RSS

Sermon 82 – WHICH GROUP?

16 May

We recognise that David was on the side of the Israelites and that his enemy were the Philistines, but we fail to see that David’s group was also divided into two groups … those that were with him and those that envied and hated him.

The Israelites represent God’s people, the Church; yet we fail to see that the church has always been divided into two groups. The church at Corinth and the church at Laodicea and Pergamos are just three examples. Even Christ’s own disciples were divided and Judas exposed himself as a traitor.

Group 1 … The TELL group

The largest group of people in the church are those that see God as their Father and thus believe that God is responsible to protect them and supply all their needs and perform for them what they need from Him. This group believes they are a child of God and thus have the right to TELL the Father how He is supposed to perform towards them. This group murmurs when God doesn’t do it according to their expectations. They murmur if God takes longer than they expect.

The Pentecostal Church has flourished on the back of this group’s selfish expectation, to the point where it preaches that if you don’t get what you want from God then you don’t have faith. Like a bacterial infection, this belief has spread like wild-fire through fake churches that promote the worldly lie that you can be whatever you want and have whatever you want, just believe. This group simply expect God to perform their wishes and have a MOOD when He doesn’t. Like a two-year old child, the purpose of a mood is to get the authority to change their mind and give you what you want; and that’s the underlying behaviour of this group. This group is envious of what someone else is achieving or has a better deal.

Example

I was counselling a young so-called Christian who admitted he was wrong but that the punishment he received of being grounded was over-the-top. He was defending that he hadn’t done anything that bad, but was blinded to the real issue that he couldn’t be told. He couldn’t see that it was the resistance that was being addressed, not the act.

If you stop and look at that reaction, what does it tell you? Clearly, it’s telling you that the young man is TELLING the authority what’s right and wrong. He’s more interested in not looking bad than in being corrected. It’s revealing to you that the young man is questioning the authority, and really declaring that he is not that wrong, but that the authority is the one that’s wrong. This is an incorrectable, unrepentant spirit, and as such is really a spirit of anti-christ. Holy Spirit would not react this way! A genuine Christian would admit that he was wrong, full-stop, no BUT.

The angel of light

This group is often perfectly good, not because it flows from God, but because if you’re good you can’t get told you’re bad, and if you’re good you get rewards. Thus goodness is simply a tool to get. In fact, this artificial goodness flows from Satan. Anyone who thinks they’re good is actually declaring that they are not of God. Jesus Himself said in Luke 18:19 that there is no one good except God; so if you think you are good then you’ve been deceived by Satan into being your own god, and thus see yourself as above others. If you think you are good then you are contradicting the Word of God that says you’re not. This is the spirit of anti-christ, and definitely not the Holy Spirit.

We fail to comprehend that Satan can come as an angel of light. Right from the beginning Satan has employed two key tactics … attack and destroy, and infiltrate and soften. He uses these in the church because he has the power over the church. Contrary to Pentecostal mis-conception, Satan’s power has not been diminished and won’t be until he is cast into the bottomless pit. He’s just as powerful now as he’s ever been. Only God is more powerful. But the church tells you that you can put Satan in his place because you’re a child of God and heir to the throne. It’s blind to its arrogance. Like the fake church in Communist China, it’s simply the world camouflaged as the church.

Good + TELL

Goodness and Tell are key signs of the spirit of the anti-christ. Despite its apparent goodness, eventually this spirit will expose itself by TELLing the authority what is right and wrong. Eventually this group will display its control with superiority, intimidation, and obligation. It will use the scriptures to try and control you especially by using the 5th commandment to respect their authority, whilst all the time blindly mis-using the 7th, 9th and 10th commandments.

This group won’t be told even though they act like they will; in their heart they resist instruction as a put-down. They simply have a mood till they get what they want, even a silent mood of goodness (like the rich young ruler); yet they can’t see that they’re being defiant and simply refusing to repent because they believe that they’re not bad and that if you are saying they are, then you’ve got the problem, not them.

Hatred of men is a sign of anti-christ

Embedded in this group are many women who have a hidden hatred of men. They hate the fact that men have authority over them. They secretively don’t like being under authority and being told what to do. They think they’re better than men. They TELL men how they’re supposed to behave towards them. This is the spirit of anti-christ. You can clearly see this spirit flooding the world today, and this worldly spirit is clearly in the church. God decreed in Genesis 3:16 that man would have authority over the woman and anyone who objects to that is clearly against God.

This group is full of their own importance … “I think I’m special or have a special call”

Many men, both in the church and in the world, are under this female spirit. Self-decoration of ear-rings and tattoos, and homosexuality and cross-dressing are just signs of feminism. Many men have been told by their mothers that they can do anything or be anything. Like Eve vs Adam, their mothers have been used of Satan to fill their sons with their own importance. This is the spirit of ant-christ and its purpose is to subtly destroy. Christ said in Luke 14:26 that unless you hate yourself you cannot be my disciple; the opposite to what the world and the church teaches.

Over the years, I’ve become aware that most people think they’re special, to the point that they sincerely believe that if you have a problem with them then you are the problem, and if they have a problem with you then you are still the problem. They sincerely believe that they have a special call on their life and that God values them higher than others. The simple truth is that they feel so inferior and wounded they have to live in the fantasy of their own puffed-up self-importance. Sadly, the church is just copying the world by indoctrinating people with this false positive thinking instead of teaching the flock to die to self so that God reigns in you. The spirit of anti-christ is alive and well convincing people of their self-importance in direct contradiction to the Word of God which declares that God loves a contrite heart.

A spirit of FEAR

This group is like King Saul. It is occupied by a spirit of fear and thus uses intimidation to try and control people to do its will and put you under its fear.

Ezekiel 33:31 … they come unto you and sit before you as my people and hear your words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they show much love, but their heart goes after their covetousness.

Group 2 … The ‘willing to be told’ group

The second group are like David. They don’t think they are good; it doesn’t enter their thinking. They don’t think they deserve anything from God. They serve God because they appreciate His love for them. They don’t serve to get a reward. They don’t serve Him to get to heaven, but like Moses who was willing to go to hell for the people of Israel, they serve God with a grateful heart. This group doesn’t expect anything from God, they’re just grateful for being considered His child.

This group doesn’t TELL God what He’s to do for them; they ask Him what He wants them to do for Him. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they ask Him for His protection but leave the outcome to His discretion. This group doesn’t envy what they’re neighbour has, but rather they’re grateful that God has blessed them. This group doesn’t think it’s special, but rather is amazed that God might consider them worthy to serve Him. Moses’ response to God was “who am I?” David’s response to Saul re marrying his daughter was, “who am I?”

This group makes judgments based on their heart relationship with God (it talks it over with God and waits on Him), and not just on whether a person has done good or bad.

FEAR

This group has to face fear from the first group. Like the Pharisees who intimidated the parents of the man born blind in John 9, the first group uses its power to keep you in its group, and if you want to be in the second group you will have to face the fear of what the 1st group thinks.

This second group takes correction when it’s wrong, and doesn’t stand defiantly when it’s mis-judged for doing wrong when it didn’t. It takes its concerns to God; it doesn’t react with a mood.

Conclusion

  • If you love God you serve Him. If you love yourself you get God to serve you by being good.
  • If you love being important then you’re in the first group.
  • If you judge people based on right or wrong/ good & bad, you’re in the 1st group.
  • If you worry whether someone is doing it right or wrong, then you’re under the influence of the spirit of anti-christ.
  • If you disrespect or question your husband, father or pastor then you’re in the first group.
  • If you think you are good, then you are god, and you’ve taken the bait of self-importance from the spirit of anti-christ.
  • If you think you are special, then you’ve taken the bait of the spirit of anti-christ.
  • If you have a mood because it’s not working out the way you want then you are under the influence of the spirit of Satan. Holy Spirit does NOT react that way.
  • The real reason you’re in the first group is that you’re too arrogant/stubborn and too fearful to change.
  • Everyone’s born to be a somebody, but you won’t find God till you’re a nobody. 

You can change groups. In fact, it’s essential that you do. The first group will never find salvation no matter how much they learn about Christ; they’re the tares. Everyone is born in love with themselves; that’s the influence of Satan, but you have to wake up to yourself if you want to change groups. It just takes a revelation that you are the one who is acting and trapped in group one, and the courage to face your fears of what people might think, and swap groups.

May God open the eyes of His remnant.

Pastor Jim Desmond

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on May 16, 2015 in Special

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Sermon 81 – COLLECTABLES – the simple truth about the secret heart of man

06 Apr

What do you like collecting and why do you collect them?

Your collectables are measured by the purpose for them

The heart of man likes to collect things. Why? So he can be better/ look better than his neighbour. It’s really just a competition over who’s the Queen and who are the slaves and servants. It’s not the collecting that’s the problem; it’s the purpose of the collection.

The Lord tells us in Jeremiah17:9 that the heart of man is deceitful above everything and desperately wicked … no one can know how much.

Like collectable cards, or stamps or coins, man likes to collect … friends, husbands, knowledge, skills, love, good feelings, God, good works. The real truth is, that a non-genuine Christian is really promoting their husband/wife/God as an accessory … a bag or wristwatch or bracelet to parade to their friends and enemies, so that they are better than them; all without nothing being said.

Man doesn’t like to collect bad feelings, so he swaps this card for a better feeling. How does he do that? Simply by deducing that you’re not nice, so you’re not a friend, so I’m better than you, so I don’t have to listen to your hurt. He talks himself into not feeling the hurt, but it’s just a pretence.

The simple reality is that to most of us, our feelings are our truth, even to the point that when God presents the truth about us to ourselves we reject the truth because it doesn’t equate with our feelings. Plus, our friends are the measurement of our value … high-ranked friends means I am higher than you, so you can’t tell me what to do, and you can’t tell me I’m wrong, and you can’t make me feel inferior.

The bottom line

In their envy hurt, this heart deduces … I think I’m special, so if somebody has a problem with me then they’re the problem, and if I have a problem with somebody, then they’re also the problem.

This is the heart of selfishness because your neighbour has no right of opinion. This is not loving your neighbour, it’s loving you above your neighbour. Therefore, all the commandments are effectively fractured and you’re the true sinner even if you’ve been sinned against.

This selfish heart deduces … How could you do this to ME, I’m the Queen/King? How could you think that of ME; I’m the Queen? How could you reject ME, I’m the Queen? Everyone really believes they are something. Everyone likes to boss and everyone hates being bossed. That’s because I AM the Queen/ I am fantastic … I’m the boss, not you, and if you hurt ME then that proves that you are the one that’s wrong and I am right.

The real human heart boils down to the selfishness of not being the chosen one, plus the selfishness of being rejected, coupled with the desire to get back at the one who has hurt me, and the stubborn will to never be hurt by anyone.

This is the true heart of the human spirit but we all camouflage it with good works and niceness. Why? So no one can tell us we are no good, and so I won’t get into trouble, and no one can correct us and make us feel bad, and so I can collect friends to put myself up above my enemy.

This is the thinking of Satan because your neighbour can never be right; God can never address you; and the pastor can never correct you because you’re always right and never wrong. This is the heart of love ME first, not God first nor my neighbour. This is the heart of Satan, not Holy Spirit (Ezekiel 28:6,17).

You’ll never find God whilst YOU sit on your throne and hold onto your rejection pains and, in your pride, refuse to forgive someone for hurting your feelings. You’ll never find repentance because you’re too proud to forgive someone who’s hurt your feelings; you’ll only ever live in blame and be blind to your own pride.

The testimony of Paul …. Galatians 2:20

Paul’s testimony was … I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. If that’s not your testimony then you’re into yourself and your goodness is fake and your Christianity is counterfeit.

The Lord searches the heart by testing the kidneys (reins) Jeremiah 17:10

What does that mean? It means that the kidneys are the filtration system of the blood and if you want your heart to be healthy, you have to excrete from your spirit anything that you selfishly want to hold onto in your mind, will and emotions that will put you above your neighbour. If you won’t let go the bitterness, envy and pride that circulates through your emotions then it will eventually kill your spirit.

The pride of rejection pain

Recently I was ministering to a young 12 year old girl in our fellowship. On the surface, this girl has been perfect in her attitude and helpfulness, but something was troubling her. On digging deeper it became clear that she was upset with her friend because they were angry. I spoke with the friend and asked what was going on and learnt that the girl was TELLING this person that they weren’t a friend because they were angry, but the reason they were angry was that they were being TOLD that they had to be her friend. The girl felt hurt and wouldn’t forgive her friend for the hurt. Underneath it all was a competition between who could collect the most friends because they both believed that they were the most important person in the whole fellowship, even above their parents. I was dumbfounded and I began to awaken to the reality that most people really do believe that they are the most important person on the planet. Jeremiah was right.

Contrary to what the world says, the Word of God says that the heart of man is born evil. He needs a transplant; he needs the heart of God. His selfish heart has to be diagnosed and then cut out and replaced with a new heart. This is what God calls being born again. The reality is that no one wants to see their own heart; their feelings always blame someone else. If that’s your case, then you’ll never find my God! You’ll never get a new heart.

In Luke 14:26, God says that unless you’re really serious about giving up the selfish benefits you want from your parents, children, spouse, siblings and friends (the things that promote you as your own god) then you cannot be My disciple. Unless you abdicate your throne you’ll never find God no matter how much of Him you collect.

I’m better than you

Whenever you say in your heart, I’m better than you or you’re better than me, then you are into position and envy. God’s not into that; only Satan is, Ezekiel 28:6,17. Whether you feel like it or not, the word better implicates and exposes your heart with the self-love of positional envy … envy that you’re higher than me, have more friends than me, and can do things better than me; and arrogance that you are inferior to me and I’m superior to you.

Q. what’s it mean to love your neighbour as yourself?

The church and the world teach that you can’t love properly until you love yourself first. The Word of God teaches that you can’t love properly until you love God first, and that simply means that you die to every want that puts you above your neighbour. If this is your genuine self-less desire, then God will give you a new heart.

Too proud to forgive someone who has hurt my feelings

In the 1st World War, Ernest Hemmingway volunteered as an ambulance driver. He was wounded whilst attempting to save the life of an Italian soldier. Whilst in hospital he fell in love with his nurse who had saved his leg from amputation due to gangrene, and from there he lived in the expectation that they would marry. He returned to America and she to the war. Whilst she was nursing, a doctor asked her to marry him and eventually she consented. Hemmingway was devastated. However, her love for Hemmingway prevailed and she didn’t proceed with the marriage and returned to America to tell Hemmingway that she really loved him. Sadly, Hemmingway shunned her because his pride wouldn’t let him forgive the woman who had shunned him for someone else. His unchristian heart’s philosophy was … if you hurt me then I’ll hurt you back.

Hemmingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, married 4 times and eventually suicided in 1961. Despite his bravery and awards, the real issue in his heart was that he was too proud to forgive someone who had hurt his feelings, and he died a sad figure of a man, the fruit of unforgiven rejection vengeance.

Most people are just like Hemmingway.They ignorantly live in the pride of their hurt feelings and never truly forgive those who have hurt them. They say they do, but their pride never really lets it go.

Here are some diagnostic questions to search out your true heart condition …

  1. Do you think you’re better than your neighbour?
  2. Do you think your neighbour is better than you?
  3. Do you wish you had what your neighbour has?
  4. Are you happy when your neighbour falls?
  5. Do you think you’re better than your neighbour when your neighbour gets corrected?
  6. Do you think you are of significant importance for God?
  7. Do you love to boss?
  8. Do you hate being bossed?
  9. Do you dislike your neighbour when he’s not nice to you?
  10. Do you think you’re pretty?
  11. Do you think you’re handsome?
  12. Do you think you’re ugly?
  13. Do you think you’re brainy or clever?
  14. Do you think you’re skilful?
  15. Do you think you are good?
  16. Do you think you are bad?
  17. What do you do when you get corrected?
  18. What’s your mood when you can’t have what you want?

Answer yes to any of these and you had better give up your selfish heart (it’s lifted up with its own importance) and let God put His heart in you. It’s not hard, so if you can’t do it, it just means that you are too important to yourself.

May God challenge the heart of each remnant to be replaced with God’s heart, through repentance of our selfish pride.

Pastor John Isaac

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on April 6, 2015 in Elevation

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Sermon 80 – AGREEABLE vs CONCEDE

15 Mar

What’s the difference between agree and concede? In the dictionary, the Latin root for agree is ad gratus which means to please, whereas the Latin root for concede is concedere which means to yield.

Recently I was counselling a young man who was intimidating a friend to do it his way. The friend brought this to my attention so I spoke with the young man. His response was complete surprise that he was intimidating. From his point of view he said he had no idea; he had always considered himself soft and understanding. I suggested to him that I had noticed myself that he over-stepped his authority in regard to an issue with his employer. He then explained away why he had done what he had done at his employment, and right there I sensed his resistance to getting into trouble. Thus I now knew that his spirit was out of alignment with God.

Promotion blinds you to your sin

I then asked him had he promoted himself somewhere. He replied that he couldn’t think of anything. Then, after a pause, he said the only small thing he could think of that he had done was to call a woman stupid for not listening to her pastor when it was blatantly clear that she was sinning. I said that that small thing is all that’s needed to blind you to your own sin of prideful judgment, and once you’re in pride you can’t see your own sin and you won’t know you are intimidating just like the woman. The young man, by God’s grace, not only agreed with me but he conceded to my Godly message, and in so doing, all of a sudden, he could see that he had been intimidating and thus was able to find repentance.

There’s a massive gap between being agreeable and conceding to someone else’s point of view. King Saul finally agreed with Samuel when he realised he was cornered and he was not going to persuade Samuel to change his perspective, whereas David conceded to the prophet Nathan’s message from God. One was separated from the prophet and from God; the other was re-joined to the Lord.

Agree to disagree

In my experience, when someone is challenged by an authority about being wrong they don’t want to feel bad so they generally agree that they are wrong but in their heart they analyse that it’s not really how the authority sees it; that the authority is misinterpreting and misrepresenting the facts. Once someone chooses this route of self-defence it’s a real spiritual battle to get them to eventually concede.

The problem is that the human nature doesn’t like to be wrong. Human nature is ok if it can find someone else to share the blame with; then it doesn’t feel so bad, so it automatically blames and lies and distorts the information to support its case. Then, if it finds itself cornered, in order to have peace it agrees to disagree. The defensive equation is … I think you are right but I can’t see
it so I’ll withhold my opinion until I can agree with you. What they are really saying is … I don’t really agree that I’m wrong. This has been the inherent nature of man’s strategy to be right and not be told he’s wrong, starting back in the Garden of Eden.

But what if the authority is wrong?

The fact of the matter is that if you don’t concede to the authority’s opinion then you will never see what the authority is seeing. You have to concede to see. The bottom line is, non-conceding is really saying … “I make up my own mind and you can’t tell me what to do”. The real underlying issue in our hearts is “I am my own boss.” But what man fails to realise is that in standing on that belief you will never find God because He has instructed man to concede to authority. The peculiar irony of a genuine relationship with the Heavenly Father is that if you approach all authority from the direction of conceding you are approaching it with God’s eyes and therefore if the authority is wrong you will know and ultimately you have the freedom to choose not to concede.

Fake submission

Thus, conceding is the separation point between a genuine Christian and a fake. A fake Christian may agree but they won’t concede (these are the tares), whereas a genuine Christian may disagree but will come to a point of conceding. Their hearts are different.

Standing on different sides until you concede

Failure to concede will put you on opposite sides to the authority. You can’t just be agreeable and expect the relationship to hold together. Eventually your resistance to conceding will force separation because your real points of view will be opposite.

If you can’t admit you were wrong without a qualifying ‘but’ or an ‘explanation’, you will never be right (spiritually) even if you are right physically.

Few know how to bend their heart

Our humanistic modern society does not condone smacking or even telling a child that they’re wrong and has even passed laws forbidding parental discipline. Consequently, children are growing up thinking they are right and good without any ability to bend their heart to accept that they’ve done or thought wrong. If they are challenged about being proud, the nasty ones bite back, but the nice ones use their reasoning to fix feeling bad by being gooder and by being agreeable. They can’t handle being wrong. They can’t handle feeling inferior. They don’t know how to concede.

I righteously fear that this inability to bend one’s heart is a sign that God has sent the ultimate famine … the inability to see and hear the true Word of God (Amos 8:11).

Pastor Mike Stanford

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 15, 2015 in bend, Correction, discipline

 

Tags:

Sermon 79 – SEPARATE or be Demonically controlled

15 Mar

Over the years I’ve asked my congregation what they think is the role of the pastor. The response is invariably …. to listen and understand my needs, to show me the way, help me discern the Word of God, give advice, help me, to stop me from making a mistake, to correct me but only if it’s done softly and painlessly and un-embarrassingly, and some have even said that it’s my role to confirm to them that they’re right.

The question you should ask yourself is … why do I think this?

I’ve discovered that people come to these conclusions because they have a false belief about “friends“. If I ask … “what is a friend?” I get similar answers … to listen to me and be understanding, to be able to share intimately, to be trustworthy, to support me and help me, keep secrets, make me feel good, someone who likes me, be there when I need you, and not to snitch on me.

Diagnosis of a friend

You can always diagnose when someone is a genuine friend by their reaction when they don’t get the response they expect from a friend. A false friend blames a friend for not meeting their standards of friendship. A false friend has a mood when you don’t do it the way they think it should be done. A false friend tells you that you are not doing it the way they think you should.

King Saul was friends with Samuel. Samuel was a true friend. King Saul was a false friend. King Saul was really using Samuel for his own ends, to promote himself in the eyes of the people. King Saul told Samuel how he was supposed to behave towards him. King Saul told Samuel that he hadn’t really done anything wrong. King Saul told Samuel that he was being unreasonable with his correction. Notice all the ‘told’. King Saul pretended to change his attitude, but eventually the friendship fell apart because God instructed Samuel to separate from Saul.

Why did God instruct Samuel to separate from Saul? And why did Nehemiah instruct the Jews to separate from the heathen? And why did God separate Abram from his family?

Because if you don’t you will become demonically controlled instead of Holy Spirit controlled. The issue isn’t right or wrong, it’s demons or Holy Ghost. There’s a warfare over your soul, and the heart choices you make will dictate where you end up. I remind you in Ephesians 6 … we’re not fighting flesh and blood but principalities and powers, and those powers are stronger than you, especially if you arrogantly think you’re up to it (as indoctrinated by the Pentecostal church).

Friend of the world; enemy of God … James 4:4

Modern Christians know they should be sort of separate from the world so they don’t get tripped up and fall, so they keep doing what’s right, but at the same time they still like the world. This is the fruit of soft church teaching. It’s a shallow evaluation of Christ’s principles and it completely misses the real underlying reason for separation, namely, Satanic control.

Modern Christianity thinks with its head, it doesn’t understand the heart of the reasoning

When somebody is truly walking with God they will spiritually sense something is wrong (without necessarily knowing the full story), and if they are in a position of authority (such as a parent or pastor), they will want to warn you of the impending danger and seek to guide you away from it. That’s the intersection of true friendship and genuine pastoring. Up to that point everything is palatable between friends, but this intersection will either establish the friendship or destroy it.

2 common demonic issues

Whenever I sense resistance and I challenge someone’s spirit I invariably find the person wants Jesus and the world too; and I find that they’re having a mood because someone is liked more than they are. In a woman, I call it the Peninnah syndrome ie they feel for Peninnah because Hannah was more loved, but can’t see that God knew Peninnah’s heart and chose Hannah. Like Eve, demonically controlled vision can only see what one is not getting.

Resistance to authority is a sure sign of the demonic

If you respect God you will respect authority, because that’s what God told you to do. If you disrespect the opinion of authority you confirm that your relationship with God is fake, as well as exposing that you’re under the influence of a demonic power, because you’re doing exactly the opposite to what you were told.

But how can you really tell whether you genuinely respect authority or just think you do?

Disrespect is measured by resistance. The authority doesn’t have to be right; it’s the resistance that’s the measurement. It becomes a contest between the demonic in you that won’t bend and the Holy Spirit in the authority, and it’s real and tangible when the authority steps on the demon’s toes. It’s this intersection of correction that brings out this demonic influence. No wonder no one wants to be corrected … like King Saul, it exposes something you don’t want exposed, and you don’t want to be told. Yes, like King Saul you can be influenced by Holy Spirit and demons at the same time (it’s a war), and your heart choices will determine who will ultimately win.

Sadly, underneath the façade of modern western society is the reality that it has been educated to only believe in oneself and only trust in oneself, and to think everything through by yourself, and to live for oneself, and not to be told, so when God directs someone to correct one’s mis-direction, the majority of Christians, like King Saul, get offended and read it as a put-down of their capability to figure it out for themselves.

I recall a young lady in our fellowship who was exposed as lying about a certain issue. On the surface she was very helpful, hard-working and polite; but when she got found out, her outward personality changed. She apologised, but I could sense that it was out of convenience of avoiding getting into trouble and not genuine. I challenged her that she was resisting my correction and she got the huffs, defied her father’s authority because she told him that he didn’t protect her from the correction, and left the fellowship. The question is … did she leave the fellowship by faith or by defiance, because whatever is not of faith is sin?

If you judge someone to promote your own selfishness, your character will change into the demonic and you will resist correction … Matthew 7:1

This is what happened both to King Saul and Adam, and this is what happened to this young lady, and it happens to everyone who judges others to promote themselves.

Sometime later I heard that she had started a friendship with a heathen lad, was attending worldly parties, and was clearly moving in the direction of hell. Recently she contacted her father and he asked her where she stood with Jesus. Her response was “that it was too hard” and she was no longer interested. The same words had come out of the mouth of a woman I was pastoring some 10 years previously and who had resisted my authority and refused to give up her worldly passions. This girl had never spoken those words before and I sensed that they were actually the words of this woman. When I enquired further I learnt that the young lady had gotten in touch with the woman’s granddaughter and started an internet friendship. The granddaughter had followed the path of defiance of her grandmother and was now spiritually influencing the path of this young lady.

In the course of time it became apparent that a second young lady in our fellowship was behaving like the first. She had judged the original girl for deserting their friendship and had come under the influence of the demon that was directing the soul of the first girl.

What’s the point I am trying to make?

Listening to the voice of Satan will take you further into the web of Satan, and his only plan is to kill you, change your character into his, destroy you and separate you from God, and thus mock God.

Authority and the laws of God are not set up to bind you and make it hard for you; they’re put in place to save you from getting trapped in Satan’s web and ultimately hell. A true friend doesn’t use you; they tell you the truth so you don’t go the wrong way, and a true friend doesn’t have a mood if you won’t listen to them; they serve God, not themselves. The converse is also true … if you have a mood when your friend doesn’t do it right by you, then you yourself are not a genuine friend, but a user, just like the friend who’s hurt your feelings.

Holy Spirit doesn’t have a mood; Satan does

A genuine pastor doesn’t correct you just to embarrass you; they tell you the truth about yourself so you don’t go to hell. Blocking your ears to this truth is fatal. If you have a mood because someone tells you the truth about you then you confirm that you are under the influence of a demonic spirit, and you’d better stop it pronto or it will take you to hell.

It is hard to not get what you want, but if you harden your heart and choose to disrespect the boundaries then you will unawares come under the influence of the devil’s power, and it’s no laughing matter; it’ll take you to hell.

Won’t be told what to do

Satan and his demons chose not to be told by God what to do. When you listen to the voice of Satan, his objective is to get you to be not told what to do.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam walked and talked with God. They were friends. Satan whispered in Eve’s ear that God wasn’t telling her everything and that if she ate the fruit she would get a better deal for herself. She got Adam to listen to her and consequently Adam also came under the influence of Satan’s power. Under this power he changed his character into Satan’s character, and did the exact opposite of what he has always done … he lied, he feared, he blamed, and he even blamed God for creating the woman, and he foolishly hid from his true friend. How insane! These are the characteristics of Satan, not Holy Spirit. He didn’t repent and he wouldn’t listen to God’s correction. He had elevated himself to be equal with God in his right to make his own decisions, and after all, he had only eaten a piece of fruit, so what’s the big deal.

What was the consequence?

He was separated from God

If one doesn’t find true repentance for one’s defiance and resistance to the spirit of God, then the ultimate consequence is hell. You won’t recognise defiance in your heart until you come face to face with an authority’s correction of your spirit. That’s the intersection that will determine your final destiny.

Most people won’t agree with an authority until they see what the authority is saying, and right there is the problem. Logic says … surely I need to see what you’re saying before I can agree with you (this is the deduction of pride), but faith says … I know something’s wrong so by faith in God I’ll trust your judgment of me. If you’re genuine about trusting, then you’ll see what the authority is warning you about. In other words, it’s always faith first before you’ll see, because Satan blinds.

The principle …

If, in your heart, you live by your own judgments and won’t separate from the world, eventually God will separate from you. The call of God is to come out and be separate from the world so you don’t fall fowl of demonic powers.

The insanity of non-separation

The truth is, that by de-valuing the laws of God and de-valuing authority, and indoctrinating the church into the comfortable belief that we are safe under grace without the responsibility for our sin, we’ve opened our western societies to Pandora’s box of demonic powers that’s changing the face of western society, promoting multiple demonic religions and endorsing the freedom of right to worship false gods, dissolving the family unit, tattooing our whole body and sticking pins in our faces and calling it beauty, chasing cosmetic surgery, and promoting alternative sexual preferences to do whatever you want. The church is clearly no longer the salt for society; the bacteria of Satan is flourishing everywhere.

Satan has got God’s creation in a strangle hold and demonically convinced everyone to believe in their right to not be told what to do.

Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but reprove them … Ephesians 5:11

People no longer separate from the Christian sinner who won’t be told; they comfort and support them in their sin in the false belief that you can love them through their sin and get them to see their sin. But this philosophy is a lie of Satan, because God’s instructions are to separate the sinner from you until, like the prodigal, they may awake to their sin, 1 Corinthians 5:11. But the church has gone soft on sin and it’s not cool to be harsh. It’s afraid of what the world thinks of it, because it is the world. In its ignorance it is supporting the demonic in the sinner against God’s Spirit. The truth is, the church is disobedient and arrogant and interprets scripture to its own self-advantage. Like Laodicea, it’s under the influence of Satan, not Holy Spirit.

The rubber meets the road when this principle is challenged by a son or daughter or wife and you have to choose between what God says in Luke 14:26-33 or by what the church teaches. The demonic influence of sin is greater than your ability to resist, so ignoring the leaven will cause it to spread, not wither, and it will take you with it.

Faith or sin

Faith is the evidence of Holy Spirit. The opposite to faith, is sin (Romans 14:23). Faith is blocked by pride, and pride is generally extrapolated by judgement against someone. If you can’t get back to faith, then God’s Spirit in you is either silent or gone, and the human spirit in you is objecting to being blamed or being left-out, or thinks it’s above your neighbour. You can only get back to faith by de-elevating yourself (like David, and Ahab 1 Kings 21:29), not by doing good works or justifying your rightness (like King Saul). That’s why God uses correction; it’s His tool to put you back in your place.

The enemy’s objective is to make sure you sin by only thinking about yourself even though on the surface you act as if you care for others or act as if you are not hurting; that way he can block your faith.

The true shepherd’s goal is to expose the demonic, not to silently co-exist with it, so that your eyes will be enlightened to your true hidden motive of selfishness.

When Christ comes, will He find faith? I righteously fear the path that the Christian world has chosen.

Pastor Mike Stanford

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on March 15, 2015 in Separation

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Sermon 78 – The Secret to Salvation

09 Jan

Recently I addressed my grandson for kicking his brother. I told him to go to his room. He started to cry. He felt unjustly treated because his brother had kicked him first. I asked him, did you do wrong? He replied, yes! Then I instructed him to take his punishment and not justify it because his brother had been mean. There and then he changed his attitude, so I said, ok, go out and play. This is just how God deals with us, but few see it.

Human nature automatically defends itself, explains it away why it wasn’t that bad, tries to find an exit so it’s not so embarrassed, and tries to analyse why it happened and who made them do it, when all that’s required is to admit … I was wrong.

The secret … accept the addressing of your pride and you will find salvation. Explain away why you did it and you will miss salvation because you will create a pattern of lying to explain it away.

Don’t just assume you’re saved because you think you’re nice or God is nice

You don’t know you’re saved until there’s a test of faith. It’s what you do when somebody hurts you or, justly or unjustly corrects you … that’s the intersection that exposes your faith and the intersection that verifies your salvation. Faith trusts that God works all for His good, but pride has a mood, bites back and defends itself.

Excuse it away = pride. Sincerely own it without excuses = repentance

You can’t repent with blame or excuses as to why you did it, or self-explanation, or trying to find the root of the temptation. That’s really pride trying to protect itself and admitting it’s wrong at the same time.

Human nature automatically protects itself with excuses as to why I did it so I don’t look bad and feel embarrassed in the eyes of the people. Repentance deliberately blocks this pathway and simply owns that I did do it even if somebody else stirred me to do it. Repentance challenges one’s feelings; pride supports and justifies one’s feelings. The consequence of pride is feeling sorry for yourself (pity party), figure out why I did it so I can explain it and justify it, find fault with the authority, and then deduce that the correction is over-the-top and unjust. Thus pride deduces that I’m free to believe in myself again as being right and not wrong.

The door

You don’t have to find God. God finds you when you come to the revelation that you’re arrogant and selfish … that’s the door. Salvation is at this intersection of self-exposure; this is where God’s knocking on your door; at this intersection. We find Jesus talking with Peter, not Judas. He’s not knocking on Judas’ door; he won’t take the rebuke.

You’ve got to give up the thing that you worship (money, family, success, friends, knowledge) before you’ll see that you’re full of yourself; before you’ll recognise the knocking on your door.

Salvation isn’t inviting Jesus into your heart, but exposing your heart to Him

Rev. 3:20 says … Behold I stand at the door and knock. That doesn’t equal inviting Jesus in for a chat and a meal, but opening the door of your sin-filled heart for His light to expose it and destroy the darkness.

Q. When do you open the door? When the Lord knocks, and Rev.3:19 confirms that the knock is at the point of correction.

Q. In Rev.3: 21 we’re called to overcome, but what are we to overcome? The answer is … the world, 1J.5:3.

Q. What’s the world? It’s not the people around you but the flesh in you that wants what the people around you have. That is … I want that and if I can’t have it I’ll have a mood.

Q. How do you overcome the world in you? The answer is … by faith 1J.5:4

Q. What’s faith? It’s no confidence in me because I know I’m full of myself. It’s confidence in God and His plan despite my arrogance. It’s only activated in the face of opposition and fear. It’s not having no fear or bad feelings; it’s walking through them by trusting His outcome.

Q. How did Jesus overcome? He did not surrender to His moods of self-defence that Satan tried to get Him to fall into via family attack, religious attack, and elevated ability and pride attack, but rather He chose patient endurance by placing His confidence in the Father in the face of mocking, ridicule, misjudgement and death.

Q. How is your salvation verified? The answer is … by faith in God in the face of hassles and injustices against you, rather than retaliating with blame. It’s taking the blame instead of blaming.

The truth is … Jesus died by blame attack. In the same way, true Christians die to themselves by blame attack … Matthew 5:10-12. Thus, people don’t want the true salvation because they don’t want the blame attack.

David vs King Saul

Human nature makes excuses for its behaviour so it doesn’t look bad. David didn’t. He knew he had sinned. He didn’t try and explain why he sinned. He didn’t look for ancestral demonic doors that he could explain his action with. He didn’t blame Bathsheba for exposing herself. He didn’t divert the responsibility onto someone who may have tempted him.. He didn’t blame years of stressful resistance against King Saul. He simply owned that he had done wrong and repented.

Signs of King Saul ….
1 Samuel 15 & 18

  • “You like David more than me” envy
  • Blame the people in the face of correction
  • Excuse and explain why it is not your fault
  • Have to look good in the eyes of the people
  • Usurp the prophet’s role = TELL the spiritual authority what’s right and wrong
  • Try to destroy your enemy

Most Christians worship Jesus under the banner of King Saul and have no idea that they are. They covet positions of value and when they’re corrected they feel devalued. Clearly, if you accept correction by excusing it away, you’re really saying to the authority … I’ll agree with you because I have to but I think you’re wrong. In other words you’re just secretly stubborn like King Saul. King Saul lost his salvation, not because of his sin, but by his stubbornness to agree with the correction.

Signs of David

  • Sin
  • No excuses for his sin
  • Cop the unjust blame from King Saul
  • He didn’t mock when his enemy fell

David responded to correction the opposite to King Saul.

Why did God say that David did what was right in His eyes? 1 Kings 14:8

How come God said David did what was right in His eyes when David had murdered and committed adultery? Because God didn’t measure him by his deeds; He measured him by his heart as displayed by his attitude to correction. It wasn’t because he was exempt from sin. It was because he saw his arrogance and repented.

Bad mathematics

Bad mathematics is when the equations we live by are our own manufactured pride formulas of selfishness which are designed to put the other party in their place and protect our own position.

Modern Pentecostalism teaches that sickness is the sign of sin. The purpose of this equation is to shift the blame … if you’re sick then you are the sinner, not me. I’m not sick so I’m right and you’re wrong.

Modernism says that if I say sorry then you are responsible to forgive and forget. The purpose of this equation is to shift the blame … if you talk to me then everything’s ok and if you don’t talk to me then you are the one in sin, not me, because I’ve moved on but you are still holding resentment.

Modernism believes that if you are nasty to me then I have the right to be nasty back. The purpose of this equation is to shift the blame.

Modernism believes that you get bad happen to you because you did something bad. The purpose of this equation is to shift the blame onto someone that made you do bad so you aren’t responsible for the bad so you can get out of the punishment.

Modernism believes that I’m good so if you make me feel bad you’re the sinner. The purpose of this equation is to shift the blame.

These are all pride deductions; it’s telling and not able to be told, it’s intimidation, it’s not love. The purpose of all these equations is to shift the blame. None of it is God’s truth.

Biblical evidence contradicts this bad mathematics. In John 9 the man born blind was not sick because of his sin. He was deliberately created blind by God for the glory of God and for the man’s salvation. His blindness saved him. His parents were confronted by the religious system and right at that intersection they chose excuses and consequently didn’t hear the knock on the door and lost their chance of salvation.

The story of Job also contradicts this lie. In Job 11, Zophar derided Job for his sin because he believed that sickness = the sign of sin. The truth was that God Himself permitted Job’s hassles. The truth is that God derided Eliphaz and Zophar and honoured Job.

Biblical evidence declares there is none good, except God. So if you think you are good, then you ignorantly and arrogantly think you are God.

Biblical evidence is clear in the way David responded to His father-in-law. He held no grievance, but he certainly didn’t forget nor reconcile; it would have got him killed. Neither did John choose to forgive and forget in 3 John v.10.

Biblical evidence proves that you more often get bad against you because you are righteous, as in Paul’s ship-wreck, Job, Jesus, Daniel, Moses, Elijah and David.

Biblical evidence exposes that if you have a mood because someone’s not doing it the way you want then you’re doing a Jonah and TELLING God what He’s supposed to do. When you come across a TELL spirit, you can diagnose that it is demonic because it will want to tell you what’s right and wrong and it won’t want to be told.

Repentance

Judas repented because he got caught out and looked bad. In the Greek this is called metamellomai repentance. Peter repented because he owned he had done wrong without shifting the blame to the woman who questioned him and made him do it. This is called metanoio repentance. One is genuine, the other is fake, and, contrary to popular Christian teaching the fake one does not obligate the person who has suffered the offence to forgive and reconcile with the offender.

Naked of spiritual clothing … Rev.3:18

Q. what’s the purpose of eye salve? The answer is … to open your eyes that you are really miserable and naked. Generally God has to take something important away to help you see, and until you see, His knocking is futile. Most people expect God to open their eyes. They wait for Him to do it. They make Him responsible to do it, but you’re responsible to take the rebuke before he knocks and sups. You’ll only open the door when you’re willing to see yourself because you need Him to change what you see.

The rich young ruler talked with Christ but because he didn’t want to see himself and thus it availed him nothing. The prodigal saw himself so when he came to his father he was saved, restored and elevated. Elevation by any other means is pride.

Did you do something wrong even though somebody stirred you to it?

Then take the punishment without explaining it away and without blaming and learn to trust the Heavenly Father’s justice.

Pastor Jim McNaughton

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on January 9, 2015 in Blame

 

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Sermon 77 – The Insanity of Vanity

02 Dec

Often I have the opportunity to tutor students in maths. What I’ve discovered in this exercise is that when someone holds a judgment against someone else they can’t do their maths. They make all sorts of errors of analysis and create their own system of working out the maths problems, and not only that, they’re actually fully convinced that they have done it right and the answer in the book must be wrong.

Here’s an example that happened this week … 371 – 65 = 314. When I asked the student how they got that answer they explained that 5-1 = 4, and 7-1 = 6. Instead of taking the 5 from the 1 they reversed it and then reversed it back to deduct 6 from 7. They were convinced they were right and questioned my judgement as the teacher.

I suggested to this student that they should go and write down who has offended them and why. The student came back with the message that she hadn’t got into trouble like all the other kids so she thought she was pretty good. The student had elevated herself above the other students by judging them below her and without even being aware of the spiritual side-effects couldn’t think straight but was convinced she was. Her judging had stuffed her judgement.

How does this happen?

The left side of the brain is the logic side; the right side is the creative / emotional side. You need the left side working at full capacity to do certain maths sums especially as it gets harder. If you’re hurting over something that someone’s done, the emotional side of your brain will dictate over your logic and your logic will become right-sided and be illogical without you knowing it.

I suggested that the biblical principle of repenting of your pride would be the only right alternative. She did and right there and then she could see the error of her analysis. Her correct judgment returned.

Whether you understand this or not; whether you agree with me or not, the reality is that this happens to every person who makes an elevated judgement against someone else and it’s confirmed in Matthew 7.

God’s just an idol to a Christian until you die

Everyone subconsciously lives to look good in the eyes of other people. They live for self-value. Whether we like it or not, the need for self-value is locked into our spiritual DNA. This need causes us to compete with everyone, especially siblings, for this value, and you don’t know you’re doing it. Because of this fact, anyone who says to God that they want to be a genuine Christian will have to go through the removal program of this selfishness. God will remove everything that’s of value to your selfishness and de-value you in the eyes of others to see if you really do want Him as your God, or just keep using Him as your idol and just worship Him so you get what you want from Him.

There isn’t anyone in the Bible who found God through elevated self-value. Everyone who found God had to be broken of their self-value. Everyone’s afraid to lose their self-value, but the reality is that when you give it up, God gives it back to you without the contaminants.

In the spirit kingdom, it’s God first or it’s nothing. The blockage to this being a reality is our selfishness. Therefore this process can only be achieved by the de-valuing of self in the eyes of others to find out if your spirit truly does want God first. You can only find God through the process of de-valuing of self; you’ll never find God through the process of valuing and promoting yourself.

As in the Garden of Eden, if you choose to promote yourself you’ll come under the influence of Satan, not God. Satan tried to destroy Christ because he was simply envious that Jesus was higher than him and enjoyed the Father’s favour instead of him. The truth is, he wasn’t really after the Father’s favour; he was so puffed-up with his own self-value he couldn’t think straight.

The simple evidence that I’m right

The proof that what I’m saying is the truth is the fact that everyone believes that correction is a put-down. The truth is that correction is to tell you that you’re wrong, and everybody hates being told they’re wrong. So, if correction makes you feel de-valued then you’re into value, full-stop. And, if you’re into value then you’re into envy, and if you’re into envy then you’ll be under the influence of Satan and your logic will be unstable and reversed, yet you’ll be convinced you’re right and that your answer and thinking is correct, and the correction is unjustified.

The man born blind, John 9

If you were born blind you most likely would feel de-valued and life was unfair and would blame God for the evil that’s happened to you. This man had been blind for forty years before Jesus came on the scene. It was because of his de-valuation that when Jesus healed him he saw the Saviour. Many people were healed but few saw the Saviour; they were after Jesus for the benefits (John 6:26), and nothing’s changed today. A fake Christian serves God with an expectation of benefits and rewards. This makes God your idol. A genuine Christian serves God without expectation of earthly rewards; it’s simply a love exercise, and you can’t genuinely do this from a platform of self-value; it has to be broken off you, but few want to know this, they prefer the Santa Clause God.

Selfishness changes your logic

Selfishness changes your logical patterns. You can’t think clearly; you think selfishly. Then you resist the correction of your selfishness because it doesn’t make sense to your selfish thinking. God designed it so that you don’t know whether you’re insane or vane; you need someone to tell you, and that’s the test point.

In 2 Chronicles 25 we read the story of King Amaziah. Verse 2 tells us that he did what was right in the sight of the Lord, sort of. Then in verse 14 we read that after Amaziah had returned from destroying the Edomites he worshipped their gods. God sent a prophet to correct his thinking and to bring him to his senses. The prophet argued with correct logic that it’s stupid to change gods and worship the gods of the nation that just lost the battle. But, Amaziah disregarded this Godly counsel. He had elevated himself (v.19) with his own importance and in his selfishness his spiritual logic had gone haywire. The consequence was self-destruction at the hands of an ungodly king.

It’s a fight to be a Christian. It’s not a walk in the park.

You might say to yourself that was a once-of experience and that it wouldn’t happen to me; but you’d be wrong. Uzziah, the next king, fell for the same trap, and Joash, the previous king did exactly the same illogical evil. Even Solomon, who was given the highest level of Godly wisdom, fell to the trap of elevation and consequently contradicted his own wisdom and married foreign ungodly wives who manipulated his thinking away from God to the point that he sacrificed his own children on the altars of heathen gods. You won’t find Solomon in heaven; he didn’t make it. You don’t believe me? Then read 2 Kings 23:13 and 2 Kings 3:26,27 and you will see that part of the worship of Chemosh the god of the Moabites, is the sacrifice of your own children. That’s absolute insanity and everybody is vulnerable unless they walk humbly before their God, giving Him the thanks and the credit for all things and never allowing yourself to have a mood of judgment against your fellowman and if you do, being able to take the correction and find repentance.

Selfishness is inherent in everyone’s heart. Selfish logic is stupid. How insane was it for Adam and Eve to hide from God their friend and then lie to Him and even blame Him for making Eve.  The only way anyone can gain Godly logic is by sacrificing their selfishness by allowing God to cut away everything that we value for our self-worth.

May God free His genuine remnant from themselves to serve the Living God with righteous hearts and minds.

Pastor James Tierney

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on December 2, 2014 in Selfishness

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Sermon 76 – Back to Basics

08 Nov

A young lady in our fellowship was clearly promoting herself and people were beginning to distance themselves from her. I spoke with her and asked her if she could see that she was being proud. She acknowledged that she knew she was. I suggested that it would be wise to stop it. She agreed. The next time I saw her she was working harder and more committed and trying as best she could to be “gooder”.

I shared with her that her strategy for removing her pride was actually cementing her pride because the motive for working harder was really to be liked again by everyone who was struggling with her pride, and also trying to avoid getting into more trouble. She wasn’t addressing her selfishness, she was reinforcing it.
 Read the rest of this entry »

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on November 8, 2014 in Selfishness

 

Tags: , , ,

Sermon 75 – I DON’T KNOW

27 Sep

I was questioning a young man recently about something I was concerned about and suspected he had done and his response was a flippant “I don’t know.” “I don’t know” is the most common way of avoiding a question we don’t want to answer especially if it could get us into trouble, but it’s the wrong way to get out of danger. The quickest way out of spiritual danger is to Read the rest of this entry »

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on September 27, 2014 in Pride

 

Tags: , , , , , ,

Sermon 74 – PIOUS

13 Sep

In Collins dictionary, pious is defined as ‘reverence and love for God marked by pretended or mistaken devotion’.

In modern language, the word is applied to those who Read the rest of this entry »

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on September 13, 2014 in Elevation

 

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Sermon 73 – Who’s going to TELL who

25 Aug

Trying to keep two fathers happy is impossible. If you’re under the subtle bondage of having to please your earthly father, then you can try as much as you like to impress and please the heavenly Father but it will not work.

Recently I was counselling a young Christian woman who was struggling to develop a healthy relationship with a young Christian man. On further examination it became clear that sub-consciously she was competing against
Read the rest of this entry »

 
Leave a comment

Posted by on August 25, 2014 in Authority

 

Tags: , , , ,

← Older posts
Newer posts →
 
Design a site like this with WordPress.com
Get started