The Coming Global Rebellion

Welcome to this week's podcast by Celebration Church Latatoga.

We believe this message will empower and equip you to live a life of breakthrough.

Thanks for joining us.

I want to take you before I uh dive into the messages this morning.

I will miss out some details.

Some are deliberate, some we don't need to hear about.

But I want to take us uh chronologically through from now to when Jesus Christ returns, okay?

Then I'm gonna then I'm gonna take a portion of that, and that'll be the message.

But as a way of introduction, I want to just give us an explanation of where we're at, okay?

The first thing the Bible speaks of is Aliyah, which is the in-gathering of the Jewish community worldwide into the state, the Jewish state of Israel.

Uh, you can't argue with that.

And people who believe in fulfillment or replacement theology, they can't argue with that because they don't.

And there's uh so many uh books and the word of God that actually begin to foretell that.

But anyway, we'll we'll teach and preach on that.

So if you don't understand that, that's all good.

You'll you'll pick up what we sound.

So that's the first thing.

The second thing is before the Lord comes back, the Bible says there will be walls, rumors of walls, okay?

There'll be famines, there'll be earthquakes and pestilence in diverse or different places.

The Bible says also the love of most will grow cold, and uh all sorts of things will take place, and that's the beginning of sorrows.

The Bible talks about in Jeremiah that's uh the the times of Jacob's trouble, okay?

It's moving into that.

Then we go on to that, then we see the next thing is uh the actual parents of the person who's the antichrist.

Now remember, the antichrist is not a system, it's not the Catholic Church, it's not Rome or anything like that at all.

It's not a historical figure.

The Bible says the Antichrist will be destroyed at the coming of the Lord's return.

Okay, so he's a future man, he's a future figure, he's not a type for a system, he's an individual that will actually move through the planet and he will demand global worship.

He'll be a political, tactical, uh, charismatic individual.

And the Bible says it speaks of the world, will be enamored by him because he will promise the world, promise the world peace and prosperity.

So he will come.

And then, of course, there's the uh he will introduce what it looks like anyway.

Uh, some people say a cashless society, but definitely some form of monetary system where you cannot buy and you cannot sell unless you take the number of the beast.

The Bible says it's a human number, he who has wisdom.

Uh let him understand it's the number of 666, it's the number of the beast, okay?

There will be a pro false prophet that will also arise, uh, a charismatic individual, uh a peacemaking on the surface individual.

He will be like a lamb, but the Bible says he will speak as a dragon like Satan.

And he will point like the Holy Spirit points to Jesus, it helps us worship Jesus.

He is like the counterfeit, he stands in the place of the Holy Spirit, if you like, the false trinity, and he will basically have the world, he focused the world into the antichrist to say, look, you need to worship this guy, and you'll need to uh uh uh um uh sell allegiance to him.

Now the antichrist, remember this?

What he will do?

He will set his place up in Jerusalem.

The Bible is very clear about that, the most disputed real estate in the world.

He will set his regime up there and he will stand and sit as if he is God and declare himself to be God.

Okay?

So he will demand global worship.

But Jesus Christ is going to return, and the Bible says, as he returns, he will destroy the Antichrist and the power of his coming, and the Antichrist will be thrown along with a false prophet into the lake of fire.

The Bible says that has actually been prepared for Satan and his angels.

Okay.

And then after that, uh after that happens, let me throw something, a detail in there.

Ezekiel uh 38, and also uh it's Psalms 83, talks about a 10-nation confederation that will that will hit on Israel.

Uh, those nations are all Islamic nations, barring one.

The one that's not Islamic is Russia, though Islamic is the largest uh growing religion in Russia right now.

But you will have uh by memory, they uh they are Russia, the uh Sudan, the Ethiopia, Turkey, Iran, and there's Libya in uh if Ethiopia's in there, I said that.

Uh those countries anyway, and a couple more, but about 10.

And what will happen is this is they will rally on the beloved city.

That's when at that point the Bible says that Jesus Christ will return and uh with the saints and with his angels, and he will come and smite uh the Antichrist and the armies, and they will be chucked into the lake of fire.

Now, the rapture, which means that the the church goes up to be with the Lord, that actually happens before what is called a seven-year tribulation.

Now, let me explain this.

So, what happens?

The antichrist comes on the scene, he will sign a declaration of peace with the nation of Israel, trying to bring peace.

He's the only body that's ever been able to do that.

Okay, Donald Trump, they say right now, has been able to try to broker peace with Iran 27 times, failed every time, respectfully.

But the antichrist will actually, and people will be enamored by him.

And there's other reasons why they will be besotted by the by the Antichrist himself.

One of them is he receives a mortal wound and he's healed from it.

And people say, Oh my goodness, that's incredible.

He must be somebody special.

And uh, so I think, yeah.

So anyway, so what happens is this is that uh finally when Jesus Christ comes, the Antichrist is thrown into the lake of fire, and uh the seven-year uh uh uh uh thing was signed, it gets broken, and uh there's war on Israel, there's war on when I say war, there's political war, there's uh social, economic war on the on the Jewish community worldwide and in Israel and every single living Christian.

The Bible says, Bible says this, and we need to understand that that day is going to come, it's gonna, it's hastening, and the Bible says there will be no days that have been like it ever.

That'll be the worst time in history.

So if you could take all the wars, all the rumors of wars, all the things that have taken place to this day, that will be the worst time in history.

The seven years.

And uh, so anyway, so after the seven years, and Jesus Christ now sets his regime up, the kingdom of God, the antichrist is into the lake of fire.

Satan has been thrown or chucked down into what the Bible says is the bottomless pit for 1,000 years.

So then you see this that what will happen is Jesus Christ begins to lead the world, the Bible says, lead the world with a rod of iron.

There's two interpretations to what it actually means.

And then there's a thousand years reign of peace.

Uh during that time, of course, the Satan is in the bottomless pit, and then all of a sudden, he will be released, he will come out, and the first thing he does is rallies.

The Bible says he deceives the nations of the earth, and the nations, plural, will all descend.

So the first with a coalition of ten nations, now we're looking at all the nations of the world will actually descend upon the beloved city like grains of salt.

And the Bible says they will make war against the Messiah.

But what will happen?

Here's something very exciting from heaven, the Lord will come and consume the enemies of Israel, consume the enemies of Christ, and that will take around about, well, it looks like about seven months, the Bible says to actually seven months to actually look after and actually find all the dead and bury them.

The Bible says that they want to cleanse the land of them.

And uh, so that's going to take place.

Then the exciting thing happens is that uh the beloved city comes down called the New Jerusalem, and it keeps the works, that's either before or after this event, is the Bible refers to the great white throne.

That's everybody who's uh come against the nation of Israel, uh, Matthew 25, and also anybody who doesn't have Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, they've never yielded to the Messiah, they've never yielded to Jesus Christ.

Those people, the Bible says, will spend their life eternity in the lake of fire or everlasting, uh, everlasting lake of fire, everlasting dis uh separation from God.

Then there's another judgment which is called the uh not the great white throne, it's called the judgment seat of Christ, and that involves us.

It's not a it's not a uh a judgment on us, but what it is, an assessment, it's reward time.

It's reward time for all the things that you've done that nobody saw, you'll be rewarded for them.

Everything you've done with a godly motivation, it wasn't unto yourself, it wasn't, hey, look at me, we're signing the check and let everybody know about it.

No, it's things that you've done in secret.

The Bible says it will be shouted up if you like from the hilltops.

You will be given accolades, great cloud litnesses, all the people around you will be excited about the rewards and uh that you've given.

And uh, there are different things that we've said, different things we've done, the motivations of our hearts, our activity, our actions, our call to missions, our call to preach the gospel, our discipleship, our obedience to Christ, our walking in the spirit, all these things, our good works, all these things will carry rewards.

There's about seven or eight different rewards in the Bible that we'll all of us will get, hopefully, if we've if we've uh been obedient to God.

And uh then there will be some stripping of rewards.

The Bible's very clear, it'll be a time of things that we did do and we didn't do will be rewarded accordingly.

Then the great white, uh not the great white throne, the um the New Jerusalem comes and the Bible says there'll be peace for eternity.

And that's when the scripture is fulfilled, there will be no more tears, there will no more pain in our hearts, because Jesus Christ will be uh savior of um the you and I.

Amen?

Okay, that's it, that's just basically it.

There's a lot of details I do see in there that I've missed out, and uh, you might have seen some as well.

But generally speaking, that's the dispensationalists will believe that, most of your evangelical churches believe that, Pentecost and charismatics believe that.

I'm I'm I'm in there, okay?

And uh so forth.

But look, I want to drill down in this really important thing.

We didn't talk about the apostasy, which was the number two in there.

Uh, very, very important thing is this.

I want to talk about a global, and I want to share my heart this morning, and uh, I want to be very positive about this message and very empowering and encouraging for us, but I want to talk about a global, you ready, a global rebellion against God.

I want to talk about that, okay?

So I'm gonna dig deep a little bit into scripture, we'll go through it all, and we'll just call some things out as we go.

Amen.

Excited about the word this morning?

Yes, everybody says absolutely.

Okay, so there are different thoughts, uh, different things that are gonna take place, but one of the things will take place is um, and it's gonna be on display, is a global rebellion.

Um when you hear about rebellion, you're probably thinking it's a teenage kid that you've told ten times to do something and he hasn't done it.

So, come on.

And uh the kid that just bucks everything, no, no, no, that's not well, yes, it is, but oh, we think about the child, it's just like you know, I've told him eight times now, and he's deliberately doing that, and we kind of think that's rebellion.

But did you know the Bible refers to adults being rebellious?

It talks about a bad rebellious people or rebellious generation.

We don't like talking like that.

It's kind of like that's relocated for children, that's not us, we're just independent, we're just doing our own thing a little bit.

But the Bible refers to this interesting word, rebellion.

How many of you have been rebellious?

I would have to put my hands up big time for that.

I think I I lived a rebellious childhood and rebellious teenage years until I found Christ, and then the Lord had to really reshape me and convict me and challenge me, bring me to times and places of repentance to deal with a lot of self-will, uh self-governance, and so forth.

And uh here we are today, uh a little bit better than what we were.

Okay, so here's some scriptures, all right?

Thank you, uh Norma.

Revelation 9, 20 and 21.

The rest of mankind, the rest of mankind.

What that means the rest of mankind is during that seven-year tribulation, a third of the people will be killed through just different events that take place.

Okay, uh, the rest of mankind, the remaining, did not repent of the works of their hands, nor did they repent of their murders.

Now, murder is killing someone with a knife or a gun or strangling someone and you name it.

But it's also murder can sit in the heart of a person called hatred.

Okay?

So Paul consented that the people should be arrested and taken to prison and so forth, but he didn't do it exactly.

He didn't kill them, but he consented to it.

So, in other words, murder is actually in the heart of humanity where there's hatred at that level.

It's hard to do.

One's an action, but the other's a uh a placement in the heart.

Murders and their sorceries, the word sorceries is drugs.

We could talk about that a lot.

We should probably do a series on that, and or their sexual morality or their thefts.

Romans 16 9 says, the second scripture, they did not repent and give him glory.

Revelations 16, 11, they blasphemed the God of heaven and did not repent of their actions.

Revelations 16, 21, they cursed God and did not repent.

Okay, so now you've got three or four things going on here.

They didn't give glory to God.

In other words, they didn't say, hey, hey, let me say this.

You've got people out there in our community today that may not be living for God.

They're real about it, they've got nothing to hide, but they often will refer to the good man upstairs.

And he must have been protecting me and must be looking out for me.

And that's a good thing.

I respect that.

At least they have an acknowledgement.

These guys here refuse to even acknowledge the concept of God.

In other words, they're taking God out of their conscience.

What the Bible talks about.

And it says here that they didn't give him glory, they blasphemed God, and that is to use the name of the Lord in vain, but that's to blaspheme God, that's to say horrible, um, terrible things about God Himself.

And then the Bible says they actually cursed God.

I mean, there's one thing to be walking in rebellion, there's another thing to curse God.

I'm thinking of the book of Job where don't forget that uh Satan turns up to God and he says, Hey, if you take away the blessings that are around Job, he will curse you to your face.

I thought about that.

That's a bit of language, a bitter language when you actually say, when you say, This is Satan speaking to God.

He will curse you to your face.

Really, that's what the devil does, okay?

And then the Bible says that his wife going through a hard time, Job going through a half time, it says that his wife said, Why don't you curse God and die?

But I love Job's response.

He refers to her respectfully as a foolish woman.

But there's a generation of people that are being risen up, and we're gonna see, as time goes by, we're gonna see that actually become what the Bible says in the book of Romans, they become God haters.

That's incredible.

A God hater.

A person who's a God hater actually wants to war against God and contend with the conscience that there is a God on the inside.

If they could get a knife and pluck it out, they would pluck the concept of God.

They actually despise God and they hate God.

We'll talk about why they've even got to be like that.

But there are people that I know and there are people that you know, and we're gonna see the rise of that.

But here's the good news: we're also gonna see the rise of hunger towards the things of God.

We're gonna see a massive global move of God.

The Bible says the harvest is at the end of the age.

That's the harvest of everything that man has ever sown, both good and bad, but it's also the harvest of souls being promised into the kingdom of God.

The fullness of the time of the Gentiles before the Lord moves on Israel, uh, Romans 11, 28, and says, All Israel shall be saved.

That's the remnant of those days.

Okay.

Check this out.

In Acts 7, remember Stephen talking about how the glory of God that arrested him, they're gonna martyr him.

What is happening what happens is this can you believe it?

He's talking about God, then they get so upset he's talking about God, they gnashed their teeth, they put their hands and their fingers in their ears, they rushed at him and they murdered him.

That, my friends, is religious hatred.

Okay, so that's the kind of thing what the Bible actually is you're referring to.

You might not see that now because you and I live in the Cook Islands, we live in a beautiful bubble, we live in one of the nicest countries in the world.

We don't get to see that, but all you have to do is tamper around with media and actually have a look and actually see what's happening.

It's absolutely incredible, uh, both good and bad, what's happening in the nations.

Okay, so it's uh let's jump into this.

What are the what is what is rebellion?

What actually how would you refine uh how would you define it for us?

I've got it written here.

The will of God is shunned.

That's the purpose of the will of God.

The will of God for your life, it's shunned, it's resisted and it's opposed.

That's what it is, and the will of man is deliberately elevated over God's will.

So that's when, raw terms, God is asking us to do something.

We know it very clearly, he's asking us to do something, he's been on at us for a long time to do something, yet we begin to shun into the shadows his voice, quieten it down, and we continue on the course of what we're doing.

That's called rebellion.

Now, we don't like using those terms.

Imagine if I was in a counseling session and I learned someone, I said, Well, actually, you're quite rebellious.

It seems to be a kind of an archaic kind of phrase or word, but the reality of it is the Bible speaks like that.

And I'd rather be on side with God and how he sees it and then how we've dumbed everything down somewhat.

Amen.

Okay, the second definition it is the willful and defiant turning away from God's supreme purpose, his authority, laws, and his word.

Now, I'm in a meeting one time, and Murray was preaching actually, in the morning, was a leadership meeting with pastors around the place, and uh I was part of that, and I'm up in um the apartment.

I'm praying in the morning, is it like a quiet time type thing, and the Lord clearly spoke to me and said to me these words ready for this?

He said to me, Rebellion is the inability to follow instructions.

I wrote that down.

I thought, wow, rebellion, thank you, Lord.

Rebellion is the inability to follow instructions.

Immediately you would think of Saul in the Old Testament, was told what to do.

He did everything but he did some of it, but he didn't follow through on it.

Samuel lines him up and says the prophet and says, Hey, look, why don't you follow the things of God?

And he said, Well, I did.

And he said, No, you did not.

He said, Well, I did, and he said, Oh, though, I actually didn't.

So he turns now, he said, I didn't.

I'm sorry about that, but honor me before the people.

And Samuel said, Man, we'll get that to a little moment.

But rebellion is the inability to follow instructions.

Okay, so Murray gets up and he preaches, and you know what he says?

You know, the Lord speaks to me.

That's what he says.

The Lord speaks to me, and he says this.

He said that rebellion is the inability to follow instructions.

And so I'm thinking, man, I mean, you it's just like I said to him afterwards, you're not gonna believe I have to take you to the room and grab the piece of paper, my notes, and you have a look.

I didn't write it in front of me.

There it is, there, and uh, and so forth.

But uh the rebellion is the inability to follow through with instructions.

That's another definition.

Is it important?

I'm speaking into stuff this morning and uh that I know in the realm of the spirit the devil doesn't like, okay?

And uh maybe okay, so here are six baseline routes to rebellion.

How come humanity gets rebellious?

How come we get to oppose God?

How come we don't walk with God?

How come there's that thing that kind of opposes God, that resisting his voice or resisting his word and suppressing it and somewhat, okay?

We could argue and say, Oh, it's the work of the flesh, amen.

But I've got six roots that I've uh written down that might uh find help or helpful.

The thing the first route, you ready for this?

If you're taking notes, is unrepentant pride.

Unrepentant pride.

In other words, we've got pride, Satan was proud for, I will ascend.

We become so proud and so fixated on our life, we actually block God out.

Now, in the first instant, might I say it may not appear so bad, but that's where that takes us over time.

Finally, we are resisting God full scale when we had opportunity to submit to Him small scale.

The next one is the route of familiarization.

When what is holy becomes ordinary, our heart shifts from honor and respect and gratitude and appreciation to God, his word, and his voice over time it's a stepping stone.

That's all it is, it's a gradual stepping stone, the self-will doing our own thing, it actually moves into the realms of rebellion.

Number two.

Number three is the refusal to believe God.

I wrote this down here because I knew in scripture, uh uh Hebrews 3, 18, 19, rebellion and unbelief, the refusal to believe.

Some people it's like, yeah, I know God exists, I understand that, but some people they they actually come to a place where they know God, they refuse to uh acknowledge God, Romans chapter 1, they suppress truth, suppress truth, suppress truth, and there's an unbelief that gets around their life, but the Bible refers to that as a spirit of rebellion.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

There's a connection there, okay.

Moving right along.

The root of self-will, we understand that where I don't want God telling me what to do.

I'd rather be self-governed, I'd rather live by instinct, I'd rather do my own thing.

And I hate the idea that I've got some God uh breathing over my shoulder every five minutes, and kind of like, what is this?

I want to be my own person.

Well, the Bible refers to that as self will, and that's not a that's not how God actually operates either.

Okay, then there's a worship of self opinion, all right?

Self opinion, where my opinion is more important than what the word of God says.

Says.

Okay.

And then the final one is this undealt with resentment or undealt with issues, resentment, disappointments, accumulated disappointments.

We get upset, we get cynical, our heart gets a little bit distanced, our heart gets a little bit hardened.

We kind of track our way, we're doing our own thing.

And finally, when people talk about how good God is, there's a natural, if you like, resistance that just flares up into our life, and we begin to snarl at it, begin to snarl at the goodness of God and so forth.

And uh before you know it, resentment there, it's turning towards the track of um of actual rebellion.

But there are roots to rebellion.

Um, I think I might have been born with that spirit, spirit of rebellion, uh, mischievous kind of spirit, and uh and so forth.

But the Bible wants that out of us.

The word of God wants that out of us because you know what it is, it is the stepping stone for apostasy.

That's what it is.

You want to know where apostasy comes from?

People just don't throw off God just like that.

It actually has to come for a reservoir, a reservoir of self-will, a reservoir of pride, a reservoir of unbelief, a reservoir of hurt and pain.

And then finally we begin to, just like many others, to say, oh, God doesn't love me, and that's a charge against him, God doesn't care, that's a charge against him, and all sorts of things.

And it builds up over years, it builds up over years, and finally there's a defiance and there's a natural resistance in our heart that we don't walk with God anymore.

And the Bible refers to that as the apostasy and so forth, and that's what we have to watch.

We are coming into that time right now, and I could tell you respectfully, and it's not always I try and keep the church very up and uh buoyant and so forth, but there are people that I know personally, and there are people around the planet that have uh been in the pulpit, had big crowds of people, worshipped and praised, and they have actually renounced the faith.

So it's one thing to backslide and get into adultery and run a hard life and that sort of thing.

That's one thing.

I I'm not saying I understand it, but we we can understand it, you know what I'm saying?

But that's one thing.

But when people actually decide to do a big U-turn on God and to say, man, I'm no longer wanting God, I want him out of my life, that's actually a little bit of a vogue thing that's happening today.

And it's happening amongst worship leaders, it's happening amongst vocalists, it's happening amongst our pastors and ministries, but that's the sign, that's the beginning of the sign of what the Bible says will come.

Now, the reason why we want to be up to speed with that is because we've got to make sure we're a hot number before God.

In other words, we're heat before God, we're hot before God, we're gonna love before God, we love him passionately, we may struggle the areas of sin.

God understands it, he's so merciful, he's so gracious, he will help us through.

He's right there for us, he's been front of us, he'll be behind us, beside us, up and down, all that he's right there with us as we're crying out to God and saying, help me, and and so forth.

But let me and Paul identified with that.

He said, the things I want to do, man, I can't do the things I don't want to do.

I do all that sort of stuff.

Richard Mannheim, who can help me?

Well, it's the Holy Ghost that helps us, it's the Holy Spirit that fires up and keeps us going.

So I know we're gonna have struggles, we're gonna have ups and downs.

Sometimes we're gonna be cold, sometimes we're gonna be hot.

God understands that, okay?

But what we want to do is make sure in the process of turmoil, the process of our pain, the process of resentments of being uh being a target, if you like, or being under attack, spiritual adversity and relativism, friends, whatever it is your story is, in the process of that, we've got to keep a soft heart before the Lord.

We've got to trust Him.

We're gonna come to that place to say, God, I don't understand everything.

I give up, I surrender.

Please guard my heart.

Please protect my heart.

Honestly, please protect my heart.

Now, um, yeah, I won't say what I'm gonna say.

That's all good.

We'll just move on.

All right, getting there, all right?

Um now, must understand I've written here, there's not an ounce of blessing and rebellion.

There's no advantage to it, it's so short-lived.

Okay, in the uh New American Standard Version, in Psalms 68, verses 6, this is what it says God makes a home for the lonely.

Psalms 68:6

I love that.

Isn't God good?

He makes a home for the lonely.

Then it says, He leads out the prisoners into prosperity.

Isn't that amazing that God would do that?

Only the rebellious live in a parched land.

Look at the comparisons.

He brings a home, he brings prosperity, but for the rebellious is a parched land.

The New King James Version actually uses the word will dwell in dryness.

It speaks of dryness where nothing grows.

You'll find where there's rebellion, where there's that resistance around our life, we are completely fruitful.

And I wrote this down this morning.

This is why I wrote this down this morning, and I wrote this down.

I said, if you are in the spirit, you will be fruitful as a Christian.

I want you to think about that.

If you're in the spirit, living in the spirit, you will be fruitful.

We're appointed unto fruit.

And fruit doesn't not just mean transformation or character, it's soul saved, actually.

It's people being impacted by God.

Fruitfulness.

But when we're in the flesh, we become pretty barren quick.

We can have religious talk, we can talk like a Christian, but as far as breakthrough on the inside, it's like nothing's happening because we're not in the spirit.

When we're in the spirit, when the born-again Christian jumps and gets into the abiding presence of God and gets into the Holy Spirit where He's talking, where we're listening, where we're surrendering, we live like that daily because Jesus said, Come after me every day, take up your cross and follow me.

When we begin to look like that and live like that, the peace of God, the joy of God, the gladness of God, the love of God, the compassion for humanity, it's all abounds.

Fruitfulness begins to come.

We rise in faith, we rise as conquests, we overcome.

There's no anxiety in the spirit, that's in the flesh.

There's no doubts and fears in the spirit, that's in the flesh.

There's no sexual imaginations and filthy vile stuff that's in the uh in the spirit, it's all in the flesh.

There's no resentment, no cynicism, no criticism, no self-hatred, no comparisons, all that does not belong in the realm of the spirit.

The Holy Spirit is about what it's about compassion, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control.

They are the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

So when you jump in the spirit, you become fruitful Christian.

But when we're out of the spirit, we become naturalized, carnal, carnal Christian, and we'll find that we aren't fruit bearers.

Eh?

I thought I'd just throw that out this morning.

That's a challenge for all of us.

If you want to be fruitful, as he is fruitful, jump into the spirit.

Start to cooperate and say, okay, God, today's Monday morning.

This is your day.

I've got a whole host of things that got to be done, a whole lot of deadlines.

What do I do?

How who do you want me to ring?

How do you want me to orchestrate my day?

Please give me the wisdom of God.

That's at least beginning to submit to him, amen.

And watch, if you get him on your side, we begin to get his endorsement, his breakthrough.

Amen.

Simple Christianity, eh?

Okay.

Then I wrote this.

When society rejects God, do you know rebellion?

Can I say this?

Rebellion is not the group of guys in LA or New York that, you know, are trashing private property and putting rubbish bins on fire and turning over cars and trashing public property.

That's like anarchy, I understand that.

But you could be sitting here this morning just real quiet, huh?

But fully resistant towards the things of God.

It could be a case of thank you, Pastor, but there's no way I'm gonna be obeying the God at the level you're talking about.

That, my friend, you've just done it.

That is rebellion respect.

I don't know how to say it, but you I just said it.

When society rejects God, it doesn't produce freedom.

Because we think, God, get off my back.

I want to live my life.

I want to do my own thing, right?

Well, let's just have a look at doing our own thing for a moment.

We think we're coming to freedom.

It's counter for freedom.

It's not.

We are stepping into another authority, we're stepping into another allegiance.

A lot of people think, oh well, if I just get rid of God off my life, I can just sell my wine oats or do my own thing.

Fine, you do your own thing.

But guess what?

You've gravitated to another authority that you didn't even know existed.

The prodigal son, remember that?

Decide to throw off dad's counsel and give me my portion now, and I'm gonna go and do my thing.

He spent his life on wild living.

The Bible says this, you ready the words?

He joined himself to somebody else.

Huh?

He joined himself.

In fact, he joined himself to a hard taskmaster that didn't even look after him.

He was hungry.

He even thought to himself, because he's Jewish and he's looking after pigs and that, come on.

And then they wouldn't even give him any food to eat as an employed guy.

And then he's even looking at the pods that were for the um for the pigs and thinking, man, even my father's hired servants are honored well beyond this.

But notice what he said.

Give me my inheritance now, give it to me.

So he took off, out from under his dad's authority.

It's a picture, goes into the world, and he joins himself to another.

Israel, what do they do?

They got out, they got off, they got off side with Moses, and what do they want to do?

They want to come out from under his authority, under Yahweh's authority.

They want to what?

Go back into Egypt under another oppression, or not under another, but under the previously oppressive regime.

How would you do that?

Okay, and then there's one thing after another where you see in scripture where where people throw off authority and they decide to do this own thing, but they actually go under another allegiance.

Even let me tell you this: we're created for authority.

You can't resent authority, you're in it.

Even gang members, guys, stop at red lights.

You think about it.

Gang members have authority, they have structures, man.

My friend was a part of the um the Highway 61 back in those days.

Yeah, it was Cooklander as well.

Highway 61.

And uh what was his position?

He was a sergeant in arms.

That's authority right there.

The Black Power Mongol mob, the mafia have authority.

They're structures, man.

You can't just say and go live as to Roma, I want to be accountable to nobody.

Your conscience is an authority.

You're gonna do something late at night time into the internet, and something says, don't do that.

That's an authority right there.

We are under authority.

Man has been created into it, man is created to cooperate with it.

The key question is whose authority are we submitting to?

That's the issue.

What authority?

Whose authority are we actually submitting to?

And when we submit to the benevolence, the love, the compassion, and the grace of a loving father, we have a blessed life and there's harmony in our homes.

Seriously, there's harmony in our homes because there's now order into our marriages, there's order into what we say about each other, how we treat one another, there's order into our own personal space, our own personal world, and there's peace forevermore.

I tell you that.

It's when we have the anxieties and we have the stresses, we have the worries, we have all these sorts of things, and we wonder what is happening.

It just we got off pattern.

We jumped out.

You got to come back all the time to align to his word.

It's not just aligning to the black and white print and what's he saying in the word.

No, it's aligned.

You ready for this?

To the governance of his voice.

What's he saying to you to do?

Sit there for one moment and actually ask God and get some peace about it.

And the still small voice comes to us clearly, and we know this is the way walking in it, and there's peace every time in that.

Now, I'm not saying everything is gonna go well for us.

Sometimes we're stretched, sometimes we are uh uh there are um uh things we have to wait upon, but I'll tell you, those are testing times.

Those are times we just have to trace them where we can't trust him.

We've got to trace, uh we've got to trust him where we can't trace him.

We gotta just gotta stick in there.

Those who endure to the end, eh?

There's an enduring factor, it's not all you pray and it comes the next day, can do.

Sometimes we just have to go on waiting for stuff.

Some of us are waiting for lots of things, but we just have to sit it out, trust God, don't get discouraged, continue to confess his word, continue to speak well of people, and so forth.

And amen.

I wish you give the Lord a hand.

Get in there, guys.

The reason why the Antichrist will have an international audience is because there has been an international departure from the concept of God.

So the Bible isn't simply a picture.

Sorry, it's it's it's it's sorry, it's it's not it's really sorry, it's who you're at the end of the day, who you and I are yielding to and what we're resisting.

Amen.

Now, here's this one.

Did you know rebellion opens up the window and opens up the door to a thing called witchcraft?

Now, witchcraft we think are incantations, we think spells and all sorts of stuff.

Yes, Galatians 5, it does speak of that.

But witchcraft actually means control.

I wanna I'm gonna control her through spells.

I'm gonna control that people through the incantations.

That's what witchcraft is.

But it also, if we dive down a little bit, it means to be in control.

The person when when um Saul in 1 Samuel 15, 23, it says, For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, stubbornness is as the sin of iniquity, because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, thou hast rejected thee of being king.

Samuel came in on Saul and said, Man, you have done everything you've done everything that God didn't ask you to do, and and and the kingdom's now being ripped away from you like this.

But the Bible is very clear that what he did is he it's he said, For for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft.

Now, what that means, it's akin to it, it's like it, it's a mirror of it, it replicates.

So it's saying that rebellion is almost the Siamese twin to witchcraft.

So, what does rebellion have in common?

That witchcraft does, both of them seek control.

The person that is rebellious really it's self-governance is what I want to do.

I'm on the throne.

Now, the the business about Christianity, it's not my will, but his will be done.

When you gave your life to Jesus Christ, did you know one of the things you put on the altar?

Your will.

Seriously, what did you think you were giving him?

Your elbow or your leg?

What did you think you were giving the Lord?

You gave him your will, your decision-making process.

No longer it was Jonathan living his life and doing his own thing, it was now Jonathan yielding to the supremacy of God and the wisdom and the intelligence of somebody far superior than me.

I'm actually giving my life as a servant.

After all, was I not created by him?

Didn't he give me breath?

Should the potter say to the maker, get lost?

I'm actually coming home.

I'm actually giving my life to the Lord, I'm surrendering to the Lord now.

We're created for that.

And I speak time and time about um having a hole in the heart.

Remember?

And I said, the anybody can fill that hole is God.

You can't fill it with alcohol or drugs or illicit relationships, you can't fill it with anything.

You can try, you'll still ache in your heart.

It's God that fills that gap in our spirit.

You can't fill it with anything else.

Higher education, prestige, accolade, all these things.

Mate, the Bible says, what does it profit if you gain the entire world, which is an impossible thing?

Who could actually gain the entire world?

But if you were to gain the entire world, but you lose your soul in the process, God wants to flood your soul with Him.

He wants to flood that gap with Him.

Not religion, not uh weird, strange belief systems and whatever.

No, you want the person of God, He wants to fill you by His Spirit and get rid of that old thing that says I don't trust God, I'm not sure about God.

Get rid of that, renounce that war against, spend your days breaking the rod of rebellion over your life.

Spend your days breaking the shackles of rebellion, the self-will, the pride of man that says, I know better, I'm more intellectual.

All these kinds of things, dump that stuff.

Some of the, in fact, the most intellectual people I know are actually born-again Christians.

Incredibly smart.

You know, that are challenging professors at universities, senior, senior academics, and they they don't have any answers for these guys.

It's just the wisdom of God.

They're very academic, very intellectual people, but they're but they're in the kingdom.

Okay, so this is it.

For rebellion is as a sin of witchcraft.

When witchcraft gets around our life, I'm gonna put some connection dots here, okay?

So, pretty much it's this you and I get into self-will, rebellion, we're opposing the things of God.

Watch what comes around our life.

These are the symptoms confusion, loss of vision, tiredness, discouragement, intimidation, and uh and anxiety that begins to accumulate around our lives very, very quickly.

And I'm gonna close on this point.

Submission to God is the baseline to living an incredibly victorious and blessed life.

The Bible says in James 4, 7, therefore submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee.

Simply means this.

A lot of us try to break through in the things of God, seriously, break through in prayer and resist the enemy, get off my family, get sickness out of my home, all this sort of stuff.

You haven't got a chance.

Seriously?

No.

Unless you're submitted to the supremacy of God.

It's just written there, the half-brother of Jesus just told us under revelation of God that you submit, you yield, you bring your family, you bring your leadership, you bring your marriage, you bring your finances, you bring your health, you bring your relationships, under the awesome size, under God's authority, then you positioned yourself to be able to take on the kingdom of darkness.

You understand that?

We are no match, flesh to spirit.

We've got to get into the spirit.

We are 10 steps ahead of the enemy every single time.

So the enemy spends overnight trying to get the church living in the carnal, trying to get us in the sin realm, trying to get us in unbelief and doubt out of the spirit.

He knows that we live defeated lives and we can never contend with his minions.

But you get into the spirit, yeah, you climb up, get into the spirit, you submit to God, you are positioned every time that you go into a situation, you go in with authority simply because somebody is behind you and somebody now is in front of you.

It's the kingdom of God working on your behalf every single time.

You've submitted to God, the Bible says now you can resist the devil and he will flee.

So it doesn't matter how many churches get together in the Cook Islands and try and pray for our government and try and pray against principalities and powers over a nation.

It actually doesn't matter.

Like Gideon's army, God nailed it down to a few.

Why doesn't it matter?

Because if you've got people who are unyielded and not really living for Christ, but talking Christian talk, but not living for Jesus, not you really yielded to God, Satan can see it, God knows it.

Then what ends up happening?

We're lacking the power to shift.

So you submit to God, you resist the devil, that's the authority, and God gives you power to oppose the kingdom of darkness.

So who gives you the power?

God.

How do you get it?

Because of the authority.

How do you get the authority?

Because you're in submission.

Simple.

You say, well, my husband's not in submission, that's okay, you be in submission.

My wife, she ain't in submission.

Don't care.

You be in submission.

Start at that point.

You say, My kids aren't in submission.

Hey, did you know if you're in rebellion towards God and you're trying to bring order into your home, it's impossible.

You'll bring control, you'll bring resentment, but you won't bring the sweetness of God into your home.

What you want to do is get in submission to God and then you implement His work.

It becomes easy yoke.

Because at head office you've established yourself.

So my question for us this morning how do we win spiritual warfare?

You ready for this?

Obey God.

Simple, eh?

How do you how do we win spiritual warfare?

How do we win it?

Hear what God says and do it.

It's the secret to success.

You can get off side with God and never have the maximum blessing.

You can have all the riches in the world, but still, still, there's some there's something in your heart that's missing.

It's a case of God is speaking to the Cork Islands right now in this season about yielding our entire government, our entire church.

All of our lives, that is what God.

You say, What is God's plan for the Cook Islands?

He has blessings for us, He has international blessings for us.

I believe God will give our nation a great voice internationally, but what how do we even get like that?

And how do we even get close to being like that?

How do we get close to actually breaking the shackles of cancer and the stuff that's going on in our nation and the crime and the drug addictions that are gonna be, and that's just that?

It's because you've got a generation of people, whole scale, that are submitting to God.

Not submitting to auntie, not submitting to uncle.

I'm not talking about that, not submitting to our church, I'm talking about submitting to him.

Then we will have respectful leadership, then we will honor leadership.

The reason why there's so much lack of honor today in our communities is because we don't have this honor.

The reason why we don't have the power of his grace in the church like we should do is because of the lack of honor towards him.

So God is calling the church back to home base.

Those who played softball, we've got to be at the first base.

Can't run it out to second or third until you at least you got the first base.

First base is what?

Is submission to God.

Amen?

Key, the area.

All right, finish on this.

The key is letting God's will win over ours.

That's it.

It's how you win spiritual warfare.

Partnering with God, obeying Him.

Don't be ever afrightened of that word obedience.

It's a sweet word, it's such a good word.

So you have to throw off that area of uh independence, that area of unyieldedness to the Lord.

Amen.

Okay, right where you are.

If I'm speaking to people this morning, we're not uh thank you, James.

You can come.

Thank you.

I have spent my life listening, hearing, yielding, sacrificing, denial, taking the high road when I need to be, taking the low road when I need to be, and having God in my life in Jesus' name.

It's a daily thing, it's not a monthly or yearly check-in, it's every single day.

We want a soft heart, God would grant us that, but we've got to come to that place where Jesus, I've been fighting you for the last five years.

I'm still holding on to that offense, I'm still holding on to that stuff, Lord.

Those judgments, Lord.

I'm still holding on to me, I'm on that throne.

Some ladies, it would do really well to honor your husbands, honor them, respect them, speak well of them.

You say, Well, they're not spiritual.

Maybe you're not either.

Holy Spirit, speak to us.

We'll give you some time.

We spoke about the first root of rebellion is pride, pretense, putting on the mask.

That's religion, Father.

Transparency, wholeness.

This morning we come, we renounce self-will.

We've talked about rebellion, Lord God, as a seed in our hearts, Lord Jesus.

We want to yield.

There are things that you're speaking for us to do.

I feel like this morning the Lord has spoken to some people here to give the burden to the Lord and you still keep picking it up.

Give the burden to him and you're still picking it up.

Give the burden to him, you're still picking it up.

It'll be good for us to repent this morning.

God has been on our case.

Maybe it's about to be married.

Just do it.

Just do it.

Just get married.

God is speaking to some of us to love one another.

Just do it.

Forgive.

Just do it.

God is speaking to us time and time again about gossiping, about criticism of others.

Just runs rampant from the mouth.

Just do it.

Just say no.

Some of us are working tirelessly.

We're doing this, we're doing that, but we're not even producing anything in the kingdom of God.

We're so busy attending to everybody else's business.

But we're not even about the business of the Father.

We'll be held accountable for that.

What did you do for me?

What percentage of your life was even dedicated to me?

We just got to do it.

What has God been speaking to you the last five years?

What's been speaking to you the last three or four years?

Why the wrestle?

Have we not surrendered our life to Christ?

Have we not yielded our will to Him?

Why are we picking up our will all the time?

We've got to bury it and die daily.

Some of us are accountable to nobody.

There's a sore button here for us, but we're just accountable to nobody.

Accountable to ourselves.

We have a hotline to God.

No, you don't.

You've got to be accountable to man, you've got to be accountable to somebody else.

Allow other people around your life to speak into your life.

And don't be defensive.

Be hungry to learn, hungry to grow.

I've got lots of people that speak into my life.

A whole group of people.

And I allow them.

I just sit there and I listen.

God is speaking to his church about humility.

This morning, as James is playing, thank you, James.

If God is speaking to you, what I'm going to ask you to do, I'm going to ask you to come out the front.

I'm going to say this, just last point.

Don't forget this.

We become so fruitless when we could have been fruitful because we didn't climb into his presence, yield our life to him, be about the business of the Father, and we have no fruit abounding to our account.

I want to say, come home to the centricity of the Lord.

Center fix your heart upon him.

Yield everything over to him.

I yield the church to him.

I yield your lives over to him.

I yield the ministry, the invitations, all these things over to the wisdom and the counsel of the Lord.

Sit back.

What you say we do, we do, what you don't say, we won't do.

The pressures, the demands, it doesn't matter.

We want to be hearing from him.

What is it the Lord's been speaking to you do?

I want you to come up in grace this morning and say, Yes, I'll make that determined and in fact.

I'm going to yield.

I'm going to give it over to God.

I'm going to take it up.

That thing that God is speaking to you to do.

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