Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Welcome to the Crema Chaj podcast.
[00:00:05] I'm just going to read some scripture to you.
[00:00:08] You can. Well, in honor of the way of the house, you can stay standing.
[00:00:17] Ephesians 2. 1. If these precious people.
[00:00:21] I love tech people. They serve. They are amazing.
[00:00:27] Thank you. Ephesians 2. 1. Maybe I was supposed to give them in advance. If you don't have them, that's okay. We can just read it as if we were in the book of Acts. Is it up there?
[00:00:37] Ephesians 2. 1.
[00:00:39] And you point to your neighbor and say, this scripture is about you.
[00:00:50] All right, that's enough.
[00:00:51] What are you doing? You having a conversation now?
[00:00:56] And you he made alive.
[00:00:59] Oh, I didn't even ask you to repeat it. That's wonderful. All right, let's do it together. Okay. I feel like this family environment's happening. Let's read together. Ready? And you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins in which you keep in.
[00:01:16] Next. Next verse.
[00:01:18] All right.
[00:01:19] In which you once walked. I was correct, I hope. Yeah, I think I was. Okay. Which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience. That's the Spirit in the uk.
[00:01:37] But we are. We're not of that spirit anymore. We're over it. We're above it. We have dominion over it. Okay, next verse.
[00:01:44] Among also, whom you once conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of what wrath, which means wrath, was abiding on us. We love John 3:16, but John 3:34 and 35 says, the wrath of God still abides on the world. It's still there.
[00:02:08] You feel free because this is where you came from. But do you realize your unsafe sister was wrath is upon her life because wrath is on sin. Jesus dealt with the wrath of God by dying on the cross for those who turn to him. But without turning to the cross, the wrath of God abides. Why? Because the life of the flesh is offensive to the Lord. This is who you were. Okay, next one. But God. This is the best part. Who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us. Ready for this? Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins, he made us alive together with Christ.
[00:02:50] By grace you have been saved and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ. Ready that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding, exceeding Riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. My goodness. Isn't the Father wonderful? Praise the Lord.
[00:03:21] This description is one of the best in scripture of the gospel.
[00:03:29] You were dead, you were in wrath, you were unforgiven. You were offensive by nature to God. But God looked over your offense and gave the most precious thing and person that he has to demonstrate to you that God's immeasurable love is greater than the power of darkness.
[00:03:48] And then he says that you were by nature offensive and children of wrath, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind and underneath the prince of the power of the air. And that's what I want to minister on today, is the fact that there is a dying world and part of the message of the truth has been lost. And we are the carriers of the truth. You have more power than a president of a country. A president can change laws. You can change eternal lives. Eternity. You can change eternity. There was a man in Australia named Arthur Stace. And Arthur stace, in the 60s and 70s and 80s, for about 30 to 40 years of his life, got up every morning at around 2am and walked around for six hours and just wrote one word all over the street corners of Sydney, Australia. He wrote the word eternity. He did an amazing script. The way he wrote looked beautiful. And I remember in the year 2000 when we crossed over that Y2K and all that stuff, which was a Y2 lie anyway, but that whole thing. We have a bridge in Sydney called the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It's a giant, very historic bridge. They put up one word. When the year 2000 crossed over, they put up Arthur Stacey's signature, the whole bridge, Eternity.
[00:04:58] Because that man, he never saw people saved one on one. But all he lived for was salvation. And he would write it every day. So when people are sitting there drinking coffee when a breakup would happen and they found out many people through people like this were born again, he just never saw it himself. Have you ever heard the story of the King's Cross preacher in Australia?
[00:05:18] Yeah. You've heard that, right? It's true. He used to walk out of his little milk bar store. We have them too in Britain, I guess. Milk bar. You have them? No. Okay. You're looking at me like, what is a milk bar? No. Okay. It's not a bar where there's cows and you go get milk. It's not like that. Milk bar in Australia means, like convenience store. We have the. Oh, yeah.
[00:05:37] You know. Yeah. Where you buy, like, toilet paper. That's been there for four Years. And that shelf. You know what I mean? Those places. Toothbrush, little small deodorant. Whisper bar, Flake bar. Yeah. Anyway, I could go on with the bars.
[00:05:53] He lived in King's Cross, Sydney. One of the worst places in Sydney. Just like Arthur Stace. He would walk out of his shop every single day and he'd say to somebody with a tract, if you died tonight, do you know where you'd go? Heaven or hell. He never saw one person saved in 30 plus years.
[00:06:10] Until near the end of his life, somebody came to him at his store and said, I want to tell you I was saved by you giving me that tract.
[00:06:17] A couple of months later, I couldn't stop thinking about what you shared with me. A couple of months later, I was saved. They traced it around.
[00:06:23] They said close to 20 plus thousand people were born again through his witness. They traced the line of his witness.
[00:06:30] And I want to minister on this today before we close. Because part of the truth that we need to have is we need. We are having two things happen at the same time. Number one, we're having a Bible revival.
[00:06:42] Who believes that we're supposed to come under our rabbi's teaching? Who's for that? Get your Bibles. Actually, let's see your Bibles here. I want to. I just want to see them. Yeah, Come on, Hannah. That's good. Put that thing above your head and say, I follow my rabbi.
[00:06:56] I follow his thinking.
[00:06:59] Amen. Not my thinking.
[00:07:02] And now just hug. It just feels good to hug your Bible and say, I love my Bible.
[00:07:07] Amen. Amen. We do. We do.
[00:07:11] We're having a Bible revival. You can be seated.
[00:07:18] But at the same time, while we're having a Bible revival, what's going to happen is we're going to fall in love with Leviticus.
[00:07:28] We're gonna fall in love with, like all sorts of stuff. We're gonna be like, have you seen this? One of my greatest joys as a pastor. I love that Steve had to try and find out what I figure out what I am. Do you know what I want to be? All those titles and things. You know what? I actually want to be a spiritual father. That's all I really want to be. I want to be a good son to my dad and a good father to other young sons and daughters. And one thing that I've seen in Germany that we've just had a wonderful time with with our team, it's like a hundred and something people in our team.
[00:07:55] Everywhere I go now, I see our team in different cafes every single Day almost doing Bible studies together. It's really beautiful. And they're just diving deep and finding out what God says. And they're not doing it to try and sound intelligent. And they're not going. You know, what I believe is the koinon in Greek means this. They're not trying to sound like Christian bookworms. They're reading it and then they're praying it into their own souls that the Lord would change us and make us like Jesus. So I believe that we are in the midst of. Of a Bible revival. In fact, the Bana Institute did studies, especially in the States. I think it wasn't here, but they said, I think it was. In 2024, there was an extra 20 million Bibles sold. Isn't that awesome?
[00:08:36] That is such a healthy sign that God is breathing not just in the church, but also in the world. And lately something kind of strange has happened to me where everybody, everyone we talk to, it feels like, well, everyone's probably a stretch. Maybe let's say 80% of people we talk to have had this inquisition in their heart about what the Bible means.
[00:08:59] So Jeremiah and Dominic, his wife, we went yesterday because they've never been to England. And I love your country. And I was like, you have to see Buckingham palace and we've got to walk up that thing and, you know, and there's good coffee. Where we live in Germany, we have a drought.
[00:09:16] And so you guys in London is amazing. Coffee in London. And so I was like, we're going to. We did like 15. We walked 15km or something just in one day. And it's good. But anyway, we stopped in those 15Ks. We probably stopped between 25 and 35 people individually for the gospel. We ended up praying for two girls. Their lives got rocked.
[00:09:38] Both of those girls said, we've been thinking about reading the Bible.
[00:09:43] Both of them. We met another guy. He just walked past us, said, hey, Jesus loves you. Pulled his earphones out. He goes, what'd you say? Like, that real British young guy, 20 years old. He goes, I said, jesus loves you. He goes, why'd you say that to me? I said, because he does. And I said, he really cares about you. And he goes, this is so weird. You know, I've been thinking of reading the Bible. And I was like.
[00:10:03] And I was like, you should. You should do it. Isn't that true? He was like, it's so strange. And then the next one. So last night, after last night's meeting, sometimes the Holy Spirit will do this, put this sort of feeling in Me like, you're not done yet. Don't go to bed. And plus, Pastor Steve said, like, go home and spend time with God. And so we went to get a pizza in Leicester. And that wasn't time with God. That was the flesh. So we went to get a pizza. We had a fun time there. We broke up a fight. That was fun to be a Christian. Just release the piece in front of two people. And I'm kind of tall, so they looked at me. I'm like, you don't want to do this. So they broke up the fight. It was cool. And then we ate the pizza. We get back to the hotel, and I'm like, no, I'm not done yet. I'm not done. So I went for a walk with God. And I walked around this beautiful city just for a bit. And the very last bit of my walk, and I probably went some places, probably you shouldn't walk around 1am but again, I'm tall, so it's all good, so. And probably they're scared of me. They're like, this looks like Jesus coming toward me.
[00:11:05] I have that so often now.
[00:11:07] I was preaching. Sorry, I'm gonna get to the Bible in a minute, I promise. I'm sorry. I've sort of jumped off track of it. But I was in Portugal recently preaching to this guy in Portugal and in Lisbon, in the capital. And I was preaching, and he's just like this. Whoa, man. Like, he's looking at me, and he was just. Just because of. I don't know, like, just me looking at him. You must turn to God. You know, he's just like. And then. And then I had the same thing. I was in Pennsylvania preaching in the street on Halloween night. You know, Halloween, how they do that? Everyone's dressed up like demons. And I was out there preaching the gospel. After a conference, I just felt we should go for a walk. We went for a walk, and I stopped this guy and I said, you know, Jesus cares about you so much. And he. The same thing. And he's like, what did you say, man? I'm like, jesus. And I start preaching him. I'm like, you have this in your life. And I get words of knowledge about him. He's like, whoa. And then he's like. Looks at his friend. He's like, what's happening here? And I was like. And he goes, you.
[00:12:00] You real? And I was like, yeah, I'm real.
[00:12:03] And I go. And I go, no, no, hang on, hang on. I go, no, no, no, I'm not Jesus. It's not him. And because he's like. He goes, it feels like Jesus is talking to me.
[00:12:13] He had had a few drinks.
[00:12:16] So anyway, we went for a walk. But the last person before I got to the hotel last night was an Indian man.
[00:12:24] I assume he's Indian.
[00:12:26] And praise God for Thomas going there.
[00:12:28] And there's a lot of Indians. If you don't want to go to India, you just come to Leicester.
[00:12:34] There's a lot of them here.
[00:12:35] You've got a mission field here. I'm not saying that as a mockery. I'm saying that for real. They're here. It's amazing. It's the best food in all of England here. Anyway, so the last guy, I'd been prayer walking for a good bit, and the last dude headphones in late at night and here I come, just streaming straight toward him, you know. And he could tell, you know, whenever a man walks up toward a man on a path late at night, the man is thinking exactly what the other man's thinking. What's going to happen here? What's he like? Is this going to be. You're always thinking those things. And so I'm walking up and I'm just thinking, how can I love this man? And if he wants to fight, how quickly can I run? And so he gets near me and he's bigger than me. And I go, hey, excuse me, bro. And again, earphones. He pulls earphones out and he just was friendly. And I said, hey, can I tell you something? And he goes, yeah. And he looked around, maybe he thought, what's going on here? And I said, can I tell you that I really felt that I just must say this to you. God has a plan for your life and Jesus loves you. He's real. And he's like, what? He goes, you know what? He goes, that is so weird.
[00:13:45] Same thing.
[00:13:47] And he says, he goes, I have a Sikh for father S I K H Sikh and a Christian mother.
[00:13:55] And he goes, and I've been thinking lately, which one should I choose?
[00:14:01] And I said, I think I know which one.
[00:14:05] And I said, how about you do this? How about you start reading the Bible? And he goes, that's so crazy, because I thought that I should start reading the Bible.
[00:14:14] God is sovereignly moving.
[00:14:16] God is answering secret prayers.
[00:14:19] God is setting people up.
[00:14:23] But it's really important. What I realize is in many believers there is a kind of illiteracy to the truth. I'm not talking about now, the formation of doctrine, just the simple gospel.
[00:14:35] So today I want to read a few verses Especially for you guys who are preachers. And I want to set this up clearly or those who are ministers in any form, I want to set this up clearly because it's time for a resurrection, both of the love for the truth, to be able to preach the full counsel of God, but also for a resurrection of gospel.
[00:14:53] Because what is going on in our pulpits is this. Again, it's this duplicitous, multiplicitous messages and it's so prophetic sometimes and so here and so there, and it doesn't build anything. And then the people of God go, that was an altar call. But they don't know the gospel.
[00:15:10] And if they knew the gospel, they'd love the gospel. If they love the gospel, they'd want to give other people the gospel if they understood the weight of hell, the weight of sin and the weight of death. So let me start with this just talking to you. Then we're going to read many verses, okay? And then I'm going to be a bit vulnerable with you. Then we're going to pray.
[00:15:29] All right? So let me start with this. Put your hand up if you know that you are God's beloved and you are special to him.
[00:15:35] Good. Every hand foot should go up, everybody. Okay?
[00:15:39] All right. Keep your hand up if you know that you're special to God. Put your hand up if you know that you were extremely offensive to God before that.
[00:15:49] Okay? Oh, some hands didn't go up. Put them down. Well, you can keep. If those for both who are both, you can just guy surrender.
[00:15:57] Okay, Are you ready for this?
[00:15:59] Are you ready Your life, You can put your hands down. That's so kind of you.
[00:16:05] This is not aerobics. Class your life before you met Jesus. The scriptures are really clear and this is the absolute truth. Many Christians, and I've been guilty of this, they grew up in the church. I didn't. I rebelled. So I knew. And many Christians would come to me and say, you love Jesus so much because you were forgiven much.
[00:16:26] Many believers in church have no idea how much they were forgiven. They have no concept of it at all. They might of the moment they got saved. But 20, 30 years deep, especially if you're a pastor, you can't even probably remember the feeling that you had of Jesus washing your sins.
[00:16:42] You don't remember the feeling necessarily of what it felt like to be in such deep dark and shame where you felt demons were moving through your head and you were fully in the hands of Satan and if you had have died that you would have dropped Straight into hell. I remember that feeling. That feeling is what made me love God. The feeling like that I'm a prostitute who is unworthy of Jesus. Love is what made me love. Much so part of my role in our church in Germany, where many of us think like, we're pretty good people, we're not bad people, there's this subtle undercurrent inside the heads of many believers. Even, like, I was pretty good. And that's why God chose me. I was sort of a seeker, and that's why God reached his hand out to me. That is not the truth at all.
[00:17:20] There was nothing good about my life when Jesus saved it. In fact, I. I was one species that was completely different to the species I am now.
[00:17:31] I was a species that could look at as many women as I wanted. Even if I had a girlfriend. I could sexualize God's creation and daughters. I could destroy my own mind with that offend God, lie to people, manipulate, Wouldn't mind gossiping. Even if it sent you to go kill yourself and make you feel bad and make you feel fat and ugly and disgusting. I wouldn't mind being that kind of person. And if you were like, wow, that's so evil. But you never said those things. Your mind was offensive. And doing those things with your mind as a child of disobedience, underneath the prince and power of the air, you were doing that with your head.
[00:18:05] Even if you're like, you were married. I was married. I wasn't a Christian, but I was married. You were still lusting after other men. You were still thinking sexually about other people. If you were married, you were still thinking, I hate when my husband does this, does this. You still unforgiving. I won't talk to my sister. She's this, she's that. We were of the flesh.
[00:18:21] So in the old covenant, when God looked down on the Philistines and says, destroy them all, that was totally normal. Because imagine if I said to you, I'm going to give you a Tesla today and it's going to blow up. But we're not going to tell you what day it's going to blow up. But you just start driving it, but just one day it'll set itself on fire. You would say, I don't want that defective Tesla.
[00:18:41] So God's crowning creation became defective.
[00:18:46] God loved them the whole time.
[00:18:48] God reached out in every season of the old covenant. And when we look at a judgment of God, Jesus, when God made those judgments, was right next to the father saying, yes and amen, Father good Judgment every single time. God didn't better himself by giving version two, called Jesus.
[00:19:04] He's the fullness of God in flesh.
[00:19:07] Every single judgment of God was correct, right, just and holy.
[00:19:12] And God did that because human beings, you can imagine the angels going, father or going, God. They are nothing like us up here. They are completely corrupt. And God's saying, david, destroy them all.
[00:19:25] That was normal. Do you know why God was so patient that sometimes he would wait 70 years, like with King Manasseh. 70 years. King Manasseh, he made an idol as big as this building, bigger than this building, with these golden hands, these big hands, steel hands, bronze hands, sorry. And he made this giant thing, filled it with coal, filled it with fire, and then threw live babies onto it in the middle of Jerusalem.
[00:19:48] That's what he did for God. That's how he served God. God said, the Babylonians are going to take you captive. He gets taken captive. He's the king of Israel. He has a ring in his nose. They strip him naked, they walk him down, they beat him to a pulp. They put a ring in his nose like a pig. They pull him down the street. And he grieves in his heart saying, sorry, God. As soon as he says sorry, the second he. He says sorry, God's mercy arrives and God reinstates Manasseh as the king of Israel. I would never make him a pastor again. I'd be like, you're done, buddy. You like making demon gods and putting him in church. You're finished. But God wasn't finished. God was ultra merciful in the old covenant, dealing with people that were nothing like God.
[00:20:29] So the most important thing for you to realize is, even if you grew up in the church, that when you were looking around going, I hate that girl and gossiping, you were exactly like the devil in nature.
[00:20:40] You were demonic.
[00:20:42] You were living evil, even if you think you were good. Oh, but I was trying. Trying isn't holy.
[00:20:48] That doesn't mean you're holy.
[00:20:50] It's like me going, I'm trying not to swear at you, you eff. And I just go for it. I'm trying, though, like that. You'd be like, that makes no sense. When someone gets into a car, they don't go, let's try. Let me just try. But I'm also going to try and text. It doesn't work.
[00:21:02] I'm going to try and look at you the whole time as I drive. It's not. God applauds people's human effort to try and be holy. But that was that's why Paul said all of my deeds were filthiness.
[00:21:14] They were like dung compared to the knowledge of Christ.
[00:21:18] That's why the prophet who separated his entire life to God, who sits there and prays eight hours a day, arrives in heaven and says this to God. I am unclean.
[00:21:31] Do you realize that's where you came from?
[00:21:33] I know this might sound to you like guilt. Oh, that feels like guilt. Don't worry. You post this, but I'm just reminding you that's where you were. Because if you don't know where you were, how are you gonna love much if you don't know you have forgiven much? You won't be in love with Jesus. You won't value the cross. You'll think the cross is part of Christianity. It's not part of Christianity. It's. It's the definition of the love of God.
[00:21:56] It's the reason why we have freedom because of Jesus covered in blood. It's not because he came and said things.
[00:22:03] It's him covered in blood. The reason he was covered in blood is because your hands were covered in blood.
[00:22:08] You were guilty.
[00:22:10] So people go, ben, you have an amazing testimony of how you came out of this and came out of that. I'm like, I'm no better than the person who grew up was an amazing neighborhood, very kind to their neighbor, used to give little puddings and cakes at Christmas. But she had wickedness in her thinking and was against God. Retrobate and cut off from God and would have dropped into hell. And that would have been perfectly just in the sight of God.
[00:22:31] Do you understand what I'm saying to you? The Gospel says that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. If the world was doing pretty good, God would not have to crucify the Son.
[00:22:44] The world was under wrath. So what did God choose? Wrath on you or wrath on Jesus?
[00:22:49] It says in Isaiah 53 it pleased God to bruise him. We don't like that. Because what we can't understand is how can God be pleased? It doesn't mean God's like, I'm so happy. Heaven was probably wailing. The angels are probably on the golden floor is just wailing as they see the wrath of God poured out on Jesus Christ. But that wrath was your wrath.
[00:23:11] All the beatings and they've done studies now, 700 wounds.
[00:23:16] They even found that one of the guys on one side was more violently hitting Jesus than the other.
[00:23:21] That's how wicked humanity is. Let's just not just hit him. Let's rash like, that's who we were.
[00:23:27] That's the tribe you came from.
[00:23:30] Do you remember that?
[00:23:32] Do you know you came from Adam's tribe?
[00:23:36] We weren't the holy people. But I grew up in church. Pastor, man, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter where you grew up. It was what grew up in you.
[00:23:45] What was in here. What was in here when God said, do this. No, I'm not doing that. When the rebellion, even now some of us struggle with the soul can be so rebellious. But at least now the spirit is born of God, so the nature of God is flowing. We're saints now. We have all the inheritance so that. That God can go. Look at my kindness of Jesus. Look at me giving Jesus. But unless you see clearly what was stained on you and how disgusting that was, how can you even value Jesus properly?
[00:24:15] If I'm okay, let me say it like this.
[00:24:18] If I live in a house, and I think it's amazing, right? My house, I'm like, this is so amazing in here. But underneath my house, the floorboards are cracking. And. And I think this is just so beautiful. But underneath, there's about 50 crocodiles, Australian ones, and there's snakes, there's serpents everywhere. And someone has blindfolded me. And I walk around the house, they sit me in a chair, they give me a cup of tea, and I sit there and go, this is amazing. And the heat is on, it's so good. And then someone bangs through the house, takes the blindfold off, and I see serpents everywhere. I'd scream, jump on the couch. And then. And they said, I'm here to save your life.
[00:24:53] Underneath these floorboards, they're about to crack. You would have fallen through any moment and you would have been eternally destroyed.
[00:24:59] That's the house you grew up in.
[00:25:01] That's the way you were inside. And you didn't realize that one car accident, bang, it's finished. My brother nearly died. My brother got. He flipped, hit a tree. He could have been died. He could have been in hell any second. This is the stuff we never talk about, but it's the reason God sent Jesus.
[00:25:15] We don't talk about hell enough. We don't talk about eternity enough. We're not thinking about eternity enough. And the church's whole mission, the whole reason for the truth isn't so that we all talk to each other about the truth. It's so that the truth of Jesus and the gospel reaches the world.
[00:25:32] That's the reason you're a pastor. Think about the 12 disciples. Jesus got Them all. He said, here's my commission. It's not the great suggestion, it's the great commission.
[00:25:44] He says this to them, Go into all the world, Preach the gospel. Now, do you ever see their next meeting where they look at each other and go, you know what? I'm an apostolic leader.
[00:25:54] Oh, I'm me, Thomas. I'm more prophetic. I feel like I'm supposed to be more part of the flag ministry.
[00:26:01] Which one of them determined the gospel?
[00:26:05] We are being selfish.
[00:26:07] We're going, oh, that's for some evangelists, nuh worship was the pillar of God. Love the Lord God with all your heart. Love your neighbor as yourself. Witness is the other pillar. It's the truth.
[00:26:19] It's the only message in the world that can set people free.
[00:26:23] So none of the 12 went, let's just create our own calling in this.
[00:26:26] They died for it. They didn't go, who's the evangelist out of us 12? They all said yes to this. They all live with two simple principles. I love you with everything. You can have my life. And then whatever I can do to explain this. And this is so raw that Paul used a word in First Corinthians 9. He says, Woe is me if I do not preach the gospel, which means in the Greek, that his life feels destroyed if he doesn't share Jesus.
[00:26:58] He wasn't at the pulpit of Ephesus or at the pulpit of Philippi or some other church preaching Paul stuff. He's preaching the message he received from heaven.
[00:27:08] He received it from God in the flesh, spiritually. Jesus appeared to him. Remember, he received that. Jesus blinded him, said, you're blind, Paul. You're blind. Your filthiness, it's blindness. You think you're so holy. You're doing all these things. You don't see. But the second he saw, he couldn't shut up.
[00:27:26] Why have we made this an option? I propose to you the reason it's an option to you. You haven't seen the blood.
[00:27:33] You haven't seen the brutality of the blood that was done for you individually.
[00:27:39] You haven't understood that when you met Christ, everything about you was nothing like God.
[00:27:45] And God went, I love that he didn't go. I love what you do.
[00:27:49] The scripture's clear. Wrath abides on what you were doing. Wrath was on you. And Jesus called your name out of that darkness, and you opened a little bit to him, and all of a sudden the blindness comes off.
[00:28:01] And then you saw this hell. This hell I could have dropped into hell because that's what I felt when I got saved because I had all these prostitutes, I had all this craziness in my world when I met Jesus, I was like, how could you save me?
[00:28:13] But when some of you met Jesus, you were like, I know exactly why you saved me.
[00:28:19] You laughing, but actually I encounter this all over the world. People think that they grew up in God. Kind of good people. We weren't kind of even close to even. Even with 1 degree. If there's a 360 degree map and God is at 360 of goodness, we weren't even at 2 degrees.
[00:28:37] We were the Bible says filthy retrobate. You know what that means? Enemies of God in our minds, going this, you think that way, I think this way. God, that's how we were even going to church growing up. Teenager. I was in church my whole life. Yeah, that means you are unholy your whole life till you're born again.
[00:28:56] The church going to that building does not make you holy. Every one of those Pharisees, Jesus said they are dead men's tombs.
[00:29:04] They're in the temple 10 hours a day. They were dead in sin.
[00:29:07] Jesus appears to them, says, I'm the way, the truth and the life. They're like, let's kill him.
[00:29:11] That's the race that they were born of. That's Adam's race. Like this, raised hands. Then the truth comes to them with love pouring out of him like rivers, let's kill him.
[00:29:21] And that's what they did. And that's the tribe you were born in.
[00:29:26] That's your tribe. And now you are born again.
[00:29:31] And this is the beauty of the second tribe, the second Adam. Because then God goes, now you had one inheritance which was, I'm going to think like this, I'm going to gossip like that, I'm going to do this. Now your inheritance is God. Glory, shining life, love, heaven, houses in heaven, mansions. All the inheritance of Adam. You had that inheritance is killed. All the inheritance of Jesus. Now you have that everything you're in Christ. Isn't that amazing?
[00:30:01] But do you see how amazing it is? And do you know you were saved from that wrath? Do you know if you had have died? I had this amazing revelation a few years ago, about four or five years ago, I was out in the fields praying again and I was really praying. And sometimes I pray as if I'm the most important person in the universe. And I mean that like I think God use me. And I'm really crying out like, God, God, here I am, your servant. And I had this revelation come to me As I was seeking the Lord. If I died and went to hell, heaven would not stop worshiping God.
[00:30:35] I wouldn't make one lick of difference to God's throne.
[00:30:39] If I died and fell away like these big preachers are falling away, it would not stop the angels from bowing every second.
[00:30:48] It would not stop gravity. My life is not that important.
[00:30:53] And it was such a wonderful feeling to think that. Because the next thought, that feeling was like, whoa, if I rebel, God ain't gonna change.
[00:31:03] God is not potted or changing his statutes, his holiness, his greatness, or his majesty for my preferences.
[00:31:12] God ain't moving for me.
[00:31:15] That humble feeling I had was followed by the next feeling. And the next feeling was marvelous. And then I felt this love of the Father going, but I want you.
[00:31:24] I want to protect you, and I want to keep you, and I want to give all of myself to you. I felt such intention. And then I think about again the intention that God was in Christ, not reckoning the sins of us against us, but God was in Christ going, all of that porn, all of that wickedness, all of the unrighteous judgment, all of the wrath the deserving punishment for rebellion against God, he put on Jesus instead of you.
[00:31:57] Now, do you love the gospel?
[00:32:00] Do you realize if you didn't get saved, you would have gone straight to hell and God would have gone into. You would have gone into fire and heaven would have remained and you would have been in fire for all eternity. Nothing would change.
[00:32:12] Now that you know that, you can start telling people that you are radically saved.
[00:32:19] You can start saying, I grew up in the church and I thought I was pretty amazing, but my head was filled with everything that Satan sows into the world because that was our thinking against God. But God was so merciful that he held zero of my transgressions against me and instead gave them to Jesus.
[00:32:42] That is why it's called good news.
[00:32:44] But how are you going to know it's good unless you know you're guilty?
[00:32:48] How do you know how amazing Jesus is unless you know how filthy and broken we were?
[00:32:54] And this is the antithesis of the reason. I believe that the gospel has taken a back seat for many churches because a lot of pastors grew up with Christian parents, they grew up with Christian family or whatever. They watched their porn, they, they did their deal, but at some point they kind of made a full commitment to God. And they never understood the wrath, the sin, the judgment, or the weight of what could have happened if they went away, because they were around Christians all the time.
[00:33:19] The Pharisees were more religious than you and me. When I was in Israel, I was shocked, Juliet. When I got to Israel, I felt so humbled by the spirit, but also by their dedication. One man said to me, I'm praying. I said, how often do you pray? He goes, 11 hours a day for the Messiah to come.
[00:33:34] I said, they're blind, right? But they're praying 11 hours a day. Then I met another guy. He had a kid two days later, walking his child. He had a wife. And I said, oh, are you also one of the part of that same sect who pray like, you know, in that same thing? Orthodox Jew? And he said, yes. And I said, oh, you got children now. You must pray less. He said, yeah, now I only pray nine hours a day.
[00:33:54] And I realized something. They are so dedicated.
[00:33:58] Jesus appeared to them and he called them whitewashed dead tombs.
[00:34:03] So what would he call some of us now? We are born of God now. But hopefully you understand the cost of having your salvation, because it's that cost that motivates you to save somebody else, and it's that cost that realigns you with God. To say, my church, my pulpit, my denomination must be for Jesus. It must be for the cross, for the Gospel. It's not for my preference. I must preach the cross.
[00:34:31] You've got to learn it. You've got to love it. You've got to tell your church vulnerably the man or woman that you were before meeting Jesus, and even the power of God's blood, now that you've met Jesus, you've got to preach the cross.
[00:34:49] Let's read a few verses together. You're very quiet. Are you feeling convicted?
[00:34:55] Someone's like, that's not a good. When everyone goes, mmm, that's not a good feeling. Okay, go to. Sorry. Go to Second Corinthians, Chapter 4.
[00:35:04] Am I being a bit too strong? Sorry. I love you tons. I love you. I'm not talking. This is so hard because I'm talking to you, but not you. I'm talking to the former you who's not here. But it's still. Anyway, you get it? I. Okay, let me explain it like this. Here's what I think happens to many people. They blend into Christianity.
[00:35:26] Maybe that's a better way of saying it.
[00:35:29] They blend into the life with God, and they never saw that they were dead.
[00:35:37] Dead, spiritually cut off from God.
[00:35:42] But Jesus didn't want you cut off, so he became cut off.
[00:35:49] Second Corinthians four. You there?
[00:35:52] Okay, verse three.
[00:35:57] Well, we can start, actually. Let's start with verse one. Let's give a bit of context here. He's talking about the ministry he received.
[00:36:04] Therefore, since we have received this ministry as we have received mercy. So he was. Paul was very clear that he knew he received mercy.
[00:36:17] We have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness or handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth, commending ourselves in every man's conscience in the sight of God. That's exactly what Pastor Steve was mentioning. We commend ourselves to the conscience of people because we preach and live what we preach.
[00:36:42] They see the truth in our life. Okay, next verse. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. What does that mean? The world has a veil. Satan is blinding the minds of the unbelievers with many little tricks. Put this earphone in. Watch this series. Just shove all this in their face so they don't think of God. The answer to that veil is Christians. It's the gospel in your mouth. It's the gospel in your love. It's the gospel in your heart. The way I am with people. When I walk up to people and go, hey, bro, Jesus cares about you. I don't go, you were under wrath. Like, I'm there, I'm just pouring love on them. They open up to me like that.
[00:37:22] Dominique the other day, she stopped, this one girl, and she just stayed with her for a good like five minutes. The woman just opened up like a flower. See, it's not about just saying to them, like, you're cut off, you're this, you're that. It's about love. But we have to understand that, that, that is the truth. You're talking to someone with a veil.
[00:37:39] You're talking to somebody can't see because we walk away sometimes arrogantly. Oh, they didn't get it. They said they believe this. It's like you don't understand. That's exactly who you were.
[00:37:47] You were saying a whole bunch of weird stuff. You didn't get it either. But because we get around Christians too much, we lose track of these simple truths. And so they're blinded, right? Look at verse four. Whose minds the God of this age is blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
[00:38:08] But we do not. Verse 5. This is the one for you, ministers. We do not preach ourselves, but Christ, Jesus the Lord and ourselves your bond, servants for Jesus sake. We don't Preach our own message. We don't decide what the church, the main food of the church. Charles Spurgeon said this. He said that any church that doesn't have the message of the cross, at least every third sermon is in error.
[00:38:36] Because that means if you don't have the cross, number one, new people aren't getting saved because there's no gospel repentance. That's why I love Pastor Steve and Juliet. They invite people who wants to get saved. That's why I love this church so much. Because the young people, they get saved, they're like, you know what we should do? We should invite someone else to get saved.
[00:38:53] Because the logical thing, it stands to reason that it would be logical, right? If I'm on the bed with cancer, but. And someone walks into the ward and injects me and I come back to life and this decrepitled, frailed, spiritually dead body gets resurrected. Then I stand up, put my coat on and go, thank you so much to that person who injected me with this life saving serum that then if I was to look at the person in the other bed right next to me and go, I hope someone brings the same kind of thing to you, that I would be in some form of rebellion, correct? Or cold heartedness or a lack of compassion at the very least. So when someone first gets born again, particularly out of a dark, sinful life, what do they want to do without anybody saying to them? They're just like the 12.
[00:39:40] They don't go, which one of us is a prophetic seer? They don't know that. All they know is this. I was saved by Jesus because of the cross. My sins are removed. The mercy, the love, the light that has shined on my life. How dare I keep this from people?
[00:39:58] No one has to even tell them that's why their church is growing. They go, you should come to church. No one goes. You're an evangelist. You're a real evangelist.
[00:40:07] We've made these determinations because we've lost sight of the gospel.
[00:40:12] So right now, today, as you sit here, your city is veiled. Your city is underneath wrath because of sin. And your city is being destroyed by Satan's demons.
[00:40:23] Oh no, it's not. My city's beautiful. All the drugs, all the swingers clubs, all the pornography, all the prostitute bars, all the brothels, all the sexual sin. One in every two men now are addicted to porn, even as married or whatever it is. Now the statistic is 96% of people watch porn by the age of 10. All of that Sin is still under wrath and your city is in absolute, total darkness.
[00:40:45] So as I prepared for this message today, I was praying at the hotel, of course, praying before I came here, of course, praying, praying last night. And I walked just out the very back here and I said to Steve and Juliet and the guys, I said, I just need a few minutes to pray before this session. I walked out there and there's thousands of people pouring past me, going to the Leicester Stadium, and they didn't know what I'm doing. I'm just standing there, it's a little cold with this shirt on. And I'm out there just looking at them. They're walking past me. And then this one guy walks past me with another dude. And he just looks at me and he goes, what is this place? Is this a church? And I said, yes, it is. And then he stumbles down drunk.
[00:41:18] He comes down with his beer to me, gets right up in my face, he wants to tell me something. And straight away when he gets near me, all that comes out of me is love.
[00:41:27] Because I was in his shoes. And so were you.
[00:41:32] You were exactly like that. If Jesus had have spiritually shown us who you were, you were like twisted, a mess, spiritually dead, blind.
[00:41:44] That's who we were.
[00:41:45] And so I said to him, how can I help you? And he goes, ah, but I believe in God. And I said, my friend, Jesus wants more than belief. He wants to set you free.
[00:41:53] And so we just stayed for 10 minutes. And he goes, yeah, but he goes, could you do something for me? Can you pray that Lester wins today?
[00:42:01] And I said, I go. And I actually felt the spirit of God say, yeah, pray for that. I said, okay, I will pray for that. I said, but I'm going to pray two things. Is that okay? And he goes, yes. I said, I pray right now. And I put my hand and shoulder that Lester would win the football.
[00:42:15] Now, I'm not sure whether that prayer will be answered. There's not. God is very supernatural, but I'm not sure the limits.
[00:42:22] So I prayed. And then as I prayed the second prayer, I prayed this. I said, in the authority of the name of Jesus, I pray your soul will be convicted and be transformed and that you would give your heart fully to God and he'd break the yoke of addiction on your life.
[00:42:36] And then he was like this. He's like, thank you, you know, and then he goes, I've had a bad leg for 10 years. Can you pray for that as well?
[00:42:44] I said, of course I can. Now leant down Prayed for his leg. And then his atheist friend watched the whole thing.
[00:42:51] Why? Because that's why the church is alive.
[00:42:55] Because he's right now under wrath, under this blind spiritual blindness that you were under as well. He's in the old race.
[00:43:02] He's stuck in Adam's race just because he looks less. He looks more deplorable than the person in the business suit, cool person walking down Oxford Street. He's the same.
[00:43:13] Some of them are worse.
[00:43:15] Some of their sins are even greater than his. At least he knows his sin.
[00:43:19] That's who we were.
[00:43:22] So here it says this verse 5 Again, we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord and ourselves your bond, servants who for Jesus sake. Now the next verse is so powerful, for it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. How is the world going to know this knowledge if you're still in the darkness of the church or being the light of the church instead of the light of the world?
[00:43:51] How are the pulpits going to hear? How are the people going to know how they're going to know about sin unless you preach it?
[00:43:57] How are they going to know how wicked things are unless you show them the truth and the veil gets cut in half?
[00:44:03] I'm going to now turn with you to one more verse here really quick. Go to Colossians, chapter one.
[00:44:08] And then I'm going to finish this soon with a testimony.
[00:44:16] Who do we preach? Do we preach ourselves or do we preach Jesus? We preach him. Whose message are we carrying?
[00:44:24] Jesus. That means every one of you should be preaching the gospel.
[00:44:28] Can you imagine if right now Hannah or Joel came up here and said this? He's like, starts singing. He's like.
[00:44:33] He starts singing, inner healing.
[00:44:37] My soul is gonna be transformed. And then he starts singing like, I've forgiven my friend because you didn't pick me up on time.
[00:44:47] You know, we'd be like, what are you doing? Minister to the Lord. This is about God, magic. Starts singing like this, like it's all about connectedness and relationship. It's all about coffees and personality types.
[00:45:04] Are you an E? Are you a G? I'm playing G and I'm playing E.
[00:45:11] Would be like, you're a fruitcake.
[00:45:14] Worship God or the pulpits are. What are we, some of us, at ease. It's nonsense.
[00:45:23] It's the same spot, isn't it?
[00:45:26] It's the same place. The message should be pure, holy and right.
[00:45:29] Isn't it? I'm okay with occasional stuff of that I'm okay with. I love particularly people like Danny Silk. He's a master that God's given him such a wisdom to help unite families. But he does it through the Bible.
[00:45:42] And that's the. That's the occasional. That's the mashed potatoes. But the meat is the gospel.
[00:45:48] But we have now, we have every week it's mashed potatoes. It's war food at church every week. Potatoes, potatoes, potatoes.
[00:45:56] Where is the cross? Where is the blood? Where is the sin? Where is the repentance from dead works? Where is the wrath to come? Where is heaven? Where is hell? Where are angels? Oh, we talk about, oh, there's a new demon called Leviathan. Oh, I don't want to know all the new names of the demons.
[00:46:11] Just get them out.
[00:46:13] Oh, but no, this one does this to people. It's great, great, awesome. Why don't we ever talk about the fact that there's two thirds called angels? They're also on our side.
[00:46:23] Where is the conviction for souls?
[00:46:27] John Wesley, when he came back to church, they kicked him out just like that. They booted him out of his denomination because he's like, we're wasting time.
[00:46:36] The waste, the messages.
[00:46:40] It's twisted now. It's optional now.
[00:46:44] Paul said yesterday, this is a dangerous thing.
[00:46:48] It shapes the course of churches. It shapes the course of eternal lives.
[00:46:53] Some churches in Germany, where I live, they're preaching that it's okay to live with your girlfriend to save money, never mind saving her soul or his soul from hell.
[00:47:08] The Bible says in Second Corinthians 6, those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
[00:47:17] Practice doesn't mean stumble in. It means practice means I can do it and do it again and again.
[00:47:25] That's your Bible. The. That's God going, I'm not changing for that little relationship.
[00:47:30] And aren't you thankful that he's a holy and just and righteous judge? Because if he was not holy, he can no longer be God.
[00:47:41] He is going to judge the enemy.
[00:47:45] There is going to be two realities as we head toward the final days.
[00:47:49] Here they are. Sorry, Steve, you can fix this later.
[00:47:54] You preach tomorrow morning. Just preach about the love of God or something. Let's just talk about how beautiful read Song of Solomon tomorrow. But, guys, you are ministers, right? It's a leaders conference. I'm preaching to you because you're a leader.
[00:48:09] I'm telling you to lead.
[00:48:11] I'm telling you to lead with the message of Jesus, not your Own.
[00:48:14] I'm telling you to be the example that caused revivals to happen in this continent.
[00:48:20] That's why they booted Wesley, because he no longer wanted to talk about these fluffy relationship nonsense. He's like, somebody else can do that potato once every two months, but for us, it's the meat. For us, it's the urgency. For us, it's the conviction. When Jesus sat around, what did he preach?
[00:48:36] It's the kingdom of God. It's revealing God. It's forgiveness of sins. It's forgive other sins. It's turned the other cheek. It's die to self. We've got many sermons today that help resurrect the dead man instead of put him to death. They'll help you find what personality type can resurrect him.
[00:48:54] I'm a dominant. This and that. Cool. Then just dominate with your flesh. Destroy and manipulate people and dominate and call that your gift to the world.
[00:49:03] What a gift I am to the church. I learned how to dominate. The Bible says that you should be meek, humble, lowly, Christlike, forgiving even as God in Christ forgave you.
[00:49:15] But see, we forget that God in Christ forgave me. That's why people are like, I'm struggling to forgive. You don't remember the cross.
[00:49:22] I'm so struggling. They've hurt me so bad. You don't know where you came from.
[00:49:27] You don't know what you did to God and what you did to others and all the darkness you were filled with. Because if you knew that, that language would never be in your mouth. You'd be like this. It's my honor to turn the other cheek and forgive. Because that's what Jesus. He turned his cheek a thousand times as they ripped it apart. They ripped his beard out. That's what turning the other cheek means.
[00:49:48] Blood everywhere through his cheeks and face because of your unforgiveness. Because of my unforgiveness.
[00:49:55] That's where we came from.
[00:49:57] How dare we go back into the flesh and then empower it.
[00:50:02] The message is clear.
[00:50:05] Wesley was booted out.
[00:50:07] I'm praying Jesus. I'm sorry to get a bit personal. I'm praying. Make me like John Wesley.
[00:50:12] I'm praying this all the time. Make me like him. Give me his mantle. I'm asking. Selfish. I shouldn't probably said that from this book. I'm saying to God, you used him.
[00:50:23] He became a fire.
[00:50:25] No one could be around him without conviction. People had to change because of his life.
[00:50:34] I watched a very amazing church planter and someone told him we spent $150,000 on the new auditorium, but our church hasn't grown in years.
[00:50:45] And he's like, oh, my goodness. That's not the point.
[00:50:48] Your mechanics aren't going to do it. It's spiritual things that we're not wrestling against. Which auditorium has the coolest lighting?
[00:50:57] The nightclubs will beat you every day of the week on that.
[00:51:00] We're not wrestling against that fight.
[00:51:03] The fight is will. Ears that are deaf, that are bound, that Satan has chains around. Will they hear the good news?
[00:51:10] From politicians to the poor, from your best friend to your unsaved backslidden rebellious sister who's walked away from God. Will she hear and do you care, the wrestler? Is the church awake? And is the message the same as Jesus? Message?
[00:51:27] Because that's the only one that can save.
[00:51:30] Colossians 1:28 says it like this. Are you there? Can we put on the screen Colossians 1, verse 28?
[00:51:37] Say it with me.
[00:51:38] Him we preach warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus. Who do we preach?
[00:51:53] Him? Who do we warn we want of the people? Him. And the warning is for the church, and the warning is for the world.
[00:52:01] And now I share this quick testimony, then we're going to pray. This is a little bit vulnerable.
[00:52:06] Open your Bible quickly to Isaiah 58. This is the last verse I promised when I heard Pastor Steve say, I'll finish on this point. And then he said, maybe, but I'm going to try.
[00:52:19] Isaiah 58.
[00:52:24] God wants to restore the gospel to the church.
[00:52:27] Don't be afraid to go, there's people in this room. You thought God was a cosmic buzzkill. You thought he was trying to destroy your fun, and you thought he was a dead religion. Don't be afraid to do that on your Sundays. Go. You thought that Jesus is a dead religion. He's not. He's such a loving savior that all the mess. I even use creative language. I go, you know that stuff that you've done that you regret, Right? That feeling of deep shame. You talk to them at their level.
[00:52:49] You don't just. You don't make it sound like a theology thing. You don't have to do that. But you go, you know those. Feel those things that you regret that you hated, that you did, or the stuff when maybe someone broke up with you, they broke your virginity when you were young and then they just left you. And that feeling of emptiness that you were ripped apart by, that's what sin is. And that's why? God hates it because it destroys his creation.
[00:53:09] And we've all been involved in sin, have we not? Like that's easy for them to understand.
[00:53:14] Then you say, but God loved you so much that he didn't hold your sins against you, even though he could, because he's holy and just. But if someone's holy and if they're just, then justice has to be met. What would you think if a judge right now in Leicester said, don't worry, if you've raped people here, we're just gonna forgive you. You just go rape him again. You would call that just corrupt, that judge, corrupt and injust.
[00:53:39] So God had to be just. And then you say, but because he's so loving, he chose mercy over justice. And instead of killing us and destroying our lives, he healed our lives by letting justice come on. Jesus.
[00:53:53] Jesus took your just punishment for sin.
[00:53:56] That's how you preach. Then you go and you know that feeling and. And then when you're doing it, you don't even realize the spirit is ripping veils.
[00:54:05] Then all of a sudden your altar calls are packed. You don't even know how they got there.
[00:54:09] But it's this week. Like, if you want to, God really loves you. He wants a relationship with you that's weak.
[00:54:16] You produce weak disciples.
[00:54:19] I've done stadiums. Now, I'm not an expert, but I've done it for 11 years. Do you know what we found? The retention rate with stadium Christianity is around about 5 to 8%. People stay saved. Do you know when Charles Finney preached, it was 80% 8, 0. Do you know why? Because Finney would preach so full on that no one would answer the altar call without the knowledge of what they're answering.
[00:54:41] So all of his converts, which were nearly a million converts, like over half a million, but it was way more because the multiplicity of it all. But he would bang on the floor because he had underneath the floor of his pulpit. I've been there in Ohio, underneath the floor, just about this high, maybe about that high. Underneath it was lined with about 10 different people praying in tongues as he was preaching on top.
[00:55:01] They were praying, convict them. And people would have visions of hell. People would see heaven. People would feel the love of God, just hit them in their chair. People would feel the wrath of God. They'd feel the mixture because God saves. Some with fire, some with compassion. He's the master savior. He knows how to find them. My own mother, who helped lead me to Jesus, was saved by a priest, a pastor guy, Anglican priest guy, telling her she was going to hell. That's how my mom got saved.
[00:55:24] My mom felt such the wrath of God on her that she cried out for mercy and she was born again, Jude. Some with fire, some with right. That's how we say. That's how God. He's the master savior. But Finney's gospel was clear. It wasn't like this. Thus saith the Lord. You're under wrath. Like, he spoke the language of the people. Still, you know those dirty things that you hate about yourself? God knows why you hate them. You're meant to feel that way.
[00:55:47] It shows you that you have a conscience somewhere in there. You're like, you're talking to their level. You share your testimony like I did. I came from there. Or you could be like this. I grew up in church, but I had such hatred toward other women and jealousy and judgment. And you can start vulnerably unpacking the way that God saved you.
[00:56:05] And then you won't just have some drug addict or some nightclub floozy girl. You'll have even people who are like, I thought I was good. And they'll be at the altar weeping.
[00:56:14] But the point is, the gospel is the only way that thousands are going to be saved. It must be resurrected. So him we preach now. This is what happened to me.
[00:56:26] I'm going to be very vulnerable here. When I entered Bible college. This has nothing to do with the Bible College. Zero to do with the people that I was around. Has everything to do with me. Are you ready for this? I entered bssm. Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry. Amazing ministry school. I know there's videos out there against this and that.
[00:56:44] I can testify. I'm not a liar. I'm a person. I'm going to tell you the truth, even if it's hard for me to say it, or even if I have to be vulnerable and even confess my own faults, I will tell you the truth because I fear God.
[00:56:54] Bethel is a very, very good church, but they have 500 staff. How many do you have? They have 500. Most of us don't have 500. In our church, they have 500 staff. So of course there's going to be weird stuff that gets through okay. But the school curriculum is very solid in worship, surrendering your life. You are royalty. You're a saint, not a sinner. So stop sinning. They're good in teaching you that is your old man live new. It's actually really good. So when I got there, I'm like, wow, I'm a new creation. The Father loves me. The Goodness of God. I started to realize these things. When I realized those things, I started to enjoy the fact that God was pouring his goodness into my heart.
[00:57:36] It was amazing. God sent me because I'm an Australian, sent me to America to go to school. But when I got to America, as any Aussie would, I didn't know where I was moving.
[00:57:47] I didn't know the neighborhood. I thought, America. I've watched some movies my whole life. It's gonna be so cool. I get to go to like, I'm going to hang out at Pizza Hut or whatever. Like, I was like, this is just gonna be cool. You know, I get to have those big Gulps and stuff that I used to watch on Bill and Ted's Adventure and all those things. You probably don't even know what that is. Anyway, like, I was dumb and dumb. I used to. I can't wait to get to America, you know. I was so excited about America. I got there and I'd moved into the worst crime drug dealing neighborhood of all of reading. I didn't know because I'm an Aussie. I just picked that house. Sounds cool. The street was called Clay Street. I thought, that's cool. Clay sounds cool. It was the worst crime neighborhood. So I start walking to school with my little backpack and I walk. And then out of the house would come a 6 foot 5 guy. Blah. On speed.
[00:58:32] On speed, like shooting up speed. And I'd have to run and I'd be freaking out. I'm like, can I get a ride to school every day I want to ride. I didn't want to walk anymore. One day I came out of school, there was a car on fire in my neighborhood one day. There was SWAT. There's about 80 SWAT dudes with all their uniforms trying to get this guy who. Killer. Killer dude or whatever who lived there. I was like, God, why did you do this? Why am I here? And then my next door neighbors, they were like part of like Mexican drug dealers.
[00:58:56] And we lived in two conjoined apartments. And so I used to be trying to study the Bible and then this smell would come through my.
[00:59:03] My event. I just. These are the most peaceful Bible studies I had.
[00:59:07] It's like, you know, like very.
[00:59:10] So I would. I'm just joking. I'm just. But I used to be like, God, why are these drug dealers here? Like, I rebuke that. Now I would even do this. I bind you, spirit of pharmacia.
[00:59:22] You're probably looking at me like, what is the spirit of pharmacia? Well, I Was like, I bind you, pharmacia demon, in Jesus name.
[00:59:28] Okay, so I did all that. I finished my little.
[00:59:32] My. Let's say I got to the end of the year, and right near the end of the year, my identity's now been given to me. I feel more like a son. I feel free. And then I'm upstairs one day and I see the drug dealing, smoking dudes, the Mexican dudes from my top thing, I see them in their little balcony area, and I'm looking at them like, in Jesus name, Father, just get these guys out of here. I bind the neighbor, get them out in Jesus name, you know?
[00:59:57] And then all of a sudden, the Lord speaks to me and says, ben, open to Isaiah 58.
[01:00:02] And so I'm like, yeah, Isaiah 58. Yeah, the fasting chapter. Awesome. I was like, cool. Like, this is the fast the Lord has chosen.
[01:00:09] So then I started reading. Nothing was hitting me until like a sledgehammer, I got hit in the face with one verse. And it changed my life. You ready for this?
[01:00:19] Verse 6.
[01:00:20] Is this not the fast that I've chosen?
[01:00:22] To loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free? And that you break every yoke?
[01:00:31] Is it not to share your bread with the hungry? And that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out? And when you see the naked that you cover him, And I was like, yes, amen. Like, feed the poor, Lord. Yes, amen. But then the very next verse, verse eight, changed my life. And it'll change yours too, because it showed me the truth of where I was. Look at verse eight.
[01:00:55] Sorry, excuse me.
[01:00:58] Verse seven. The end of verse seven. I'm so sorry. You ready? Is it not to clothe the naked that you cover him and.
[01:01:06] And not hide yourself from your own flesh?
[01:01:14] When I read this, the Holy Spirit began to say. And I began to say, who is my flesh?
[01:01:21] Exactly what the priest said to Jesus. Who is my neighbor?
[01:01:26] Who is my neighbor? Who are my own flesh?
[01:01:30] And then God said to me, those Mexican boys down there, you are hiding from them, Ben. You are hiding in your identity. You're hiding in this school. You're talking about all the things you want me to use you for. But you are hiding from the real problem.
[01:01:44] And you need to wake up and you need to bring the gospel to this neighborhood.
[01:01:50] And for some of you today, you love Jesus. You love people in the church, but you're shining light in the light.
[01:01:57] You're no longer the light of the world.
[01:02:01] And I finished with this Preparing for this event. We're about to pray.
[01:02:07] Preparing for this event. In the last few weeks in our church, alarms have been going off wherever I go and pray.
[01:02:14] I go to pray in the fields in Germany. God, use us, use our church, Use awakening. And all of a sudden, alarms will go off like crazy. Then I meet a pastor two days later from Hamburg. He says to me, I share that with him. I see alarms have been going off. And he shares with me. He goes, that's so weird. Before I came down to your church, we've never had this in our building. Alarms went off, and it was at 5:14 in the morning. The Spirit spoke to me. As soon as he said 5:14 and said, look up 5:14. I looked it up. It's Matthew 5:14. Let your light so shine before men, they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
[01:02:49] Then I preached that at the conference last week. The whole conference goes home. 900 people, they go home. In the hotel they're staying at, all the alarms go off and they wake them up. And they send the whole hotel to stand out the front of the hotel. Christians and non Christians are standing there. And it's 5:15, the very next verse, do not hide your light under a bushel.
[01:03:11] The same time.
[01:03:13] So God is echoing this. He's speaking this to us, saying, we've got to resurrect the true message, and then we've got to be the proof of the message which is loving our city enough to bring the gospel to the city.
[01:03:25] So I said to God, forgive me. That's true. I'm hiding from people I don't like. I. I'm hiding from this city of Clay Street. I'm here learning about revival, but I don't want to bring it to anybody.
[01:03:37] And I said, I'm coming back for second year. Someone asked me, where do you want to live? I said, clay Street.
[01:03:43] So I came back to Clay street, and now I'm a second year. So I'm kind of bigger than the first years, you know what I mean? Spiritually, like, so the first years move in and they're just like me. Uh oh, I've moved into a criminal neighborhood. And I was like this, hey, guys, welcome to Clay Street.
[01:03:58] And I did an inauguration meeting. We had a potluck with food everywhere. I said, welcome. As part of your school year, part of this experience, we knock on doors here in Clay street and we do prayer walks over the entire neighborhood to see the neighborhood saved. I never told Bill I did that. I just kind of incorporated into the school.
[01:04:17] So I'm the second year and the first year, believe me. And guess what happened?
[01:04:22] And this is why Bill Johnson said, let's keep that man. He came up to me one day and he said, I heard about what you're doing. Within one year. Within one year, a man wearing tracksuit pants. Sue can tell you I used to wear them to the meetings. I was wearing tracky pants. I had no decorum. I wasn't a leader. Just a little Australian who stopped hiding the gospel.
[01:04:44] I met with the mayor, the chief of police. They wanted to talk to me. Both of them came to Clay Street. The crime rate of Clay street because of the second years and first years praying every Wednesday, starting a house group, starting a food feeding program, dropped 50% in one year.
[01:05:03] One year, 50%.
[01:05:05] How do you know how?
[01:05:09] Because I realigned myself to the message.
[01:05:11] I realigned myself to the heart of the messenger, to what Jesus said this is all about. Mandy was there. You remember Clay Street, Mandy?
[01:05:20] It's true what I'm saying, isn't it?
[01:05:22] See, she was there.
[01:05:26] Did I tell you that when you were there?
[01:05:28] Oh, she just turned up. You didn't live there, did you?
[01:05:32] James lived there. That's right. But she would come. Were you in Clay Street?
[01:05:39] Come on. It's awesome. See, I would have forced her to do outreach.
[01:05:43] So what's the point that I'm getting at here today?
[01:05:47] I would like us to realign and say, God, forgive me if that touches your heart in both of these ways. You ready, God? I've forgotten the gospel.
[01:05:56] I didn't realize that I was under wrath.
[01:05:59] I don't love much. I haven't truly seen a vision of the cross. I want to understand and explore and begin to communicate the gospel. I want that Jesus. That's number one. And the number two part is this. I want us to pray that we stop hiding. Because some of you, I feel you've become very comfortable here.
[01:06:18] This isn't wrong. It's not one or the other. We don't preach them against one another.
[01:06:23] They're two legs of this walk with God. It's us with God and then it's us with them.
[01:06:30] But we have to go and get them. We have to burn for our cities and stop hiding. Would you stand?
[01:06:39] Thanks for listening to the Cromer Church podcast. If you enjoyed this message, you can like and subscribe. You can also join us in person or online every Sunday at Cromer Church for more information about us, including our ministries, events, worship, and how to donate, visit our website at Cromer Church.
