New Wine for New Wineskins June 2011


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historytodestinylogoThe Kingdom of Heaven in 2011

Part 4

Joshua 18: 2 – 4

2 There remained among the children of Israel seven tribes which had not yet received their inheritance. 3 Then Joshua said to the children of Israel: “How long will you neglect to go and possess the land which the LORD God of your fathers has given you?”
Remember – we have already been given the land and so all that remains is for us to take it!

JOSHUA 4

1 And it came to pass, when all the people had completely crossed over the Jordan, that the LORD spoke to Joshua…

1.    OBEDIENCE IS THE GATEWAY TO THE NEXT LEVEL

It is after we have done what the LORD has told us to do that he speaks to us again!  Many people say that the LORD has stopped speaking to them but he is simply waiting for them to obey the last thing he said to them before he speaks again!  There are too many of God’s people who are trying to get to the next level without addressing areas of obedience that need to be fulfilled at the level they are at!

When we fulfil the step that we have received revelation concerning then the next level of revelation comes to enable us to move on!  Obedience is always the key to hearing from the LORD!

2 Corinthians 10: 4 – 6

4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.  6 And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete.

When we obey what the Lord has said we are equipped and prepared to deal with the works of darkness! We know where these guys were headed!  They were about to come up against a major stronghold and so it was imperative that they were obedient in every detail!  For example, if the truth concerning baptism for believers is not applied then how can the strongholds of witchcraft and control and fear of man be demolished!

2 “Take for yourselves twelve men from the people, one man from every tribe, 3 and command them, saying, ‘Take for yourselves twelve stones from here, out of the midst of the Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet stood firm. You shall carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where you lodge tonight.’” 4 Then Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the children of Israel, one man from every tribe; 5 and Joshua said to them: “Cross over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, 6 that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’ 7 Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever.” 8 And the children of Israel did so, just as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones from the midst of the Jordan, as the LORD had spoken to Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them to the place where they lodged, and laid them down there. 9 Then Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests who bore the ark of the covenant stood; and they are there to this day. 10 So the priests who bore the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished that the LORD had commanded Joshua to speak to the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua; and the people hurried and crossed over. 11 Then it came to pass, when all the people had completely crossed over, that the ark of the LORD and the priests crossed over in the presence of the people. 12 And the men of Reuben, the men of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh crossed over armed before the children of Israel, as Moses had spoken to them. 13 About forty thousand prepared for war crossed over before the LORD for battle, to the plains of Jericho.

2.    A MEMORIAL FOR NOW – NOT A MONUMENT TO THE PAST

It is important that we recognise the distinction between these two statements because if you get them confused you will be bound to the past with the morbid recollection of the “good old days”!   It is always good and right and proper and advisable to carry a testimony of all of our experiences of the LORD’s goodness in salvation, healing and deliverance.  But our testimony should always be maintained as a living testimony that serves as a memorial – or memory booster – that reminds us that what the LORD did then he can do again NOW – and MORE!  The memory of what has done in the past brings him into the NOW – because HE IS!  Not was or will be!  Those who come to God must believe that HE IS!

Multitudes of God’s people are looking to the Book of Acts as a monument and trying to recreate a first-century church instead of allowing the testimonies recorded there to motivate us to be a twenty-first century church that operates in even greater levels of power and authority and experiences more of the manifestation of the kingdom, the power, and the glory!  There are many great products that have been around for a long time but the packaging has changed considerably over the years!  The church in the Book of Acts was the church in its infancy but now it is time for the church to come to maturity!

Ephesians 4: 11 – 16

11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Hebrews 13: 7 – 8

7 Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Revelation 1: 8

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Either he is or he isn’t!   If he is then we can take everything in the word of God and church history as a memorial for NOW that will cause us to press into the fullness of our inheritance rather than a monument to the past that leaves us wandering in a wilderness cycle of defeat and despair!

Jesus Christ IS the same – he is saying and doing the same things that he said and did when he was here physically.  Miracles, healing, and deliverance were never a hit-and-miss thing with Jesus – he never had an off-day!  And neither will we when we learn the secret of hosting a revival every single day!

I went to visit New Wine Church Tain recently with a real burden to see the pastor, Marie, completely healed from a painful injury that had kept her off work for five months and was soon to be operated on in a difficult operation that had only a limited guarantee of success.  I said to my wife Catriona before we left, “Marie has to be healed this weekend.

I was going to be preaching on Sunday morning and was told that since the service was billed as a family service I only had a maximum of thirty minutes preaching time.  I have been meditating on the word of God for over twenty five years now seeking to receive revelation that will result in good success and prosperity in every part of kingdom life as God intends it to be lived, but sometimes we miss the simplicity of how God’s kingdom works.

I woke up at 4.30am on the Sunday morning and the Lord began downloading revelation that was so simple it would have been too easy to discount it as being down to too much toasted cheese the night before.  But I knew it was a kingdom key that would align us with heaven and cause heaven to invade the earth, and that it was a key to Marie receiving her healing that day as well as every other need of every other person there being met if they would simply respond in faith to one simple directive.

The Lord began to show me that prayer is basically an invitation for God to become involved in our lives.  I have heard many kinds of prayers in my life – long ones, short ones, loud ones, quiet ones, exciting ones, boring ones – but I would have to conclude that the majority of our praying has been different from the way Jesus told us to pray!  The disciples came to Jesus and asked him to teach them to pray because they recognised that his prayers got results that theirs didn’t!

Think about it – “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven….”  That is an invitation to our Father to become involved in our lives!

We try and figure out all the reasons why we can’t heal the sick, etc, but it’s because we can’t do it that we need to invite him to come and do it!  Even Jesus said that he couldn’t do it himself!

I have been meditating a lot recently on the sovereignty of God – mainly because I have been teaching on the authority and dominion we have been given in the earth as men and women and so I don’t want us to become unbalanced in any way.

Scripture tells us that the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof – everything in it belongs to him.  But he, in his sovereignty, sovereignly decided to give us dominion over all that he had made for us.  When man fell and sin entered his experience he still maintained the right to choose and exercise sovereignty over his own life.  God, as the ultimate sovereign can issue commands but man has a choice as to whether or not he obeys these commands.  God lays out life and death, blessing and curse before us and says, “You choose!”

If we choose life and blessing then our sovereignty is aligned with God’s sovereignty which allows his good, acceptable, and perfect will to be accomplished in our lives.  However, if we choose death and the curse then we are sovereign over our own mess! The only way out of our mess is to invite God to come and do what only he can do – which is to sovereignly enter our situation and supernaturally deliver us from the results and fruit of our foolishness!

The reality is that our sovereignty was only ever supposed to work in alignment with and in submission to God’s sovereignty. In this period or age that is called time we retain our sovereignty even if we are not in alignment or submission but exercising our authority out of alignment or submission always ends in futility.  Listen up!

2 Chronicles 16: 9

9 For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him. In this you have done foolishly; therefore from now on you shall have wars.

All the way through the record of the word of God it is clear that before God can accomplish his good, acceptable, and perfect will in the earth he must first find a man or woman whose heart is loyal to him  – who fully trusts in his goodness and who invites him to come and invade earth with heaven’s provision!

God found Noah and told him to build an ark.  He could have said no!  God found Abraham and told him to leave his country and his family.  He could have said no!  God found Mary and told her she was going to bear a child by the Holy Spirit who would be called the Son of God.  She could have said no!  God told Joseph to take Mary as his wife.  He could have said no!  God told Paul not to go into Asia at a time when he thought it was the right move.  He could have said no!

Ultimately, Jesus came to reconcile us to the Father by taking our punishment for sin, but first of all he revealed to us what happens when a man (remember Jesus was / is the Son of Man as well as the Son of God) invites our Father’s kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  Read through the gospels – you will see this principle at work in Jesus’ life and ministry over and over and over again!  The Lord may not be a respecter of persons but he is a respecter of the principles that he himself has initiated!  When God makes a law he binds himself to that law also!

Jesus separated sinners from their sin so that the presence of God brought judgement on the sin and not the sinner; on sickness and not the sick; on the demons and not one those who were possessed and oppressed; on poverty and not on the poor, etc, etc.

We need to understand that the vast majority of the revivals that have been experienced over the centuries have been old covenant revivals.  They have been limited by people’s level of understanding and expectation.

It is not enough just to know what we have been speaking about and treat it as some kind of formula.  God is looking for people who know his word and that his word is his will – who are persuaded through meditation and revelation concerning the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God, which is to save all, to heal all, to deliver all, and to prosper all – every time in every place!

Noah was prepared outside of the camp, Abraham was prepared outside of the camp, Moses was prepared outside of the camp, Joshua was prepared outside of the camp, Jesus was prepared outside of the camp, and we will be prepared outside of the camp.  You can’t believe or think the same way way everyone else believes and thinks and do anything different from what they are doing!

Jesus said we would do the same works that he did.  When the people asked him what they must do to do the works that God requires he replied, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”  (John 6: 28 – 29)

The good news is that Marie was instantly healed that Sunday morning as she aligned herself with heaven by exercising her sovereignty in declaring that the pain and limited movement in her arm had to stop, and inviting her heavenly Father’s kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.  As Marie’s sovereignty was aligned with God’s sovereignty, He sovereignly did what only he can do and healed her completely.  She was able to return to work and there was no longer any need for an operation.  Praise the LORD!

14 That day the LORD exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they revered and were in awe of him all the days of his life, just as they had revered and were in awe of Moses.

3.    HUMILITY BEFORE THE LORD LEADS TO HONOUR BEFORE THE PEOPLE

The key to godly leadership is humility before the LORD.  True humility is when we submit to God and his declaration of who we are, what we can do, and what we can have!  I am who God says I am; I can do what God says I can do; I can have what God says I can have.  Submission to his Lordship in our lives and unswerving obedience to his directive in walking it out by faith will always lead to victory and success and raise people’s trust in your leadership!Even though people will not always immediately acknowledge your leadership and will even oppose it the LORD will vindicate you if you stay humble before him and remain obedient to his word in the face of adversity and opposition.

Mark 1: 22

22 The people were amazed at Jesus’ teaching, because he taught them as one who had authority, not as the teachers of the law.

Luke 20: 20 – 26

20 Keeping a close watch on him, the teachers of the law and chief priests sent spies…they hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. 21 So the spies questioned him: “Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. 22 Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?” 23 He saw through their duplicity and said to them, 24 “Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?” 25 “Caesar’s,” they replied. He said to them, “Then give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” 26 They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent.

Never try and vindicate yourself!  Always depend upon the wisdom and leading of the Holy Spirit – he is the great vindicator!  The greatest test of your leadership is when you look behind you and find someone following you – when you hear someone pick up the message that you have been speaking and pass it on!  The purpose of your rearview mirror is not so that you can keep looking back at what you have left behind but to keep a watch for who is coming behind you – who is following you.  The windscreen is a lot bigger than the rearview mirror for a reason – so that your main focus is always on what is immediately ahead of you.  If you don’t maintain your vision in the NOW of where you are going because you are obsessed with what is in your past then you are liable to have a serious crash!

15 Then the LORD spoke to Joshua, saying, 16 “Command the priests who bear the ark of the Testimony to come up from the Jordan.” 17 Joshua therefore commanded the priests, saying, “Come up from the Jordan.” 18 And it came to pass, when the priests who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD had come from the midst of the Jordan, and the soles of the priests’ feet touched the dry land, that the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks as before. 19 Now the people came up from the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they camped in Gilgal on the east border of Jericho. 20 And those twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal. 21 Then he spoke to the children of Israel, saying: “When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, ‘What are these stones?’ 22 then you shall let your children know, saying, ‘Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land’; 23 for the LORD your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over, as the LORD your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up before us until we had crossed over, 24 that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever.”

4.    RECOGNISE WHEN YOU HAVE MOVED TO THE NEXT LEVEL

They thought they had just crossed over but they had in fact come up!  It is too easy for us to look back at what we have come through and see it back to the way it was before we encountered it as an insurmountable problem and so we forget the full extent of what the LORD has done!

When the Lord reveals truth to you that causes you to come up you can never go back to the old ways or you will die in the wilderness!  If we die in the wilderness it is because we have failed to recognise that what the LORD did for us was supposed to take us to a new level of faith that prepares us for what is coming up ahead of us!  You know what they say – new level, new devil!  Our heavenly Father wants to keep us one step ahead of the opposition by preparing and equipping us to overcome every hindrance and obstacle.

It is good to keep a record of what the LORD says to us and does for us and it is good to repeat it often!  It is also important to share testimony with the next generation of what the LORD is doing and what he has done!  The LORD’s supernatural deliverance is a testimony to the reality of his presence with us and so that should always maintain a reverential fear of the LORD in our lives with a healthy respect for his word and his ways!

If we neglect to give the LORD the glory for what he has done we will soon begin to think that we did it for ourselves and that is not good preparation for what is coming round the corner or over the hilltop!  Hear what the word of God says in these verses from the Psalms.

Psalms

Serve the LORD with fear and rejoice with trembling…The fear of the LORD is pure, enduring forever…You who fear the LORD, praise him!..Who, then, is the man that fears the LORD ? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him…The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them…The eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love…The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them…Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing…Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name…As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him…But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children…The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom…Blessed is the man who fears the LORD…You who fear him, trust in the LORD— he is their help and shield…he will bless those who fear the LORD— small and great alike…Let those who fear the LORD say: “His love endures forever.”…Blessed are all who fear the LORD, who walk in his ways…Thus is the man blessed who fears the LORD…O house of Levi, praise the LORD; you who fear him, praise the LORD…the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love…

As we take the land let us never lose our reverence and awe for the One who has given it to us!

Jesus said pray this way:

Our Father in heaven,  Hallowed be Your name.  10 Your kingdom come.  Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven……

Do you believe him that it is that simple?  Religion has complicated things so much!  It worked for Marie and it will work for you right now….let his kingdom come and let his will be done in your life as it is in heaven….no more bondage to sin or its effects…to guilt and shame… to sickness….to oppression….to poverty……

THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN 2011!

1 thought on “New Wine for New Wineskins June 2011”

  1. This message is so powerful. I never see it that God is always going to work with us when we are willing to work with Him, amen. Jesus is LORD!

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