments.
– All take place when words are spoken.
b) The Bible clearly reveals the power of your words.
• Prov 18:21 Death and Life imparted.
• Jam 3:3-5 Horse, ship – course set for life.
• Heb 11:3 Shape your world.
• Prov 16:24 Affect your physical and mental health.
• Num 14:27-28 Alter your life and destiny.

4. God’s Word Can Release God’s Power On Our Behalf.
a) Gods word is powerful.
Heb 4:12 ‘The Word of God is living and powerful.’
b) Faith in the heart is required for power to be released.
1 Thes 2:13 ‘Word of God which works effectively in you who believe’
• Worth = NT1754 = energes = to energize, be active, efficient, work
• The key to the Word of God working in us is our heart belief in it.
• Speaking the Word of God aloud energizes our soul and body and others.
• The words must flow from our heart coupled with faith. (Mt 12:34)

5. Train Yourself to Speak Life Giving Words.
• Eph 4:29 ‘Let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth but what is good for necessary edification that it may minister grace to the hearers and do not grieve the Holy Spirit.’
• Notice we have power of choice over the words we speak.
• Notice also our ability to minister grace (spirit life) to the hearers.
• You hear what you speak – so do others.

(a) Speak to Yourself – Be Specific not general!
• Pray in Tongues. (Jude 20)
• Speak promises of God. (Heb 4:12, Heb 10:38)
• Prophecy over self. (Ezek 37:1-4)
• Speak to soul, body. (Ps 103:1-2)
• Speak to circumstances. (Mk 11:22-23)

(b) Speak to Others
• Affirm people & their value. (Philem 6)
• Encourage – word in season. (Prov 15:23)
• Strengthen people. (Lk 22:32)

Application Questions
i) Are there times or issues about which you speak negatively, complain?
What will you do about this?
ii) In what ways could you begin to speak life giving words to yourself on a daily basis?
iii) In what wrong could you speak life giving words to others? Who?

The Truth about Tattoos  

Sun 14 Nov 2010 « Back to Top

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The book of Leviticus includes a prohibition against Tattoos (& cutting, mutilation), which is often not well-understood or observed. There's a natural/historical context, such as its association with Slavery and Baal worship; but also a spiritual context, involving blood covenants and supernatural laws. That side is related to the Deliverance ministry (commonly known as Exorcism) - one of the 3 parts of the Great Commission, which all believers are entrusted with.

How many know someone who's had a tattoo, or got one? Look at that - hands up everywhere. There's almost no-one that doesn't at least know someone with a tattoo.

It's a growing phenomena now, people getting tattoos, tremendous increase in that has taken place since the '70s, just a huge increase. Actually the increase in getting tattoos is paralleled by the latest increase - trying to get rid of them! People try - there's a huge business developing in America, people trying to get rid of tattoos.

So we look around, you see celebrities have them, sports stars have them, athletes have them, and it's just like it's making a great comeback.

You see it everywhere, and so you think well, is there anything to it, you know? Is there anything about it? Well, God looks on the inside, man looks on the outside, let's not worry or sweat about it? But I believe we need to understand what lies behind these things, and I'm going to show you why this is so important. I want to just share with you something that will help you, just give you a little bit of insight.

There are not many Bible verses about tattoos, but there are some references around in the Bible, so we'll just start with looking at the word of God, want to look in Leviticus 19:28.

You need to understand the context of this. When we look in the Bible, in these sections of the Old Testament, God had taken a people out of Egypt. His people Israel were in bondage in Egypt, and not just in slavery to Egyptians, but also to occult powers.

If you remember the story of how Moses confronted the Pharaoh, it would have been real easy for God to just get him out on the first confrontation. Actually there were 10 confrontations, and each of the confrontations was with a different God, that was one of the Gods of Egypt.

Every time that Moses told the Pharaoh: let my people go; and the Pharaoh refused, a plague would come into the nation - and it was an attack on the foreign Gods.

So after the 10 plagues, by the time it got to the end, the people in the nation were aware that the power of God was greater than the power of the Gods that the Egyptians served.

Notice this: the final miracle, that got the people of God released, was the shedding of blood. In Exodus 12, everyone had to slay a lamb, they had to apply the blood of the lamb to their house, to their building, and only then would they be protected from a destroying angel.

So we find that Israel was delivered out of a land full of idolatry, witchcraft and spiritism. Occult powers were immensely strong in Egypt. If you read the story of Moses' confrontation with the wizards of Egypt, you find that some of the first miracles he did, they were able to duplicate. He threw a stick down on the ground that turned into a snake - they threw their sticks down, and they also turned into snakes. That is some occultic power! So the first three miracles that Moses did, the wizards of Egypt, operating in sorcery and occult powers, were able to duplicate them.

Perhaps what isn't known so much is that the Egyptians were worshippers of Baal, the Sun God; and part of the Baal worship involved both men and women being tattooed, as a sign of ownership and allegiance to that God.

Now when this verse comes up here in Leviticus, God is about to bring His people into the Promised Land, Canaan; and He said: I'm not bringing you in there because you're better than them; I'm bringing you in there because I love you, you're my people - and it says: because of what they have done.

So when you look into the Bible, about what they were doing in this land, there was strong and huge occultic involvement. The nations worshipped Baal. They worshipped Ashtoreth; so they worshipped the Gods of the Sun, they worshipped the Gods of the Storm and the Winds and the Weather, they worshipped the Gods of Fertility, and they had tremendous perverse acts went with it - and they got themselves tattooed.

It was part of the allegiance to their Gods that they had the tattoos. A tattoo's just a mark in ink, but actually it's what it opens your life to, is what's important.

So when God gives this command, He's talking in the context of making sure you don't get defiled by demonic powers. Notice what He says here:

Verse 4 - “Do not turn to idols, nor make yourself moulded Gods, for I am the Lord your God”.

Verse 28 – “You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh. Don't mark, cut or destroy or blemish your flesh for the dead; nor any tattoo marks on you, for I am the Lord”.

You go down a little further, and then He begins to talk more in Exodus 20:1, He talks about then the practices in the land; so this scripture on tattooing is set in the context of occult involvement that went on in Egypt, and went on in Canaan.

God was quite strong, and very forceful, in His directions about being involved in the occult. He said: “do not be defiled by them”. Do not do any of these abominations. In other words, do not open your life to occult practices in any way - you will give room for demonic powers to enter your life.

So the reason that God set this principle in place was because He knew the connection between: tattooing, and the occult realm. He wanted to keep His people free from occult involvement, so that they could walk in the blessings and inherit their land.

So the only other places that there are references to this kind of thing - of the cutting of the flesh - are found in 1 Kings 18.

Remember the story when Elijah had a confrontation with the prophets of Baal; and when he had a confrontation with them, he called on them to demonstrate the power, the supernatural power of their Gods.

What they did was, they began to cut their flesh! They made themselves bleed; and he just mocked them and belittled them; and then demonstrated the true power of a covenant keeping God.

In the New Testament, there's a story of a man called the Gadarene, in Mark 5. When we look at that man, he was heavily demonised. He had a legion of demons in him - that's 6,000 demons.

Here's the interesting thing it said: “when he came near Jesus, the demons began to manifest” - and the guy used to cut himself! So you notice the cutting, the marking of the flesh, in the Bible, is continually associated with the occult realm, and with bondage, or slavery, or servitude to that.

So in a number of places in the Bible, it talks about the issue of blood, and bloodshed. When God began a walk with Abraham, one of the things He required Abraham to do was to cut a covenant with Him.

A covenant is the most strong, or the most binding, agreement that could be made between two people; or between a person and God. God is a covenant-keeping God; so covenants in the Bible are important.

God instructed him how to make a covenant, and it involved these things: there was a sacrifice, there was a loss of an animal, an animal shed its life; so he killed the animal, and cut it in two, and the blood was sprinkled there.

Then the two people making covenant would walk between the two parts of the animal, and various promises were made, or commitments were made; but a blood covenant, or a covenant - one of the things that characterise covenants in the Bible: always there was the shedding of blood.

So when you see any practice that involves the shedding of blood, you are looking at covenant formation. Anything that deliberately involves the shedding of blood, involves the forming of a covenant. A covenant is a binding agreement between two people, which gives legal rights and entitlements.

Now let me give you one other example, that's an interesting one, found in the area of marriage. Now the first time when a couple come together, and they make a marriage covenant - they come up the aisle.

It's not something that people thought up - wedding is a covenantal commitment to one another. It's not just living together. It's a covenantal commitment; so when two people become married, what they do is they meet together, and they make covenant with one another.

They speak to one another declaring their relationship, declaring their commitment. They do it publicly, so people hear it, and see it, and then you sign the book. They sign the register, and they are married - except for one thing: if they do not have sexual intercourse, it's considered legally that they're not married - and the marriage can be annulled immediately.

The first time that a woman has sexual intercourse with a man, God has designed the woman, and created a woman, so that in the first act of intercourse, there is the breaking of the hymen, and the shedding of blood - shedding of blood. Shedding of blood in the first act of intercourse is evidence that covenant has been formed.

So every time in the Bible that you see references to the shedding of blood, it is about covenant - two people being bonded together. In fact it was so important in the Bible, in Deuteronomy 22:15, that if there was ever doubt that a woman had been a virgin before she was married, if a husband became cranky and got complaining about his wife, and said she wasn't a virgin - that she'd had other men - the parents would bring the bedclothes, from the first night they had sexual intercourse, with the blood marks on them, and they would call them the ‘Tokens of Virginity’. They would present this as proof that she was a virgin on the night she was married.

So consistently through the Bible, the shedding of blood is connected to covenant formation; and a tattoo - so what happens in a tattoo? On a tattoo, you use a needle or some kind of cutting instrument. It can be a chisel, or it can be a needle that's moving very, very fast, and what it does is - it penetrates the flesh, blood is shed.

You'll see when a tattoo's being done; they're continually wiping away the blood that comes. The skin is being pierced. What is happening is now there is pain, there's sacrifice, and there is bloodshed. You can't escape it - that when blood is shed, there is some kind of covenant form.

Among the North American Indians, if you wanted to enter into covenant with a person, you cut the hand, and you touch the blood, one against another, and you became blood brothers. Now this is a worldwide phenomenon. This is not just something that's really cool, and 'in' to do. This whole issue of tattoos goes back to as far as they can find data and information; and so I did a little bit of research on it, to find out some information about it. So if you want to find out the root of something, go and have a look at where it came from, and what it's been used like, and follow and track it's record.

The issue is not whether it's right or wrong. That's eating from the wrong tree: tree of life, and knowledge of good and evil. We're called to eat of the tree of life. We're called to live a life that brings honour and glory to God.

Now just follow through, and track through the history of tattoos. A little while ago - in 1991, some hikers in Europe found an alpine ice man. He was well preserved. He'd been there about 5,000 years; so that's about 3000BC when he lived.

The interesting thing was: he was tattooed. When they investigated his body, they found that it was quite a lot of bone damage, and quite a lot of decay in his body. He would have been in a lot of pain. It's quite likely that the tattoos were part of invoking Gods to bring healing on his life.

In 1891, there was 4,000 year old mummy from Egypt found - heavily tattooed. In fact as we looked through the various cultures, you'll find all over the place, right through every culture in the world, tattoos appear. There's almost no culture that tattoos don't appear, and always it's associated with the occult, and engagement with spirit powers, or with slavery - slavery, or occult powers, or both; so I'll just read for you a few examples...

South American head hunters used tattoos; so they would go hunting. They would get a head, and once they've captured the person, killed them, taken off their head, they would generally eat the body, and tattoo themselves as a sign of their victory, and what they'd done.

It's also done up in Borneo. I was up there among the Borneo people, and they would tattoo themselves after they had got one of the heads - chopped someone's head off, and shrunk it, and hung it up.

I was able to go into some of the villages, and you could see the shrunken heads of various people (including Japanese soldiers) - and they would put a tattoo on themselves. In fact if you were a young man, you could not become fully a man unless you took a head (took someone's head off), and then got tattooed. The tattoo was the indication you had passed.

Among Hawaiians, they have tattoo Gods; so they consult the tattoo Gods about when to get tattooed, and what kind of tattoo; and they look to the Gods to guide them - even in the pictures of the tattoos that they take.

The Chinese use the tattoos to ward off evil spirits. So did the Japanese. They appeased different Gods.

The Romans used tattoos to brand their slaves; so when Romans would take anyone prisoner, or they'd take someone as a slave, they would tattoo on them "Tax Paid"; and that tattoo was an indication they belonged to the Roman government.

Many of the Christians, when the Romans captured them, they tattooed them on the head: “Tax Paid” - they belonged to the Roman government.

Native Americans tattooed themselves heavily. Wherever you went in America, with the Native Indians, they tattooed themselves. With many of them, the tattoos were required, in their belief system, to ward off evil spirits; and to gain them access into the spirit world. They believed that if they didn't have a tattoo, they could never get recognised by the spirit Gods; and they could never get access to the spirit world.

In Alaska, the Eskimos tattooed themselves to appease the Gods, so they'd be able to survive. So the tattooing, for them, was about a covenant with a spirit being, so they would survive.

In the Babylonian, and Canaanite temples, the prostitutes that worshipped there all tattooed themselves with fertility tattoos. The male prostitutes also tattooed themselves, and it was all part of the temple worship. It was part of their allegiance and loyalty to their Gods.

In the primitive areas of India, when people get tattoos, often the person who does the tattoo is a shaman, or a witch doctor, or a sorcerer.

In Africa they don't necessarily, because of the dark skin, do tattoos; but what they do is they do extreme forms of body piercing with the lips, and ears, and whatever.

It is about allegiance to their Gods. It's about calling on their Gods to protect them, so they don't have trouble with evil spirits. It's all over the world, so think about that - that's where it all came from.

Now we look at it, and we think: I wonder why this is such a big deal. We look in the western world - seamen would get tattoos. People were criminals, they'd get tattooed. The Nazis tattooed all the Jews - so tattoos are part of a slave culture; and part of an occult culture.

So what's the big deal anyway, if you get a nice little picture - the picture of the dove; or a cross; or ‘Jesus Loves Me’ - what is the deal about all of this stuff?

I sort of ask the question: I wonder why this is such a big issue today; and this is what I believe is the reason it's such a big issue - and this may surprise you.

How many believe that we're living in a time of unprecedented supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit? Okay, we all agree on that; and if you were to look into the world right now, and look at the age of the populations, you would find that more than 50 percent of the population of the world - much more than 50%, I heard it's a lot higher than that - is under 30; and it's in this age group that tattooing is very, very prominent.

Now here's why I believe it's such an issue. I believe we're living in a day of outpouring of the Holy Spirit, when God is raising a generation for whom the supernatural and miracles will be normal.

I have longed all my life for such a day. I've longed to be a young person today - how glorious. How wonderful to be in a day, and an hour, when there are miracles happening, where the power of the Holy Ghost is coming, where ordinary people moving in the gifts of the spirit; young people and older people being called up, and having visions of heaven. We're living in a day of unprecedented openness of the heavens, unprecedented miracles.

When I was involved in the church in the early days, it was rare to find anyone had any supernatural ministry at all, rare. It was rare! It was something that used to happen, but didn't happen anymore; and now 30 years later, we have a generation - and you're that generation that God is raising up.

He has in mind that you would learn how to reach into the realm of the spirit, how to discover the ways of the spirit, how to move into the heavens, and begin to experience the glory of God, engage God.

One of my children at the age of nine had an encounter, took her up to heaven. This is a great hour to be alive! This is an hour for the supernatural.

Now isn't it interesting, that in a time, and a season in history, when God is pouring out His spirit, making supernatural experiences available for a generation; that the devil is trying to make inroad after inroad into the young generation, to try and find ways to hold them, restrain them, hold them back, compromise them, destroy their lives.

Let me share with you something I found when I was in Singapore. I was in a Bible school. We had 700-800 students there, and the Lord just began to speak to me about video games opening a door through sorcery, through role playing games; and opening the imagination, through playing those games for extended times.

The Lord told me that there's a door open to the occult realm - people get involved with sorcery. I had a word of knowledge on someone, who was struggling with addiction to a particular game - and it was tormenting them, and they couldn't get this thing out of their life.

This young man came up on an altar call. I asked him what the game was, and he told me. I asked him what role he had, and he said: I play the part of a wizard, and what I do in the game is: I cast spells on people; and I walk through the game, and the goal of it is to destroy people using magic power, to gain their powers, and to begin to grow in power, and go from level to level and level.

If you go up enough levels, you begin to gain swords and all kinds of things, and you can actually sell them on the Internet. I said: would you be willing to renounce the game, and renounce the role you played? He said: yes; and I led him through a simple prayer to renounce his agreement, his covenant, his trading with a demonic spirit operating as a sorcerer in the game. He took on the identity of that spirit.

Now as he began to renounce the game, this is what he was saying: in the name of the Lord Jesus - he began to declare: “I belong to Jesus Christ, I confess Jesus Christ is my Lord and saviour. I'm redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ from every curse, every demonic power.”

He said: “in Jesus' name I renounce this game - World of Warcraft. I renounce my role in this place” - and as he began to speak his renouncing of the game, and the particular role he played, his face contorted.

It was caught on camera - everyone saw it. Eight hundred students were stunned as they watched this guy, who's in Bible school, a committed Christian, wanting to serve the Lord - given up a year of his life to train, so he can become knowledgeable in the word of God, and walking with God.

There he is, manifesting a demonic power, the spirit of sorcery, manifested on his body. He fell on the ground, writhed around, shouted and screamed, and finally the demon came out of him - he was free. I had an altar call and we had between 200 and 300 students come up, and there was a massive move of deliverance from those young people playing that game.

When you say: what's that got to do with tattoos; very simply this. These people were fully committed Christians, a young generation, rising up to serve God; yet without even knowing it, they'd opened a gateway to an occult power. A spirit of sorcery was operating in their life, eroding, undermining, continually resisting them, and causing them problems consistently in their Christian walk. That day they were set free.

There is a whole realm of ways that demons seek to come into people. They do not announce they're coming in. They find a deceptive way, and what more appropriate way to get into people than games, see?

Another way they get in is through pre-marital sex. When you're involved in a sexual relationship with someone, you become involved in a soul tie, in a bond. It's an ungodly tie. You become connected to that person; and a gateway is opened to demons to come through to enter your life. You are connected literally to every person that that person has had involvement sexually with. When you are involved with drugs, you open your life to the realm of sorcerer.

Now think about this: When you get involved with tattooing, you're entering into blood covenant with the person who did the tattoo, and you open your life to whatever spirits he's engaged with - you allow them to come in. If you get an image of something associated with death, then a spirit of death can enter your life.

You say: how will I know that? You wouldn't know - that's the whole point! That's why I'm sharing the word of God with you tonight. You wouldn't know!

But this is what would happen: if a spirit of death came into you, you would find emotional numbness. You would find disconnectedness. You would find it difficult to form relationships. You'd find it difficult to flow from your heart in an intimate relationship. Why? Because the spirit of death had wrapped itself around you and now had a grip on your heart.

Sometimes the Indians used to tattoo themselves with pictures of animals. Then they'd call on the spirit of that animal to enter them, and to give them the abilities that the animal had.

Tattooing is directly connected with the spirit realm. It opens a gateway, through blood-letting, for you to allow demons to come in. That's what the problem is with it.

If you've opened yourself up, if you've got sexual pictures on there, you’ve opened yourself up to a tormenting, unclean, spirit. So when people get tattooed, very often it's in rebellion or pain, and they do it to try and find an expression somehow; and in doing so, open the gateway for the demonic.

So what do we do about that - if you've got tattoos? Well, some people want to get them all taken off. I just said: Tim, why bother about it? It's a great testimony of God's grace in your life.

Here's the thing: God wants to tattoo you! In 1 Corinthians 1:22 it says: “now God has marked us, stamped us like stamping with a signet ring”.

Now the way they used to have an ownership of things, in the New Testament days, and Roman days, is: they'd have some wax on something, and they'd take a ring that's got an engraving on it, and they'd stamp it on there - and you had a mark of a signet ring on you.

It was a sign of ownership. It was a seal of governments etc; and the Bible says: now God has sealed you; not putting marks on your body - He's not wanting to do that. God has sealed you with the Holy Spirit of promise - so God has got a mark to put on you! He wants to put His spirit on you! He wants to fill you with His spirit! He wants you empowered with the Holy Ghost, marked by this person's mark, the spirit of God is with them!

The Bible says in Acts 1:8, He said: “you shall receive power of the Holy Ghost coming on you”! God's desire is you be stamped, that you belong to Him, just like you have been purchased out of a marketplace. His stamp is the stamp of His spirit in your heart.

Now you should be glad you don't live in Old Testament times, because they had a different way of stamping, that you belong to God. One or two know about that... You would have to be circumcised, to have to have your flesh cut away and bloodshed - a very, very painful process.

Today the circumcision is one of the heart - putting our heart right with God, receiving the stamp of His spirit. Whatever we've been involved in, we can be set free.

If you've opened your life up through tattoos, drugs, sexual sin, video games or whatever - it's very, very simple. You just need to come and repent before the Lord, and renounce the covenantal agreement you made.

You say: I didn't know I was doing that. Hey, the devil doesn't care whether you know or not. He knows if you do it - because he's got a legal right to be there - and that right has to be cancelled.

It is cancelled by the blood of Jesus Christ, the blood of a greater covenant. It's the blood of the king of kings, who came to earth!

You know why He shed His blood? So whatever you got into with the devil - He has got something stronger than it!

When Jesus shed His blood, He broke the power of the devil, broke the list of ordinances against you! He broke the power of tattoos, witchcraft, sorcery, all those kinds of things.

All that remains, is for you to repent, rise up and believe, and engage with Him. Be a great thing to do tonight wouldn't it, a great thing to do tonight. Why don't we close our eyes right now?

[Opening Testimony, by Tim Cashmore]

[Mike Connell] Fantastic, great to have you here tonight, and we're going to get Tim Cashmore to come up in a moment. Where's Tim? Tattoo Tim, come on Tattoo Tim, come on up here. Come on, and he's going to share a testimony just in a moment. It'll be fantastic testimony. How many know Tim or have met Tim before? You know Tim? Fantastic, he's a great guy.

Now I'm going to speaking tonight on tattoos, so I needed to get someone who's tattooed to come along and share a testimony.

Before we do that, I've got a video clip, and I'd like you'd to have a look at this little video clip. It lasts about 15 seconds, and it's for all of you who have a tattoo, or would like to get a tattoo. They look beautiful when you're 23, but they're something else when you get older. Have a look at this. [Plays video clip] ...lower back tattoo. Look, there's a really cool lower back tattoo, on an attractive 20 year old girl. Now watch what happens to that tattoo... So for those of you who have a back tattoo, welcome to what it'll look like in the future.

[Tim Cashmore] Good evening church. Oh wow. I sort of got a surprise on this one, because I was just talking to Pastor Mike yesterday, and he said: we'll have to get you up and give a testimony one day - well today's the day! [Laughs]

So first thing I want to do, really, is give the honour to God; because without God I wouldn't have a testimony, and the testimony is hugely important in my life - the transformation He's made.

Now I suppose I'd better give you a bit of background of where I came from. I came from a broken family, split up family. My father left when I was five, then I had an abusive stepfather that came in, and I pretty much got beaten up from the age of about seven all the way to about 13 when he kicked me out of home.

I was full of hatred of anybody in authority, so that's where my first tattoo came from. I was 14 years old, I was half way through high school and I decided I want a tattoo! So I went and saw my mate...

The other thing I was getting into was drugs, and I was actually make it a God in my life, so I wanted a picture of my God. You can't see it, it's under this one. Yeah, it's under this one - this is a cover up. It's actually a big dope leaf.

That was my first tattoo, and it was done with a matchstick, and a needle, and some ink, and it's just like donk, donk, donk, donk, donk.

Over the years, the funny thing about the tattoos: they're a story of my life, and what I was doing at certain parts of my life. Each tattoo's got a different reason, and a different story behind it.

Sort of fast-forwarding through life, I was getting more and more tattoos, and more and more and heavily into what I was doing, heavily into drugs, and even worse than what I started. Life was really not good, and then, fast-forwarding through it, I become a Christian, started learning about God, and God started doing a transformation in my life.

But it was only earlier this year - must be about eight months ago, nine months ago - I asked our elder at that stage in our church (Ian Clayton), about tattoos, and what they meant.

He went away, and he fasted, and prayed, and then came back and seen me. After church, we were sitting just in the row over there, everybody else had left, so there was nobody else here; and he started sharing with me about what I'd actually done.

Now when you get ink as they call it, you bleed, and you're actually making a blood covenant with the person giving you the tattoo; but it's more than that. Just like when you have sex with a woman outside of wedlock and you are spiritually-tied (soul-tied) tied to her, and you are tied to everybody that she's tied to, and the same thing is of tattoos.

With every person that those people had tattooed - because I've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight - eight different tattooists tattooed on my body, and so I was tied to each of those eight people; but I was also tied to every single person that they had tattooed; then it keeps on going and you're tied to those people, tied to those people, tied to those people.

So Ian and I started praying. Now I've seen deliverance before, and I've always thought: oh well, I wonder if they're actually putting on a little bit of an act? Well there was only me and Ian there, so I had nobody to put an act on in front of, and hello!

You guys may just think: oh, the spirit realm's you know, you see it in the movies, and all that stuff - it can't be that real. It's real! It's real - because this demon decided to come out, and man, it's not fun. It is not fun!

Apparently some come out really easy. This didn't want to come out. There was a bit of coughing - there was quite a lot of coughing. There was a bit of pain. It was actually a lot of pain - but I just thank God; because as I shared when I first got up, the testimony is about God, and God loves us so much.

He didn't want me tied to those people, and He did not want me tied to those spirits, so when Ian delivered me from them, a radical transformation in my life, in my walk; praying was so much easier, engaging God was so much easier. It broke off a few nasty spirits, and I have to give testimony to God.

I've dealt with some more stuff since then, and so I've just got to - if you've got the chance not to start, don't start. If you've already started, or if you've got tattoos, see somebody who's an elder or a Pastor or something, and actually ask them about it.

Get more information about it, because they don't tell you back in those days what you're actually getting yourself in to. It's like drugs - nobody tells you what drugs are going to get you into. It's the same sort of thing. Before you even start, get some really good information.

I've had young Christian people come up to me and say oh, I've heard about Christian tattooists that are doing tattoos. I should get them - you know, I could get good Christian tattoos, and stuff like that; but it doesn't make any difference.

They are deluded in their own minds, because they are tying themselves to the people that they tattoo, and everything that goes with each person, they're actually tying themselves to that; and if you get tied to that person, you're getting tied to every single person in that line.

Unfortunately the curses come, and the demons come, and ride upon that. So that's about all I can say about tattoos - and thank you God.

[Mike Connell] Wow, fantastic. What a great story. Hey come on, show them all before you get down, come on. You'll get to see them all - you might as well see them all. Look at that aye?

[Tim Cashmore] So that's when I was getting heavily into dragons. I now know what dragons are, and what they mean. There's a star sign there, because I was getting into astrology, and everything that means; dragons all over there.

As I said, that was a cover up. I was actually a Christian when I got that. I'd only been a Christian for a few months and my wife turned around and said to me: we can't have you walking around with a dope leaf on your arm, and so we got that covered up.

This one's all about the Chinese year sign. I was under the year sign of the rat; so as I said - it's funny what you get yourself tied up to.

I've got a raven, because I was really into death at one stage, which is really not a good place to go I tell you. And you get tied to them. Because I had a tattoo of death, I was actually tied to death...

[Mike Connell] The spirit of death.

[Tim Cashmore] ...and I'm really, really glad that I'm free of that one because man, it's not a nice one.

My nickname when I was a druggy was Mutant. People are like: what! Well, I used to get so wasted, I couldn't even stand. People would look at me, and I'd go: aaahhh; because I was just away in the fairies, away in the thing.

Once again, this was the demon that I saw when I was stoned; and I actually got this guy called Ugg - I know, nice name - who was a punk from Auckland, and I was describing what I saw, and he actually tattooed what I saw. So the spirit realm is definitely true, and it's definitely real.

[Mike Connell] Wow, isn't that an interesting testimony? Come on, let's give Tim a clap and let's give the Lord a clap, thank Him for what He's done.[Applause] There's a lot of stuff people don't tell you isn't there?

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