Legacy (1 of 4)

Mike Connell

Inheritance can be lost. Many children, when they get money from their parents, blow it! Parents have saved up all these years, pass the money on, and the kids’ just blow the dough, and it's a mess. You realise then, that while they were left a physical inheritance, they didn't have the value system needed to make it grow - so they just blew it all away, because they weren't thinking right - hadn't been really discipled or trained.

Next I want to share on some of the movements that God has made (historical movements), to show you that the things are revealed are ours - and then our next generations. If we go back through each major move of God, historically - God revealed things to people, to His church.

He wanted the church to receive it, change, and then carry it to the next generation. When He moved again, the next generation would receive it, change, and take it to the next generation - so God is in a journey of the church receiving; changing; and then moving on to the next flow that God wants to do. That's how it's always been.

Martin Luther came forward, and he spoke forth the truth that was revealed to him - that “the just shall live by faith” - that man is justified by faith, not by works. You've prayed the sinner's prayer, and you got saved - you were justified by faith. So what for him created an upheaval - the threat of prison, fear, the loss of life, and for many people, persecutions and death; for you - you just walk in, walk up the front, and receive it like that. It didn't cost you anything.

Think about the next move of God – Anabaptists. The Anabaptists taught that: after you've been justified by faith, you need to be baptised as a follower of Christ - baptised by immersion. Therefore, ‘infant baptism’ (sprinkling) doesn't count - you need to follow Christ, and express it like that. Many of them died for that truth - but you walked in the church, and no one threatened to kill you if you get baptised.

That was just something that you walked into, because someone paid the price. You walked into the legacy that someone bought - they paid the price. They could have believed it, done it secretly, and never expanded it - but when they started to share it, preach it, proclaim it, and take it out to give it to others - then they paid the price.

Always it's in the expansion of the legacy that you're given, where the price has to be paid. To get it isn't hard; actually to get it's incredibly easy - getting it is part of the legacy, part of your right, when you're connected properly with the Lord.

Consider the Holiness Movement - John Wesley. John Wesley brought a truth about holiness/sanctification - and there was a great move of God. He set up the Methodist Church. He was so hated and banned, that the only place he could stand to preach at one time, was on his father's grave. He stood on his father's grave; hundreds gathered around - and he preached off the father's grave. People fell out of the trees - slain in the spirit - the power of God came, and there was a huge upheaval against him. People paid the price for the holiness movement.

Think about 1906, the move of God; and Pentecost - outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Now you come into the church here, get baptised in the Spirit, speak in tongues - no problem to you at all. No one threw you in jail. No one locked you up in an asylum - but that's what happened to all the people in that move of God. They were criticised, they were told they were mad, they'd gone insane. They were locked up in insane asylums - all kinds of things happened; yet all over the world, there was this move: you'll be baptised in the Holy Ghost; speak in tongues; and flow in the things of the Spirit. For them, they used to wait on God for hours. We can just get it in just a moment's prayer - boom, it's ours! Every one of the generations had to pay a price.

In 1948 there was another move of God. The churches we would know: Apostolic, Assemblies of God, etc, came out of the 1906 move; but another group of churches flowed out of a move of God in 1948. That was called the “Laying-on-of-Hands Revival”. People who were in that laying of hands revival were treated as heretics. They were abused, they were put out of churches, they were criticised.