The Seer's Code

THE SEER’S CODE

BY BRACKEN MKHUMA

Royale Books Publishers Copyright Š 2017 by Bracken Mkhuma ISBN: 978-0-620-78482-5 Cover photo: Š Coverphotomaker / Coverphotomaker.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENT

Foreword

iii

Introduction

iv

1. Art of Discipleship

1

2. Spiritual Gifts

17

3. Signs of the Seer

30

4. Responding to Dreams

39

5. Dreams as Warnings

44

6. Hearing the voice of God

48

7. Speaking in Tongues

61

8. Tongues and Interpretation

79

9. True Believers

101

10. Divine Restoration

107

11. Permanent Blessings

113

12. God’s Plan

119

Closing Words

128

About The Author

129

Foreword Denying the existence of Jesus Christ doesn’t make Him go away, it merely proves that; no amount of evidence will convince you.

~LEE STROBEL~

iii

Introduction Jesus alone holds the keys to our eternal growth. Writing this book was a very demanding process but through Christ it all became possible. After I was born again, I had a very strong love for the lost and wanted to see souls saved. Later the Lord appeared to me in 2013 and told me that I was chosen for a special assignment, He said, "My child, I will manifest myself to you to bring people out of darkness into light. For the Lord God has chosen you for a purpose; to write and make a record of the things I tell you�.

iv

Art Of Discipleship

John, Chapter 13.

F

ollowing Jesus is what God is speaking about in the verse above: following Jesus, listening to Him. Everyone is following something. We're either following Jesus, or we're following something else, or someone else. The challenge of our life is to follow Jesus, and to finish our course passionately following Him, and following His lead. Jesus said: if you follow Me, I will make you to become a fisher of men; so we get the picture straight away, if you are followers of Jesus, you will be vitally interested in people. It just goes hand in hand.

But let us discuss the Evidence of Your Discipleship. There are probably a lot of things that give evidence of that we're disciples of Jesus, but there's one that He actually makes unmistakable; and I want to get this right out there, so we could put a checklist: 1

am I a disciple of Jesus? Am I a disciple of Jesus? How many would say: yes, I am? Okay then, well let's look at what Jesus said meant, to be a disciple of Him. So we look in John 13:34-35, He said: a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; in the same way I've loved you, you love one another. By this will all know you're my disciples: if you have love, one for another.

So Jesus clearly, unmistakeably, identifies the evidence you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. Now notice some of the things it is not.

He does not say: anointing and authority indicates you're a disciple; because you can have a gift, and be totally disconnected from Jesus, just operating in faith. He does not say: position or title means that you are a disciple of Jesus. You can be a Pastor, and still not be a disciple of Jesus. Think about it. He does not say: healings and miracles following you, indicates you're a disciple of Jesus; because He said to those in Matthew 7: we did signs and wonders in your name; He said: I never knew you. It does not mean that if I'm being blessed and prospering, that I'm a disciple of Jesus, because there are people in many countries suffering, enduring hardship, losing their lives. They are not being blessed, as we would measure it, in terms of finances and external things.

It does not mean Bible study and prayer; so you can be studying your Bible and praying, and still not be a disciple of Jesus. It does not mean spiritual experiences, visions or angelic encounters.

You can be having all of those, and still not be a disciple of Jesus.

2

You're just having experiences - wonderful experiences; so how can you tell if one is truly a disciple of God? Here it is. It's so clear. This is how you know. There's only one way you can know: that you love one another! It's really quite simple isn't it, that you love; so in other words, how we relate to the person next to you, and others in the body of Christ, and how we treat them - that's how you know if you're a disciple or not.

You can call yourself a Christian, but in the Bible, the term Christian was reserved for disciples. We've gone and got this loose thing now; but you see Jesus made it very clear; it's actually the one thing that speaks more than anything. It's the quality of the relationships, and the way we treat one another. This is where the evidence of discipleship is seen; because sin fractured relationship with God, relationship with one another; the evidence of the work of Christ in our life redeeming us, is in our relationships, and treatment of one another. Notice it says 'one another.' Now He's talking about fellow followers of Christ; not talking about the world now. He's saying: the way believers treat one another, is the evidence of whether they're a follower of Christ or not. Treat one another. Jesus spoke to Paul, in Acts 9:4-5; and he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? And he said, Who art thou, Lord ? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest : it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

3

He said: Saul, Saul, why do you persecute Me? Now what we tend to do is this. We separate Jesus from His church; and we say: it's okay to love Jesus, but I can treat people like I like. It doesn't work that way. Jesus said, when Paul was persecuting the church, He said: you are persecuting Me. Can't get it clearer, so think about this. You can love on Jesus on a Sunday or a Saturday, but if you're horrible to a believer on Monday, you're not a follower of Christ. There's a shallow-ness to your walk with God. There's no overflow, or evidence outwardly, that Jesus is looking for. This is the fruit He's looking for. He's looking for changes in how we treat one another.

Now there's a whole heap of one-anothers’ in the Bible. We're just going to look here, at one in particular: I want to look at the aspect of foot washing. Love is incredibly practical.

John 13:1, says: before the Feast of Passover, when Jesus knew His hour had come, that He would depart from this world to the Father

Now notice this - having loved His own, that were in the world, He loved them to the end. Now what He's going to do now is what love looks like, so watch what He does.

And the supper being ended, the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him. So without any doubt, Judas Iscariot has already got betrayal in his heart, he's already got demonic seed in his heart; and then it says: Jesus, 4

knowing that the Father had given everything into His hands, He had come from the Father, and was going to God. He was secure where He came from, where He was going to, and in His identity; He rose from the supper, laid aside His garments, took on a towel and girded Himself. After that He poured water in a basin, began to wash the disciple's feet, and wipe them with the towel with which He was girded. Then He came to Simon Peter, and Simon said: Lord, are You washing my feet? And He answered, and said: what I'm doing, you don't understand now, you will know this afterwards. Peter said to Him: You'll never wash my feet; and Jesus answered Him, He stood up to him, and said: if I don't wash you, you have no part with Me. Now notice that's a very important statement.

Then He goes on, He said: he who is bathed, needs only to wash his feet, he's completely clean. You are clean, but not all of you; for He knew who would betray Him. So, see He said: you're not all clean. And when He'd washed their feet, and taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them: do you know what I've done? He said: you call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for that's what I am. But, He said, “if I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet; then you also need to wash one another's feet. I have given you an example that you should do, as I've done to you; so assuredly I tell you this: a servant isn't more important or greater than his master. The one sent, is not greater than the one who sent him�; and so He said: if you know these things, you are blessed in the doing of it. Not knowing it, doing it. It's in the doing that the blessing flows.

Now the first thing you need to see is that love does not focus on position, or title, or role, or function. Love focuses instead, on serving. It's the nature of the king. Notice what it says. Notice there, where the people were, they'd come in; and of course they 5

didn't have nice roads and cars like we have, just had dusty roads, and people walk with sandals; so they would come in, and the one part of everyone's body that got very, very dirty was the feet. The feet got dirty, so you could imagine what it's like. Any of you have had a day out there, and you come back in, take your shoes off and get a whiff of it, you know what dirty is like. Now they would walk, and they had animals on the road, so they'd pick up all kinds of animal droppings, they would pick up dust and mud and grime and everything. They'd come in, and their feet are dirty and messy; and so it was normally the custom that there would be a bowl of water provided, people would wash their own feet; or the lowest gentile servant would come and wash their feet for them; so that was the normal custom.

So you notice that this was the lowest job. Now here's the interesting thing. Jesus had revealed His power and authority.

See, up to this point, they've seen the miracles: people raised from the dead, oh great! See water turned to wine - oh great! Oh, we've seen the bread multiply, oh, that is fantastic! They've seen all kinds of miracles, all kinds of healings. What they hadn't seen is the nature of the King; what moves it all. See people see power, and miracles, and signs, and these are wonderful, I love them - but you've got to look past that, and see what the core nature of the kingdom is. The power - the Bible doesn't say: God is power. It says: God is love. Power, is how He expresses the love; but that's not the only way love is expressed; and so now Jesus does something that stuns them. He exposes the pride, and the carnal way of thinking they had, about positions and titles and so on. What He does is, He reveals to them, and this is what He did, He washed their feet. He revealed the nature of the kingdom. The kingdom we're part of, is a foot-washing kingdom.

It's a foot-washing kingdom. He gave up heaven, and came to earth, and just served. Now He just takes off His clothing, His 6

outer clothing, puts on servant's clothing. He's the Lord, He's the master, He's the rabbi, He's the miracle worker, He's the one everyone comes to; yet He takes it all off, and just goes and washes their feet.

This is a total challenge to thinking. Now you think about this.

How could God, come to earth, and wash my feet? Jesus said: the things I do, are what I see the Father doing. How could it be, that an amazing or powerful Almighty God, would not only create the world, but when my life got into a mess, into sin, into all kinds of uncleanness and defilement, He would come and wash my feet? It defies belief, because it's so contrary to the way we see authority and power; and how we see it manifest in the earth.

It is completely different. God is not interested - He has ranks and titles and so on - but that is not what the kingdom is about.

It's about a nature of love that shows itself through serving, and entering people's world, where they're dirty and messy; and doing something to help their world become a better place. It's not about literal foot washing. The foot washing part was of the culture of the day. It's not what we do today, but the foot washing that He was - He was trying to teach them something.

He didn't say: do what I did. He said do 'as' I did. In other words, understand what is behind this, moving it, and then do that.

Okay, firstly, love focuses on serving; not on position and title.

He wasn't concerned about that at all. Secondly, love is not selective, in its foot washing. This is a very big one. This is a very big one for the church. Love is not selective in the foot washing.

Most of our foot washing, we're selective. I'll show you what I mean by 'selective'. Notice this: position-minded people are incredibly selective in who they serve. So I will come, and I will serve this person, if it looks like serving them, will get me ahead.

7

I will come and I'll serve - no, I won't serve this person. I'll come and serve this person; that's a Pastor now that might help me, that might help me get ahead. See? So what happens is, people judge the value of others; and whether serving them, will help them get ahead, and get them advancement. I've seen it over, and over, and over, and over, and over again; people using their serving, as a way to advance their own case, and their own position. Literally, in other words, their serving has got a selfcentred agenda, to get them ahead somewhere; and you'll find with people like that, that the moment you cease to get them ahead, they will stop serving you; because the serving never came from love. It always came from: I want something from you.

It was never love; it was trading. I give you, you give me something; and even if they never said: you give me; there was always an expectation. Now notice this, when you look into the story - I've read it clearly, and tried to highlight as I was reading it - did you notice that Jesus knew who would betray Him, that He absolutely knew Judas, not only that he was a thief, and he was stealing regularly and ripping the money off from Him; but he had it in his heart, right there at that point in time, that he'd already consulted, and he already had it in his heart, to betray Him. Now you ask yourself this: most serving is done to get someone somewhere; or, it's because people deserve it. We may not serve just to get ourselves somewhere, but usually we think: we'll serve and do something nice, if the person deserves it. If they deserve it, I'll do it; if they don't deserve it, I don't do it.

Now did Judas deserve what he got? He got God Himself, in the flesh, came and knelt at the foot of a betrayer, and washed his feet; knelt at the foot of a thief, and washed his feet.

8

I mean sometimes people do the slightest little thing, and we get so upset, we don't even want to know them anymore. Jesus was able to go to them, and washed their feet, knowing there's betrayal in Judas’ heart. Not only that, He was able to take a piece of bread and dip it, put it in a pot, dip it and then give it to him as a sign of friendship; and give him another chance to come clean, that there was treachery in his heart. When you look through the Bible, the Bible speaks about many, many sins, and of course people kind of got them all ranked; and there's many different ranks of sins, but the number one sin, that is the biggest sin of all in the Bible is this - in my opinion - and this is what it is.

It is covenant-breaking, breaching covenantal relationship. That is the number one, in God's eyes. You can get away with a lot of things, but you don't get away with that. God is a covenant keeper, not a covenant breaker. Now this man Judas was in connection and relationship, it was a covenantal relationship. He breached it by stealing; he breached it because stealing and lying to together, by lying; and then he breached it by finally selling Jesus out. Yet Jesus washed his feet. That's what love in the kingdom looks like. It still can go to people who are messed up, and are doing things that are bad for you, and show kindness to them. It still can serve people, in spite of the fact that you see right through them, and see what's going on in their life.

Most of us, if we see something in a person, then we avoid them or turn away from them; but Jesus came and washed their feet.

Notice what He's saying: this is the example I want you guys to get a hold of. This is what the church needs to get a hold of; instead of looking at what's wrong in people's lives, and seeing the things that are lacking and faults; and then deciding whether they deserve this, or deserve not. We should actually come to the conclusion: I love, because that's who I am; that's what I've got out of my relationship with God. I'm a loving person, I'm a 9

generous person. Never give because people just have a need, or because I feel good; always give because that's what I am - I'm a giver, it's who I am.

Jesus was not selective. Can you serve a person, knowing they've been speaking behind your back? Can you serve someone, knowing that they've done something unkind to you? Can you serve someone who's talking to your enemies? Can you? What stops you? This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus; it's overcoming all that stuff, and drawing from Him. Now you'll see the significance of His next statements that He made, so Jesus was not selective and partial. He serves everyone, and this is the thing that church people get stuck with. We think that God's just nice to the nice people; and He's judging, and He's got a down on the bad people - not at all. He loves every person, and He does actually some wonderful things to people who don't even know Him. Okay, so loving service. When you love like this you uncover pride. Notice what Peter did? He said straight away: Lord, You're washing my feet, stop it! You'll never wash my feet. So notice this that’s pride - see when Jesus went down, and He knelt at Peter's feet, and began to wash his feet, Peter's got two problems come up, and they've all got pride around them.

Number one, Jesus is throwing out His leadership paradigm.

He's thinking: leadership means power, position, high, up, up, up and he's looking to get up, up, up, up and higher with Jesus.

Now Jesus has blown it all out, and He's taking the lowest role, and He's washing his feet. He couldn't cope with it, because it blew out his thinking, of what it is to be great.

The second thing is, because of pride, he couldn't receive. Pride will stop us receiving other's ministering to our needs. We would rather be independent, go it alone. Now a lot of men know this 10

one, when it comes to asking for directions. No, no, I can find the way, I'll find the way. She knows you're lost, and haven't got a clue; but you still won't consult the map. That's just pride: inability to actually admit there's a need, and have someone minister to it. See, so that's what he did, and notice Jesus held His ground. So pride loves recognition of position, and looking good before men, but you see pride resists the uncovering of its dirty feet, and having someone serve it. I wonder what part of your life is dirty. I wonder who's got dirty feet; there's some part of your life that's dirty, but you're resistant to opening it up to anyone to help you. That's tragic. It's as good as Peter saying: no, no, no, no, no, I'll do it myself, leave it to me, no.

Okay, here's the next thing: Love is actually revealed in the foot washing. Notice what Jesus said. He said there straight away, He said - notice this statement: if I don't wash you, you've got no part with Me - number one; two, He said: you call Me Teacher and Lord, and it's well, but if I your Lord, have washed your feet, you ought to do that one another. I've set the example and the pace, so here's the first thing: will you let Jesus wash your feet?

Now when we say ‘Jesus is washing your feet', He's not going to get a basin and come down, not that at all. Basically, will you let Jesus have access to the dirt in your life, to bring cleansing? Now it's impossible that we don't get dirty feet. You walk out of there, you'll just have the TV on, something will come up, you'll walk past and there's something advertised; and then someone gives you a bad mouth or a bad attitude, someone swears at you.

Listen, you can't go through life without being dirtied. That's how it is.

Jesus said: you're already clean, you don't need everything else washed, just need your feet. That's your walk. It's your day to day life. Now most of us find we have experiences, you get hurt, 11

you get disappointed, you get upset by people, you get let down by people, you have negative encounters with people. You have people with tough attitudes, negative attitudes, bad attitudes; and you pick up dirt. You go out there, it's impossible not to be exposed to some sexual uncleanness. It's just there everywhere, so wherever we go, we get out feet dirty; and Jesus is saying this, He said: if you won't let Me wash you, wash your feet, you can't be part with Me. Now He's not saying, you can't get to heaven.

He's talking about the fruit that comes out of being a follower of Christ. Following Christ means we let Him have access to the dirt.

Here's the part that's a bit harder to take. You see, sometimes Jesus doesn't do the foot washing directly, He does it through a member of the body; so now, can I open my dirt to Jesus? Yeah, well I talk to Him about my problems. Alright then, so I'm not shifting in my life. Now can I go to a person in the body of Christ, and expose my dirty feet, and let them serve me and minister to me? That requires humility, accountability, openness.

You won't let me wash your feet, you won't have a part with Me. In other words, He's saying: your portion of what God has intended for you to bring forth, in terms of fruit and blessing, will not happen as it would do, if you let this happen. That's the first thing.

Second thing, so will you open your life? Let someone speak into your life? Are you accountable in any way? I've got relationships with people where they speak into me, where we can put anything on the table, we can talk about anything, and they can talk about anything to me. I've got that set in my life. It's the most wonderful thing to have happen, most wonderful thing that happens. It's a safe place to be in, and I've welcomed them speaking in, because what it does, it means they can wash my 12

feet, they can say what I didn't see, or point out what I'm overlooking, or don't want to face.

See, it's not just about Jesus washing your feet. He washes through His people, so we need relationships, connections. If you're a solo Christian, your running, and you're not connected to a group of people, in a meaningful relationship of building together, you probably are not having your feet washed. Okay well then, so now the first one, He said: if you don't let Me wash your feet you're in trouble. Now what He says is: I've set you the example. I've set the pace. I am a foot washer. Those who follow Me, are foot washers. He said now listen, He said: I'm the master.

Everybody say: Jesus is the Lord? [Yes.] Okay, if the Lord can serve and wash feet, what excuse does the servant have, not to wash feet? That's what He's saying there. If the Lord of the house can wash feet, what excuse do we, who serve Him have, for not washing feet? None whatsoever; and then He puts it a second way. He said: the sent person is not greater than the one who sent them; so we are first of all servants of the Lord, and we are sent. We are sent, into a body; to serve and foot wash in the body. We're also sent into community, to serve and foot wash in the community; and we're not greater than Jesus.

So what He is saying simply is this: I've set the pace what it looks like in My kingdom, and that is, you become a foot washer. Now let's just look at what that looks like. How are you serving? By foot washing, it means you actually become available through relationship, through interest, through commitment, to connect into where something is dirty and messy, get involved with it, and serve to make it better. So that at one level could be just: do you have any people that you're connecting with, about the issues of their life, which are messy and dirty and painful, and grief; to actually engage them, and encourage them, and love 13

them, and help them? Oh not my problem, I'm not a counsellor.

Okay, alright, no foot washing, alright, okay. See? Have you moved on from serving? Now many have moved on. Well I've moved on now. What have you moved to? See you can't move on from serving, when serving under-girds everything in the kingdom. Well I've moved on into my ministry. Oh really? What about ordinary serving, and washing feet? Well I've moved on, I'm in prayer now. Oh really? Well what about meeting people, and serving, and washing their feet? Well I've moved on. I've moved on.

Well what about the children that need someone to invest in them, and to sow into their lives? Well I've moved on, that's not my thing. Well what about the young people, that need someone to help them and engage with them, and listen to them and talk with them; find out what's going on in their life and help them through engagement? That's not my ministry, I've moved on. Oh, well what about just greeting at the church, and making people feel welcome? It's not my ministry I've moved on, I'm into deeper things brother. Well they're too deep for me I'm afraid; too deep, far too deep. You see never, do we ever lose the capacity, to just wash the feet. You know I make it a practice: I just go wash dishes, clean the toilets; because we never lose being a servant. If you lose or promote beyond that, you've lost what it takes to be where you are, anyway. You're now in a position in a thing.

One of the things that people found hard to fathom me out on, one issue is that I can let go a position or a role. I've been leader of a movement. People could not understand why I let go the leadership of the movement. I said: well its simple - Jesus called me to serve, and now He's told me to do something different, it's quite simple. I picked it up, and did it with all my passion; now it's time to change and I put it down again. It's quite simple. My 14

life is not in the role. My life is in Him. It's not so hard to do that, and then what about other things? Well you can still help people, and go clean-up for them and fix them up, or go round and help them with a meal, or do something. See, none of us can move away from foot washing. If you've gone beyond foot washing, you are too far out there to be any use to anyone; and here's one thing we can absolutely declare: you are not a disciple of Jesus.

To disciple, to be a disciple means an imitator and a copier of a teacher; and He just put it out there real clearly. He gets busy in people's lives where it's messy, dirty and not pleasant. It's difficult, there's hardship, heartache, all kinds of messes; and He engages them and serves them. What a challenge for us! Are you a disciple of Jesus, or did you slip and move on beyond the foot washing? Maybe today, we could just in our heart, make a decision: this is why you need Jesus to wash your feet, because we do get attitudes, we do get uppity, we do get disappointed, we do get tired, we do get all these things come in. Then we just stop washing feet. That's why, if you don't keep coming to Him, and let Him wash you; you don't have what it takes, to wash the feet of others. You think: well, they don't deserve it anyways, I'm not going to do that. See, rather than saying: oh, I've just come out of the presence of an Almighty loving God, and He touched me! Oh, that thing He gave grace, and love to me; I have got to overflow to someone!

Here's the thing. If you can't do it in the church you're a part of, I don't think it's going to happen anywhere; because here's the deal: we've all got grand ideas, but at the end, it's the person next to you; I'm not going to wash his feet, no. You see immediately, I've missed the point. It's actually the people around us, it's our children, it's our single parents, it's our widows, it's our older people, it's out there in the crèche, and it’s out there in the Car 15

park. It's just very, very simple, but all of us need to say: I'll be a foot washer; and I can take my gift, and use it to bless someone.

What about your ministry? Here's the thing. Whatever ministry you have, if you haven't got foot washing in your heart, it'll never succeed greatly. It can't. It's missing the empowerment of the servant heart.

16

Spiritual Gifts

1 Corinthians 12:3b-13a Among the questions Paul is answering in this section, questions presumably sent to him by members of the Corinthian community, is the one about “charisms” or “spiritual gifts.”

The position of the Corinthian Church on spiritual gifts and the specific questions submitted to Paul are nowhere clearly stated, so they must be, tentatively, deduced from what Paul says. The underlying question seems to be the role of emotion in spirituality. Paul would hold that emotions are vehicles that carry spiritual gifts and can serve to express them, but they are not to be confused with the gifts themselves. He is especially thinking of the “gift of speaking in tongues,” without excluding the role of emotions in the other gifts.

The gifts - especially tongues - were causing problems in Corinth.

There was, apparently, a belief that some gifts were greater than others, giving those who possessed them, especially “tongues,” an air of superiority, a feeling that they were better Christians because of their special gift. Others without the gift in question would become dissatisfied with their own gift or lack of any 17

apparent gift and, perhaps, consider themselves and others like them to be inferior Christians. Then there is jealousy: “I wish I had that gift, another’s, rather than the one I have.”

So, Paul emphasizes that they are gifts, not achievements and not derived from natural qualities. Their purpose is to serve the Lord, not to puff up the person so “gifted.” They are given for the common good, not self-gratification or aggrandizement.

“Jesus is Lord,” except in the Spirit: If the strength or intensity of the emotion is not a guarantee of the authenticity of a gift, then there is need for some “objective,” criterion to determine what impulses come from the Spirit. The standard is put quite succinctly: Jesus Christ and what he teaches and stands for. The relationship between Jesus and the Spirit is, of course, reciprocal.

It is the work of the Spirit of God to bear witness to the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Different gifts...same Spirit...ministries...Lord...Works...God: The terms “gifts,” “ministries,” and “works,” are not separate categories. They are different ways of saying the same thing. A different word is used assigning them to different names for God to make the point that charisms are ministries and works. Now Paul had an experience of the Triune God, but he did not have a “spelled-out” theology of the Trinity. That would come much later in the Church’s history. Yet, it is clear that his experience of the Divine manifested the reality of God in ways that could be described under three general categories or relationships: Father, Son and Spirit. His point is that there is a variety of ways in which God reveals himself and we relate to him, but the same reality of God underlies this diversity. Christians who experience and express the meaning of Jesus Christ in their lives in a variety of ways receive the grace to do that from the one God who is also Lord and Spirit if and only if they are in union with Christ and 18

his teachings. It is not the “variety,” that is the problem, but the “unity,” in Christ that may be questionable.

Every member receives some “gift,” as Paul understands “gift.”

Remember he has just used “ministries,” and “works,” as synonyms. One gift does not necessarily manifest or make visible and tangible the Spirit more than another.

For the common good: The gifts are not for the individual’s “glory,” but for God’s. The common good means the Church’s benefit. Any behaviour parading itself as a spiritual gift which rends the community because of it or puffs up the individual is bogus and having said that, we must remember that the Church has no “common good,” distinct from the individual members, since the community exists to enable each one to be conformed to Christ.

In verses eight to ten, having established the fundamental framework within which the impulses of the Spirit are to be understood, Paul moves on to illustrate what he means by giving some examples of “gifts.” The list is illustrative, not comprehensive. There are other such lists in the New Testament Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministering ; or he that teacheth, on teaching ; Romans 12:6-7 (1Cor 12:28; 29-30; Eph 4:11).

19

The individual “gifts,” mentioned overlap to a certain extent, but none of them contains all of the other gifts given in the other lists. There are nine enumerated in this list. They are difficult to explain because they are only named here and maybe in another list, but they seem to have needed no explanation to Paul’s audience.

Expression of wisdom, expression of knowledge: These two gifts refer to intelligible speech to explain truth. While the terms sophia–wisdom, and gnosis –knowledge, were big in the mystery cults and natural philosophy of the times, Paul uses them in the more biblical sense. He clearly wants to make a distinction between the two terms, but we do not know what it is.

Faith: This does not refer to the saving faith but a special endowment of faith for a special purpose. Clearly a job for the Holy Spirit! Remember that Jesus almost always required “faith,” before he would heal.

Gifts of healing: This is to be distinguished from ordinary medical skills.

Mighty deeds: These works of power seem to be different from healings, but we are at a loss to know what the difference is.

These were terms obviously so familiar to the Corinthians that they needed no explanation.

Prophecy: Prophecy, the divine interpretation to the human situation, was traditionally associated with the Spirit.

Discernment of spirits: Not every “prophecy,” was genuine, hence the need to discern on the basis of fidelity to Jesus’ teaching or, in the case of the Old Testament, that of Moses.

20

Varieties of tongues: This would be speech unintelligible to both speakers and hearers. Paul put this gift next to last. He obviously had a much lower opinion of tongues - in the hierarchy of gifts than did the Corinthians. Paul never questioned the reality of the gift of tongues, but was well aware that it had its dangers.

Ecstasy and self-hypnosis are hard to distinguish.

Interpretation of tongues: Someone had to interpret the unintelligible speech. As Paul would put it, he would rather say five words that mean something than a thousand in a tongue.

In verse eleven, the Spirit chooses what gift shall be given to each Christian, so that none has occasion for boasting or a sense of superiority.

In verses twelve and thirteen, Gifts are signs of the free grace of God by which the Church exists. A consideration of them naturally leads Paul to think of the Church which he compares to the human body, with its diversity of members, variety of functions, yet unity of form. The Spirit unites people regardless of ethnicity that is Jew or Greek, social status, slave or free, or gender male or female, as stated in Galatians 3:28, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

Unity, not uniformity, lies in the Spirit. Diversity is good.

Squelch that and you squelch the Spirit.

21

Diversity within unity is both God and the church. Unity is not uniformity. God as Trinity is not uniform, but one.

Jesus prayed that we be one, not uniform. The presence of the Holy Spirit of God makes diversity, encourages diversity, expresses himself in a variety of ways and wants the Church to do the same- to do the same thing or things - to love, forgive, establish peace, be charitable, etc.; but not all the same way.

The human body is a good metaphor for what Paul both experiences and expresses. The hand cannot do without the stomach and vice versa; but they do different things. One brings food to the mouth, without that the stomach is unemployed.

Eventually, the whole body will die. They have different functions, different ministries, different works, but the same body. They also have the same general purpose: the sustaining of life and life energy and extending that life by reproducing or bearing fruit.

There was a story told in ancient times about how the different parts of the body complained about the stomach. They thought they did all the work and the stomach just sat around and fed off the fruits of their labour. So they went on strike. All the members agreed to do nothing and starve the stomach. It would get no food. Well, we can all guess what happened. Eventually, the various members learned that they were inter-dependent on each other. No member was greater than any other, even though some members had more exciting functions and other more public and glorious ones, they could not do without the members whose tasks seemed minor or were unseen or inglorious like excretion.

What a great metaphor for Paul to use to describe the Church as well as the gifts given it by the Spirit! No gift is more spiritual, more from the Spirit, than any other. Some gifts may be more 22

exciting, more public, or more obvious. Yet, none are unnecessary and none are less important in God’s eyes. What is necessary for everyone to receive, everyone receives - like faith, hope and love. What everyone does not need, everyone does not get. Whatever gift one gets is not for oneself, but for the common good. It is a gift, not an achievement, much less an entitlement.

We are to show our gratitude for whatever gift by using it well and for the service of the Lord, his mission and his church. We are not to be jealous of others’ gifts or think we are less endowed by the Spirit if we do not have the seemingly glamorous ones.

Finally, people can fake gifts. They can see how they work and imitate the behaviour. This is merely hypocrisy, not a measure of holiness. The Spirit breathes where he will and how he will. The intensity of emotion can accompany the Holy Spirit’s presence. It can even be a sign of it, but not necessarily so. The real standard in discerning the authenticity of a gift is behaviour. Does the person behave consistent with Christ? Jesus would put it: “By their fruits you shall know them.”

The one God expresses himself in a variety of ways, both in creation and in human beings.

“Spiritual gifts,” charisms, “forms of service” and “workings” are but different ways of saying the same thing, namely, “when grace becomes incarnate in a believer.”

Anything done authentically in the name of Jesus or by the power of his Spirit, two ways of saying the same thing, is also done for the common good or up-building of the Church. Absent either of those aspects, the work of ministry and its gift is not truly spiritual.

23

Variety, whether of people Jews, Greeks, slaves, free or of actions ministries-works-charisms, need not be a sign of or criterion of disunity. Look at the Trinity.

Spiritual Gifts: We should not make more of spiritual gifts or charisms than Paul does. He situates these phenomena within the context of God, Lord, Spirit, that is, the Trinity. Though Paul has no fully developed theology or explanation of the Trinity he does have an experience of the Triune God who reveals himself to us and relates to us in a variety of ways and on a variety of levels. He also calls spiritual gifts “ministries” and “works.”

Now that Jesus is risen and ascended he, God, reveals himself in and through a variety of human beings doing a variety of works.

In other words, spiritual gifts are incarnations of grace. So are ministries and any other actions done in the name of Jesus and by the power of his Spirit. They cannot be properly and completely explained otherwise. So, they are not to be confused with natural gifts or giftedness, talents, knacks or expertise.

“Spiritual gift,” is a term Paul uses as a synonym for ministry and works in order to point to the grace that is necessary to explain the plus, the more, the other-than-merely-natural giftedness of any person. These incarnations of grace may range from the ecstatic, as in the case of “speaking in tongues,” to the mundane, as in the case of helping or administering and anything in between. So long as a Christian recognizes the role of grace in his or her activities he or she will experience some form of gift of the Spirit and thereby be even more effective than if he or she depended on natural endowments, as must non-believers.

Of course, strictly speaking, even natural endowments are graces from God, only a person may not recognize them as such and claim credit for what God has granted. That seems to be what was happening in Corinth, especially in the case of the gift of tongues. The fact that there are four lists of such ‘charisms,” in 24

the Pauline letters and that they are not exactly the same illustrates that the lists are not exhaustive, only illustrative of how any activity can be charismatic if rightly recognized as such.

Speaking in Tongues: We should not make more of this “gift,” than Paul does. He seems to regard it as among the least important manifestations of grace. Perhaps this is so because Paul’s criterion for a spiritual gift is that it is given for the common good and not for the person’s aggrandizement. Surely, this manifestation of divine presence and power is the most open to abuse and fakery. Paul gives us four “charisms’ pertaining to speech. There is the discourse of wisdom and the discourse of knowledge, both speech-intelligible to humans. There is the discourse of tongues, unintelligible to both speaker and hearer, except to one with the parallel gift of interpreting tongues, another form of intelligible speech, so only one of the “speech” gifts is unintelligible. The matter is complicated by the account in Acts 2 whereby the apostles received and expressed a gift of tongues which was presumably unintelligible to them, speaking one sentence in a Galilean dialect but being understood by people who understood them in their own dialects or languages, and at the same time intelligible to their listeners. Given the nature of these phenomena we must humbly admit that we neither do understand them nor can understand them. The very nature of “unintelligible,” rules out an intelligible explanation, though not an interpretation of what is meant. God’s language, if we can speak this way, is unintelligible to humans when spoken directly, that is, “in his own native tongue.” When God communicates to a human in that language it comes out as ecstatic and unintelligible speech. It should be a humbling experience to us all that we reach a point in prayer where our words no longer make sense and words are no longer needed, we find ourselves babbling. If we are speaking out loud and 25

other people are present they will hear this babbling. Someone else may be inspired to interpret it for the group, but we should not expect predictions of future events from either the babbler or the un-babbler. In both cases it is the power of God overloading the human circuits of mind and speech. At Corinth some were using what should have been a humbling experience as a witness that we are only on the same wave length as God when God graces us to be. It is not of our own doing, praying or contemplating, there is no cause for becoming proud because some can babble and other cannot. Thus, there is a “common good,” that comes from this ecstatic, even exotic, phenomenon, but the Corinthians were missing it. And they were elevating tongues to a status in the community that it should not have because we have God’s word, the divine interpretation of the human situation and indeed of all reality, we can easily take it for granted or, worse, think that we figured it out for ourselves.

The gift of tongues reminds us that we can never understand the speech of God without the simultaneous grace to interpret it.

This gift of interpretation is given to the apostolic office or Pastor in the church in most cases. However, Paul’s treatment here of the gift of interpreting tongues reminds the officials of the Church that that gift it freely bestowed by the Spirit upon whomever he will and is not limited to the apostolic office. Thus Paul neither dismisses the gift of tongues as fakery or quackery, though in many cases it is, nor does he exalt it to the level of “higher gifts.” He leaves that honour for faith, hope and love, charisms given to all Christians.

The charisms remind me of the story of the man and the flood. A man lived alone in a house a long way from town. He heard on the news from the weather girl that a flood was coming where he 26

lived, but he said, “I’ll be OK. I love my God and he will look after me” As promised, the floods came. As the water rose to his upstairs window, a man in a rowing boat came and offered to take him to safety but the man said, “I’ll be OK. I love my God and he will look after me” The man in the boat left. The waters rose higher and the man had to sit on the roof. A helicopter came by and offered to take him away but he said, “I’ll be OK. I love my God and he will look after me” The helicopter went away, the waters rose higher and the man drowned.

When he got to heaven, he asked God “Why did you not save me?” God replied, “I gave the lady the gift of working out what weather would do, but you ignored her. I gave a man the strength to row against the currents and sent him to you, but you sent him away. I gave another man the love of flying and the skill to fly a helicopter, but you sent him away as well. Just what did you want?”

Gifts and skills come in many guises. Some come upon us suddenly. Some have to be worked at. Sometimes they are all the experiences of our lives that come together at one time to be used just when God wants them seen.

This led me onto my second thought. If all our gifts, skills and talent come from God, what makes the difference between a secular gift and a Spiritual gift?

Many people just use their skills to make their way in the world, just to improve their own lives. Some people use their gifts to help others, to improve others’ lives. We can live in either group.

We should know which one, the one whose commandment is “to love one another as I have loved you.”

27

Yet some people see a difference between what they do at work, what they do in the world, and what they do at church. The accountant says “I only work with books and figures, what can I do?” The street sweeper says “I have no skills at all, what can I do?” They do nothing, yet still come to church on a Sunday. The accountant sings in the choir, the street sweeper takes the collection, counts it, banks it and keeps the records. World skills, Church skills.

Both these people have many other gifts that perhaps they never realise that they can use. The patience to keep books might become the patience to teach a young person. The ability to smile on a wet and miserable day might be passed on to a stranger as they cross the road. None of these skills or gifts is better or more important than another.

The cleaner, the hymnbook collector, the communion glass washer none of them are lower or greater than the preacher, the pastor, or the steward. Just different people, doing different jobs.

Many skills and opportunities just waiting outside in the world for us to use them. Work skills, Church skills, our skills. Gifts from God, for us to use, in his service. And by making gifts of our skills, does that not make them gifts of the spirit?

I think it does, but only, only if they are really used with love. I said at the beginning that I thought that any skill or talent we use to make the world a better place, or to help another person could be considered a gift of the spirit. But cannot every gift be used for evil as well as good? Like Dr Schweitzer, who took his healing gifts into Africa and Dr Shipman who used his gift to kill and murder. Ghandi, whose skill as a speaker brought peace, and Hitler, who used his skill to wreak war on the world.

28

At the end of the day, all the gifts are there to be used. If they are not used with love then they are not worth a light! Don’t take my word for it. Follow Paul’s writing to the end of the chapter. After telling us all about the gifts of the Spirit he goes on to say, “And now I will show you the most excellent way.” The way of love, the way that is the greatest way of all.

29

Signs Of the Seer

W

hat is the Biblical difference between a vision and a dream? In the Hebrew language a vision has the meaning of something mentally seen; an actual appearance; a form. The Greek has a similar definition: an apparition; something actually gazed upon; an external inspired appearance This means that visions usually take place in an awakened state, not when we’re asleep.

It’s like a direct illumination from God that breaks through and lets us see the spiritual realm around us. Of course we do not see everything of that realm, but only what the Lord chooses for us to see. It can be an appearance of Himself or an angel, or of some event happening around us that in the natural we can’t perceive.

A dream on the other hand has subtle differences. The Hebrew defines them simply as a dream of the night season. In its verb 30

form it’s linked to the concept of health and strength. The Greek says a dream is something that appears or is seen in sleep.

Sometimes a dream is defined as a vision in sleep, making the distinction from a waking vision. In fact there are cases when people have been dreaming and then find themselves experiencing a vision within the dream itself! This explains the term a vision in sleep.

An important difference between a vision and a dream is that visions often, but not always, show us something that’s actually happening around us at that precise moment, although we can’t see it with our natural eyes. Dreams however seem to be generally for the ‘curing’ of the soul, alerting us to things we’ve neglected but should rectify.

Visions give us a strategy to deal with the issue at hand. In the Bible angels were often used for this purpose acting as messengers or ‘bringers’ of the vision.

Note this example when an angel is used by the Lord to actually bring forth a vision for the prophet to receive even further revelation.

Zechariah 5:5; Then the angel who talked with me came out and said to me, “Lift your eyes now, and see what this is that goes forth”.

Zechariah was already in a vision-state when this vision within a vision was given to him!

31

Other than a trance there seem to be two types of visions. One is the “open” vision. This is what is sometimes referred to as an “outer” vision, something actually seen like an angelic visitation.

In this experience our eyes are opens and our emotions, thoughts and mind are all active. We might be going about our daily business, or at prayer, or meditating on the Word, when suddenly a seen flashes before us. It’s a sovereign work of the Lord and can catch you completely unawares. In some cases it can suspend the natural workings of the mind briefly, and even affect the body; you might be momentarily unaware of any pain or discomfort.

The other type of vision is the “inner” or closed type. These come more subtlety and can be accompanied by ‘flashes’ of revelation.

They seem to be more “within” us and seem to be mentally perceived. Sometimes, they’re referred to as “mental images”.

Many prophets describe them as appearing on the screen of the back of the forehead, on the inside. In fact I’ve noticed that when I'm active in the Holy Spirit and aware of His moving in a church meeting for example, that I'm particularly focused in on my forehead quite automatically.

Although this can sound a little like a New Age technique, there’s a parallel in the legitimate Christian experience of this.

Many prophetic people say that they “see” a word or image at the back of their forehead.

The occult version of this is the third eye, which is believed to have super-sensory abilities. This is no doubt the satanic counterfeit to a God-given ability to receive a visionary experience.

32

One question that’s often asked is “why does God communicate like this?” Why doesn’t He just “speak” through the Bible?

I believe an important reason is because what we hear can be so easily forgotten. What we see and hear is often retained much better. It’s important to note that just as we have the natural senses, so we also have spiritual senses.

These often act in tandem, so that you might be looking with your natural eyes but seeing something through your spiritual eyes. However, when you try to explain to someone what you're seeing, the person can be quite confused as to just what you're seeing!

This is when people begin to distance themselves from you, and misunderstanding is likely to arise. It is part of the pain you have to bear if the Lord has called you into this ministry. Visions also affirm to us the reality of the spiritual world around us. We actually see it in action. Dreams however are more likely to be subjective. And we cannot always be sure whether last night’s dream came as the result of a bad day at the office or the pizza we had before going to bed!

Visions seem to break through and confront us. They are powerful and direct. You won’t find wasted words in a visionary experience. God speaks clearly and to the point. During a vision all else around us seems to fade and we are focussed absolutely on the matter at hand. In this state time is held at bay. Coming out of a visionary state the physical body may feel weak or even in shock.

33

Daniel 7:15; I Daniel was grieved in my spirit within my body, and the visions of my head, troubled me.

People will often look drained after such an experience. The impact is so great that it confounds our mental processes and it takes time for the meaning of the experience to sink in. It can also bring with it a sense of dread, a renewed fear of the Lord, and puts things into their eternal perspective. A vision will challenge your spiritual laxity.

Dreams and visions aren’t confined to believing Christians either. Cornelius wasn’t a believer in Christ when he experienced his vision in Acts chapter 10.

“I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams” Acts 2: 17

Many times in the Bible we see how angels have been involved in delivering messages from the Lord in heaven, to His people on earth. While this might be obvious, since the name malak (Hebrew), and angelos (Greek) means “messenger”, it's also fascinating to see how often angels actually appear in dreams and visions.

34

It's a wondrous thing to ponder that God would communicate to us through dreams. That in itself is something worthy of reflection. But how much more extraordinary is it that He should send an angel to us inside that dream, and then even talk to us in it! This is truly staggering.

Imagine it for a moment. God wants to speak to you, so He arranges you to have a dream. Then as if that's not remarkable enough, He sends an angel into your dream (somehow), and then gets the angel to give you a message!

Note this example from

Matthew 1:20 ; But while he thought about these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit”.

The question is, “why did God bother to give Joseph a dream with an angel in it? Why didn't He just get the angel to appear before Joseph directly?”

Perhaps it depends on the character of the recipient. Maybe Joseph was of such a personality that an “outside” angelic appearance might not have been helpful to him. Perhaps he 35

might’ve been sceptical and disbelieving. Could it be that Joseph was a very reflective type of man, so that an angelic message within a dream would’ve had greater impact upon him than an external visitation?

I've always sensed that Joseph was like that, reflective and sensitive. So maybe he was much more receptive to what happened to him because it was explained through a dream. It could’ve been that Joseph already had a very fertile dream-life so this was the obvious medium for the Lord to choose.

This also occurred again, when the Lord brought Joseph a warning.

But when Herod was dead, behold an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt… Matt 2:19

He was obviously open to dreams, and seems to have instantly acted upon what he received in them. It's interesting to note that Joseph didn't put down his dream to something else - he didn't dispute that God had spoken through the dream. It was acceptable to him as a reality.

I wonder how many of us would question, or at least debate, what happened in our last night's dreams - even if we did think an angel might’ve been in it. Not so Joseph; he believed what he dreamt, and obeyed.

36

Whatever the reason for all this, it’s truly a marvel that God can put an angel inside a dream. This really makes us realise the extraordinary properties of the dream-state. When we read about dreams and visions we can sometimes tend to think we have a handle on what they’re all about. We look at the physiological state of the mind, the rapid eye movements, the symbolism in the dreams, their prophetic importance, etc. But when we’re faced with a spiritual being like an angel actually coming into our dream and being part of it, it’s truly amazing.

How little we really know of this realm.

The appearance of angels in visions is much more common.

Sometimes they just appear, as real as the natural surroundings.

Other times they’re only discerned with spiritual eyes.

Occasionally only one or two people in a group see the angel; at other times everyone present “sees” the angelic vision.

Note this example from

1Chronicles 21:16; Then David lifted his eyes and saw the angel of Lord standing between earth and heaven, having in his hand a drawn sword stretched out over Jerusalem. So David and the elders, clothed in sackcloth, fell on their faces .

37

All present saw the angel. But here is a clue to a true visionary state in which an angel features: holy fear comes upon the observer/s.

I’ve heard people say things like "Oh, I saw an angel in church this morning" or something like that. I've always wondered why they didn't announce it earlier in the meeting, or why they didn't crash to the floor in holy awe!

Perhaps there’s a distinct difference between an angel appearing in a vision and one manifesting before our eyes. The latter is most probably when there's a very real sense that an angel is present, with a number of people actually seeing it with their physical eyes. I imagine the result would be a number of bodies quivering on the floor!

The former is most likely to be a subjective experience of one or two people, who sense an angel’s presence and then “see” it with their spiritual eyes. In this case you might be very attentive but probably still standing!

38

RESPONDING TO DREAMS

D

reams bring revelation, but they’re also meant to illicit a response on our part. Until we obey what the dream is saying we won’t move on in God.

If our dreams require a response from us, we will not move to the next stage God has determined for us until we have obeyed.

This is the same Biblical principle that we will not be given much until we have been faithful in the little: “And he said to him, 'Well done, good servant; because you were faithful in a very little, have authority over ten cities”. (Luke 19:17) 39

When a dream keeps on repeating itself over a period of time, it means either we haven’t interpreted the dream correctly, or we haven’t obeyed what God is trying to impart. Further revelation is dependent on our present obedience.

Watchman Nee put it this way: “Revelation is born out of previous revelation; it is never given in isolation.”

I have wondered if this principle can be extended further. Is it possible that dreams and visions are sequential, that is, they are born out of previous dream experiences? Could it be that the revelation that comes with dreams and visions is compounded, building on what we’d received before? If this is true then it’s vital that we respond to these experiences correctly in order to grow spiritually.

It’s also important to realise that we cannot make a dream happen. Divine dreams and visions come at GOD’S TIMING; therefore they are important because they are given at the right moment for us. The Lord has selected a particular time to communicate to us through a dream, so we need to honour this timing and respond to it.

Dreams will often be given to us by the Lord in response to a heart-felt cry we have. For this reason each dream or vision will have a specific purpose. This of course refers only to “God-given dreams” not the ordinary type we all experience nightly.

Therefore if each dream has its own distinct purpose for us, it will have a corresponding impact upon us spiritually. This impact is not in the “reality” of the experience, that is, in its vividness, etc, but in the response our spirit gives to the dream.

A truly spiritual dream will cause our spirit-man to respond.

40

A principle worth remembering is that Revelation coming from Preaching or Teaching will usually move the hearer’s soul, but a Dream or Vision will move the spirit.

The Lord communicates with our spirit-man, not our soul. The latter acts as a kind of amplifier or filter of man’s spirit. This is why it’s important to have our soul-life under control.

If we receive revelation via a dream or vision and our character/soul/mind is not submitted to the Holy Spirit, we’re likely to taint the message.

The same applies to the interpretation of a tongue, or the giving of a prophetic word. The soul must be mastered by our spirit under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

Just as interpretation of a tongue must not be by the mind or intellect, so it’s important that dream interpretation must not be rational or intellectual but spiritual 1 Corinthians 2:14; But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God : for they are foolishness unto him : neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

In interpreting dreams and visions there may be times when we shouldn’t just go by our own interpretation. We could make more of the symbolism than is intended. Also we’re most likely 41

to see it through the eyes of our own needs, desires and even doctrine! Sharing a dream or vision with a mature believer can bring quite a measure of balance.

If you do feel the need to share with someone I think the same protocol is necessary that applies to sharing a Word of Knowledge or Prophecy. The person we share with needs to recognise that we’re sharing something very personal and that confidentiality is vital. There needs to be boundaries in place when opening up to others, not so much on our part but for those we share with.

However we need to be aware that sharing these experiences with others might not always benefit us. Some of the consequences of too readily opening up to others who do not understand spiritual things are: being misunderstood; accusation of pride or elitism; vulnerability to verbal attack If after seeking for an interpretation and it still doesn’t seem to come, don’t fret or strain to get it. Linger with the Lord and let His Spirit bring revelation step by step. Also we shouldn’t just seek for the interpretation alone, but the effect it’s meant to have on our life as well.

In desiring to obey a dream or vision some people will attempt to decipher every symbol or meaning. Remember that not all things in a dream have the same importance. Dreams in particular, more so than visions, are like parables. In understanding a parable it’s often the overall first impression that gives the heart of the message.

In the parables of Jesus there is often one, or at the most, two meanings. It was a teaching method used extensively by rabbis to use an everyday experience and relate it to some spiritual truth.

These parables were not meant to be dissected to discover any 42

hidden truths, but to act like a sudden revelation of one particular point being made.

I’ve found that it’s the first impression that gives the meaning.

After realising this, you can then look deeper into specific symbols in the dream. These will confirm the impression you first sensed was right.

The recording or writing down of dreams will assist this process because in the very writing of it forgotten parts of the dream seem to be brought back to our memory. The act of committing the dream or vision to paper is also a way of honouring the importance of the experience.

43

DREAMS AS WARNINGS

I

n the Bible there are numerous examples of dreams used to bring a warning. We find one instance in Genesis where Abraham (for the second time!) pretends that Sarah is his sister.

Genesis 20:2; And Abraham said of Sarah his wife, She is my sister: and Abimelech king of Gerar sent, and took Sarah.

The unsuspecting King Abimelech takes Sarah to his harem but is warned in a dream not to touch her and to return her to Abraham. God in His mercy graciously warned this heathen king. One of the interesting things I find in this event is that God 44

and Abimelech have a conversation with each other while the King is in a dream state!

In the New Testament the most famous dream warnings are found in Matthew’s gospel. The wise men are warned not to return to Herod. Interestingly enough this seems to be a season of dream-warnings because just after the wise men depart Joseph is also warned in a dream and told to flee to Egypt for a time.

However in the latter case it’s an angel that brings the warning, though still in a dream.

Matthew 2:12-13; And being warned of God in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed into their own country another way. And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee word : for Herod will seek the young child to destroy him.

There are many such examples of dreams giving life-saving warnings throughout history. It seems as though when a warning comes via a dream there is a time frame involved that gives us time to consider it. The dream may warn of something that’s going to happen many hours before it occurs, an accident 45

for example. The warning is giving us time to pray about it. The intercession can avert the disaster. Just because we have a dream that shows a friend drowning or in a plane crash doesn’t mean the event is necessarily inevitable.

God will often alert us to a scheme of the Enemy so we can intercede to cause the accident not to happen. So don’t just accept warnings fatalistically as if there’s nothing you can do about it.

God may be calling you to prayer!

However, warnings that come in the form of a vision seem to be much more urgent, warning of impending danger.

However God also uses dreams to warn us of moral and spiritual consequences that are going to occur unless we take evasive action. This type of warning is found in King Amilech’s dream.

Genesis 20:4-5; But Abimelech had not come near her : and he said, Lord, wilt thou slay also a righteous nation ? Said he not unto me, She is my sister ? and she, even she herself said, He is my brother : in the integrity of my heart and innocency of my hands have I done this.

Since the dreams we are talking about have their origin in God, it’s extremely important to take note of them. The Lord will often warn those in leadership of some danger looming in the 46

Fellowship, even before the eldership have discerned there is a problem.

If however you have a dream-warning that involves people you know in the local church or community, it wouldn’t be wise to simply go and share it with them.

Use some wisdom, and approach the leadership first for counsel.

Don’t leave it too long, but do go and seek advice. It’s not always the right thing to flash the warning lights so-to-speak as it may cause undue anxiety for the person involved. The dream may be for you to pray about; it’s not always necessary or correct to share these warning-dreams with others. Use your discretion in the matter.

47

Hearing The voice of God

P

eople are the measuring stick of how you're doing with God. It's very easy to be drawn into all range of spiritual experiences, and these are wonderful; but if it doesn't convert to being connected to people, and working with people and helping people, there is something majorly lacking.

Jesus said: if you belong to Him - here's the first thing - you hear His voice; and two, you respond to what He's saying. The Bible is always very practical, God calls us to act; to listen, and then to respond.

How can you follow someone, if you don't know where they're going? That's pretty simple isn't it? How can you follow someone, if you don't know where they're going? How can you know where they're going, unless they tell you where they're going? So if you're going to follow Jesus, you need to know where He's going. You've got to be able to listen to Him, so essentially to belong to Christ means very simply this: that we 48

have a capacity to hear Him. Every person can hear the voice of God. Listen, even if you are not saved, you can hear the voice of God. Adam, after he fell, heard the voice of God. Every person can hear the voice of God; and if you become a believer, then hearing the voice of God becomes absolutely vital, totally vital to your life! So here's the thing: communication is foundational to every relationship, communication. You cannot build a relationship without communication; and it needs to be two-way.

One of the biggest skills in communication, is the ability to listen; to actually listen, and hear what the person is saying; not jump to conclusions what they might be saying, but actually hear what they're saying; and then make a response. If you don't hear what someone else has got to say, and actually hear it properly, and make a response, that relationship's going to be in trouble. That's true of every area of life. Now I want to just picture this up a little bit. Now can you imagine a young couple going out together, usually what you notice is that they talk a lot. Isn't that right? Then you see the same couple years later, and he's got the paper, and he's got his nose in the paper, and she's sort of looking, where to look, and there's no talk going on; so notice that relationships start with a lot of talk, and then when you see them and there's not much talk, you could say that relationship's pretty well in bad shape.

So what are the conditions there? What does it look like, when a relationship is in bad shape? Actually there's no passion, there's no fire, there's no excitement, there's no joy. It's actually slowly dying. Is that right? Okay then. Now what would that look like for a Christian then, who has started their relationship with a lot of enthusiasm, and now it's weak? The core behind that, is they've stopped hearing and responding to Jesus; and they've substituted personal connection with Jesus, hearing what He has 49

to say, with religious duties, or religious habits. Now I believe it's great to have habits. We need to have habits, but they are not a substitute for living connection with Jesus. Now that really creates a bit of a problem, because if we individually stop hearing Jesus and responding to Him, we are now living our life out of habit and routines, and it lacks passion, life, vitality, spontaneity - it becomes weak and routine.

The problem is that most people don't know when they stopped hearing and responding. They just drift that way. It's true of marriages. It's true in families. It's true of all relationships, that if they're not nurtured and built in the communications area, they will diminish until there's nothing left. Now understanding that means we need to place a high priority on personally, and corporately, hearing the voice of God. Of all the skills you could learn in your spiritual journey, if I could just nail it down to one, it would be this: learn how to hear His voice; and then choose to consistently say: yes, and respond by doing something. Would that be true? You don't need much more than that, but I'll give you a bit more, because it raises a lot of problems and a lot of questions, so here's a couple of questions I could ask you straight away to just get you thinking.

Here's the first one. What's the last thing that Jesus said to you?

How long ago was it? What have you been doing about it? If that's a bit of a guilty response after that, and it's a long time since you last heard Jesus speak personally to you, your relationship is in trouble - not with Him, He's fine. You're the one who's in trouble, because you've replaced a living, vibrant connection, with routine, and it gets boring, and you get bored.

You get to quit on doing the stuff that God wants you to do, so that's interesting. So Jesus actually made a number of cautions.

Looking through the gospels, and Jesus' teaching, did you 50

realise, eight times it's recorded in the gospels alone, Jesus said: that he that has ears to hear, let him hear. In other words, He's saying: make sure you stay tuned in to God; and He gave many, many warnings related to that. In the Book of Revelation, which is about the end time church, it's about the revealing of Jesus Christ, seven times He said: let he that has an ear to hear, hear what the spirit is saying to the churches.

Now here's an interesting thought: God is speaking to you individually; God is speaking to the church. Now if God is speaking to you individually, then He'll speak in a personal way, about the issues of your life, about your relationships - He's interested in every arena in your life. He does want to talk to you about that. But He also wants to talk to us corporately. Now when He talks to us corporately, it means: He's talking about something, at one time; hence the need to place importance on what God is saying to us. Now I can go on the Internet, I can hear all things God's saying all over the world, to all kinds of different people, but they're all around the world. What I need to be hearing is what God is saying to us in our different settlements.

The Holy Spirit is saying, He's inspiring and calling us, to follow Jesus; to actually centre our focus on Him; and to understand in our life and personal walk, what it'll mean to follow Him, to be a follower of Jesus Christ, not just a Christian.

Now lots of people call themselves Christians, but to be a follower of Christ implies a dynamic of a walk with God; so if you're coming to meetings on Sundays or Saturdays, and this is your home, then God would be saying something here. Either through the worship, He'll say something in the meetings He'll say something.

Now here's a couple of ways you could think of helping yourself, on whether you're hearing God. One of them is: in church 51

meetings, just take some notes. All you've got to do is remember to bring a pen, write something down. Here's the second thing you could do: Get involved in a small group, where they can ask you these two questions: what has God been saying to you?

What have you been doing with that? Now we think that our Christian life can be lived alone. It cannot be lived alone. It's never designed to be lived alone. We're designed to live in community, so not only does God speak to us individually; the Spirit speaks to the churches - not only our church - He speaks to churches all over the world.

When you hear what the Spirit says, and you respond, you become an overcomer! Being an overcomer's not that hard. It's not like I'm on top of it all the time. Have a look at all the people in the Bible. One thing that's got to be common, with all the great heroes of faith, is how many times they were defeated; and fell down, fell over, or made mistakes, or just plum outright sinned; yet they were all core men of faith, because when God spoke to them, they responded. So I don't think being an overcomer means I'm on top of everything all the time. I think it means that when I hear God speak, I say: yes; and do it. You start to do that your life will shift immensely.

So what does the voice of God sound like? What does God's voice sound like, when He is speaking to us? And of course it raises other questions; what if God isn't speaking? What if I've been praying and asking for something for a long time, and He hasn't spoken? You've got an issue in your life, and in that issue in your life, heaven is silent! In the midst of that silence, there's stress, because I need a reply from heaven, and no reply is forthcoming. It's like God's absent, and He's not talking, shut down. Most of us have had that experience, Bible says: My sheep hear My voice, and follow Me, we also have to take into account, 52

there are times when God remains silent for a season. In that season, your heart is tested, what will you do; and in that season, He requires that we just trust Him, and do the last thing He told us to do. That's probably as simple as I can get it.

Now I hate those times when He's not telling me, but I've learned in them trust Him, and relax. He's got an answer. It is coming, and in due time, He'll tell you. He will tell you. He will show the way. He's promised to show the way; so if you're stuck in that place now, and it feels like you've got an issue in your life maybe it's an issue with a child, an issue with a spouse, an issue with finances, an issue with a job - there's so many of them in life, and it's like God speaks on lots of trivial things, but on the big thing He's not saying anything. That is horrible, and it happens to all of us, and it happens more often than we'd like to say - it happens. And in those times remain confident, trust in the Lord with all your heart, don't lean on your own understanding and try and find your way. Walk with God, humbly dependent, confessing His word over your life, and trusting Him - and acting on the last thing you were given.

So if you hear the voice of God, what will it sound like? Very, very simple - Jesus spoke in

1 Corinthians 6:17, But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.

Paul wrote: he that's joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. So we have to be very, very clear that when God speaks, He is speaking to our spirit; and here's the amazing thing. When the 53

disciples were on the earth, they literally had to physically follow Jesus, and walk after a person; but now Jesus said: there's a whole new deal; and so He says: I want you to abide in Me. I'm going to put my spirit inside you. My spirit and your spirit will be joined, and because of that you will be able to have free access to the realm of heaven, but you will be on the earth. You'll be living here, but you'll have access to the realm of heaven, the realm of the spirit. My spirit will always be with you, so you won't need to physically be in Israel. You can be with Me. I will be with you. I'll never leave you, not forsake you; so notice it's he that's joined the Lord, is one spirit - and therein is the key. If we're going to hear from God, it will be in our spirit. The word of God is vital to all guidance and direction, and moving from the word of God creates disasters. However, God wants us to learn how to recognise when He's speaking to us, so it will be from our spirit. So He wants us to learn how to be aware of the movements of His spirit within us.

For example, a mother can quickly pick the voice of her child in a room of yelling children, you just hear noise, she hears her child.

She has tuned her ear to the voice of her child. We have to tune our ear to the voice of our spirit, because that's where we'll hear the Holy Spirit. You won't necessarily have some great big picture and revelation. You may not have some great big open dream, or thing like that; but you can, within your spirit, hear and receive impressions of the Holy Spirit.

John 7:37; In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.

54

In John 7:37-39, Jesus was speaking, and He said: out of your belly, out of your spirit, out of within, you will flow rivers of living water; and He was speaking of the Holy Spirit, or the ministry of the spirit. So God's voice is not going to be yelling at you, although He can. It's not going to be outside you, although it can be. It may not be very dramatic, although it can be.

Usually, for most of us, most of the time, it's like Elijah described: a still small voice, very still. In other words, it's not loud, raucous, pushing, pressy; and it's very small, it's very little, and very easily stopped.

Now if we're going to hear the voice of God then, that means we've got to deal with inner noise, and learn how to come to rest.

If I have got a lot of noise going on my soul, it will distract me from hearing God. If I've got a lot of turmoil in my soul, it will stop me hearing God; and so the reason a lot of people don't hear much from God, is because of turmoil going on inside their life; and usually in the turmoil, when you really most want to hear God, there's so much turmoil, it blocks your hearing; and so you've got to do something about the turmoil. Let me give you some of the common hindrances, things that literally obstruct that flow of the spirit; i'll just give you some very simple ways.

One of the things that will stop you, or hinder you - I'll use the word hinder, because nothing stops God. Even Adam and Eve, after they sinned, heard the voice of God. So here's the thing: hidden sin. If you've got things in your heart God's been talking to you about and you're not responding; that sin will create noise in your life that blocks out God. It's like you just don't hear Him anymore. If I regard inequity in my heart, He shall not hear me; so it affects our prayer life, everything. Hidden sin opens the door to being: the voice you hear is the one that condemns you, that's not the voice of Jesus.

55

So there are many voices, many impressions we have within; we have to learn how to distinguish what they are, and removing a few of the hindrances can help. One of the hindrances is sin, unconfessed, un-repented of. Another common hindrance, more common than you'd realise, is if we are disappointed with God. If you are disappointed with someone, you're hurt, because they didn't do what you thought, the way you thought. What normally happens is, you close your heart up to them; and when you close your heart up to someone, then when you meet with that person, there's a distance between you, and you're not really receiving properly. So if we've been disappointed, we've prayed, sought God over something and nothing happened, there's a tendency to feel hurt, rejected and to blame God, and then shut down. This just hinders us, and here's the problem. If you want to hear the voice of God, of course you're going to have to face this issue where you felt disappointed by God. So now we hold the hurt in our heart, it just blocks us. We need to resolve things, and if there's a hurt and a grief and a disappointment, God knows about it.

Another area related to it, is unresolved grief and offences.

Offences with people, and with God, are blockers to hearing from God. There's so much turmoil inside, about what someone did, and how hurt you are; you can't - it just drowns out the voice of God, which is very gentle. So when you try to hear the voice of God, if there's hurts and offences, resolve them very quickly. Another thing that can be a problem is the mind-set where you've got a mind-set about something, or you've got something you've just set your mind to. For example a person's asking God to direct them over a relationship, but they've already got their mind made on it. They want to go in that relationship. They're just doing a nominal thing, asking God about it. You're not going to hear. You'll just hear what's in your 56

heart already, so when we're approaching God for guidance and direction, we've got to come from a place where, whatever the Lord wants, we're happy with. If you come from the place: this is what I've already got made up, I want you to confirm it, and well that's crazy stuff. God's not going to rubber stamp your plans.

You have to come with an open heart, and no mind-sets about what it'll be. Mind-sets often come out of hurts and offences, so come with a free heart.

Another thing that will hinder you is an over-dependence on reasoning; where we've learnt to reason and work everything out, and we get stuck in our head trying to figure it out. You can't figure God out; so for most people, their thoughts, and the flow of their life, is off their reasoning; but God want us to learn listen to the thoughts from the heart. There are thoughts from your heart. These are the thoughts of the spirit man. We have the mind of Christ, so there's a flow from our heart and spirit, and we need to listen through that; then our thoughts of our mind they can be quite distorted. You can have an opinion about something, that's completely wrong. You can have an attitude that's completely wrong, but if I listen to the voice of my heart, then I can actually then re-think life. Now a lot of people, the moment they see something, go back into reasoning, trying to work it out. It just hinders them flowing with the spirit of God, so those are some of the most common hindrances.

Of course if you're loaded with demons that can make a huge problem too, just get full of confusion, and doubt, and condemnation. So the voice of doubt, and condemnation, and being put down, all of those voices do not come from God. They come from the demonic realm, through access to our mind. God loves you, He wants to talk with you; so what would be some of

57

the simple keys on how you can receive from God? Lots of people have got different ways of doing it.

The first basic key to hearing from God is: you need to free up your spirit. If your spirit is held down, because you're oppressed in your thoughts or emotions, you won't easily hear the voice of your spirit. So many times we come to listen to God, or want to hear God our spirit is heavy, shut down. That's why, in the meetings, we encourage you to enter in, to give out something, to give something to God; so you can free your spirit up in a number of ways. One is by starting to express gratitude to Him. Another way is by praising Him, until you start to feel your soul and emotions move. Another way is by praying in tongues.

Praying in tongues will stir your spirit up; so we need to actually do something, that our spirit is free.

It may well be that you've got clutter in your soul. Then bring it out, and put it out before Him, and remove the clutter. Write it down. Do something that gets it out of your head, where it buzzes around; put it down in front of the Lord, then arise and begin to praise Him, and worship Him; pray in tongues, so you feel your spirit flow. Sometimes it can take a little while to feel the flow of your spirit hence worship meetings are great places for hearing the voice of God. The first one is free up your spirit.

The second thing is: you need to focus your attention, or fix your thoughts. Most of us, our mind wanders all over. If you're going to hear the voice of God, it requires you centre, or fix, your thoughts on Him. If I fix my thoughts on myself, I shut down in my spirit; but if I actually just consciously begin to think, and meditate, that Jesus is there, I begin to see Him as a wonderful shepherd, see Him as a friend; my spirit opens up, and I can start to receive. Just learn 58

a very simple thing: fix your thoughts. Fix your thoughts on Him; so you can use scriptures to create pictures of Him, but you've got to get rid of your external distractions, and internal distractions, and focus or fix your thoughts; and the best way is with a picture. If you're not good at a picture, try to perhaps meditate on a scripture, but focus your attention on Him. In order to see something from the Lord, you've got to look, or listen. You want to hear something, you've got to be listening, actually be attentive.

So the next thing is faith; I need to expect that God will speak. I need to expect God will give me something. I should expect God to do something. Why? Because He said: My sheep hear My voice; so there's a place of expectation, and that God will give something, that there'll be a quickening. How would it come, if God spoke to me? Well, it'll come just as a spontaneous picture, a spontaneous thought, just comes up into your thoughts, just like that - wow, where did that come from? Or a spontaneous word or an impression, just have an impression, or you may just have a feeling, an emotion.

When the spirit of God speaks to us, He'll never speak contrary to the word of God. It'll always align with the word of God. It'll always be very, very simply - it'll be aligned with what God's word said, and never violate the written word; so if you're getting things that aren't in the word of God, then beware, be cautious; because if it's contrary to the word of God, why would the spirit of God give you something, that He wrote something different about? It makes Him a liar; so if anything you receive by revelation is contrary to the Bible, then it's contrary to the spirit of God. You're getting it from somewhere else. Just shut it down, stop listening to that stuff.

59

The second thing it would do is it always brings a fruit in your life of peace. When God gives you something, there's a witness in your spirit, there's a peace in your heart. It's always like that. The third thing is that when God gives us something, it usually: comforts, edifies and exalts us. It lifts us up, it builds us up. It never condemns, and puts you down. He just doesn't do that. He says: I do not condemn you, I come to save, not condemn, not to judge. He does never condemn us; so if you're hearing condemning thoughts, they're not from God. Someone prophesies a condemning prophesy, that's not from God either bless you brother, but I don't receive any word of it. You know, it's as simple as that. Why should you receive something that's contrary to scripture? Someone says things that are condemning and putting down, that's not God. He's not going to treat you that way. He'll talk with you with love, encouragement, and He'll tell you the truth, and He'll show you what to do to move forward; so things that come from God are very, very clear. Very simply, they're in line with the word of God, and the character of God; they produce a fruit of peace, and good results in our life.

They witness with our spirit, they tend to edify and to build us up. They tend to strengthen us.

If someone prophesies, or there's some word you get about something in the future; if it comes to pass, it most likely was God. There are many reasons that things don't come to pass, and one of them is that we don't respond to them; so here's the thing then, very, very simple. It's not hard to hear the voice of God, not hard to move and to listen to God, but you've got to go quiet, and still your heart, and listen. Free your spirit, focus your attention, faith, expect God to speak to you and give you something; feel or identify what you have; and then respond and act on it. It really helps if you're identifying things to journal them, write them down. What did God say to you?

60

Speaking In Tongues

T

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

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

Acts 2:4; And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

61

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

You've got something that can change your life, as a gift to you.

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

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

Now we're supposed to get filled with the Holy Ghost. Filled with the Holy Ghost, baptised in the spirit, is to step into a new world, a new realm of the kingdom, a new realm of living and experiencing; and let me tell you this: it's all unfamiliar. Why is it unfamiliar? Because your natural mind has been educated totally in how to live in the things you can see, and feel, and touch; and so we've spent all our life being trained how to live in, and engage, a natural world. When you got baptised in the spirit, you were immersed, or entered into, a new dimension; and you have 62

to learn the language, the culture, the ways of that realm, and learn how to stay there.

We are quite unique because we can enter, live in, and experience the supernatural; and also live in the natural. We are a gateway from one to the other; and so to live there, interestingly enough.

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

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

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

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

So I want to share with you some simple elementary things.

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

The gift of tongues is one of the most wonderful gifts that God has given you and me, and it is vital for building a spirit 63

dimensional life around you, absolutely vital. Here's one of the reasons why it's vital: because without the flow of the spirit's life within you, you're left to live out of your own efforts and willpower. You're left to try and live the Christian life in your own effort and willpower, and without the intuitive flow, direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

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

Maybe it's the things that lie out ahead.

He said: I'll teach you about things to come, I'll reveal Jesus to you. You can't even get to know Jesus without the Holy Ghost.

We need the Holy Spirit, need to love Him, so here's the first thing.

Notice it says

1 Corinthians 14:14; For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful.

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

64

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

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

The interesting thing is that your spirit is incredibly important to you. Your spirit gives you life; your spirit keeps your body healthy. Without your spirit, your body dies. We need our spirit.

Our spirit is vital; and praying in tongues will activate your spirit, get your spirit going. Every time you're praying in tongues my spirit is being stirred up. My spirit is coming alive.

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

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

God is with you, God is inside you. Everyone can hear God. How can you build a relationship with someone, if you can't hear them? You say: well I don't hear God. That's just not true. God speaks. It's just you haven't trained yourself to listen. You get a room full of babies cry, mother will hear, say: that's my baby; 65

because she recognises the sound. There's a lot of noise, a lot of things. Most people have got too much noise going in their life that's why they can't hear God. It's quite simple to slow down, and get to hear God, and His voice is very easy to recognise. It's not very difficult.

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

So imagine now the Holy Spirit is joined to your spirit, two separate beings but joined, linked. That joining is like a marriage connection, like an intimate relationship, so you are joined spirit to spirit with the spirit of God. That's how close you are to God. God is not far off. He's inside you, connected to your spirit. Now how close to God can you get! Well, I don't feel Him. Of course not - you're tuned in to something else. If you were just to stop you'd feel God. He's there with you, He's inside you.

The issue is the development of your inner life to be sensitive to God, to be sensitive to the spirit of God, when we're so used to listening to the noise of our soul, and the demands of our body.

If you could just silence those, and increase the other, wind the volume up on the inside, then you'd start to find you're hearing God a lot more easily, a lot more frequently, a lot more quickly.

So let me just talk about then how - so the Holy Spirit, it says: they spoke as the spirit gave them the utterance. So how on earth 66

does it get from the Holy Ghost, how does this language of tongues work?

How is it I end up speaking in tongues and the language is flowing - oh, flowing without any effort! How does that happen?

How does that work?

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

So the language that you are uttering, actually originates with God. It is His words, His language. It's something He actually understands. It's something that has meaning. It's actually a language - so how does the language get from God, to ending up coming out of my mouth? How does that happen?

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

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

Now if you were to do this, if you were to just sort of pray very strongly in tongues, and pray strongly for 3-5 minutes, until you 67

get a real strong flow going; and then you suddenly stop, you'll find you'll hear the language in your head.

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

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

Learn to pray, and consistently pray in tongues; and feel what happens inside your body, inside your spirit, as you're doing it.

Learn to recognise the flow of God, recognise the flow of the spirit, because that's what's happening. There's a language coming through you. Now that language that flows in your spirit, it's something that God has created, see? God has created it; it's a language.

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

68

Ephesians 3:20; Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,

In Ephesians chapter 20, it talks about the power that works in you, the power that works mightily in you. Now most people get into what I call revival thinking, so they're waiting for some power to come to them - one day, if they pray hard enough.

What about the power that's already in you? What will you do with that? Will you neglect that in favour of waiting for something bigger one day? You'll wait a long time.

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

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

Well what is that? Is that some experience you'll have one day?

No, it isn't. It's something that comes - the Dunamis is the Holy Ghost. The inner man is where He lives, and when you pray in tongues, dunamis begins to flow. So what happens is, when you pray in tongues - and I mean pray strongly and give yourself to that - then what happens is, your whole inner man energises, becomes full of the life of God. So that word energise is like an 69

energy battery - He fills you up with energetic life, the life flow of the spirit.

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

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

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

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

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

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

70

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

So when I was starting, it would take me a little while to do that.

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

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

Sometimes there'll be a direct spirit resistance, and when you pray you feel those words are barely getting out of your mouth.

In fact it's a huge amount of energy just to get anything out. That is actually spiritual resistance to you. That's a demon stepping up, right in your face.

You know what it's like when you've got your eyes closed, you go up near a wall and you can feel the wall near you? Okay, you know that feeling? Okay, well a demon can come up, and do exactly the same to you; and come up and get right in your face, and when you try and pray in tongues, inside you're going and 71

what's coming out is very little coming out, and you're exhausted after about two minutes. You think oh, this is just too hard.

What's happened is there's a spirit pushing against you. You just decide that's what it is, and I'm going to get stronger. You just push and push - you just keep praying in tongues; and what happens is, it just backs away, and the flow comes. Once the flow goes, there's no awareness of any resistance there at all.

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

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

Sometimes I get praying in tongues, try to go to sleep, I can't sleep. I'm lying there - just like that you just can't sleep, so I KNOW it energises you. Just get going, see? The fourth benefit of it - it brings forth the purposes of God. 1 Corinthians 14:2 - He that speaks in tongues, doesn't speak to men, but speaks to God, for no one understands him.

However, in the spirit he speaks mysteries.

72

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

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

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

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

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

You pray for your children; God, turn that rebellious son of mine - you know, so you're praying God, all this stuff, trying to manipulate God. But you see, when you're praying in tongues, and you just hold the person in your heart with love, and you 73

begin to pray in tongues, now you can pour forth God's plan, God's will, God's purpose, God's thinking.

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

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

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

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

So you notice it says: you speak to God. Now if you have a look in Verse 28, it says: you speak to yourself, and to God; so when you speak in tongues, you're speaking both to yourself and to God. You're speaking into your spirit the things God wants for your life. You're speaking into yourself, and you are teaching your spirit. You say: how can you do that? Listen, when I'm prophesying, I'm actually being taught by the Lord as I speak, because there's a flow, and I'm listening to the revelation, 74

speaking out what's coming; and the other part of my head's saying: boy, I didn't know that. Oh, that's amazing - oh, that's incredible. I didn't know all those things Lord - so you're teaching yourself.

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

So you say: well what's the use of that, if don't get to know it?

Well the point is you can get to know it. It's just you don't know it as you're praying it, because you'd be analysing it and shutting it down.

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

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

That part of your brain isn't the bit that's going to be any use anyway, because the rest comes from the Holy Ghost; so it's nice that God levelled it all out, isn't it? I think it's quite good. Tell you what we'll do, we'll just give them all the gift of tongues, then it won't matter. They'll all be praying the same, and it won't 75

help to be very smart, because all being smart just confuses you, because you can't understand things of God. They're received by revelation, so you don't use logic for the things of God. The language of the spirit is a language of flow. It's a language of spontaneity; it's a language of pictures, of visions. It's a language of inspired thoughts; so as you're praying in tongues, you can begin to tune and focus your mind to listen, to receive and thoughts come.

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

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

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

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

76

Corinthians 14:4 says: he that speaks in an unknown tongue edifies, builds up, his spirit man.

Well I want to know how many spiritual midgets we've got here?

The thing is that we've probably got heaps - because only you can build your spirit man.

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

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

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

God wants some spiritual giants! To be a giant, you have to edify yourself, build yourself up, build yourself up; so when you got up in the morning, How many prayed in tongues? First thing, when you get out of bed - leap out of bed, start your spirit going. You can get the 77

breakfast afterwards - get your spirit building, build your spirit man.

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

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

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

So wherever you go, people feel the presence of God is with you.

See again, there's a bit of a problem if you're waiting for revival.

This actually gives you something to do right now, to shift the level of spiritual vitality you have, the life and manifestation of God in you, and then around you.

Revival is like the icing on the cake. It is absolutely fantastic. You need to build your life with God - and finally, the last thing is the Holy Ghost - we can speak in tongues, get filled with the Holy Ghost, you start to get filled with the spirit.

78

Tongues And Interpretation

C

hristians must be immersed into the spiritual dimension, and be "clothed with power from on high". This is a gift, available to all who desire it. Receiving the Holy Spirit (Born Again) versus receiving the total immersion (Baptism of the Holy Spirit). To express ourselves in this new culture we need a language which bubbles up from within - energising our inner life, speaking out 'mysteries' and more. Finally, learn how to operate the Word of Knowledge - a powerful revelation gift to open up a person's life.

There are two dimensions that God wants us to understand. One is personal prayer, and the other is the operation of the gifts, firstly lets talk about the Baptism in the Holy Spirit and Speaking in Tongues. I'll be focussing on the personal devotional gift every believer can receive. Then we will move, and we will look at the ministry gift or the manifestation of speaking in tongues with interpretation.

79

1 Corinthians 12:7; If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing ? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling ?

and one on the list of the Gifts of the Spirit was: Speaking in diverse tongues with interpretation.

Jesus made it very clear, when He was about to depart from this earth, that He would leave another comforter, the Holy Spirit. He made it very clear He was going to give them a person. The Holy Spirit would be released to them.

He said in John 14: “You've seen Him with you. Soon He will be in you”. So Jesus made a promise, before His death on the cross, that the disciples would receive the Holy Spirit. He's the spirit of truth, He's the comforter; He will guide them into truth, He will reveal things to come, He'll reveal Jesus. He said: “I'm not going to leave you alone”.

So in John 14, He tells us: “I will not leave you alone, I will send you another comforter, the Holy Spirit. He's been with you, but now He will be in you” - very, very important. Now following from there, we know Jesus died and rose from the dead, and then He appeared to His disciples. So in John 20:21-22. He said, as He appeared to the disciples, “He said: Peace to you! As my Father sent Me, even I send you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said: receive the Holy Ghost”.

80

He breathed on them and said: “Receive the Holy Ghost”.

Now I want you to understand that He didn't just blow on them He actually imparted. Just as God breathed into Adam the breath of life, Jesus imparted into the disciples His Holy Spirit.

He released into them the spirit of God - at that point they were born again. He breathed on them, and said: “Receive (or take into yourself) the Holy Spirit”.

What He did was that He imparted from His spirit. It's from His spirit - from the depths of His being = He released what He was unauthorised to release.

He released the Holy Spirit to come into people, so He went [releases one long breath] like that, and then something happened - there was impartation; they received an impartation the Holy Spirit came into them.

That's what impartation is - something is imparted, something, that someone has - they release it to someone else.

Jesus said in John 7:37, He said: “out of your belly will flow rivers of living water”

and He was speaking about the Holy Spirit. So God wants you to have a flow from your spirit, but first you've got to be born again. So at this point the disciples were born again.

81

Luke 24:49, and Jesus again appears to the disciples and He said: “Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you”.

Notice that He's already breathed into them the Holy Spirit. Now He says something else: “the promise of the Father”.

He said: “I send to you the promise of the Father upon you. Wait in Jerusalem until you be clothed with power from on high”.

So He's already breathed into them, and they're born again. Now He's saying: “wait until you are clothed with power from on high”.

Acts 1:4 – “Being assembled together with them, He commanded them they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father”.

Now they're born again, He's saying: there's something else to wait for - for John baptised you with water, but you will be baptised in the Holy Ghost, not many days hence.

When they were come together they asked: “when will this happen”? When will you restore the kingdom to Israel? And He says this: “You shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the utmost parts of the earth”.

82

So notice He has breathed, and imparted into them the Holy Spirit - they're born again; now He's talking about a second experience, where the Holy Spirit comes on them, and He uses words like ‘baptised’. When a ship sinks, it's baptised, it's totally immersed. It's immersed in water.

If you had a garment, and you put it into a tub of water, it's baptised - It's immersed or soaked or saturated.

So He's saying: “you'll be baptised in the spirit”. You will be immersed into another dimension of the spirit. He also uses another word, He said: “you'll be clothed with power”.

He said: there's something will come on you, you'll have the Holy Spirit come on you, and your life will be clothed. Before it's like you were unclothed. You were trying to do the job without the power. He said: when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you'll be clothed with power. You'll be wearing something. You'll be equipped for something, see? So notice He's quite clear what He's talking about.

In Acts chapter 2 verse 1 – “When the Day of Pentecost was fully come, they were in one accord in one place, there came a sound from heaven like a rushing mighty wind. It filled the entire house where they were sitting, and there appeared cloven tongues like fire sat on each of them. And they were filled with the Holy Ghost - notice this - and began to speak with other tongues, as the spirit gave them utterance”. Isn't that amazing?

Acts 2:12 - “Everyone was amazed; and some were in doubt, saying to one another: what does this mean? And some mocked, saying: they're full of wine, full of new wine.

83

He said in

Acts 2:15 – “you're not drunk, as you suppose”. This is that spoken of by the prophet Joel. It will come to pass in the last days, said God, “I will pour out My spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, young men see visions, old men dream dreams”.

So what has happened is, the spirit has come upon them; and the first thing that happened is, they were filled up with the Holy Ghost, and they began to speak or express from inside; because what you speak, your words flow from your heart – ‘out of the heart, the mouth speaks’.

So being filled with the Holy Ghost, they gave voice to a language they had not learnt. It was a language given to them by the Holy Spirit, and they were so overwhelmed by it, some of them were staggering around laughing, and they were obviously like they were drunk.

If they look drunk, then they're behaving a certain way. So we see now that He's imparted in the Holy Ghost; the Holy Ghost's now come onto them in power; and the first sign is: they began to speak in tongues.

In Acts 10:44, the Holy Ghost came on the Gentiles. They also began to speak in tongues - quite a common thing to find happening.

84

In Acts 10, the Holy Ghost came on the house of Cornelius, and we find they began to speak in tongues.

And in Acts chapter 10 verse 44 – “While Peter spoke these words, the Holy Ghost fell on them which heard the word; and the Jews which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the Gentiles were - also the Holy Ghost was poured out on them, for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God”.

So there's at least two instances in the Bible (there are others), where the Holy Ghost came on people, they were filled, they began to speak in tongues, and they began to magnify God with that expression, or experience, they had.

So what is this ‘Speaking in Tongues’ (because this is a gift that they all received)?

It was something that God gave to them, as part of being ‘clothed with power’. If God has a gift to give you, then it must be important, and we need to understand a little bit about it; so what is this ‘speaking in tongues’?

The gift of tongues is the Holy Spirit. They spoke, as the spirit gave them the utterance; so your Holy Spirit imparts into your spirit the language, and then you let go and surrender, and allow that flow to come out.

You are speaking in that language, so notice what it says, “When you speak in tongues, your spirit is praying” - so your spirit has a voice. Your spirit has a voice. Your spirit has a mind. Your spirit can speak.

85

When you're speaking in tongues, you're not working it out with your head; you are letting your spirit yield to the Holy Spirit, and speaking out a language.

Notice what happens - there's a whole number of benefits with that real language, “When you speak in an unknown tongue, you are building up yourself, like a house being constructed”. So praying in tongues strengthens and builds and develops your spirit man.

When you pray in tongues, you are co-operating with the Holy Ghost directly, and your whole spirit man starts to energise with life.

It's a wonderful gift, wonderful gift; it's much neglected speaking in tongues devotionally.

You can pray anytime in the spirit, because the flow of the language just never stops. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of prayer.

He's always willing to pray through you; so you can pray in tongues anywhere, everywhere, any time of day or night, wherever you're going. Keep your eyes open if you're driving but you can pray in tongues!

When you're doing this, you are ‘building up yourself’, is one thing it tells us. It tells us another thing: you are ‘energising your inner life with the Holy Ghost’.

So when you pray in tongues strongly for a while, you'll feel your whole body start to energise up, because you’re expressing the life of your spirit. Remember that one of the functions of your spirit is to give life to your body? So start to pray in the Holy Ghost, you come alive with spirit life! It's fantastic.

86

Notice that when you're speaking in ‘unknown tongues’, it says, “you are speaking mysteries”. It's a mystery because you don't know what it is; but when the Bible refers to ‘mysteries’, it's referring to the things of God's kingdom that He's wanting to bring into clarity for us.

So one purpose of praying in tongues, with your devotional tongue, is: to magnify God, to praise Him; another is to build yourself up; another is to speak out what God has for your life.

So praying in tongues is a very powerful gift, a wonderful, powerful gift.

In Romans 8:26, it says that “we don't know what to pray; or how to pray as we ought”.

But the Holy Ghost helps us, and that word help means, He comes in and begins to join in with us as we make the effort. He energises, takes over, and empowers all our praying. We don't know what to pray as we ought, or how to pray, but the Holy Ghost helps us making intercession on our behalf or for us - so this is a work of the Holy Spirit.

So there's a level of praying in tongues where I can pray quietly. I can pray strongly, and ‘stir my spirit man up’; or as I yield to the Holy Spirit He may take over, and then there's a whole different language of groaning in the spirit, of travailing in prayer.

87

There are whole dimensions of prayer available, so when you get baptised in the spirit, Baptism in water was meaning: the end of your old life, the beginning of a new life - so you bury the old, because he died, there's a new person begun.

Baptism in the spirit is immersion into the realm of spiritual things, of spiritual experiences, of prophesying, of having dreams, of flowing in the supernatural - that's why God wants to have people baptised in the Holy Spirit.

The reality is, many people, having had an experience, just peterout; and don't persevere to get more, to reach into more. There's a contending for these things, because there's no way the devil wants you to operate in the supernatural - so there is the gift of praying in tongues.

So how could I receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit?

Everything you get, you get pretty well the same way.

Mark 11:24 - “Whatsoever things you desire, when you pray, believe you receive them, and you shall have them”. What could be clearer than that? Jesus' own words: “Whatsoever things you desire” - so notice now, the keys in here.

Number one, ‘desire’: I must want. I must want something.

When someone is hungry and thirsty, and wanting something, 88

there is a draw - a pull into their life. Even when you're ministering to one another, if the person is hungry for you to help them, it draws out of you. It draws the life of God from you.

So first thing is, if I come to God, I must come wanting to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Number two, ‘when you pray’, whatsoever things you desire when you pray. You've got to ask Him. Now you don't ask Him like this: “God, if it be Your will then give me this.” You know what will happen? He'll just say (without you hearing it): you really don't know what My will is, so how can you really expect to get anything?

You actually need to know: it's the will of God for you to be filled with the spirit. So I need to know that, so I don't come to God saying: “well, if You want me to have it, I'll have it” - that is passive; it's religious. It's not how you receive anything from God. If you're going to receive anything from God, I have to extend my faith, and believe it's for now; it's for me, now. See? Now that's a decision to push aside all the things: ‘I'm not good enough’, whatever.

Listen, that's all your history talking to you. That's the demons talking to you. That's your brokenness talking to you. What is God saying? He's saying: I love you; I've accepted you; I want to fill you with the Holy Ghost. The gift is here. Will you believe?

That's how He works! “Oh, I don't know, Lord, if you want me to have it”. I can see you're double-minded, and a double-minded man doesn't get anything; so when you ask, you've got to ask believing - and our believing is based on what we know God's word says.

89

So Jesus said: “wait, you'll receive the promise of the Father.”

Peter stood up and said: “this promise is for you, for your children, and all who are far off”.

So this Baptism in the Holy Spirit is for every person; and the gift of tongues is for every person. Why? It's to empower us internally, to help us in our spirit dimensions in our life.

So here are the keys then: whatsoever things you desire, when you pray, you've got to ask - desire, ask.

Number three, believe you receive it. Believe that when you reach out, God will respond to you, He will give me this gift.

Believe you receive it, and then He says: you shall have it.

So don't ask, ask, ask; just say: God, I believe Your word says that I can be filled with the Holy Ghost; I can have the gift of tongues - I choose to believe it. I believe You'll give it, and You'll give it to me because You want me to have it. You want me to be a strong believer.

The gift is to build you up. Now to approach it: “oh well, I just think I'd rather have one of the greater gifts”. Well this is nonsense - it's just nonsense.

God has got a gift to help you. I don't care how little the gift is, I'll have the littlest one, and then I'll have more; but if I ignore the little things He's giving me, it'll probably be very difficult to get more.

So one of the things about praying in tongues is: God gets a hold of your tongue; so instead of your tongue being turned to all kinds of things, it's turned to magnifying God, and turned to speaking a spiritual language - very, very powerful.

90

So Desire; Ask; Believe; and then Receive. I've got to consciously do it – “Lord I just receive; and now Lord, I just begin to speak in that new language” - and I've got to take a step.

Now when you step out to speak, you don't stop to try and think: now what could I say? I'll make a sound like this... That's your head talking to you.

No, praying in tongues, you've got to tell your head: ‘stop arguing with me’. You've been running my life, all my life. I'm flowing in the spirit now, and the proper balance is to live from your spirit; with your head co-operating with your spirit, but not ruling your spirit.

When your mind talks to you, it argues. It's like a lawyer: who do you think you are? Why do you think that? So when your mind is talking it dominates, it argues, it reasons, it belittles, it judges.

This would be a great time to get filled with the Holy Spirit. Why wait any longer? Well I need to pray about it... No, you don't need to pray about it - you've read the scriptures. You just need to receive.

See, here's an interesting thing that Jesus said: “Except you be converted, and become like a little child, you don't enter the kingdom of heaven”. Now what He's saying is very simply this: that to enter the Kingdom is to experience the benefits of what God has. To enter those benefits, He said: you need to be converted, or to have a change, so you become more childlike; not childish, but child-like.

A child is trusting; so for a child, if they're up on the bench and daddy says: jump, I'll catch you, they say: YAY! But when you're an adult, you don't approach it like that. If you're an adult, and 91

someone says ‘jump, I'll catch you’, you say: ooh I doubt it! No, I don't think so.

That’s because we've had a lot of experiences, which flavour what we think, and we've lost simplicity and trust. Everything in the kingdom is about simplicity and trust; so coming into this, is just a simplicity and trust - I'm going to do this.

I remember when I first started to pray in tongues, my mind was arguing saying: you're an educated man, and you're babbling like an idiot - stop! And my spirit was saying do it do it.

I remember stopping at one point, and saying: mind - be quiet!

This is doing me good. I haven't felt so much joy in a long time not without a glass of wine anyway. It was a different kind of joy. It's a joy that bubbled up from praising God. David ushered in a whole new dimension of expressive praise and worship and dancing and rejoicing and celebrating. In the New Testament, James prophesied that God would do that again; but sometimes we just bring our cultural baggage in, and we think that because that's our culture, that's normal. But heaven is full of shouts and trumpets and noise and rejoicing and celebrating. There's joy unspeakable. It's expressive, full of life; so just practice praying in tongues, and giving more expression to your life with God. Okay, so we've done: Baptism in the Spirit; and speaking in tongues. Now you can pray in tongues all the time. That's your personal devotional language, and it builds you up.

So we're going to go back into 1 Corinthians 12:7, diverse kind of tongues and interpretation. It talks about these – “the manifestation of the spirit is given to every man to profit with all: word of wisdom; word of knowledge; faith; healing; working of 92

miracles; prophecy; discerning of spirits; diverse kinds of tongues; and to another, interpretation of tongues”.

Now this is not your devotional language. This is a gift, an operation of the Holy Spirit, like the other gifts, for a specific a person or specific group; so not all may flow in Tongues & Interpretations, as a gift.

Everyone has a devotional language; but not all might flow in it as a gift; and tongues with interpretations comes as a package usually, so if there's one there should be the other - otherwise you haven't got a clue what's going on.

So if someone prophesies, you know God is building the church.

But if there are tongues, you can't understand it, unless it's interpreted; and so this is not your prayer language. This is actually a manifestation of the Holy Ghost - diverse tongues, as the Holy Ghost wills.

1 Corinthians 13 – “Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels” - isn't that interesting? So when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you manifest the gift of speaking in tongues with an interpretation it is a language of men; or it's a language of angels.

So it's a language you're given. For example, Doug had prayed among a group of Chinese. There was someone there who knew 93

Hebrew, and he said: you have spoken in fluent Hebrew. He knew exactly what he was praying; so this is a specific demonstration of the power of God. In the Book of Acts, they began to pray in tongues, and as they prayed in tongues, for some of them they were manifesting the ‘sign’ gift of tongues - and people could hear and understand them in their own language.

So the gift of tongues - it is a language. It is a real language, and it has expressions; so don't pray in tongues, or any gift operation, in a monotone, boring, way you know? Language needs to be interesting, and be alive and have expression; have you in it, not just (monotone) we're talking like this... and there's no expression. Let life and vibrancy flow - put yourself into it!

So the ‘tongues of men and angels’; so tongues means a different kind of language. It's a distinct language. Sometimes with the gift of Tongues with Interpretation, the tongues may be a language someone can understand.

Sometimes the tongues may be a language understood by angels, so clearly He said: “If I speak with the tongues of men or angels”, so quite possibly He spoke with the tongues of angels at times.

I'll give you a couple of examples of this.

In Acts 2, they began to speak in other tongues, and everyone heard them speak in their own language. Now you had people from all over the world, and everyone who came there understood something that someone was praying, then how did that happen? That is supernatural.

They've never learnt the language, yet they're speaking, and they're speaking from their spirit a language they didn't know and someone understood the language. A most amazing gift 94

really isn't it? We don't see much of that. We need to believe for more of that - just to be able to pray and speak, and if someone from another language is there, they say “whoa, you were speaking something I understood! Do you know my language”?

“No, don't have a clue I just spoke in the Holy Ghost.”

So people in different cultures did understand Him. It's quite an amazing gift, and I've heard of people going into places, overseas particularly, and having prayed in tongues, and actually someone understood what they were saying. It was their language. They recognised it, and were quite astonished they'd never learnt the language.

So the gift of speaking in tongues with interpretation is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit, which comes on you at a certain time. It's for a purpose: to build the church.

It could possibly also be a language of angels, and there are a number of things in scripture that talk about angels being activated. In Psalm 103:19, it says: “the Lord has established His throne in the heaven, His kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, you angels who excel in strength, who do His word, harkening to the voice of His word”.

So when God's word is spoken on the earth, angels can respond to that voice. I don't think we can command angels. I think that's 95

an area where there's not a lot in the Bible on it, so people have different views; but I do believe that there can be a ministration of speaking in tongues, where angels understand what it is, and can be activated because of it. So speaking in tongues can be a very, very powerful gift of the spirit.

So what is the purpose of speaking in tongues? In 1 Corinthians 14:22 it says: “it's a sign gift to the unbeliever”. So a person who has no understanding of anything spiritual, and you speak in a language, and they understand it, they know that's God! That's definitely a supernatural sign.

I think it can also be for prophetic proclamations - we can begin to speak out in the spirit; and decree and declare things. I think angels are released many times, by the speaking in tongues, and activating that gift. It can cross language barriers; so again, for that gift to come on you, you'd need to desire to operate in that gift, and then practice. I'd practice at home, letting the Holy Ghost come on you, then begin to speak out, and so on.

So we should ask the Holy Spirit to give us the interpretation. In 1 Corinthians 14:27, it says: “if any man speaks in an unknown tongue (they're talking about in a church meeting, or in a group meeting) let it be by two or at the most three, one after the other, and let one interpret. If there's no interpreter, let him keep silence, and let him speak to himself and to God”.

So that's quite an interesting verse; so you notice there He's talking about two different things. He's talking about the gift of tongues, in a group setting, needs to have interpretation for it to build and benefit everyone.

So we can all speak in tongues, and just worship God together; but when there's a sign gift of tongues, like prophecy, there's a 96

gift; when we have that gift, someone needs to interpret it, or it doesn't have any meaning for anyone.

“So if a man speaks in an unknown tongue, let it be by two or three” - so don't have everyone doing this, just one, two or three; and there needs to be an interpretation. If there's no interpreter then that's the interesting thing - if you've spoke out, you should pray you get the interpretation; and you interpret it - so how about that?

He said: “if there's no interpreter, keep silence, and speak to himself and to God”. So clearly, when you are speaking in your normal language of tongues, you're speaking to yourself, and you're speaking to God - very, very clearly.

So what about the interpretation of tongues? It's a gift that God gives you, it just comes on you. Do you translate what was said?

No, you don't translate it. Translating is when you listen, and phrase by phrase, you make sense of it.

This is actually: God gives you the inspiration, you just get the message, and you just share what God has given you - so it's not a translation. It just catches the spirit of what God is saying; and so a person may give a tongues message, but the interpretation's quite short; or the tongues message could be quite short, the interpretation could be a little longer.

It's got nothing to do with translation. It's actually: God is saying something (by the spirit), and here's what it means (by the spirit).

Together the two build up the church, and they can activate things in the realm of the spirit.

So it's quite an interesting thing, because when you flow in those gifts, it energises and activates, and creates atmosphere, because 97

God is released through the moving in those gifts. It’s a great gift to desire, and great gift to begin to flow in.

When you begin to give expression to the life of God, suddenly you feel release, and you've actually broken through an invisible, but real, resistance.

For many people, something sits around them, which just hold them down. It's working on the beliefs of the heart, and it's usually demonically operated around those beliefs of the heart. It just holds you down, and gets you in turmoil. When you decide to pray in tongues, it's like it all breaks off you.

Lasting freedom usually requires: Deliverance; and change in the heart beliefs, and freedom from bondages; but if you will pray in tongues, you can stir your spirit man up and become full of life.

When you become full of life, there's real power. If I was just to begin to pray strongly in tongues, I can feel my spirit rise up; and instead of being conscious of myself, I become conscious that God is within me. So if I just put my hand on her head; and I believe that I am charged and full with the Holy Ghost, I let go something from inside me, and you can see it visibly. You could see something is coming out of me. There is a life of God, the hidden life of the spirit, which is designed to flow out of us.

Now it can be strong, it can be gentle. I've done it in a dramatic way, so you get something visual that gets you thinking about we connect with the realm of the spirit; and we bring from within us, from the gateway of our heart, we release the life of God. Now God wants to work through you; so you have to give yourself, as you are joined one spirit to the Lord. So if you withhold yourself from loving the person, and releasing what 98

you have to the person, nothing will happen, because I'm deliberately choosing to withhold me.

So notice it says: “you speak�, so the power of God can be released by speaking; so if we're going to minister in healing and deliverance, we will have to speak.

So power flows when I am connected to God, and I hear what He's saying or doing, and then I speak.

Now this is exciting. We are ministers of the spirit. You have something to give. Whatever God has given to you, you can give to someone else. Think about that - so the more you can receive from God, the more you have to give. If you experience His love, you can release His love. If you experience His joy, you can release His joy.

We need to engage God regularly so we have something to overflow, to give. We're not trying to make things happen. We're taking what we have, and I've taken a long time to gain these things. It's taken me time and effort to work on my mind, and deal with fears and things - but you have something to give because of that.

When you work with God, He's always willing to work with you. What happens is that you become aware of blocks and barriers and things in you, that you need to address in your journey with Him. We don't have to have it all now, it's a journey with God, so on the journey we're learning stuff. On the journey you find there are blocks, and so you work to remove the blocks.

Now remember that, for the anointing of the spirit to flow, the anointing flows from within the person's spirit, through their 99

soul and body, out to touch a person. So if your soul is in turmoil, and blocks and argues, there's no flow from your spirit.

Bible says “out of your belly flows...�, so your soul, your mind and thoughts have got to co-operate. I've got to choose to set my heart to believe, and to resist the distractions. If I do that, then the spirit of God can flow quite easy.

100

True Believers

C

hristianity is a journey of the strong. Difficult circumstances will turn into a time to experience God’s grace and blessings. It is so because, as we constantly walk by faith, we can trust that during our difficult times in life God shall intervene.

Abraham was a man who walked by faith. This is seen in how he dealt with the problem that arose between himself and Lot. We learned that he willingly placed the needs of Lot ahead of his own because he gave more importance on relationship than material gains, he protected his integrity and testimony and he left himself into the gracious care of the Living God. That’s real faith.

After the incident, Abram and Lot parted ways. Lot left and lived in the plain of Sodom. Abraham was left alone with his wife, his servants, and possessions. Well, it must have been difficult and painful for Abram to see his beloved nephew to separate from him. But this difficult time turned into a time of grace and blessings because it is the time that God chooses to renew His promises to Abraham.

101

That’s the wonder of constantly walking with God by faith.

Difficult circumstances will turn into a time to experience God’s grace and blessings. It is so because, as we constantly walk by faith, we can trust that during our difficult times in life God shall uphold us.

We find here that God appeared to Abraham once again to confirm the promises He made when He called Abraham to leave Ur and set out for Canaan. One probable reason of this timing was the feeling that Abraham had when his nephew had separated from him. It would be difficult and painful. Abraham took Lot out of his many relatives in Ur to be with him in his journey of faith. No doubt, he loved his nephew Lot very much.

But now in a sudden they parted ways because of mere livelihood conflict. That really hurts.

But what broke the heart of Abraham so much was the tragic decision of his nephew.

Lot made his decision without consulting God; he looked with a heart driven with greed and lust. Abraham was hurt seeing his nephew went away from the place of God’s blessings. We feel the same way when we see Christian brothers going their life away from God. At this difficult, painful and emotional time, Abraham needed the comfort that comes from the throne of heaven. God came and confirmed His promises. Of this I just want to say: Our God is always available, always in perfect timing, when it comes to bringing comfort to His people.

Another probable reason of this timing was the necessity of separation. As we notice, when Lot was with Abraham, God did not appear to confirm His promises.

Now that Lot had been away from Abraham, God came and confirmed His words.

102

This is because, as displayed by Lot himself, he represented worldliness and lack of commitment to the things of God. So in the spiritual sense, Lot was a distraction to Abraham’s being right with God. And now that the distraction was removed, Abraham heard from God. You know what, if we ever want to hear from God, if we ever expect the Lord to bless us to the level that He can bless us, then we are going to have to separate from anyone or anything that hinders our being right with God. God can and will only bless a separated life, a life set apart totally to Him. Actually, God had just reiterated His promises when He first appeared to Abraham. That gives us a simple truth about the faithfulness of God. He is faithful to keep His words; He never forgets His promises. His words can be trusted regardless of your circumstances.

At first, the promises were about the seed and the land. Now, it was amplified, enlarged and expounded. That means, in the walk of faith we are going to know, see, and experience more and more about what God has in stored for us. And as we walk in obedience to what God has already revealed to us, He is going to show us more and more as time goes by.

After the promises had been confirmed, God called Abraham to rise up and walk through the whole land. Do you know why?

God wants Abram to see things as God sees it, and interpret his circumstances as God interprets it.

So first, Abraham should know what he should become according to God’s perspective. He would become the possessor of the land of Canaan. This is the bottom line of the history of his life according to God’s perspective for him. This is the destiny that God had in mind about him. And God had revealed it to 103

him through a promise. God said: “Lift up your eyes…. For all this land is yours.” Once again God told him that he was to be the possessor of the land. Abraham needed to know this for him to become what he could be.

As believers, we ought to know what we have in Christ. There are many believers who are less than what they could be simply because they do not know who they are and what they have in Jesus Christ. The truth in the Bible is: we have much in Jesus Christ than we can imagine, and we can claim it anytime in His name. But the problem is: we simply do not know it. Don’t deprive yourself to enjoy those precious spiritual possessions you have in Christ.

When God told Abraham to lift up his eyes and see the land and walk through it, God wants Abraham to believe that the whole land of Canaan is indeed his as God had said it so. He needed to live by the promises of God, and should interpret everything that had and would happen to his life in the light of it. Even Lot’s separation from him should not cause despondency and desolation. Lot’s going to the best part of the land should not cause him to fret. The presence of the Canaanites should not cause bewilderment and confusion. No matter how painful, how difficult, and how confusing the circumstances be, God’s words will not fail.

Everything that God says in His Word about who we are and what we have in Christ is true, or I shall say, is the truth. We just need to believe. Believe what God says in His words about you.

Live by His promises. Learn to see things according to God’s perspective, and understand things in light of His eternal purposes for your life. Only then that you can enjoy and experience the fullness of your spiritual possessions in Christ.

104

Finally, acknowledge him every step you take. Even if you are absolutely sure you are in God’s will, as you go down a path we must say. ’Not my will but yours’. If I am wrong Lord, show me.

Speak to me. Tell my husband/ leader. Shut a door. Do whatever you need to do to keep me on track.

We should often have a prayer time like that about an important decision, and then ask each other has God said anything. If he hasn’t, or if he has, then I will make the decision and say. ’Right, this is what we will do’. At that point it is easy to panic and not do anything. But it is easier to guide a moving ship. Do something. Make a step. Don’t commit yourself through emotionally or in any other way initially. Instead hold it lightly.

Better to look a fool by withdrawing an offer on a house, or fouling up at an interview or whatever than end up bludgeoning your way into something that is not of God. Maybe you feel that you’ve already blown it. You’ve made your path crooked already. God spoke about something and you ran away. You went into something without having these attitudes.

Perhaps up to this point you feel God hasn’t been absolutely free to take you where he wants and do with you as he wishes. Well there’s a promise here for you too. Trust on God’s promises.

From today on resolve to surrender to God’s ways. The inheritance can be redeemed. You can get back into the centre of God’s will. And amazingly when you do so (and not before!)

God can even change your mistakes and sins around to be part of his purpose for you and his world. We may set Solomon as an example, not many of us may realise that his mother was Bathsheba the same woman David committed adultery with and murdered her husband. A product of this very wrong relationship became an ancestor of Christ.

105

So build you hope on the rock and know with all certainty that whether by prophetic revelation or by common sense or by circumstances or by whatever means God will keep you on the right path.

106

Divine Restoration

T

he death and resurrection of Jesus was given for us in order to restore our relationship to God once and for all.

There are many factors in our lives that lead to broken relationship with God: doubt, fear, failure, sin. All of these are aspects that separate us from the heart of our heavenly Father.

“But now he has reconciled you

by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation.” (Colossians 1:22)

Let’s take a look at the restoration of a man who literally denied Christ. It wasn’t just an attitude or a thought, it was a three time verbal and curse filled denial of even knowing Jesus.

107

Peter was one of Jesus’ closest friends. He is often mentioned as one of the inner circle of Jesus who accompanies him on special occasions and does some amazing things. Peter is mentioned as one of the first disciples to follow Jesus.

“As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen, "Come, follow me," Jesus said, "and I will make you fishers of men." At once they left their nets and followed him.”

(Mark 1:16-18)

Peter walked on water.

“Lord, if it’s you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"

(Matthew 14:28-30)

108

Peter is the first to acknowledge who Jesus is, and is given a special assignment by Jesus.

Peter defended Jesus at his arrest.

“Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant’s name was Malchus.) Jesus commanded Peter, "Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?" (John 18:10-11)

Peter denied Jesus three times.

What do you think was going through Peter’ mind? How would Peter ever overcome this great tragedy? Would forgiveness be the reward for everyone but Peter? Can you relate? Do you feel like your life is so overwhelmed with mistakes and sin that forgiveness and restoration are out of the question for you? The joy we celebrate today is that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave to bring us new life. And that life is for anyone who chooses to receive it.

When Peter received the news that Jesus had risen from the grave and when he had seen the empty tomb for himself, do you think that he was thinking for receiving forgiveness or judgment from Jesus? There is a very small verse that we mostly overlook, but it drives home the point of the resurrection for us.

109

Jesus has risen form the dead. He has made himself known to the disciples and he encounters two very discouraged disciples on a road outside of Jerusalem. He tells them of all the things that have happened and how he is the Messiah. When they recognize him, they return to Jerusalem and find the other disciples. This is the final part of their report.

"It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon." (Luke 24:34) That is all we know. We don’t know what was said or what happened, but Jesus had a personal encounter with Peter after his resurrection. Later we see a very public encounter with Peter to let him and the other disciples know that everything was good between Peter and Jesus.

Three times Jesus encounters Peter with the question of his love.

Three times Peter had denied his love for Jesus. Peter’s restoration is made complete with the same words that his relationship with Jesus had begun, “Follow me.” So, what about you? Are there areas of your life where you believe that Jesus could not possibly restore you and give you hope and forgiveness? Are there palaces in your life where you feel like you have denied Christ so much you are without hope?

The message from this book is that no one is without hope. The message of this book is that forgiveness of sins and restoration of God is found in the death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

Peter himself wrote these words to encourage those who seek to have a restored life in Jesus: 110

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade--kept in heaven for you.” (1 Peter 1:3) Peter told us how to receive this restoration: “And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

(Acts 1:21) God’s grace is available for you today. The scripture tells us to call on the name of the Lord to be saved. It tells us to believe in our hearts that God raised him from the dead and confess with our mouths Jesus as Lord, and restoration and forgiveness will be ours. Today, will you begin the journey? Will you, like Peter, answer the call of Christ to “Follow Me.” Most of you are probably familiar with that phrase, “brother’s keeper.” It comes from the story of the first brothers on this earth, Cain and Abel. Cain was jealous because God had accepted Abel’s sacrifice but not his own. So he killed his brother.

And when God asked Cain where Abel was, Cain said, “I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?”

For those who are seeking to do life with God, the answer to Cain’s question is YES! I am my brother’s keeper. God does want 111

us to watch out for each other and be accountable to one another.

What seems difficult is when our intervention is not requested or desired. But even when someone resents our meddling, God can still use us to bring them back – if we let Him. A king once had a beautiful diamond. It was large and rare and he was very proud of it. One day, the diamond was scratched and became so disfigured that none of the court jewelers would risk trying to remove the mark. The king became very unhappy.

Not long afterwards, a new young jeweler came to court. He examined the diamond carefully and promised that he could make it even better than before. The king was very skeptical, but he decided to give the man a chance, so he handed over the diamond. When it was returned to him, the king was amazed, for the craftsman had engraved a beautiful rosebud around the flaw, and the ugly scratch had become the stem. It was, indeed, more beautiful than it was.

God may give you faith and a vision for the restoration of someone who has wandered away from Him. Others may think it is too risky, but God’s love in you compels you to reach out to those who have wandered from the truth. God’s love makes us concerned.

112

Permanent Blessings

Loving God, coupled with doing His will are the only ways of securing the blessings of God and avoiding the evils, so, it is important that we make the right choices. The choices we make affect and inuence the course of our life. Making good choices can bring you prosperity and happiness. Or, make poor choices and the results could be poverty and cursing.

113

“I call heaven and earth to record this day against you that I have set before you, life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live.�

(Deuteronomy 30:19) Everything you do is a choice, and every choice is an avenue to who you will become and what you will do, and ultimately wearer you will spend eternity.

Anyone who has raised children knows that childrearing is all about choices. You see children do not understand the power of a choice, and they do not realize how many there are to make. It is our job as parents to teach them values and consequences that will help them make good choices in their adult lives.

CEO of a company has the power he has because others have recognized that he has the ability and the discipline to make good choices. There is power in a choice. The bum on the street generally is a bum because he has decided to stop trying and just get what he can from others good choices. Who are you today? A victor or a victim? Life is like the batting cages .The balls keep coming and coming and sometimes we hit home runs and sometimes we hit some fouls and sometimes we just strike out, but no matter how miserably we fail the balls will continue to come and we either choose to swing on or to step aside and just watch the balls y by, but regardless of what you choose the balls continue to come until there are no more. Life is in the same. It is made of choices that come our way, and as they come we must choose good or evil, and sometimes we make good 114

choices and sometimes we make bad, but regardless of how bad we fail and how tired we get the choices still come and we choose either to swing on or to simply step aside and watch them go by, but even in that we have still made a choice to win or lose to succeed or fail to swing on or to just quit.

At one time or another as life progresses we stop and ask ourselves how did we get where we are, whether for the good or the bad. It is our choices, our small choices and big choices are like a boat on the open sea, we find ourselves farther away or closer to our destination than what we ever knew.

Esau was not a patient man. He was hungry, and he wanted to eat now! He had been working all day and was tired. He had been out in the hot sun hunting and walking around. That takes a toll on you after a while, especially when you haven’t eaten. He was hungry and he was not going to wait to eat.

Does this sound familiar? We live in a culture that teaches “I want what I want when I want it, and I don’t want to wait.” We teach our children to go out and get something if they want it.

Often our attitude leads to problems.

Esau made a decision without being patient and lost something very dear to him- his birth-right. Esau chose what was easiest and what would bring the most satisfaction immediately. The easiest choice is not always the right choice, but usually the wrong choice.

Everyday people make decisions without being patient and as a result lose something dear to them. Adultery- make a decision in the moment and lose family. Jesus made a decision that would affect the whole world for all of history. It was not an easy choice, but a very difficult one. He struggled with the fact that 115

He would take on the sin of the entire world. He chose to die on the cross for our sins. He was buried and rose again to give us new life. He was patient in his choice. Had he chosen during a weak moment (like the garden) he might not have done it.

In most cases we need to consider the consequences when making decisions, a birth-right is a foreign thing to us. The birthright in those days meant that the firstborn son obtained the largest portion of the inheritance. The birth-right included a blessing from the father, a double portion of the inheritance, and the right to rule over the entire family when the father was gone.

This is a major position to have. This was Esau’s position. As the first born, he inherited the birth-right and the authority in the family. For him to sell his birth-right would have major consequences.

Jacob was a deceiver. He would do whatever he had to do to get what he wanted. This time was no different. He wanted the birth-right. He found Esau at a vulnerable moment and moved in.

Esau never once considered the consequences of his actions. He only wanted to fill his stomach.

The drunk never considers the consequences when they climb behind the wheel of a car.

The husband never considers the consequence when they have the affair.

The people never considered the consequences when they crucified Jesus.

The people never considered the consequences when the black man became a slave.

116

The lost person never considers the consequences of rejecting Christ.

Every choice has consequences. A good choice has positive consequences, a poor choice has poor consequences. We must live with the consequences of what we do.

Esau was willing to pay way too much for a bowl of soup and some bread. He was willing to pay whatever it took. How often do we sell out for a measly bowl of soup? Too often we are willing as Esau was, to pay far more great a price for what we want.

We want fun- even at the expense of others, we want to be coolmake fun of the kid at school. We want prosperity- we give up our integrity, we want to live life and settle down later- later is often too late for God. In Acts 5 we learn that Ananias and Sapphira were willing to trade their lives for wealth. In 1 Samuel 13: 8-14, Saul was willing to trade his kingdom rather than wait upon the Lord. Judas was willing to sell his soul for thirty pieces of silver.

The question that we must ask ourselves is what am I willing to pay for what I want? If we will stop and weigh the consequences of our actions we will often find the price is far too much for a mere bowl of stew.

Jesus told us to enter through the narrow gate- choose Him for he is life and fulfilment. Few will choose Him. He is the one who gives abundant life, hope, peace, salvation. Many will trade their souls and their opportunity for salvation for one more hoorah.

Christian what about you? Are you willing to sell the blessings and abundant life in Christ for an indulgence of the flesh? What 117

are you willing to pay for eshly pleasure? Are you willing to sell your relationship with God for so-called personal gain?

The choice is up to you. We must learn to be patient in our decisions, consider the consequences, and ask what price am I willing to pay?

118

God’s Plan

M

oses demonstrates what it means to be set apart for the Lord. We not only are set apart from sin, we are also to call others to stay away from sin. A lot also once changed for many Israelites in the span of 40 days. That was the length of time Moses spent on Mt. Sinai receiving written instructions from God on how the Israelites were to conduct themselves. These laws were meant to protect the Israelites and keep them safe. They would help build a society in which love and kindness abounded. But while God was busy setting the Israelites apart in this way as his chosen nation, the Israelites were busy doing something else they were trashing God’s commands by worshipping a golden calf! This message is not so much about that sin as it is about Moses’ reaction to it. Moses demonstrates how God wants us to act as those who have been set apart for him.

When Moses ascended Mt. Sinai to speak with God and receive the Ten Commandments in writing, it wasn’t like he slipped away so that the Israelites didn’t know where he had gone or what he was doing. Days before this the Israelites had seen an impressive display of billowing smoke covering the peak of Mt. 119

Sinai. The trembling transmitted through Israelite feet at the same time was not the shifting of fault lines; it also announced the presence of God on the mountain along with trumpet blasts that filled Israelite ears. The people even heard God himself speak and they promised on oath to do whatever he said. After that, in full view of everyone, Moses climbed the mountain to speak with God further.

But when Moses’ absence stretched to 40 days the Israelites got tired of waiting and decided they themselves could come up with a plan when it came to spirituality. We can understand how they felt. When you’ve been waiting in the ER for hours and still haven’t even seen a nurse, you’re tempted to walk out and treat yourself the best you can. That’s what the Israelites did with disastrous results.

As Moses began his descent back to the Israelite camp carrying two tablets of stone bearing God’s handwriting and a record of the Ten Commandments, a faint noise perked his ears. It was not the sweet sound of victory. He had heard that before, and this wasn’t it. Neither was it the bitter sound of defeat. It was the sound of singing—the voices of worship. But when Moses came to a place from which he could see the camp, he saw that the object of worship was a glistening golden calf - a fool’s god made of gold. When Moses saw the golden calf and the Israelites dancing around it with wild abandon, his anger soared as the stone tablets he held plunged, shattering on the ground just like the promise the Israelites had made to worship exclusively the true God who had brought them out of Egypt.

120

But look at how quickly Moses acted in love towards his fellow Israelites. His first act of love was to get rid of that statue they called a god. He did so by burning it up and throwing the powder into water which he then made the people drink.

Perhaps Moses did this to show just how weak that false god was.

And then Moses called for those faithful to the true God to rally to his side. After the tribe of Levi snapped to attention, Moses gave this astounding order: “Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother, friend and neighbour.’

The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died” (Exodus 32:27, 28).

3,000 funerals filled the land at the command of the Lord. 3,000 Israelite funerals. The Levites had killed their brothers, their cousins, their neighbours, and their friends.

It’s here that we want to slam on the brakes, bring everything to a screeching halt and shout, “What in the wilderness is going on!? How does a loving God order such a slaughter? And how come there are people willing to carry it out?” But that’s not the half of it. When the deed was done, Moses said to the Levites: 121

You have been set apart to the Lord today, for you were against your own sons and brothers, and he has blessed you this day” (Exodus 32:29).

The Lord blessed the Levites because of all this.

It’s a good thing we Christians worship the God of the New Testament right? I mean this Old Testament God seems like one grumpy dude. But wait. What is it that Jesus is saying in our Gospel?

This is probably why so many people today say that they are not religious, just spiritual. Religion, as the Bible seems to define it with texts like these, looks so stifling and unloving! But what the only true God is telling us is that you cannot be spiritual without being religious. The Israelites who pranced around the golden calf were not atheists. They believed in God, but they wanted to worship him on their terms. They wanted a god they could see.

They wanted a god who would smile indulgently should they lose self-control from time to time. That’s also the kind of god we want too isn’t it? But to ignore the true God’s laws is as foolish as ignoring instructions on how to properly secure your parachute before jumping out of an airplane.

What if Moses had just turned the other way and gone back up the mountain after he saw the golden calf? What if he had not stood up to pronounce judgment on the Israelites’ fickle trust in a false god? What would have happened to the Israelites then?

God would have destroyed them all, and then mankind’s hope 122

for a saviour from sin would have been lost because that saviour was supposed to come from the tribe of Judah, not from Moses’ tribe, the Levites. There was more than just God’s honour at stake at the foot of Mt. Sinai, mankind’s salvation hung in the balance.

Friends, when our brothers and sisters, when our sons and daughters, when our friends and neighbours chase after that which glistens but provides no grace, do we stand up with Moses and say, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me”? Or is Aaron our role model and we just let it happen? “Well, you know how they are,” we say pathetically as did Aaron about the Israelites. But when we stand by and watch our sons and daughters separate themselves from the true God, when we listen to our friends and neighbours praise false gods that lead to the dead end of hell and say nothing we are not being understanding; we’re being unloving.

Why don’t we speak up? Is it because we don’t want people to think we’re party-poopers when we condemn sin? I’m sure that’s what most Israelites thought of the Levites as they ran through the golden calf party swinging their swords. But they weren’t the party-poopers. They were a blessing from the Lord. They kept the gangrene of sin and rebellion from spreading throughout the camp. What’s amazing is that only 3,000 people died that day when a whole nation perhaps should have perished under God’s wrath.

But do you know what’s even more amazing? This God of justice, this seemingly grumpy Old Testament God, would also prove to be the God of love when he sent his Son as promised into this world to stay the hand of justice. K-Days has just started here so if you want to win a big stuffed animal by throwing tiny rings around empty pop bottles, here’s your chance. That game 123

looks simple enough, but as many people have found out, it’s easy to spend more money trying to win than the winning prize is worth. So take a ring-toss pro with you – someone, who with one try, can secure that big stuffy for you. That’s the role Jesus played. He came to obey all of God’s laws because we could not and then gave the prize of eternal life to us. It’s no wonder Jesus calls for our undivided attention and worship. Only he can save us from death and hell, for only he has perfectly obeyed all of God’s laws and won admission into heaven.

When God sent his Son to not only live for you, but also to die for you and pay for your sins, he set you apart. What will your response be? Shrug your shoulders at his grace the way the Israelites did? Turn a blind eye to sin the way Aaron did? Or will you, like Moses and the Levites, stand up for the Lord and separate yourself from sin and then show true love to others by calling them to repentance too? This is God’s will for you and me, brothers and sisters. This is the way in which we can be a blessing to others as the Levites were, not with a sword of steel but with the Sword of the Spirit – God’s Word which we are to share freely and often.

And when you fail to stand apart from sin, hang your head in shame, but also hang that failure on the cross of Jesus. Come and drink deeply of God’s love and forgiveness. You can do that quite literally in Holy Communion. While Moses forced the Israelites to drink water laced with the remains of their pathetic god, the Holy Spirit invites you to drink wine and eat bread miraculously laced with the body and blood of the God-man, Jesus. And what is the result? You’re not only assured of forgiveness. You’re not only reminded how God has set you apart. You’re also empowered to stand apart and encourage

124

others to do the same. We will want to do this because nothing less than salvation hangs in the balance.

The Lord set John the Baptist apart from others for a specific ministry. God does this for all the main characters in the Bible and he does for us also. Matthew writes that when John appeared in the Judean countryside his message was that people should repent for the kingdom of heaven was near. The verb tense is a little confusing. It could be translated that the kingdom of heaven had arrived and was already present, or it could mean that the kingdom of God was approaching. Though confusing in its translation, this verb tense may accurately explain our experience with Jesus and the Kingdom of God. Jesus has come, and has ushered in God’s kingdom. Jesus is with us now in the person of the Holy Spirit, and Jesus has promised that he will come again.

John’s message was filled with hope for some people. For many people, though, the message was fearful. For God to come near is a scary proposition. A distant God is safer, perhaps even more controllable. It is nice to think that there some divine intelligence created us and that we are not simply the result of some primal ooze. A certain amount of comfort also comes from being able to pray to someone or something when times are tough. If God is way out there, however (as opposed to being in us and active in our world) we don’t need to do much. We can determine our own path and set our own goals. We can seek to be the captain of our ship and the master of our fate.

The scripture contains other times when God came near. God visited Abraham when he was on his way to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and lives were saved. Jacob wrestled with God and 125

forever after walked with a limp. Moses received the Ten Commandments from God and his face shined so brightly that he had to cover it. In these previous experiences of God’s presence, God did not stay. With the coming of Jesus, God’s kingdom has come to stay.

When God comes close some sort of a response is required. John the Baptist called on the people to repent. There are times when we run up against the law—God’s commandments—and we realize that we have fallen far short of the law’s requirements.

Some people respond by harder—saying, “I think I can, I think I can.” A truer understanding of repentance is a confession that “I can’t.” Though we don’t turn away from the law, we do turn toward God—confessing our sin and failure, acknowledging our needs, and receiving God’s forgiveness.

The Holy Spirit, also, moves within us and guides us to change.

The Spirit shows us where our lives are not aligned with God’s will, or places in our lives where we have not yield over control to the Lord. Often the change sought by the Spirit is close to the idea of, “Let go and let God.” Some of us may recently have sensed the Spirit’s movement in our lives as he nudged us to tithe or to move toward tithing. In addition to other areas of our lives, the Spirit might be challenging to be bolder in our witness and in inviting others to worship with us. As changed people, who are living in the reality of God’s kingdom, we are set apart for mission. Our mission is similar to that of John the Baptist’s.

We, too, are called to prepare the way of the Lord, and to be a voice crying in the wilderness.

We do not live in God’s kingdom for our own benefit. Nor, do we change simply for the sake of change. Our purpose for responding to God’s love and the arrival of God’s kingdom is so 126

that we may actively participate in accomplishing God’s will— allow people to catch a glimpse of heaven on earth, now.

There are a multitude of people who are apprehensive or scared at the possibility that God might come close to them. They are hiding in parties and behind presents. They are the people with whom we interact every day of our lives. They may not have previously had positive pictures of God through the church.

They may simply have never heard the good news of God’s love in the person of Jesus the Christ. Whatever the reasons our call is sure. We have been set apart so that others may experience God’s love and grace, and realize that God has come near and become one of us.

127

Closing Words King David was able to celebrate and have a great feast after his first son with Bathsheba died as a result of God’s judgment.

David’s servants were very surprised by his behaviour because they had seen him mourn with fasting over his ailing son, and he had refused to eat while his boy was fighting for his life. But as soon as they told King David that his baby boy had actually died, he stopped mourning, washed himself, and then called for a huge feast. If he had acted on his external circumstances, he would have stayed in sorrow.

~Jacqueline McCullough~

128

About the Author Bracken Mkhuma was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. He was brought up in the house of God. While he was still young, her mother taught him about Jesus Christ and His salvation. Bracken was born again at the age of twelve. After serving the Lord for several years, he backslid for a season.

The Spirit of the Lord would not release him, and he came back and gave his life anew to Christ. He still serves Him faithfully. One of the nights, Jesus appeared to him in human form, in dreams, in visions, and in revelations. Since that time, he has received many visitations from the Lord. He has also received many visions of heaven, the Great Tribulation, and the end of time. The movement of the Holy Spirit is emphasized in all his services, and many miracles have occurred in them. The gifts of the Holy Spirit with demonstrations of power are manifested in his meetings as the Spirit of God leads and empowers him. He loves the Lord with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength and desires above all else to be a soul winner for Jesus Christ. His calling is specifically in the area of dreams, visions, and revelations.

129