Praise you Jesus, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, kia ora whānau, Francis wow
First in eh? It's the early bird that gets the worm, kia ora, kia ora, kia ora, okay
Right, how are we all today? God bless you whānau, you guys are amazing
You have a hunger and that hunger is
God inspired, so thank you Jesus. Whānau I'm going to go straight into our kōrero today and
just turn you around a bit there, oops don't fall over, so it's day 17 today and today I've got,
today and tomorrow are going to be sequential teachings, I'm going to be teaching on the same
topic. So first I just want to do a, this isn't the main topic I'm speaking on, but I want to
talk to you a little bit about praying for our nation. On Sunday morning at church, our church
service, I'm going to, I'm going to teach how to make biblical, how to make biblical prophetic
decrees across our nation. We are under an open heaven, mahorangi in Māori means an open heaven,
and where there's open hearts there's always an open heaven. But there's certain times in
history where God opens the heavens and releases something. I heard Noel saying that take the
opportunity of a lifetime in the lifetime of the opportunity, and so the opportunities of lifetimes
come and they only come once a lifetime, and when that door is opening, the opportunity of a lifetime
opens, at the same time as opening it is also closing. It's only for a season.
The Pentecost, that was a door that opened in that lifetime of the opportunity in
Jerusalem. Now of course Holy Spirit's willing to be poured out on the earth any time, any place,
but you couldn't make that happen. That had to be a certain timing in history before that
door would open. Abraham prophesied that his people, that his descendants, that would be
slaves, or that there would be slaves in a foreign land in Egypt for 400 years.
And you know, and if you were a Hebrew in Egypt for 400 years, you can pray all you like,
but you can pray the first 100 years, 150 years, 200, 300, you can pray up to 300 when you're under
Egypt under 399 years, but that door of deliverance for the Hebrews would not take place into the
appointed time. And so there are times and seasons in God, and the church needs to understand these
times and seasons, that the sons of Issachar, they knew the times and the seasons, you know,
and Ecclesiastes 3.1 says that for everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose
under heaven. And the church needs to understand what is the season that we're going through at
this present time, not just locally, nationally, but globally. What is the purpose of God in this
time, in this season? And if we don't know what that purpose and that season is, then we're going
to miss the door of opportunity that's opening but closing at the same time. And so there's an
open heaven over this nation. There's a time where God is about to unleash and release,
well, he's already doing that, actually. He's already doing that through the national prayer
anthem being sung, through giving God a clap and a praise. It has unleashed that general,
he's unleashed, the angels are unleashed, but there's other doors opening, more portals of
heaven are opening. And now he wants to, God wants to bring to pass things in our city,
in our nation. Now, it'd be short-sighted to think we just pray for the end of coronavirus.
Coronavirus is a demon. It's a work of the devil. And so forget the bug, just think of a demon
who's got an assignment to come and bring destruction on the earth, to stop the church
from growing, to stop the kingdom from being extended, to stop the gospel from being preached.
Just imagine that coronavirus, forget him, just think of a demon with an assignment to bring
destruction to the earth. So his tool is sickness, is a virus. And so that's to put fear across the
face of the earth and bring sickness and disease and kill a few million people. But that's not a
major purpose. That's so short-sighted to think that's his only purpose. So don't just be praying
for the breaking up for a vaccine coronavirus. It's...
His next step is then to bring a crash on the global economy,
to crash, to bring mass unemployment,
to bring mass discouragement, disillusionment,
suicides, death, poverty, anarchy.
That's his next job.
Now that's, the virus is just a fuse.
It's the bomb that he wants to blow off
on the earth and the earth.
And so this is the work of the devil,
to rob, kill, and destroy.
Anything to do that, it's the work of the devil.
But Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.
But he's in heaven, father's in heaven,
but he's left us, the church on the earth
by the Holy Spirit to be the,
when the enemy comes like a flood,
the spirit of the Lord raise up a standard against him.
So we, the church of Jesus Christ,
Jesus said the gates of hell won't prevail against us.
And we need to understand this is our time,
this is our season to speak as God would have us speak
and not to allow the devil's plan to come to place
on the earth or the nation,
that we can decree a turnaround.
We can decree this work of the devil to be torn down.
The reason Joshua went to take Canaan,
it's because God had ordained the termination
of the occupation of the enemy in the land of Canaan.
And Jesus has already ordained the termination
of the occupation of the enemy,
the principalities and the powers in our land.
And but we got, we need people, men, woman of God
who understand this, who are not just with head knowledge,
who think about it, who hope it is,
but who know this, that our time has come now
to invade our land and the termination
of the occupation of the enemy to decree that,
but also to bring in and to decree what God is calling
the kingdom on the earth, kingdom of God.
And so we need people who know what to decree,
to decree biblical, biblical decrees,
based on history, based on true and tried history.
So I'm gonna give you a very quick little lesson,
but on Sunday morning, I'm gonna talk more about this.
Joshua 1, verse eight, the Lord said to Joshua,
do not fear and do not be dismayed.
Take all the fighting men with you.
So we need fighting men and woman, okay?
We don't want charismaniacs.
We don't want self-appointed, self-styled,
self-focused so-called watchmen, so-called prophets.
We want those who God has appointed,
those who've got fruit after their lives.
I don't learn from somebody to,
I've never learned how to heal the sick
from somebody who's never healed the sick.
I've never learned how to move in miracles
from somebody who's never moved in a miracle.
I've never learned how to win souls to Christ
from somebody who's never won anyone to Jesus.
I mean, that's just plain common sense, right?
And you're never gonna learn how to take a town,
you're never gonna learn how to take a nation,
a city for Jesus, unless you learn
from somebody who's done it before.
So I just get so ho-ha with these crazy posts
and yes, we're gonna do this, we're gonna take the city
and it's buying the enemy and the strong man.
Most of these people have no idea
what they're talking about.
Now, you show me a soul, I'm not gonna,
somebody comes to me and tells me,
I'll show you how to take a city for Jesus.
I say, you show me how many souls have you won
to Jesus in the last month?
Show me how many people have you won to Jesus?
If you can't win one person to Jesus,
one family to Jesus,
if you can't even win a street to Jesus,
who do you think you are to tell me
you're gonna show me how to take a city for Jesus,
how to take a nation for Jesus?
Such nonsense.
And that time of the charismaniac is gone.
Thank God the old wineskin is going.
There's a new wineskin being formed
that's gonna carry new wine.
Praise you, Jesus.
Sorry, I get a bit ho-ha.
Yes, you can see I'm passionate about this.
Acts chapter, so I'm reading, Joshua,
take the fighting men with you.
See, I haven't even got into the lesson.
Arise and go up to Ai, the city of Ai,
which was his first defeat.
Joshua had his first defeat.
He'd never been defeated in all his life.
And after this defeat, well, it's another story.
He didn't know how to handle defeat.
And you gotta know how to handle defeat.
You gotta know how to, but anyway, moving on.
I have, and this is what God says to Joshua.
I have given unto your hand the king of Ai,
the people, his city, and his land.
Listen to this, so it's four things.
God says to Joshua, I've given you the king of Ai,
his people, his city, and his land, four things.
Now, when I say the Lord spoke to me, I mean it.
Then the, but, so, go on a minute.
Then the Lord said to Joshua, verse 18,
stretch out your spear that is in your hand towards Ai.
Stretch out your spear.
All right.
This is the tifa-tifa.
So, but, if it was a spear,
you'd be stretch out your spear.
Stretch out your spear.
Anyway.
hand towards I for I will give it into your hand and Joshua stretched out the
javelin that was in his hand towards the city
and the man in the ambush rose up quickly out of their place
and as soon as he had stretched out his hand
they ran and entered the city and captured it and they hurried to
set the city on fire verse 26 but Joshua did not pull his hand back
with which he stretched out his spear until he had devoted all the inhabitants
of I to destruction amen
I'm not going into detail on that teaching but
the spear is prayer when Joshua stretched out the spear he was
stretching out what the will of God was what God said see I will give you the
king his people his city and the land you
stretch so when Joshua's stretching out the
the spear in a sense it's a declaration he's decreeing
what God has said and we're going to learn how to decree what God is saying
over our cities and over our nation today you can't just
get it and say anything you got to decree what God is saying
and so Joshua that stretching out the prayer it's it speaks of what God is
saying over the land number one number two it's also about for us today
it's declaring it's speaking it's speaking it out
out of our mouths God creates and creates things with his hands but God
creates things with his mouth every word that goes out of his mouth
shall not return void and when God created the heavens and the
earth let there be boom and it became so
as God's sons we also create things on the earth
through what comes out of our mouth and our whole our decrees it's got to be
what God is saying not what your imagination's saying not
what you might have indigestion you might have might have been a pizza you
ate that might be what's talking to you in your sleep
you got to hear what God is saying and and there's going to be a band of
warriors that God's going to raise up in this nation
and what we decree together when we put our notes together it will be exactly
the same thing and so um and so
so the the it's so it's the word of God decreeing
what God is saying it's uh it's decreeing it with the mouth number two
and number three it's persistence you don't pull back
the spear you don't pull back the prayer you don't stop the declaration
until the enemy has been destroyed too many people
they they they they see the enemy on the run
and he's not totally taken out yet and they pull back on the on the fight
and he rises up again uh there was a king and a prophet it was Elijah Elijah
one of them and he said get those arrows and
strike the smite the ground and the king only submitted three times
and the prophet was angry he says why did you only do it three times
should have done it six times you would have surely destroyed the king of syria
and so sometimes as God's people we don't know
we pull back the spear of prayer too early
so on sunday i'm going to share a bit more about this stuff
okay blessed be the name of the lord so that's not the message for today the
message of today's final it's uh you probably never heard
anything like this what i'm about to teach
and when i heard about this 16 years ago i thought well that sounds really boring
but i have got such passion for this subject now
because it's on the heart of God it's on the heart of Jesus it's not been on the
heart of the church it's not been on the heart of most
christians but it's on the heart of God and because it hasn't been on the heart
of God's people God has been able to do very little in
the church and in the nation and so i and i've sat on this message
for 16 years so i'm going to share some of it today
it's called church government and kingdom expansion
church government and kingdom expansion see the government is on his shoulder
the word government i'm not talking about the natural government of
politics i'm talking about the governance that
Jesus has a government he governs heaven is governed
by divine principles and pain is governed by him the king of kings
it's governed by the father and the holy spirit and under that there are
different kings he's called the king of kings and there's
different governing forces on the earth and in the world we
have government and under the government
there's different levels of authority the centurion said i am a man under
authority therefore i have authority and unless you understand realms of
authority you'll never operate in authority
and you'll never operate in authority unless you know how to submit to divine
authority divine authority will never flow through
you and you can yell and huff and puff all you like at the devil
and he's just going to laugh at you because you have no authority if you
don't know how to submit to divine authority
God will not let he won't move authority through you
okay so understanding church governance church government and kingdom
expansion was going to help bring the church move
the church forward so i'm going to show you on the screen
try and bring a bit closer
Right, OK Father, day 17. I'm going to talk about a pattern. When you look at Bible, you look at
patterns and principles. I can understand the ways of God when I see the patterns go out from Genesis
to Revelations. I see patterns of God form. I see principles of God. And when I see patterns and
principles, it helps me understand the heart of God. But you get to know the heart of God
by spending time with them. So I want to talk to you about a man called Abraham. Abraham
had a son called Isaac. Isaac had a son called Jacob. And Jacob had Joseph. And out of Jacob
came 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. Came 12 sons, right? Excuse me.
OK, so Abraham, 12 sons. And those 12 sons, they moved to Egypt. And over a 400 year period
of time, they grew to be a great nation, the Hebrew nation. And out of that Hebrew nation,
they became known as the House of Israel. Amen? House of Israel. OK?
And so they come out of Egypt as the House of Israel. And God sends them into Canaan to
extend His ways. And so they go from being Abraham, 12 sons, House of Israel,
they went into Canaan and they as 12 tribes, they together were collectively in unity
and they invaded Canaan and extended what is known today as the Kingdom
of Israel. OK?
Where's my pen? OK. So, OK, to be part of the Kingdom of Israel, you had to be part of the
House of Israel. To be part of the House of Israel, you had to be part of the family of Abraham.
You had to be born into. You had to be born into the family to be part of the House of Israel,
the Kingdom of Israel. OK, that's a pattern. The house extends the kingdom. The kingdom doesn't
extend the house. The house extends the kingdom. It's a principle I want to teach you. OK, let's
look at Jesus now. So Jesus comes. He has how many? How many apostles? Twelve. OK, so there's
twelve apostles. They were disciples, but they're actually apostles. So here's one, two, three,
four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. OK, now the twelve apostles, Ephesians
that the foundation of the church is not Jesus. Some of you, ah, do you know the foundation of
the church is not Jesus? He's a cornerstone. The foundation of your faith is Jesus. No man may be
saved but through the name of Jesus. But the foundation of the church is the apostle and the
prophet. Yeah, yeah. Read your Bible if you don't know that. And so the foundation of the church,
the apostle and the prophet, they were integral in building the house of God, right? And then you
have the evangelist, the pastor, and the teacher. So the fivefold, but they have the apostle and
prophet. It's not exalting one above the other. The apostle and prophet, they serve from below.
They don't rule from the top. They serve from below. And they help develop the evangelist,
pastor, teacher, who in turn, the fivefold develop God's people, who lift God's people
into their destiny, into their calling. There's other governance systems where church apostles
and prophets rule from the top and they govern over people and, well, I don't, maybe not control
people, but it's a different form of governance systems where God's apostles and prophets and
fivefold, they come from below and they lift the people up to be who God created the people to be.
Anyway, so that's where I'm coming from. I'm not coming from some sort of religious legalistic
controlling leadership structure or style. I'm coming from the kingdom style, the biblical
teaching of church governance and how the church should be operating, in my opinion,
from what I see in scripture. So the 12 apostles, they formed an early church,
we would call the house of God.
You can call it the temple, the church,
I call it that for this teaching purpose,
they were the foundation of the house of God.
Without the apostle and the prophets,
you wouldn't have a house of God.
So they're the house of God.
And then on the day of Pentecost,
before the day of Pentecost,
Jesus kept talking to the apostles.
And he would say, go out there now,
Matthew 10, and heal the sick,
and cast out devils, and cleanse the lepers,
and raise the dead.
He said, go and do this.
And then he says, and say,
the kingdom of God has come near to you today,
or the kingdom of heaven has come near to you.
And so they were taught to preach the gospel of the kingdom.
Jesus preached the gospel of the kingdom of God.
John the Baptist preached the gospel of the kingdom of God.
Do you know what the gospel of the kingdom is?
And it's not the gospel of the church.
It's not the gospel of Christianity.
It's the gospel of the kingdom.
And so they were trained how to teach
the gospel of the kingdom.
On the day of Pentecost,
on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit filled them,
and 120 were filled with the Holy Spirit.
And from that point on, they went out,
and they began to extend the kingdom.
The church began to extend the kingdom of God.
You see that pattern?
12 apostles, foundation of the house of God,
which in turn began to extend the kingdom of God.
You are the house of God.
I'm the house of God.
I am the church.
You are the church.
The church means called out ones.
That's what church means, called out ones.
We're called out from the world to be part of God,
but the church is meant to be together.
Jesus said in Matthew 16,
Matthew 16, 18,
I will build my church,
and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
Okay, Ephesians 2,
2, 20,
1, Corinthians 12,
I think it's 24.
Anyway, tomorrow I'm gonna give these notes in more detail.
And so to be part of the house of God,
to be part of the kingdom of God.
So to be part of Abraham's house,
to be part of the house of Israel,
to be part of the kingdom of Israel,
you had to be born into the family.
To be part of the house of the kingdom of God.
To be part of the house of God,
you have to be born again.
Amen?
Jesus, you gotta be born again.
You gotta be born again.
You gotta be born again to get into it.
John 3, 3.
So you see that the pattern here,
that Abraham's 12 sons formed the house of Israel,
which created the kingdom of Israel,
which the kingdom of Israel was then to extend
through the land and take God's rule.
And we see that Jesus had 12 apostles,
which formed the foundation of the house of God,
which on the day of Pentecost,
they were empowered, the house of God was empowered
to extend the kingdom of God throughout all the earth.
That's our job.
We're called to extend the kingdom of God.
The church is called to extend the kingdom of God.
The kingdom does not extend the church.
The church extends the kingdom.
Okay?
Pattern, just a pattern.
Right.
Where's my notes?
Choo, choo, choo, choo, choo.
Da, da, da, da, da, da.
Where've I put the notes?
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
I give you praise.
Man.
Okay, so that's teaching number one on.
I'll put it on the page, okay?
The point is, is that the kingdom always existed.
The kingdom of God's always existed.
But God has, Jesus has chosen the church
to be the instrument by which
he's gonna extend his kingdom on the earth.
Okay?
So let me talk about this.
How else extends the kingdom?
Acts 1.8.
Now, the early church, it was not divided.
It was not divided.
If you look through from Acts 1,
right through to Acts 4 or 6,
you'll find these terms.
They were one mind.
They were one heart.
They were one voice.
They had one Lord, one baptism, one faith.
They were one.
And because they were one church,
because the house of God had incredible unity,
you know Psalm 133,
when the brethren dwell together in unity,
God has to command the blessing.
So because they were one unit,
because the house of God was in unity,
was built on the foundation of the Apostle and the Prophet,
the Evangelist, Pastor and Teacher,
because it was built, Psalm 126,
unless the Lord builds a house,
they that build it labour in vain.
And so, if the church isn't built
according to God's pattern,
then it's going to have dysfunctional impact, isn't it?
If you want to make a chocolate cake,
you've got to put chocolate in it.
You can put eggs and flour and sugar and beat it up,
but there's no chocolate.
The recipe's wrong, you're going to have a flop.
And the recipe for the church
is the Apostle, Prophet, Evangelist, Pastor, Teacher,
and other ministries that have to be instigated
in the church, in the church that Jesus is building anyway.
And that's what the early church was like.
And because it had total unity,
a divided house can't stand, it falls,
but the early church had unity,
and because of its unity, it had a powerful impact.
It extended the kingdom into towns,
into cities, and into nations.
That's why it had such power,
because the church was in order,
the house of God was in order,
and therefore the extension of the kingdom was powerful.
There's a direct correlation between the house
and the kingdom, between the function of the house
and the function of the kingdom.
So Paul said that the kingdom of God
comes in demonstration of the spirit and the power of God.
Now, why am I talking about this?
Let me give you an example.
The house, if I had my household,
if my children, if I'm a criminal, or I'm a thief,
and I teach my children, if just me,
we teach our kids how to be dishonest,
how to lie, how to steal, how to be violent.
If we teach them how to do that,
then I have a dysfunctional household.
If the head of the house is dysfunctional,
then we train our children in dysfunctional values.
Values are expressed by behaviours.
The values of a person's heart, for instance,
a person, a man who has got no respect for a woman,
will have no problem raping a woman.
His inner values are reflected by his outward behaviour.
A man or a person who's got values
and they have no respect for your property,
their inner value will be reflected by them,
they will steal your property.
They won't care about what you think,
they will take your property.
Values are reflected through behaviours, right?
And so if my values, I teach my children values of,
no values, but disrespect, lying, stealing, violence,
thieving, then my house is a dysfunctional house.
And guess what my household is gonna contribute to society?
Then a dysfunctional household produces
dysfunctional children that bring dysfunction into society.
And so you're gonna have,
crime's gonna increase in my street,
crime's gonna increase in my town.
I'm part of the problem, not part of the solution.
So when you have a dysfunctional household,
it will have a dysfunctional impact in society.
And when the church of God,
when the house of God is dysfunctional,
when it's not operating according to God's pattern,
when there's dysfunctional values in the house of God,
its kingdom impact is gonna be dysfunctional.
It's not gonna have a powerful kingdom impact
because if a divided house can't stand, it will fall.
If there's division in the house,
then it's not gonna have a power.
The kingdom's not divided,
but if the house of the church is dysfunctional,
its kingdom impact's gonna be dysfunctional.
And why would I want to have,
imagine if I build a dysfunctional,
why would God want me to go and save souls,
to bring them into a dysfunctional church?
Why would God want me to bring children, orphans,
if I was a dysfunctional father,
with a dysfunctional family,
teaching my children how to lie and steal,
why would God want to bring orphans
into my dysfunctional house,
to learn how to be a problem, not the solution?
And at the same way, church,
I love the church.
Jesus loves the church, that's what he's coming back for.
He loves the church.
He gave his life for the church.
But the church, our role is to extend the kingdom of God.
And Jesus, we're in a time and a season
where God's trying to reset
and bring the church back into divine order,
into a place where we have that unity,
we have that one mind, one heart, one voice.
And we begin to operate and move together
with a unity that's never been seen in the land,
in our history in New Zealand,
so that we can see God do something
we've never seen done in our history.
If you want to see God do something
you've never seen him do before,
you've got to take your faith where it's never been before.
Otherwise, you'll just see the same old, same old.
You've got to give God opportunity to move himself
and show himself mighty through your life.
And that's the principle of the whole church.
And the church has never been at a place
of 100% unity before.
And I believe this reset that's going on
is to help us do that.
Okay.
So church government, talk about church government.
And so there's just that example.
In 1995, I was praying for revival.
Well, I was praying for revival way up,
but way before then, praying for revival.
And see the two passions in my heart was Jesus and souls.
And so we come to Gisborne and the church grew
and we'd never been here in our lives.
We didn't know anybody in the city.
Honestly, but God had caught us.
We were seen here by divine vision
and by the divine anointing.
So we didn't went to Gisborne,
we were sent by the Holy Spirit to Gisborne.
And I saw in advance what God was gonna do in this city.
He's gonna cause a warrior church to rise.
It's gonna touch the nation and the nations.
And so we started our first services
on the 28th of April, 1991,
which our anniversary is coming up in a couple of weeks.
And that morning, it was only me, Jess,
and my two children, Kelly and Tom,
standing at the Te Apita School Hall,
wondering who's gonna turn up.
And you know what?
God sent 36 people in the morning,
no, 31 people in the morning and 36 came that night.
It was amazing.
12 people gave their lives to Jesus,
committed their hearts to Christ.
There's at least six of them
are still going on for God today.
The church grew from that first day.
It grew from, so that's 67 in the first day
and it grew to 500 in our morning attendance, 500,
four years, four years later,
it went from nothing from that in four years to 500.
Most, 98% come from the streets.
There weren't church growth.
There weren't Christians from one church
like our church come and join our church.
It's not growth.
That's musical chairs, okay?
And I'm talking about people right out of the streets,
people with unchurched backgrounds,
people from gangs, people from all sorts of backgrounds.
And so the church grew, exploded like that.
And then it just kept growing and growing and growing
and the first 15, I'd say even the first 20 years,
we saw revival.
We're in revival and we were one mind, one heart, one voice
and we still are.
We're doing things together.
And our role was to bring Jesus,
to lift up Jesus in our community.
And we did that by signs and wonders,
by operating them in the supernatural
and just the amazing miraculous hand of God
and diseases being healed and so forth.
But we also did it in social impact ministries.
And so the church grew.
So I'm speaking from a little bit of experience
of seeing a revival, well, not a revival,
a move of God over a period of years from experience.
I'm not speaking from some sort of theory book.
And so,
I just wanna make sure I get everything out.
So I wrote down notes this morning
to make sure I was a good steward
of what God's given me for you.
So the influence in society,
when we started our church,
within the first two years,
I received a small check,
but it was a check from the Justice Department every year
for the first two years
in recognition of the impact we're making in our community.
And then about three years later,
Television New Zealand heard of the work we're doing
amongst the poor and the gangs,
and they came down and they made two documentaries
on what the church was doing.
And so the function of the church,
when the church has got in unity
and operating in the way it should be,
its impact, its kingdom impact in the community
is gonna be,
it's gonna be parallel to what's happening in the church
will be what's happening in the community.
If there's dysfunction in the house, in the church,
there'll be dysfunction in its impact on the community.
But if there's unity and power in the house,
then there'll be unity and power in its kingdom impact.
Okay?
And so it's such a dysfunctional state
we're in at the moment.
I go to churches that are just, which, telling the truth,
I wouldn't invite anyone to come along there.
I wouldn't invite some of my mates out of the world
to come along to them.
It's too religious.
It might be some nice people and they might love Jesus,
but we don't wanna disciple them to become religious people
and just sitting on pews all their lives
waiting for Jesus to come.
You don't want them to come to, you know, God bless.
And so, so 1995,
I remember this whole church government thing.
I knew nothing about it until 1995.
It was a very defining moment
and I was just praying God for revival.
And the Lord spoke to me a very unusual,
well, he said this.
He said, just imagine you,
there's that, you're in downtown Main Street
and a car comes and runs over and kills a man.
And he's, you know, he's dead.
And he's taken up to the hospital,
put in the morgue and he's dead.
And, but that man,
you didn't know this, but that man,
imagine if that man was a child abuser
who was molesting children.
Okay.
That's a weird story Lord.
He says, and then imagine.
that you go up to the morgue and you pray for him,
and he comes back to life.
Three days later, he comes back to life.
I said, wow, that will cause revival.
He said, will it?
I said, yes.
Of course, the television will come down,
and if it cannot be denied that he was dead,
now he's alive, it's gonna cause revival.
People are gonna come to Jesus, and they probably would.
Hey, this man's been dead for three days,
and he's back from the dead.
But the Lord said, but what if he's a child molester
before he was killed?
And he's still a child molester after he's been resurrected.
I said, oh.
He said, does that glorify me?
I said, yeah.
He said, you want me to resurrect the church?
You want revival?
You want me to revive the church
out of a state of death or apathy?
He said, now this sounds pretty harsh.
This is way back in 95, some stuff were happening.
He says, why would I raise,
why would I revive a church that abuses my children?
It's pretty hard, pretty harsh, but just bear with me.
He said, why would I revive a church
that abuses my children?
Now, he wasn't talking about our church.
He wasn't talking about the church in particular,
but he's saying in general terms.
And I thought, yeah, that won't glorify you.
And then he said to me, he said,
son, you must have three passions.
I said, well, I've got two.
My two passions are the same as you probably,
love Jesus with all my heart and love the lost.
Yeah.
He says, no, I have three passions.
I says, what's the third one?
He says, yeah, love me with all your heart
and certainly love the lost.
But the second passion that you should have that I have,
do you know what that passion is?
I'll read it to you.
It's, it's in John.
Jesus.
It's John chapter two, verse 17.
You know the scripture where he made a whip
and he drove out the thieves, the money change.
He drove the thieves out of the temple.
He drove the thieves out of the church.
And then he said, the zeal of God has consumed me.
The zeal for thine house has consumed me,
zeal for my house.
And he says, son, you need zeal for my house.
And you don't have zeal for my house.
You have zeal for me and zeal for the last,
but you must have zeal for my house.
I have zeal for my house.
I use the house to win the lost.
And if you don't have zeal for my house,
you'll put up with the dysfunction that comes to our house.
If you have zeal for my house,
you'll put my house in order son.
And when my house is an order
the zeal for the lost,
I'll be able to reach the lost through such a house.
So,
I'm not talking about your church.
I don't want you to go around now
and comparing churches and saying,
well,
we're all on the same boat.
There's no perfect church in the city.
There's no perfect church in the nation.
Thank God,
God uses imperfect people to build his church.
But at the same time,
there is a system,
there is a governance.
And so God,
in 1995,
he began to teach me about how to get the house in order.
Get my church in order,
get my house in order.
And it's something Satan hates.
Because he knows if the church is in order,
if the church is one mind,
one heart,
one voice,
then his kingdom is going to be destroyed.
That the kingdom of God is going to boom,
smash the kingdom of darkness in every town,
every city of every nation.
That's why he's so against the church.
That's why there's so many Christians hate the church.
So there's all sorts of excuses,
church abuse and leadership abuse and so forth.
And you don't understand what spirit you're speaking from.
It's the enemy trying to stop you
from building the house of God
and bring the church back into order
to bring the kingdom into the earth.
That's what it is.
So you got to wake up and get over your pains,
over your abuse,
over your anger,
over your unforgiveness,
overbidden.
You got to get over all that stuff.
This whole thing is bigger than you,
bigger than me.
This whole thing is bigger than our lifetime.
It's about building the church that Jesus is building.
That you might have been hurt.
Well, who hasn't been hurt?
Take a ticket and join the queue.
Who hasn't been hurt in churches?
Who hasn't been hurt by Christians?
You should talk to some pastors.
They've been hurt multitude times.
They're the ones with all the pin cushions in the back
and all the backstabbing.
And so, you know, instead of blaming pastors,
some Christians need to sort of look
at what they're put up with.
And there's no excuse to justify.
for bad behavior. But the fact of the matter is we're imperfect people and God
gives us grace to deal with each other and to get over ourselves. And for the
sake of the kingdom, for the sake of Jesus, we do forgive people and we do
move forward. We make progress, not excuses. And so when the church starts
making, stops making excuses for being hurt, being this, and I'm not ever going to
go to church, well I am the church, I do it at home. That's your house church, your
house group is a fellowship meeting. It's not a church. A church is made up,
it's got a foundation of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. That's the
church Jesus is making. That's the church He's built. And if you're not part of
church, you're not going to get benefits of the five-fold ministry and you're
never going to be equipped for the work, you know, for the five-fold there to
equip the saints for the work of the ministry. So you're being created for a
work and for a ministry. In order to be equipped for that work of the
ministry, you've got to have the five-fold. To be part, to have the five-fold ministry,
you can't just get it off YouTube and get it off Facebook. You've got to be in
a church, connected to those five-fold. You've got to be part of a church. It's a
physical thing, it's a family. It's not a virtual church, it's a real church.
Hallelujah. To reach real people. And so, look, don't be the missing brick in your
church. The church is made up out of living stones, alright? You're a living
stone, I'm a living stone. When those stones come together, that's where the
power is. When the stones come together, okay? Now, a brick by itself, it's
powerless. It can sit in the brickyard and say, look at me, I'm a beautiful brick.
I'm not going to join with other bricks because they hurt me. I'm just a
beautiful brick in the yard. Well, that's a stupid brick because that brick is of
no use and of no purpose. It's just a brick sitting in a yard. But when you get
a brick and you put it together with other bricks and you form, you can
start to begin to build something. You can build a wall, you can build a house.
When bricks come together, you're a brick. You're a spiritual stone.
You're a brick and your strength and your ability is multiplied when you
connect with other bricks. Your gifting and your ability and your strength and
your productivity multiplies when you connect with other bricks. So when other
bricks come together, they form a strong wall. When other bricks come together,
they can form a house. But by themselves, they form nothing.
And so there are many Christians and they've got a wandering spirit on them.
It's called the wandering spirit. That's what Israel had for 40 years because they
wouldn't become one. They wouldn't submit under a leadership of Moses. They didn't
like church government. And so they resisted church government and they had
this wandering spirit come upon them. There's so many Christians out there.
You have a wandering spirit because you've been hurt and you haven't got
over your bitterness, your unforgiveness, your resentment. And you've got to let go.
You've got to let this go. This is bigger than you and me. I love Jesus. I love
Him. And I've had to get over hurts. I've had to get over people betraying me.
I've had to get over people abusing me, my wife, my family, my children. I've had
to get over. And this is not from the sinners. This is from churches. This is
from Christians. But this is bigger than me. This is His church. And my
love for Him's got to be bigger than me. Here's something. The reason so many
Christians have problems. They haven't had their funeral. They haven't had their
funeral. Now funeral. A figurative funeral. Luke 9, 23, 24. I'll talk about that another
day. Okay. And so we're talking about church government here. So this is just a
basic introduction. Tomorrow I'm going to go into more detail. I'm going to give you
the notes also. The scriptures. I'm going to give you. I'm going to send this
through to you. I haven't printed this out. I haven't sent these notes to
anywhere and anyone in the nation. So I'm even wondering, is this wise? Well I
don't want you taking this stuff and using it against me or using it against
God. Or religious spirits will do that. They'll twist it and turn it. But you
can't resist what God is doing. So church government. It's so important. If we've
got to run our nation, we've got to get the house of God's got to get
back in order. Okay. And you've got to be part of the solution, not part of the
problem. Okay. Dysfunctional heads of houses have dysfunctional families and
dysfunctional families have dysfunctional impacts in the community.
Dysfunctional churches with dysfunctional Christians go out and
bring a dysfunctional impact in the community. And they go out there and
yeah it's just terrible seeing Christians lying and cheating and
going to work early and going to work late and finishing early and not doing
the job they should be. Not glorifying Jesus by the way they live their lives.
Not paying the bill at the corner dairy. Always bludgeoning off others. Not wanting
to give tithes or offerings to help build the house of God that's
helping change society. You know there's all this dysfunction and God hates it.
Haggai 1, 8. Go to the mountains and find some wood and build me a house I take
pleasure in and I will be glorified, says the Lord. Haggai 1 talks about how God's
people, he delivered them from Babylon after 70 years to come back to Jerusalem
and to rebuild the temple, to rebuild the house of God. And they made the start of
putting the foundation down, but after a while they got more focused on their
own house and they started building their own houses, their own ministries,
their own families, their own farms. And the Prophet Haggai said to them, God said
to them through the Prophet Haggai, is it time for you to build your own house
while my house lies in ruins? And he rebuked them and he said to the church
back then, God's people back then, he says you look for much but it comes to little.
He said that I have stopped the heavens, I've stopped the rain, I've stopped the
grain, I've stopped the fields, I have done this. And you have now
pockets to earn money to put them into pockets with holes. Why is this? And God
says I have done this. And he says why is this? And he says again,
because you are busy building your own house while my house is in ruins. And I
feel prophetically, that's a word for the nation of New Zealand, that God's house
is in ruins. Because oftentimes we're too busy building our own house, building our
own marriage and family, our business, let's get this in order. Instead of
seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, we seek the other things.
And the other things that become first instead of God. Our house becomes first
instead of God's house. And so the Prophet shared that message and the
people repented and then there was a turnaround and at ten months there was a
turnaround where the Prophet says consider your days today to when it was
back then. And they can see that the foundation is laid in the blessing of
God to come back. And he says work for my spirit is with you. I want to say
Father, work to help build the house of God. Work to be part of the solution, not
part of the problem. Don't speak down against the Church of Jesus Christ. It's
His house. It's His bride. And learn to understand that God's plan to
build His house is bigger than your plan to build your house. And if you help
build God's house, you watch, God will bless your house. He will help build your
house. This is a promise. So I went to India. This is my last story. I went to
India in 2006. The pastor had 130 people, around 130 people. And I began to
teach him the stuff I'm teaching you that I haven't been able to teach this
stuff in New Zealand. But I teach it in third worlds and they love it. They just
love it. They don't argue. They just accept it. And so I taught them how to
build their church and their leadership according to church government. God's
governance. And how to have leaders that come from beneath that serve and
lift the people up, rather than living on top and ruling. You know, I taught
this church governance. And the church grew from 130 to 3,000 in seven years.
Yeah. Did you hear me? Do you know of any church in New Zealand that's growing from
130 to 3,000 in seven years? 130 to 3,000 in seven years. We're well over
4,000 now. Not just through church governance, putting structures in.
And God just moved through that. God's commanded blessing on our church in
India. We've got 17 churches over there now. I mean, they're doing hard right now,
as we all are. But it grew to that. And I don't have to. Let's see.
Look, I get invited to speak with government officials. I don't have to
write letters or email them or send them hate mail. I get invited by mayors. I get
invited by communist leaders, communist government leaders, Hindu leaders, Muslim
leaders, Muslim mullahs, religious leaders. They ask me to come. And I share with
them the kingdom of God. I don't share with them Christianity, the gospel of
churchianity. I share the gospel of the kingdom. And some of you don't even know
what the gospel of the kingdom is that I'm preaching about. But we're starting
one step at a time. So this is church government. And if we don't understand
church government, if we're not part of the solution to the church, then you're
not going to see any revival happen in our nation. Or if we do, it will be
short-lived. It will be short-lived. Because the kingdom might be extended,
but if the people come back into dysfunctional churches with
dysfunctional leadership and dysfunctional governance, then it's
going to go back to the way it was. I don't know how God's going to change the
church. It's going to change in the leadership structure. It's going to change
in the fivefold. I don't know how. See, I've got the revelation. I have the
interpretation. But the application, I have no idea. That's for other apostles
and prophets to work out. They will show me.
I only show, this is my part of the jigsaw puzzle,
but the other part, I have no idea.
And I submit this to the five-fold of our nation.
I submit what I've got, but I need to submit,
now I'm willing to submit to what they've got,
to how we can make this become a reality.
It's about everyone knowing their place
in the body of Christ.
We are all important.
We're not all bigger and greater than another.
We all have a part to play.
But if we don't put our parts together,
we're like the missing brick in the wall, okay?
Your gifting is required.
I just feel now that just,
just grace coming to you right now, grace.
People have hurt you.
People have abused you.
There's pastors watching.
And you've just, I give up.
I want to give up.
They just, I know how you feel.
But that's what they did to Jesus too.
The very people Jesus came and gave his life to,
they did that to him.
And the reason why I'll keep going,
because Jesus keeps going, he kept going for me.
He didn't give up on me.
And I abused him and I've let him down so many times,
but he kept going for me.
And he's there for me.
And so keep your eyes back on Jesus.
Keep your eyes on Jesus.
If he did it for us, we can do it for him.
Aroha mai.
It's out of our aroha, out of our aroha for him.
It's his, it's for us.
Others who are watching, you have been hurt by pastors,
by leaders, okay?
Look, Jesus got hurt too.
You hurt Jesus, remember.
It was your sin that put Jesus on the cross.
Not, yeah, it was your sin.
So take it, take things personally
in the sense of take responsibility
that people are gonna hurt you.
People are gonna offend you.
This world is full of offenses.
God didn't create us to live in a world
and to be into a little bubble where we never get offended.
He said, you will be offended.
Offenses will come.
And so we're gonna learn how to overcome offenses.
We're gonna learn how to overcome hurts.
We're gonna learn to overcome betrayal.
We're gonna learn how to do that.
How do we learn?
Follow Jesus.
For goodness sake, read your Bible.
Follow Jesus.
Learn from him and imitate Jesus.
His grace will help you.
Just because, yeah, we've gotta do this.
We're the Christians.
We're the nation changers.
We're the history makers.
We're the city shakers.
Not in the present condition, not, okay?
So let's be part of the solution today.
Let's begin to, so if you need to put things right,
go by yourself and write down a list
of people who have hurt you and ask God to give you grace
to forgive and release them, of pastors who have hurt you.
Pastors, go and make a list of people who have hurt you
and ask the grace of God to come upon you
and forgive and release them.
If you need to go and apologize to somebody,
if you've publicly slandered them,
you can ask Jesus to show you how to put that right, okay?
But look, you're part of the solution,
not part of the problem.
Thank you, Jesus.
You want healing?
See,
Holy Spirit's holding me back from ministering
because there's people being healed
and you're not, right again,
you're not testifiers to God.
Thank God for those of you who are.
I'm not talking to you.
I'm not talking about you.
But there's a bunch of you there
and God touched you and some of you got a fear.
So, well, if I declare it,
then the devil will take it back again.
That's just stupidity.
It's nonsense.
You don't have a spirit of fear, but a power.
You will, don't get out of that.
You're dishonoring the Holy Spirit and don't do that.
And I can't minister this presence,
His wonderful presence, where there's dishonor
and to His presence.
So I'm not gonna minister the Holy Spirit this morning.
I'm not gonna minister that healing anointing right now.
I just really say, no, not right now.
Because He's my best friend.
I love Him more and I gotta respect Him more,
respect Him more.
But I wanna bless all those of you,
those of you who are not withholding
or those of you who are honoring
and those of you who are hungry
and those of you who have humility.
I bless your household
and I speak blessing over your household as an apostle.
In Mount Matthew 10, it says,
whenever an apostle comes to a house,
it says, peace to this house.
If there's anyone in that house worthy of the blessing,
the blessing will rest.
It won't return.
It will rest on that house.
But if there's no one in that house worthy of the blessing,
it will return.
It will come back to me.
And so I literally feel that sometimes
when I pray over people,
I feel the blessing come back upon me
because there's something in their lives,
their hearts that they dishonor, they disrespect.
But I'm feeling the honor.
I'm feeling the respect.
I'm feeling the humility from your house right now.
And I command your blessing, Father,
in the name of the Father,
name of the Son, name of the Holy Spirit.
I bless these households of those Lord God
who are the world changers,
who are the city shakers,
who are the history makers.
I bless your household in Jesus' name.
God bless you, Father.
See you tomorrow, church government tomorrow.
Is church government boring? I tell you, it will change if it brings
reformation to the church, it will bring transformation to the nation.
It will bring reformation, if we can get church reformation, there will be societal transformation.
But until the house of God has been in order, we're going to see dysfunction in our nation.
God brings judgment not on a nation, he brings judgment on the house of God first.
Judgment is not punitive, judgment is bringing back into alignment what is out of alignment.
When God brings judgment, when God chastised, when Jesus chastised, wrote Revelations 3,
he doesn't do it to punish, he doesn't do it because he hates us, he does it because he loves us.
He says, I only chasten, I only discipline those whom I love, so please hear my wairua,
hear my spirit. I've been speaking about, you know, some people need to get over yourself,
I'm doing, I'm speaking that in aroha. Sometimes it's not what, I'll share what you need to hear,
not necessarily what you want to hear, okay. Sometimes you'll hear what you need to hear,
not necessarily what you want to hear. But if you've got humility in your heart, you'll accept
it and receive it and let the Holy Spirit give you grace to deal with it. And so,
the house is in order, the kingdom impacts is in order. When the house is in order,
God has to command blessing. God bless you. See you tomorrow.