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On Judgement Day, all the people were queuing up to enter heaven. God decided to divide the people into three lines. The first line was for the men who were dominated by their wives while living on earth. The second line was for the men who dominated their wives during their lives on earth. The third line was for all the women. God looked at the first two lines and saw that one was longer than the other.

The first queue was really long and God was greatly disappointed to see that there were so many men who failed to fulfil their destiny set by God as the head of the household. Their lives were completely controlled by their wives. But God saw that there was one man in the second line. Finally, there was one man who lived up to his calling. God turned to all the men in the first queue and told them to follow the good example of the one man in the second line. However, God was really curious as to how he did it. He turned to the man and asked him for his secret formula on how he managed to control his wife and not let her dominate his life. The man turned to God and said, “I don’t know, God. My wife told me to stand in this line so I obeyed.”

Marriage is long instituted by God. It was created by God in the Garden of Eden. When God instituted marriage, it was not meant for Christians alone but for all people. King Solomon told us in Ecclesiastes 9:9 (New Living Translation) to “live happily with the woman you love through all the meaningless days of life that God has given you under the sun. The wife, God gives you is your reward for all your earthly toil”. Clearly, even King Solomon understood the meaning of marriage and to live happily with the woman that God has rewarded you for you your hardworks. King Solomon wants us to enjoy the marriage that God has instituted in our lives.

Marriage is important to God and to use. It represents how God loves us and our relationship with God. The Bible likens us as the brides of Christ. If we say that our marriage is not working, then we are saying that our relationship with God is not working. All His marriage institutions then are failure. This is not a good representation of God’s love for His people. There are many divorces in this world. We are Christians have a role to play and that is to show God’s love is real. We must ensure our marriage is successful as it is our message to the world that God’s love is real and our relationship with God is real.Ephesians 5:22-25; Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Saviour of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her.The Role and Responsibilities of a Husband1. To be a leader

The husband is to be a prophet, priest and king to his wife. The husband is the leader and head of the household. As the leader and the head, men are called to have vision and to provide direction. Why is the man called to be the head? On the head, lie the eyes. The purpose of the eyes is to see far and near, to see ahead with vision. When God created the world, He created the man first and God gave man the responsibility of work to look after the garden and the animals. God left man with the accountability and command not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil before God created woman.

However, since sin entered the world through Adam, men began to fall away from God. Today, men are so busy working. They do not have time to pray. They do not have time to serve in the church. They do not have time to read the bible. They do not have time to provide spiritual food to their wives and children. How then is the man going to fulfil his role as the priest and king to his wife?

As the priest, the role is to lead the people of God into the presence of God. As the priest to your wife, your responsibility is to provide spiritual food and guidance to your wife, and to lead her into the spiritual presence of God.

A king always carries himself with dignity and authority. He is supposed to lead like the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads God’s people. He does not drive or push the people to meet God’s goals. The king rules the kingdom wisely and reigns among his people.2. To love his wife

A wise and loving king will put his kingdom and people first before himself. Similarly, as the husband, you are to lead your wife and family but not by force or by thumbing your wife down. A wise and loving husband will govern his household wisely and reigns. His family will respect him and obey him as he puts his wife and family first before himself. A husband must love his wife, be willing to give of yourself and lay down your life for your wife.

Every time we backslide or sin, we grieve God. But He never gives up on us. He saddles us with His love and lovingly holds us in His arms. God remains faithful even if we are unfaithful. In every way, the husband is to be like Jesus who loves the church and gave of Himself for our salvation. In the same way, the husband is to love his wife and give of himself to her.The Role and Responsibilities of a Wife1. To be a helper to her husbandGenesis 2:28; And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.”

God told Adam the reason why Eve was created. When God created the world, God said that everything He created was good. When He created man, He said that it was not good enough. God said that something was missing and it was not good for man to be alone. Although when God created Adam, he has a job to look after the Garden of Eden but God realised that it was not healthy for Adam to be alone. By being alone, Adam will not have a healthy character development. Hence, God created woman to be a helper and comparable in every way to Adam in order to assist him.

How then is the woman to help man to fulfil the visions and dreams given to him by the Holy Spirit? How is the wife to help her husband to see the visions and dreams from God? For the wife to be a helper, she must know the husband’s vision. It is the husband’s responsibility to share his visions and dreams with his wife. If your wife believes that the visions and dreams come from the Holy Spirit, she will believe in you. It is the wife’s role to help her husband to achieve his visions and dreams. As a wife, you are to be a dream enabler, not a dream stealer or destroyer. You are to encourage your husband and to render help to make the visions and dreams come true.2. To submit to her husbandEphesians 5:24; Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.

The responsibility of a wife is to submit to her husband. When the Bible says that a wife is to be submissive to her husband, it does not mean that she becomes a slave, to be thumbed down, to be ordered around or to be abused. A wife is to be encouraging, supportive and helpful. In turn, she is to be loved, treasured and respected by her husband. As a wife, you are to submit to your husband in everything.

If a man is married to a woman, who is high powered, more educated than him, and earned much higher, he must do his duty as a husband and as head of the household before she is willing to submit to your authority. Think about it. If you first love your wife and shower her with your agape love, you will find your wife loving you willingly in return. Just as God first loves us, as husband, you are to love your wife first.

Why does marriage fail and Woman dominate over Man? Let’s see in the part 2.

The scene in my mind is one full of chaos, disorder and unrest as I try to picture this title in reality. Pleased smiles, condemning sighs and grunts, encouraging cheers, angry looks, disagreeing gestures, shuffling feet, excited chatter (which could either be excited- happy or excited-angry) and probably impatient exits, would grace every Sunday (let’s not be too assuming), would grace every service. These gestures would be necessitated by the sermons of the various pastors trying to pass across the Word in what way they understand it best.Back to the real world where the world is not one church, various ministries have sprung up in the bid to populate heaven and save God’s creatures from the destruction of hell. Unfortunately, the diversity in Christendom is in itself a source of strife amongst the very people whose essence should be love, hence the reason to critically assess the situation.In Nigeria today, countless ‘Men of God’ exist claiming to have been called to lead the sheep of the Great Shepherd in the path of righteousness and ultimately into heaven, the bliss of the righteous. As a result, the number of churches existing in the country is staggering making it increasingly difficult for someone who has no ties to any of them to make a choice of which to attend. Funnily, instead of this somehow intensifying the unity amongst believers, it is contributing to condemnation, hatred and even strife amongst those of the same faith. Look at it this way. We hear of so many conflicts and even wars among people of different tribes, or children from different mothers but it is rare to find people of the same tribe warring against themselves. So it seems it is with the ‘Christian tribe’. This is therefore a bid to understand and maybe proffer a solution.First, let me say that I think that these ‘Men of God’ found their ministry on the understanding and convictions they personally hold of the Word and the doctrines of Christianity (maybe I should add, as made clear to them by the Holy Spirit, and maybe I shouldn’t). And because we all know that understanding, opinion and preferences differ, some things would have more weight to some than to others. These convictions and preferences then form a ‘trademark’ by which the churches are identified. For example, some churches do not permit the wearing of jewelry for ladies, some don’t permit wearing of trousers, some dictate the length, style and even color of dresses, others permit the uncovering of hair for the ladies and the list goes on and on.Apart from the trademark that these convictions bring, it also raises the need for a separate gathering of those who agree with such convictions to fellowship hence the establishment of various churches.I took some time to look at some of these churches in Nigeria critically and I found out that each of them have their dominant messages sort of like a theme in which the essence of the ministry is embedded. Pastor E.A. Adeboye of the Redeemed Christian Church of God teaches essentially on the Holy Spirit and His ministry. Pastor W.F. Kumuyi of the Deeper Life Bible Church concentrates on holiness. Bishop David Oyedepo on the potentials of the believer to prosper and discovering divine purpose. Pastor Matthew Ashimolowo on experiencing financial freedom. Pastor Olukoya of Mountain of Fire and Miracles on prayer. Pastor Chris Oyakhilome of Christ Embassy on the authority of the believer. Pastor Bimbo Odukoya (May her soul rest in peace), of the Fountain of Life Church, on singles and married. I could go on and on but I need you to work with me here.Note that each of these areas is fundamental to the Christian and his growth. Now, I’m not implying here that these Men of God do not teach topics relating to other areas but these areas are fundamental to their ministries and constitute the larger part of their teachings.If the world were one church, won’t every believer grow seeing that they’ll have the opportunity to listen to all the aspects of their Christian lives from experts in the field?If the world were one church, would all these ministers of God be united and agree? If the world were one church would the believers resort to having a holy war? If the world were one church would we have more standing Christians than struggling believers?Now, if the world were one church, I have no idea what would happen seeing that I have not mentioned up to a tenth of the pastors that exist in the country.Maybe you’ll be able to tell me what you think would happen, if the world were one church.

Christian Financial Freedom requires you to know the truth about answered and unanswered prayers; Fact or fiction? Unanswered prayers do not exist; you either have a negative or a positive response. If your prayers do not get a positive result it means your prayers were answered by God in the negative. God hears you and replies. Have you ever investigated why the verse that says: “and whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be Glorified in the Son.”It stands to reason that who so ever is not the beneficiary of an answered prayer will look for a thousand reasons to substantiate this as god’s will, no one like to be outside of god’s will. Immediately you will have a thousand Christian clichés as a substitute for the real reason. Clichés like, have faith, or Gods timing is not your timing, unbiblical hackneyed and nauseating, admissions of not knowing the truth in which lies the answer.Most people are afraid to question the Bible. Why? It says that you should test all things. I decided to test both, my internet home business and the biblical facts. TBN pulpit exponents like Internet Marketing Exponents have lead me round by the nose long enough, time fo the truth. No more listening to TBN hype and get fleeced in the process. Time to put my prayer life and my Christian based affiliate marketing business on the right track. In both instances I need to seek the truth. the success of the one is dependant upon the other.I am sure you know the story of Jacob, he promised God that if He would provide for him, protect him, and bring him back safely to his land, he would then serve God. He required God to give first before he gave. God still loved him. Have you ever heard a sermon about this from a TBN pulpit charlatan? No, all insist you must give to receive; do they have the keys to God’s safe so they can dish out to you, or something? Every one of them is out to take your money. I state categorically they do not believe what they preach; if they do they are hallucinating. If I was one of them and believed what I daily tell the millions of viewers, I would give a million dollars to the cause I’m touting as a good thing, and get back a hundred million from God, it would save one hell of a lot of trouble.The Word says test all things. I Thessalonians 5:21 instructs us to “test [prove, KJV] all things,” which would include our old notions, and then “hold fast” to the good ones—the ones that pass the test. Have you ever looked for the reason why you did not get what you asked for? There are good reasons which may soon be eradicated, if you seek the truth because it will set you free. However, that is yet another discussion to be published in due course.I have deviated somewhat from the basic reason for this article, but these shenanigans are depriving a lot of people from the truth. The word says, Seek the truth and it will set you free, so back to the main stream of my article.I make my income from my home business by way of Internet Affiliate Marketing and SEO work. Unfortunately, both, religion and internet marketing are crowded with hype and scams. It became an obsession with me to discover the truth every time I listened to one of those TBN Multi Millionaire pulpit charlatans, I just knew this could not be the truth about God’s Word and to a similar degree seeing reading and listening to the internet hype about becoming a millionaire over night, or having a new Ferrari parked in your garage before you have even removed you P-Jays in the morning.Christianity was my first priority as I felt that my Home Business Income was totally dependent upon my knowing the truth.My search took me into many places besides the Word. The kernel of my research was to find the truth about both including the true meaning of such biblical annotations as:

“And ye, O peoples, to whom God gave the liberty to choose your own magistrates, see to it, that ye do not forfeit this favor by electing to the position of highest honor, rascals and enemies of God.” —John Calvin

“Political slavery ensues when the public sleep.” —John Dickinson, 1732-1808

At this critical time in the history of the United States, as the nation has selected a new president, there is passivity, indifference and unconcern among pastors and the Christian Church. As one prominent church leader, John MacArthur, recently said, “I wouldn’t spend five seconds thinking about the fall 2008 election.” This mindset is antithetical to the scriptures and historical theology. It reveals a perverted view of church and state that consigns the secular world to a realm outside the influence of the Christian community. By inversion, this myopia views the spiritual as the only sphere wherein God’s will is accomplished. The modern church has become a microbe fortress with virtually no voices to call the nation to repentance. There is a somnambulence of spirit and mind that has overtaken the church world. We are insulated within a micro-world and have consigned the society in which we live to irrelevance. The vacuum of non-involvement with the secular world by Christians is immense. One 20th Century theologian diagnoses the passivity of the modern church, “In the early church there were persons called ‘Anchorites’ who went off into the desert, separating themselves from all social contacts and living solely for God. From that early movement, monasticism was born. In our time, we see a somewhat similar response among some evangelical protestants. They believe that the Christian community should be so separated from the secular sphere that individual Christians should not go into politics or vote in elections, that they should withdraw from the culture, live in distinct communities, have Christian friends exclusively, work for Christian companies, or in general, have nothing to do with this world. It is a way of saying that the authority of the state is illegitimate.” (James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith, p. 691). The institution of civil government is not illegitimate, it is ordained by God to restrain evil and show forth His glory. In the words of John Murray, “…when the civil magistrate trespasses the limits of his authority, it is incumbent upon the church to expose and condemn such a violation of his authority.” (The Relation of Church and State, p. 253).

The Anchorites of the Middle Ages lived in stone cells approximately 12 x 12 with a small aperture cut through the wall to view the world outside. They devoted their entire life to academic and scholastic study, while repudiating a world they felt was irretrievably lost. Their influence on society was as effectual as an ant on a crumb of bread. The present day Anchorites confidently assume that their weekly or weakly sermon will counter the encroaching darkness that is encircling their religious sphere like a hurricane enveloping a small island. Behind a bluster of verbiage they vainly believe their words are holding back the night. The lacuna of pro-test-ant voices from the matrix of the Christian church has allowed the virulent hatred of theism to capture the agora of ideas. Mere exposition is anemic without confronting a degenerating culture. Apologetics confined to an ecclesiastic cell is cowardice not Biblical courage. The words of a Nineteenth Century Reformation Scholar and theologian, Abraham Kuyper, are disturbing to our comfortable isolation: “There is no doubt then that Christianity is imperiled by great and serious dangers. Two life systems are wrestling with one another, in mortal combat. Modernism is bound to build a world of its own from the data of the natural man, and to construct man himself from the data of nature; while, on the other hand, all those who reverently bend the knee to Christ and worship Him as the Son of the Living God, and God, Himself, are bent upon saving the ‘Christian Heritage.’ This is the struggle in Europe, this is the struggle in America, and this also is the struggle for principles in which my own country is engaged, and in which I myself have been spending all my energy for nearly 40 years. In this struggle, apologetics have advanced us not one single step. Apologetics invariably begun by abandoning the assailed breastwork, in order to entrench themselves cowardly in a raveline [3 sided fortress] behind it. If the battle is to be fought with honor and with a hope of victory, then principle must be arrayed against principle; then it must be felt that in Modernism the vast energy of an all-embracing life system assails us, then also it must be understood that we have to take our stand in a life system of equally comprehensive and far-reaching power.” (Abraham Kuyper, Stone Foundation Lectures: Lectures on Calvinism, 1895, p. 3). A one-dimensional perspective of the church is ecclesiastical suicide. It leaves civil government out of the purview of church authority and God’s sovereign will. “…it was always understood that both church and state were responsible to God in whose wisdom each had been established. They were two independent servants of one master. Although neither was permitted to rule the other, each was to remind the other of its God-appointed duties and recall it to upright, godly conduct if it should stray. Today, however, the doctrine of the separation of church and state is taken, primarily by church people to mean that the church is irrevelant to the state–though the state increasingly brings its secular philosophy to bear on the church. Thus, Christians withdraw from politics, neglect even to inform themselves of national and international issues. And, as a result, the articulation of spirital or moral principles is eliminated from debates on national and international policy. The state becomes its own god with its chief operating principle being pragmatism.” (James Montgomery Boice, Foundations of the Christian Faith, p. 665). When the church is anemic, civil government by default becomes the guardian of the people. Government becomes the foci of trust and hope.

“Wherefore no man can doubt that civil authority is, in the sight of God, not only sacred and lawful, but the most sacred, and by far the most honorable, of all stations in mortal life.” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Ch. 20, Sect. 4).

The philosopher and theologian, John Calvin, who designed the secular and ecclesiastical constitution of Geneva in 1540, believed that no walls should separate the influence of the believer from the secular sphere. His doctrine of church/state relations is eye-opening. “All we wish to be understood at present is, that it is perfect barbarism to think of exterminating it [civil government], its use among men being not less than that of bread and water, light and air, while its dignity is much more excellent. Its object is not merely, like those things, to enable men to breathe, eat, drink, and be warmed (though it certainly includes all these, while it enables them to live together); this, I say, is not its only object, but it is, that no idolatry, no blasphemy against the name of God, no calumnies against His truth, nor other offenses to religion, break out and be disseminated among the people; that the public quiet be not disturbed, that every man’s property be kept secure, that men may carry on innocent commerce with each other, that honesty and modesty be cultivated; in short, that a public form of religion may exist among Christians, and humanity among men. Let no one be surprised that I know attribute the task of constituting religion aright to human polity, though I seem above to have placed it beyond the will of man, since I know more than formally allow men at pleasure to enact laws concerning religion and the worship of God, when I approve of civil order which is directed to this end.” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 4, Ch. 20, Sect. 3). Calvin valued civil government as having more worth than food to the body and air to breathe. He even calls the state the “religious polity” which is a system of divinely-ordained human government, established by God to glorify Himself and restrain the rebellious nature of man. To him, the state was to reflect from the matrix of the church, a recognition of God as Sovereign Creator and acknowledgement and worship that is due Him. Calvin invested the state with power to restrain idolatry and blasphemy against God. He was in no way apolitical. This is a far cry from pastors and Christians who say that the government is not worth our time and effort to change, amend or restrain. The religious life is not active in the whole of our being, but in a fraction, confined to feelings or the volition. A partial influence of character now obscures the full impact of a redeemed life. Religion and its authority is being excluded, “…from the domain of public life; henceforth the inner chamber, the cell for prayer, and the secrecy of the heart should be its exclusive dwelling place.” “And the result is that, in many different ways, religion, once the central force of human life, is now placed alongside of it; and, far from the thriving of the world, is understood to hide itself in a distant and almost private retreat.” (Abraham Kuyper, 1895, The Stone Foundation Lectures p. 40). The church shadowboxes phantoms of their own devisings. Conferences are held to attack straw men of antiquity, and rededicate their habitually rededicated lives, while the judicial and legislative organs of the nation are increasingly hostile to the name of God. The time consumed on such minutiae is irrational. Little sermons, pridefully delivered as textually sequential, are as far-reaching as the tip of one’s nose. Rhetorical fluff has replaced the Word of God that existentially confronts all of life.

“America is the only country ever founded on a creed.” (G. K. Chesterton)

The philosophic and theological inflence of the Reformation not only established churches but created nations from the central teaching of God’s sovereign will and call. No individual would hold allegiance to any foreign despot that restrained the worship of God, for God alone was the Ruler of heaven and earth. The matrix of constitutional principles came from an understanding of God’s sovereign nature. “The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right, for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequalled. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.” (G. K. Chesterton, What I Saw in America, 1922). The individual has dignity and worth not deriving from civil law, but solely from God’s hands, as made in His image and likeness. “…Calvinism has captured and guaranteed to us our constitutional civil rights; and that simultaneously with this there went out from Western Europe that mighty movement which promoted the revival of science and art, open new avenues to commerce and trade, beautify domestic and social life, exalted the middle classes to positions of honor, cause philanthropy to abound, and more than all this, elevated, purified, and enobled moral life by Puritanic seriousness;…”. The Reformation, “Created a church order, which became the preformation of state confederation, it proved to be the guardian angel of science; it emancipated art; it propagated a political scheme, which gave birth to constitutional government, both in Europe and America.” (Abraham Kuyper, p. 29, 155). There are some evangelicals, MacArthur and his followers, who view the American Revolution as illegitimate. Their perspective values the authority of colonial England as the God-honored government of the land. They reject the Reformation foundation of the American constitution and diminish the value of our democratic state, as decreed by God for the enobling of man and the propagation of the Gospel. This ahistorical view rejects our religious heritage and fosters a myopic mindset that perceives no interrelation between the church and state. Such a view of our history is quite simply troglodytic. “America had been founded primarily for religious purposes…” “The Pilgrim Fathers had come to America precisely because England had become immoral and irreligious. They had built the ‘City on the Hill.’ Again, their descendants had opted for independence and liberty because they felt their subjugation was itself immoral and irreligious and opposed to the Providential plan. There is no question that the Declaration of Independence was, to those who signed it, a religious as well as a secular act, and that the Revolutionary War had the approbation of divine providence. They had won it with God’s blessing and, afterwards, they drew up their framework of government with God’s blessing,…” (Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, p. 204). The constitutional framers understood that their work was Divinely ordained and empowered by the God of heaven.

What would Calvin have thought or said, living in 21st Century America, where a candidate, and now president of the United States, was accorded titles of divinity? By all that we know of him, he certainly would have spoken out in anger with authority. Just recently, a U.S. House of Representative, Jesse Jackson, Jr., said that an additional book should be added to the Bible, describing the ascendancy of the greatest redemptive figure of Western history. He would call it the Book of Obama. “The single most extraordinary event in American history, even a redemptive act of divine revelation. The event itself is so extraordinary that another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance.” (from Politico, June 5, 2008, article by Josephine Hearn, “Black Lawmakers Emotional About Obama’s Success”). Barack Obama has been accorded the title of “The Messiah” by the Nation of Islam. Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, has declared that he (Obama) has entranced our youth and that the day of messiah has arrived. In Obama’s own words, upon receiving the nomination for President of the Democratic Party, “Tonight the tides will slow and the earth will heal.” The New Testament portrays Jesus’ death and resurrection as the only redemptive hope of humanity but Obama says of himself and his followers, “We are the hope of the future; the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided; that we cannot come together; that we cannot remake this world as it should be. Because we know what we have seen and what we believe–that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored; that will not be deterred; that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different from all the rest.” (Barack Obama, Speech in 2/5/08). With unbridled hubris, he declares, “I am confident that we can create a kingdom right here on earth.” (Barack Obama, October 8, 2007 speech). We have no need for political rulers but men and women of truth who will endure rejection and umbrage to support the unborn, maintain the historic definition of marriage, support Israel as a sovereign state without further territorial concessions and maintain the economic value of the individual, the incentive to achieve. The rhetoric from Barack Obama and his adoring throng come from a matrix of unbridled pride and arrogance unprecedented in American political history. We have heard cult voices utilize such language in the past but they were relegated to the lunacy of mindless extremism. But Obama seduces an entire generation with political/cultic language that is more reminiscent of an illusionary god-complex. In ancient Rome when a conquering general returned to the city with his army and the spoils of war, the whole population would greet him with praise and acclaimation. But running behind the general’s chariot would be a man who would whisper in his ear, “You are not a god, you are mortal.” The church needs to remind Obama that he is not the messiah, he is only a sinful mortal. To perceive of John Calvin’s view of state authority is to understand that he would have opposed and exposed such blasphemy against God.

“On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.” (Isaiah 62:6-7)

“And I set watchmen over you, saying, ‘Listen to the sound of the trumpet!’ but they said, ‘We will not listen.’” (Jeremiah 6:17)

“At every stage of her existence the Church is in need of watchmen who will guard the flock from all that would destroy it.” (E. J. Young, Book of Isaiah, Vol. 3, p. 470)

As ancient sentinels were stationed on the walls of a city to alert the inhabitants of approaching danger, especially at night, so the prophets of Israel were to sound a tocsin voice to the nation of Israel of impending calamity. The prophets of Israel were the heart of God in human flesh. They encountered every aspect of life in reference to God. The prophets diagnosed the spiritual, cultural, social, economic, political and military condition of the nation from the perspective of eternity. Their voices knew no bounds of influence and repercussion. Nothing was outside the authoritative domain of the prophetic voice. From kings to pauper, all would come to know the mind of God through the enflamed heart of the prophet. Their message embraced the totality of Israel’s life and history. Their voice captured the present from the transcendence of eternity. The prophets mindset encompassed the world, not just a sliver of religious activity. “The prophet is not only a prophet. He is also a poet, preacher, patriot, social critic, moralist.” “The prophet was an individual who said, ‘No’ to his society, condemning its habits and assumptions, its complacency, waywardness and syncretism.” “The prophet faces a coalition of callousness and established authority and undertakes to stop a mighty stream with mere words. Had the purpose been to express great ideas, prophecy would have had to be acclaimed as a triumph. Yet the purpose of prophecy is to conquer callousness, to change the inner man as well as to revolutionize history.” (Abraham Heschel, The Prophets, p. VIII, XIII, p. 16-17). The prophets left no avenue of society untouched by the revelation of God. Their voice hit the solar plexus of society with warning and redemption. No aspect of life was sacrosanct from their fiery confrontation. “By his very claim, his was the voice of supreme authority. He not only rivalled the decisions of the king and the counsel of the priest, he defied and even condemned their words and deeds.” (Abraham Heschel, p. 260). The lack of authoritative voices that speak power to power, truth to lie, clarity to obfuscation, is sorely felt in a nation inebriated by the rhetoric of self-exaltation.

Jesus gave a warning in Matthew 10:16 to his disciples, to be alert of impending danger on the horizon, in the midst of a hostile world. “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be shrewd as serpents, and innocent as doves.” The phrase “shrewd as serpents” and “innocent as doves” is found in the Midrash on Cant. 2:14. Israel is described as “harmless as the dove”, towards God, and “shrewd as serpents” toward the Gentile nations. The serpent has a sensory system that can detect approaching prey or predator by ground vibrations. They can detect motion more than 100 feet away. The believer is to be cognizant of what is on the horizon. We are not to be overtaken by events. When Israel failed to be prudently prescient, they paid a high price as a nation. The epithelium of the church has placed the believer in a state of vulnerability to the encroaching dangers of the culture.

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how will it be made salty again? It is good for nothing any more, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” (Matt. 5:13). There was a common expression among the rabbis in the time of Jesus that the Torah was the “salt of the earth.” “For as the world could not do without salt, neither could it do without the Torah.” (Soferim 15.8). The Torah was believed to have a preservative effect upon the world. The world would rot in an accelerated rate without the retarding affect of the Word of God. But Jesus does something amazing in this passage, He transfers the meaning of Torah to the Galilean disciples, a band of weak, incompetent, unschooled men, despised by the educated of Jerusalem. Jesus says that the Word in and through them would restrain the spoliation of the world. No teacher in the history of Israel has ever made such a declaration. Our presence in word and deed, is to be a preservative in the midst of a dying age. Our lives are to penetrated every realm, retarding corruption. Our influence is to glorify God and affect this world. May we see the glory of God once again shine from sea to sea as at our nation’s birth. Our presence in the midst of this age retards the accelerated spoliation of a dying world.

The need to pray currently for our nation is incumbent upon all of God’s people. A united confluence to seek the will of God is the only restraint to the encroaching darkness over the land. There are thousands of believers across America that are grieved and are being awakened by God for the future of this nation. Only dependence on the Sovereign God can redirect the present course that embraces progressively an autocratic view of life. At signal moments in our past, God has drawn his people in concerted prayer. “Wherefore, although it is true that while we are listless or insensible to our wretchedness, he waits and watches for us, and sometimes even assists us unasked; it is very much for our interests to be constantly supplicating Him; first, that our heart always be enflamed with a serious and ardent desire of seeking, loving, and serving Him, while we accustom ourselves to have recourse to Him as a sacred anchor. In every necessity; secondly, that no desire, no longing whatever, of which we are ashamed to make Him the witness, may enter our minds, while we learn to place all our wishes in His sight, and thus pour out our heart before Him.” “It is very absurd, therefore, to dissuade men from prayer, by pretending that the Divine Providence, which is always watching over the government of the universe, is in vain importune by our supplications, when, on the contrary, the Lord Himself declares, ‘He is nigh unto all that call upon Him, to all that call upon Him in truth.’ (Ps. 145:18).” (Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book 3, Ch. 20, Sect. 3). God is the Sovereign Lord of all the nations and He has ordained that His will be accomplished in a unique way through the weakness of our intercession.

The church is losing its spiritual and moral ground to the kingdoms of this world. Yet in their conceited illusion the evangelical anchorites justify such societal degradation as a sign that the end of the age is imminent. This is the ultimate escape from responsibility to our children and their children’s generation. “Religious living is not only a private concern. Our own life is a movement in the symphony of ages. We are taught to pray as well as to live in the first person plural.” “All generations are present as it were, in every moment.” (Abraham Heschel, A Philosophy of Judaism, p. 422-423). The Christian cannot shut himself up in his church and abandon the world to its fate. A concatenation of generations have falsely assumed that the consummation of the age was within their lifetime. “…Occupy [Gk. "pragmateuomai", daily affairs of life, commerce, judicial functions] till I come.” (Luke 19:13). “Watch therefore: for you know not what hour your Lord doeth come.” (Matt. 24:42). Jesus commands constant vigilance regarding the believer’s interaction with society.

“…humanity glorifies God by subduing the earth by words and by work. Tragically, the pious abandon culture to the non-pious. They foolishly argue: ‘Why polish brass on a sinking ship?’ One polishes brass to glorify the ship’s Maker, who will not allow His ship to sink. In other words, the ‘purpose-driven life’ aims among others things to produce a godly culture.” (Bruce Waltke, Old Testament Theology, p. 221).

For too many in the church, the canard has been embraced, “Why polish the brass on a sinking ship?” The answer to that sophomoric question is, God is the Captain of the ship and He has not forsaken it. Yes, the ship of state is listing, but we are called to be a restraint and empowerment toward a God-honoring government. We are at a crisis in American history and only the Sovereign God can restrain a movement that is dishonoring to Him at its very core. If we are silent and passive, we will suffer the consequences with the rest of the nation under God’s chastening hand. Though millions have cried out for a leader after their own heart, as Israel of old, the consequences of God giving Israel an alter-ego, Saul, for a leader was grievous. “And he gave them their request; but sent leanness unto their soul.” (Psalms 106:15). We must pray and seek God to take us out of the small confinement that we are in. We must see Him as the Sovereign Lord of heaven and the nations of the earth. Only God bearing His holy arm can restrain the arrogance and the supercilious movement that is capturing the imagination and seducing millions of Americans.

The systems of dependence are rapidly diminishing in stature and reliance. The promise of constant economic expansion is now being seen to have been illusory and myopic. The stratum of an economic and material foundation of life is being shaken by the seismic changes that call our entire capitalistic system into question. It is as if we as a nation are being sequestered into a cul-de-sac of despair. In this time of the death of America’s golden calves may we be granted the grace of God to be quickened by His spirit to breathe again the breath of eternity in the midst of the death throes of a dying age. “A sense of contact with the ultimate dawns upon most people when their self-reliance is swept away by violent misery.” (Abraham Heschel, A Philosophy of Judaism, p. 422).

Thank you for your very warm welcome. In the evening of last night Bishop Bernard Munanira and his wife and others were sitting around the table talking about what we might do today? The bishop recommended that I do some teaching on how to walk with Jesus Christ; how to walk in the kingdom of heaven; how to walk ready for the Lord to come back to the world. I think one of the best things to remember is that if we can live in heaven here on earth, then we will live our best both now and forever. Sometimes when we are very lonely and we are quite depressed in ourselves, we bow our heads. Sometimes when the pain is too much on us, we hide ourselves away completely and we just roll up into a little ball and we don’t want anybody to find us. But Jesus wants us to be a whole person and Jesus wants to make us grow. Amen? And Jesus puts his Spirit into us. Amen? And when he puts his Spirit into us and we start to come to church and we listen to the pastor’s instruction and some of the instruction is a little bit hard on us, but the pastor says, “There is one inside of you who is greater than the world and he that is in the world (1 John 4:4)!” And you believe him; and make a little streeeetch to that idea. You can stretch a little bit. Not a lot. But you can grow just a little bit. For example, you keep coming to church, and you adjust yourself with a little discipline, and after a while you think to yourself, “Yes, I have grown a little bit, just like the pastor said, but that’s enough for me. I don’t need to stretch any more than this that I have already done.” We think, “I am a Christian now, and I can look at all of those people who are not stretched and they are different from me. I am so wonderful and so good, I have stretched a little bit.” But then the Lord says to you, “You must achieve even more. You must become a new person. You must not merely be the old person who has stretched in his or her attitude a little bit. The old person must actually pass away and a whole new person must be born.” But you think, “Yes, but I have already stretched enough!” He says, “No, no, no. I am going to stretch you even more.” And God brings you into situations that challenge you and you start to stretch, like all your world is being stretched and strained just to accommodate the new things and the new ways of thinking.You think to yourself, “Oh, don’t do that to me God. Don’t stretch me, Lord! It’s better like I was before. Before you ever came into my life. I was happy how I was…well, more or less happy. You know God, sin is not so bad. It’s better than this stretching you’re doing to me! But the Lord says, “No, no. Listen to your heart. Come and stretch out here with Me, where I am.” After a little you yield and you do stretch a little bit. You start to trust God. Then after a little while you think to yourself, “This is actually quite good! Life is actually better out here than before. Even though the stretch was pretty strange and painful even, it was all worth it.”Then one day the pastor comes to you and says, “You need to be filled with the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and talking in tongues.” One day in a service, the Holy Spirit was really powerful and he did that and all of a sudden…. arghh!…a big stretch! And you even stretch in your head just trying to get all your ideas together about this amazing new experience in God…arghh! But when it’s all over you think to yourself, “Ah, now I have found Jesus Christ! Now I am really a Christian. Now I can relax and just live my life in peace and quiet.” But then one day your pastor comes along and says, “I need people to come with me into Tanzania to do mission.”You put your hand up, “Hey! Take me! Take me!” So you go on the mission team and the mission stretches you even more! You come back and tell everybody, “This is how it was in Tanzania! We walked everywhere! And we did things in the Holy Spirit that stretched us everywhere! Yeah! It was so way cool. And people got saved, and healed, and the pastor did this amazing deliverance on one guy out in the bush. Oh, God is awesome guys! Really!” But then later on, the Lord comes and whispers in your heart saying, “Now, I am calling you to become like a pastor.” And you think to yourself, “Ah, no, not me! No, I am nobody!” But the Lord says, “I can do this in you. You can’t do this in your own strength, but I can do it in you if you will stretch even more.” You count the cost in yourself, weighing up all your skills and experience and knowledge and trying hard to overlook all your shortcomings and you say, “But Lord, this is as much stretch as I have got!” And the Lord says, “Oh, no, no, no. I am the one who is stretching now. If you will just stay with Me, I will stretch and you will stretch with me.” You say, “Okay God. I accept, Lord. I am now going to be a shepherd. OK, so change me so that I can look after my sheep. Bring these sheep to me, Lord. Bring it on.” Then you are praying and you are praying and the Lord is stretching you into a place where you never thought you had so much stretch. You are really becoming a person of God now … a responsible person in the kingdom of heaven here on earth. You have your own mission to do, and you’re beginning to do it. You’re coming through the town and you’re seeing the people who have no stretch and the glory of God comes onto you and you can now say, “Listen hear people, the Lord Jesus Christ can make you greater than you are. He can help you to solve your problems and not make the same mistakes in the future. He can bring God’s glory into your life, and you can become a whole new person in him if you’re willing.” Now you start to work with the bishop and you start to work in all of the churches, preaching and healing and then you get great breakthroughs and the Lord stretches you even more…even more…and even more…and just when you thought you had no stretch left in you, even more! Then God takes you and he makes you into a heavenly citizen. You’ve been doing a pastor’s works in the world but just as a saved human being of the earth. Now he stretches you every which way. Amen? Amen! Glory to God! And this is who we all are, stretched people of God, and heavenly citizens now. Jesus can stretch us to anywhere we want to be! He can take us anywhere. Amen? This is who we are becoming. Now we are going to talk about finding God. Now that you know that you can be stretched to a place where you can find God. In the beginning seek God. We don’t know him, and we want to find him. Then  we believe about God, we believe in God. But then we decide to make Jesus the Lord of our life and we come to a place where we actually find God; and God also finds us. We know God, and we know that he knows us personally. Finding God is a most wonderful thing that can happen to us. But then what follows after that is that we start to reveal God to other people, just as Jesus revealed the Father to us when he was on the earth among us. Revealing God is the most excellent thing to do. Of all the jobs we could choose from in the world, revealing God to people is the highest job there is. You show people by God’s power that they can be more than what they think they are. God can turn us all into more and we can do more than what we already believe.

When I first wanted to find God myself, God led me to one man. This man was a very unusual man. He said that he had found God. Not just God in the Word and not just loving God, but in himself he had been changed so that God and he in his person were able to be like the same person. He would sit all day and he would sit all night. He was completely soaked in the world and yet he was not of it at all. If he didn’t eat, it didn’t matter to him. If he didn’t drink, it didn’t matter to him. If the mouse came and started to eat his toes, it didn’t matter to him. He was completely lost in God and was completely disinterested in his body and the world. I thought to myself, “This is a wonderful thing. How does a human being experience so much closeness of God? This is just different from reading about God. This is being made into a Godly person by God himself.” Sometimes in our dreams when we are sleeping at night, God comes into our mind and we feel that we are filled with God, don’t we? Then we wake up in the morning and we are just a little ordinary person again, but we know God has touched our minds somewhere. When we become Christians, we start to understand that God can completely move into our self, and so I started to do what this man did. He told me what he did in order to know God like this. He said, “I asked myself one question. When I was a young boy of fourteen, one of my uncles died and I went to the funeral. Here was my uncle laid out for the funeral and I was just a young boy, just watching. I asked myself the question, ‘What is it that dies? Where is the person that dies?’ “I went home to my house where I was staying and I really wanted to know the answer to this question. So I laid down on the floor and I held my breath until I could find the answer: ‘What was the thing that was going to die?’ “I held my breath for only about half a minute and then something from within me sprang forward and it seemed to fill the whole universe, and it was also filled with the presence of God. “From that time onwards I have just been sitting in peace with this which I am in God. From that time on I just sat in peace and God who was in me, and I who was in God, overcame all the world quite effortlessly.” When he was about the age of forty-five he developed stomach cancer and he died. Someone came to him and said, “You have cancer. Doesn’t it hurt you?” He said, “No. Pain is just a pressure.” “Does it matter to you that you are going to die?” they asked. He said, “No. When God is so much in you, there is no difference between being alive and being dead. Death is just a word…a reflection…it’s not real.” So I want to end that story now by saying that there is a way of knowing God intimately because God can fill us up completely in our self. We can sit in God and God can sit in us. We can merge the one into the other, and it can make a difference in how we relate to everything, even the world itself. But God doesn’t call many men and women to live like that man, so I want to show you the more common way that God calls people to know God. Yet, even then, in the common way, many people spend time being rapt in God, even if only for a few moments while they are worshiping.

If we open up the Bible and we look for perfect men who have known God, we see that we find Enoch in Genesis 5:24. He was perfect and he pleased God, and God took him from the world. In the book of second Kings (2:11), we see Elijah—and Elijah was perfect; and God took him from the world. Both of these men were perfect according to God’s idea of perfection—they pleased him because they perfectly did God’s will. But, as perfect as they were, both of these two men didn’t do as good a work as Jesus did when he was here. Jesus came to save the world from its sin, but neither Enoch nor Elijah did that work. Amen? We know that for Jesus to do the work of saving the world from sin, Jesus the man must have at least been as perfect as Enoch and Elijah. Amen? Otherwise either Enoch or Elijah could have saved the world from its sin. But they didn’t, and couldn’t. God didn’t give them that dominion and authority, even though they were spiritually perfect and walking in all of God’s perfect love that they could. So now we ask ourselves, “Forgetting Enoch and Elijah for a moment, as spiritually perfect as they were, how did Jesus find God?” Jesus was the Son of God but he was born a little baby. He didn’t go to school every day saying, “I am the Son of God!” He went to school saying, “I am Jesus, the son of Joseph and Mary, and I have brothers and sisters in this school also.” He didn’t really find out about being the Son of God until God fully revealed that to him at his baptism, when God said the words to him about how he also pleased him. So we know that there is Jesus the human being. He is growing up into the perfection of God. Before he can become the “Son of God” who is saving the world from its sin, he must first become the “perfect man” because the ordinary man is not capable of doing the work of saving the world. He must at least become the same as, if not better than, Enoch and Elijah. So we look at Jesus and we ask ourselves, “When did he become perfect? When he became perfect, he must have already completely found God. And if he has found God, how does he demonstrate that he has found God? Because he must be able to have found God first of all, if he is then going to do the work of God.” If your pastor sends you to Tanzania to go on mission, you must at least have found your pastor and been in discussion with him. Amen? So when we find Jesus, we look to him and say, “What is he doing with the heavenly Father? Because if we can do what he is doing with the heavenly Father, then we will be drawn into knowing God also—in just the same way as Jesus is knowing God.” When God took Enoch, Enoch “pleased” God. The Bible uses the word “pleased” to mean “perfect in God’s eyes”. But Enoch is perfect and yet he is not given the job to save the world. As soon as he becomes perfect…whoosh! He is taken from the world. At the same time that Elijah is taken from the world, we know that Elijah has reached perfection too. To be taken from the world in fiery chariots of God’s power is the same as saying they are spiritually perfect in God’s love. Now, let’s come into the book of Matthew. Let’s have a read from Matthew 3:16 and 17. In English it says, And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” We see here that God is “pleased,” but this is a special pleasing. If Jesus was a man or woman like us, we would expect him then to be taken by God to heaven. But something different happens here. Jesus comes up out of the water, and then while he is standing in the water the heavens open above him and the Spirit of God comes to him and this is the start of his new mission. For the first time in the world now, we see a perfect human being doing an extended mission of God. We can also understand that when the Spirit of God comes on him, the Spirit of God gives His vision for that mission. We are standing in a church and it has been built because somebody had the vision to build the church here. It comes into your imagination and God touches it and you believe God is going to help to make this happen. So here is Jesus and he is receiving the vision from God to save the world, and with the vision comes the Holy Spirit’s power to do that. With that vision comes the full remembrance, “I am the Son of God.” And now the human Jesus mind and the Son of God mind become the same mind. He is now Jesus on earth, but he extends right up into the heavens to the Father as well. Amen? He knows God. He not only came from God, but as a human being he has grown up into the normal range of knowing God that we all can grow into. So, he is the perfect person to ask our question: “How do we find God?” We look at Jesus and we find that he does only one or two things to tell us. Come with me into Romans chapter 1, verse 17. In English it says, For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”So we have found here in Paul’s writings and experience that Jesus’ relationship with the Father, which is wholly righteous—right with the Father—is pure faith. Amen? Now, if we come into Deuteronomy, in chapter 30 we see God making human beings choose. God puts a high value on us making a choice. In verse 19, God says, “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life.” When Jesus ministers in the world he says the same thing, “Choose the kingdom of heaven.” (Matthew 13:44) In the beginning of his ministry he just says, “Choose me. Choose me. I came from heaven. I am the way to the Father. Choose me.” After he sees that the Jews have a hard heart, he says, “If you can’t choose me, at least choose the Father because of my works.” So we start to see here that the righteous, they live in faith but they must make decisions. Now come with me into John 5 and let’s look at verse 19. In English it says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise.” That tells us that we are righteous and we live by faith, but faith is not just hoping that God is going to do something. Faith is making decisions. When we look at Jesus, we see that when Jesus makes decisions he only does what the Father shows him to do. So we ask ourselves the question, “If we can do only what the Father shows us to do, can we find the Father? Can we find God in that way?” We can’t look for God under the table, amen? We can’t look for the Father in our pockets, amen? We can’t go to some place in the whole earth and find the Father living there, amen? We can go to the moon and we will not find the Father there. We can go to the ends of the stars and we will not find the Father there either. It might even be possible to go to heaven and not find the Father, because we find the Father in faith. The Father shows us Himself in the world, but we do not come to actually hold Him until we hold Him in faith, and that faith is in our heart, amen? We do not find the Father by sight or by sound or by touch. We find him by faith and in faith; and that faith which lives in our heart. So there must be something that we can find in our heart that shows us the Father. Now if we come into the Book of Matthew and turn to chapter 13 and verse 3, we hear Jesus telling the parable about sowing seed. In English it reads, “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.” Scripture provides the explanation we are hungry to hear. It says that some of the seed falls into a place where the devil comes along and just takes away that seed. You might come to wonderfully rich meetings like this and then you go away from here and somebody says to you something that causes argument and you feel that all the blessing has just been taken away from you. A good example of that is in healing. You come to a meeting and you are prayed for, and then you receive healing and you are healed. You tell your friends, “I have been healed.” Somebody says to you, “You have not been healed. It will come back, you watch. I don’t believe those Christians. If healing was so easy, why did your father die? If healing was so easy for you, why did you lose your baby?” And the devil comes along and snatches away your seed—the hope that was in the promise of God concerning your situation. Then Jesus also explains that sometimes the seed is put here and the weeds grow up around it. You know, you have a weed here in Rwanda that back home we think it is a very special flower—it’s the marigold flower. But outside the door of this church there I can see one plant that I think definitely is a weed both here and back home in Australia also. But either way, when the weed grows up around your seed, it is all of the cares of the world that come in and smother your potential to bloom. For example, you say, “I want to go on mission with pastor into Tanzania, but I can’t do it because I’m too busy here with my family. Never mind, maybe next time I will go.” The next time comes along and the pastor says, “We are going over to Congo. Will you come with us?” And you make up another excuse because of the cares of the world that are taking away your focus on God’s work and what God has for your life. You can see after a while that the cares of the world are taking you away from your blessing. The weeds are robbing you of what God has for you. But there is one seed that when it is sown into good soil it produces very well. Let’s have a look at verse 31 in that chapter 13. In English it says, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” What we can see here is Jesus saying to us that when we are living by faith we are producing. We are producing in our decisions, and we are producing in our decisions because God and ourselves are making a seed together. And whatever God makes as a seed, it will harvest God’s kind of fruit. That is such a special thing that I just said. Come back into heaven with me and listen to the conversation between the Father and the Son. The Father says, “I need to plant a seed into the universe that has become corrupted by Satan.” The Son of God says, “I will be that seed! Send me and plant me into that place!” The Father says, “You must not do your will, you must only do my will.” The Son of God agrees and together they work out the plan. When they have made the plan, then the Son of God makes the decision, “I am now going.”The Son of God plans it and he comes and he is sown into the womb of Mary—she is a virgin in that she has never before had a baby. He has made the decision with the Father. He is the Father’s salvation seed and he is this little mustard seed that is going to grow into the kingdom of heaven in the earth itself. So we can look in heaven and we can see that the Son of God is with the Father. The Son of God is in the presence of the Father and together they make their faith decision. When Jesus grows up he teaches people, “I want you to make faith decisions with the Father. The Father will put his Spirit in you. You will be able to have fellowship with the Father.” He says in Scripture, “The Father and I will both come to you. You will have fellowship with us both and in the power of the Holy Spirit.” When we receive into our heart’s love this Father, and this Son, and this Holy Spirit, and this Jesus the perfect man, we have this power that comes upon us and which Scripture calls the Holy Spirit and fire (Matthew 3:11). The power is that we have the power to enter into our faith believing and in this place we of believing we can meet God; we can find God himself.

We are going to do that now, so that you can have this experience of finding God, and of God finding you in your faith believing. Then, when you have found God and you know God is touching you, you can have other experiences where you can simply be still in the presence of God; or when you can be filled with God; you can be at rest in God; or, you can be very active and preaching and shouting in God; or you can even be like that man who just sat in God and gave only scant attention to the world. There are two ways that God touches us. With the Holy Spirit he makes us into the sail of a boat and he blows into us—whoosh!—and moves us, and we are moved by the Holy Spirit and the giftings of the Holy Spirit are moved in us. When God does this we become footwashers, servants, movers and shakers in the kingdom of heaven. We change things, and we change them by God’s power. But then God moves us in another way also. He fills us like a bottle and we are not moving. We are completely still and we are filled in Him. If we open our eyes and we look at the world, all of God is looking through us and we are at rest in God.So God gives us these two ways to be in him, and they are both complimentary of each other: rest, and movement; tranquillity, and activity; pure worship in rapture, and pure work in the world of things and people. If we want to do a mission, first we must come into rest. We are like Jesus who comes away from the people to be with the Father— and he might come away from them for several days at a time. It might take a few days for him just to settle down into being at peace with God; to move away from being so active in God; and to let his body and his mind just settle down into the rest of God. When he is in the rest of God, then he is able to speak to God and they can together develop a plan. And you are going to do this now. You are going to think of something that you want to do, or something that you want to have just in your human self. Then we are going to let God come and touch that so then your program also becomes God’s program. When your program has become God’s program, faith comes alive in that and it then becomes the mustard seed. When it becomes the mustard seed you are starting to do the will of God. You and God are working this together in a strategic partnership.The world might try and come against you as you live out whatever it was that you and God planned to do together, but because you have developed this program in faith you have the power of God to protect you as you move through it in actual living. The perfection of God’s love will always succeed—and God’s mustard seed is a seed of the Father’s perfect love. Once we see these kinds of outcomes in our lives, then we start to see the ministry of Jesus differently. We see that from the time of his baptism he is drawing people in to know God so that they can have the power to make a program with God. When we are making programs in our heart with God and we are living out those programs, we become perfect. And that fulfils the highest value in the holy bible. If you go to your bible and have a look at Matthew chapter 5, verse 48, you’ll see there that Jesus is saying, “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Jesus can say that because he is perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect. But what is the way to be perfect? That’s the burning question in our hearts today: how to be spiritually perfect; and how to find ways to help others to be spiritually perfect like God. Come into your heart in your faith and develop a program. Let God touch your believing in that program and then live out that program. Then you will find even if you are a young person or old person, boy or girl, you will find that perfection will start to operate in your life. Now you are on the road like Enoch and Elijah and Jesus. If you do that one time today, you will have this moment of perfection. God will touch you and you will be with God. If you do this two times next week, you will have these two times of perfection. If you do this ten times over the next month, you will have all those times of perfection to your credit. As we practice in our hearts, making programs with God, we become perfect, and we learn to take God’s perfection into more and more places in our lives until we have gone into all of the places in our lives that have the potential to make us perfect. At that point we come to the place where God can say to us, too, “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.”So, let us do this now. Let’s look now into the Scripture at Matthew chapter 18, verse 18 through 20 in your Bible. We see a special formula here from Jesus. He says, “Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” To bind something here on the earth means to stop something from happening. We stop it happening by heaven’s power to stop things happening. To loose something here on the earth is to create some new thing here on the earth. We create that new thing with heaven’s power to create it. An example of that is heaven’s power to create the mustard seed into a mustard tree. The plants grow not by the earth’s power, but by heaven’s power creating them. So I am asking you to think of something that you want to do, or something that you want to have. It will probably be something that you want to loose here in the earth and if God touches your desire, then God turns that into a heavenly empowered seed and our Father will make it happen by heavenly power. Turn to Mark chapter 11 and to verse 24. In English we see here, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” This is what you are going to do. Remember, you are wanting to find God, and one of the ways that Jesus lets us find God is by loosing something here in the earth. This is what’s going to happen. I am wanting something. Let’s say, “I want to build a big church here and it has electricity, water, a concrete floor, plenty of chairs, a good roof, and plenty of shade.” Let’s just think, “This is what I want.” Jesus says, “If you believe you have received that thing you just thought of, it will be done for you.” If you believe that God has loosed it in heaven for you, then it will arrive here in the earth for you. Then the people will come together and we will find, “Oh, that church you dreamed of back then, it’s starting to be built now.” “So now, I am going to get one friend and tell that person what it is that I am believing for. Then I am going to believe that God has given this to me,” and my friend is going to believe that God has already released that for me also. We are both believing that God has given this thing to me. Together, with myself and my friend both believing that I am receiving this thing from God, we are going to keep believing until God invades our believing. When God invades our believing, we will know God and we will know him in our faith, amen? And he will touch our believing and turn it into his seed and we will feel him do that. Then we can stand up and say, “Praise God! he has touched my believing!” And you can speak to him, “My Father, you have touched my believing,” and you are in the direct presence of God. At that moment, he is holding you and you are holding him, and you know that he is touching your faith and he is filling your mind and his blessing is pouring into you. At that moment, in your heart you know, “Yes, this is God.” It is more important to find God than to even do the works of God. To do the works of God without ever having found God is to put things backwards. But let’s do this now. You are going to tell your friend, “This is what I am believing for.” Then the two of you now can start believing that God has now done that for you, and you will quietly keep believing until God enters into your believing. Then, when that has happened, your friend will also know that God has entered into his or her believing for you. You will both have God’s confirmation. Okay, let’s begin. Heavenly Father, you have heard my Word and you have sent me here into this place, Lord. I pray now in Jesus’ name that you will honor your Word, Lord, and you will enter into their believing and you will release the heavenly power to make their desire loosed here in the world. In Jesus’ name. Amen. Now you can begin—the first person and then second person. It should only take a few minutes per person, but take as much time as you need.

God has put his power into your believing. He has put his power into your believing in the same way as he put his power into Jesus’ believing. God is no respecter or persons, amen? God will honor all faith, amen? We cannot please God unless we are using faith. Amen? And so, what God the Father has done with Jesus Christ, he is doing now with you also. He has touched your faith and he has touched Jesus’ faith—it is the same faith. Therefore, now you should remember what you have desired and what God has touched. Remember it in your mind. Remember it in your heart. Write it in your bible: “Today the Father’s perfect love has touched this particular desire in my heart, and because he has turned it into a divine seed, it will happen. Not only that, for a moment I knew God intimately, and I savoured his presence and his perfect love.” Then when it happens, when this thing comes into your life, come back to your bible and you can write underneath what you just wrote: “Yes, it has happened now! According to my bible faith and God’s promise to touch my faith, and by his perfect love by faith I planted my seed and it has now produced its crop, and I have this thing for which God and I made the program.”When you do this in your moment of prayer, let God touch you. When God can touch you, you can know His presence. When you stretch that time together out into a little meditation, in this way you can know God.