Who Rules the Atmosphere?

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

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

Thanks for joining us.

We've got to ask God, God, give me a heart for our nation.

Give us a heart for the Cook Islands.

Not just a heart to be uh have status or just to serve in our community or to be known in our community, mate.

Those things are not eternal.

Soul winning.

The two things we're gonna take with us, you ready for this?

Is we're gonna take our character forward.

But we're gonna take souls with us.

And so that has to be our greatest investment, winning people for Christ.

And uh yeah, just like I was thinking yesterday, I was over at praying down the Two Papa Field there, and just people I do know that not saved, and just man, they're our neighbors.

And uh kind of got getting to know their circumstance a little bit, but we're gonna jump across there and we're gonna have an influence somehow.

But boy, we will we've got to have Jesus in their household.

And I I want to talk today about building spiritual atmospheres, uh, building a spiritual atmosphere over your marriage, over your family, a corporate anointing over your family and over the church.

We call it sometimes an open heaven, living under an open heaven.

But I want to go down this line.

I'm gonna uh give us some tips that will help us to build what is called a corporate anointing and so forth.

So I've got here, remember that the ultimate war comes down to the presence of God.

That's where the war is.

Who rules?

What spirit rules in your household?

Does fear, anxiety rule?

Does lust rule?

Does anger and strife and contention?

Does sarcasm?

Is that what rules?

Mammon, financial breakthrough and stress, and does that what rules?

Or the presence of Jesus, does he rule in our hearts?

Does he rule in the atmosphere around our family, over our marriages, over our island, and so forth?

When people come into our church here, our goal is this scripture, Romans 14, 17.

Thank you, Twinkle.

Is that people would feel the kingdom of God, they'd feel his righteousness, they would feel his peace, and they would feel his joy.

That's what we want to have.

And sadly, there are people on our island that today they don't live under an open heaven, they don't live under the authority of Christ, direct authority, they don't live under the presence of God, and there is strife, there's discord, there's all sorts of things that are happening in their world.

And you and I have been designed by God to change that.

Come on now.

Has to be.

I mean, what goes on in your heart, what goes on in your world that we are so preoccupied with so many other things that we forget the very real purpose of why we've been born again and what we're to do on this earth.

The appointment and the commissioning for the harvest is a critical factor.

It's the very last commandment that we were given.

Standing orders, and yet we're so preoccupied and enamored by anything else, just about that we forget the main thing.

Winning people for Christ.

Raratonga needs to be saved.

It's our motto.

Raratonga shall be saved.

When the presence of God is in our midst, guess what?

We are energized, there's a wisdom that comes, there's a clarity.

All the confusion begins to go, and there's a clarity, it's like a sharp clarity of what you're on about and what you can do, and so forth.

Uh, there's a vibrancy that comes around your emotions and around your soul.

There's you get aligned to your destiny, there's a peace that comes around our lives.

We feel God's consuming love, which is awesome, that comes around us.

But very sadly, there are some people, uh some lives and some families that don't actually have that over their lives and over their families.

I want to see that changed.

Man, I want to see our nation revived, impacted.

People get off the tarmat, mate, they're slain in the spirit.

Whole pile of bodies, eh?

Now that's the first plane.

Then the next one comes in.

No, no, no.

I want to see people impacted by God.

As soon as they'd come into the Cook Islands of Raratonga, they would start to cry.

They don't even know why they're crying.

They would feel the presence of God, they don't even know why.

And then they begin to feel the love of Jesus, and somebody is kind to them.

They find out to a Christian like you guys, we invite them to church and they're impacted by the presence of God.

I want to see God revive our nation.

That's why, you ready?

That's why Natasha and I were called into the Cook Islands for that reason.

We're not here to run a business or drive a flash car, all those things are good, or to build houses or wealth.

No, those things are good.

No, we were called out of New Zealand into the Cook Eye Lemons to make a difference.

To take on, are you ready for this?

To take on geographical spirits that don't want us here, that actually hate our guts.

And guess what?

They hate your guts too.

If you're living for Jesus Christ and you might be a Cook Islander and you might be embraced by the community, that's all good.

That's not what I'm saying now.

That's good, but there are demonic spirits assigned to the church.

There are demon powers that have been assigned to every Christian household, every Christian uh person to slow your pace down, to hinder your work, to rob the management out of your momentum, to slow you back, to distract you, to discourage you, to bring despair and depression to dominate your emotions, to dominate your circumstance.

But you know, we serve a mighty God that we just sing about not so long ago, and we're believing for absolute breakthroughs.

And one of the things we're out for, we are out to tackle head on, front on the demonic spirits that sit over our nation that want to oppress the people, that want to keep us down, that want to keep us low, that want to keep us spiritually impotent, spiritually indefinitive, rob us from our fruit, rob us from our souls, we're out for those spirits of complacency, and we're out for those spirits that get chained out, we're out for those spirits that uh bring people into bondage and addiction that break up marriages, those are the demonic spirits that we're out for.

We're also out for the spirits of death and carnage in the name of Jesus Christ.

And the man you're better get on the picture, you're better to get on the program, you're gonna get with us, otherwise, you're gonna be left behind, bored, and you'll be embracing what is called religion that knows about God but is totally disconnected from him.

You ready for a good definition?

You know about God, but you're disconnected from him.

You don't weep when the presence of God comes in.

You would rather have more uh preaching than prayer, you would rather have more teaching than travailing, that we are disconnected from the Lord.

We say we love him, but there's no evidence, there's no fruit around their lives, there's no breakthrough around their lives, we've moved in, we don't move into adultery, guys, we don't move into uh alcoholism or drug addiction as Christians.

No, we don't do that.

Mainly we don't do that, but what we move into is we move into religion, we default to it.

Remember, I've often said it's like the the animal, the little shell on the beach.

The animals run away, it's a ghost of its former self.

We once had a consuming passion, we're crying for our relatives, we're crying for our neighbors.

We would pray, we'd fast, we'd worship God.

It was a privilege to come to church, and now it's become routine, become familiar with the things of God.

What has happened to us?

But yet at the same time, the good news is God is raising up a generation old and young that are passionately in love with Jesus, and He is everything to us.

Our lives bear witness of it.

We are coming before the Lord in humility, and our lives are laid bare before Him.

We love Jesus more than we do sport.

We love Jesus more than we love money.

We love Christ more than we love ourselves.

We are passionately in love with Him.

We love Christ more than we love our own aspirations and our own dreams and our own pursuits.

Our dreams, our pursuits are now under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ, and God's endorsement is upon it.

That's the God we serve.

Amen.

There are what we call as demonic layers, and those demonic layers, if we understand that for us, if this was a teaching, it's like this is there are the Bible talks real quickly over three principles or three heavens.

There's the first, second, and third heaven.

Paul was caught up, don't forget, into this third heaven.

Remember that?

He's caught up into the third heaven and and heard things that were kind of you he can't say what they were, but he heard things.

If there's a third heaven, logic tells us there's a second and there's a first heaven.

The first heaven is the heavens of the birds and the skies and and so forth.

But there's another heaven, the second heaven, is what most Bible scholars and so forth would say, it's where the realm of the spirit is.

Do you remember this in um in uh Hebrews, uh no, sorry, Ephesians chapter uh six, verses 12, where it says we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principality and powers, and it goes on to talk about our contention with wicked forces and ruling forces, and this is what it says in heavenly places.

That's our battleground.

So if you could picture the kingdom of God here, even though the kingdom of God is inside us, kingdom of God here, and then this is our earthly realm.

There's a barrier of demonic entities.

The Bible refers to them as principalities.

The principality is remember it's an old-fashioned word, prince over a pality, prince over an old um uh like it's an old Elizabethan term, it's over a city, it's a princess, it's a prince, it's a power that is regional, that's territorial, that sits over cultures, people, groups, and so forth, and that sits there hoping and working to blind the minds of the disobedient so they cannot know Christ.

It's an influence, it's a weight, it's a demand, it's a pressure against us.

Okay, but what God wants to do is raise up the church that we would break past that and create what is called an open heaven.

Now, right through the word of God, I've got about seven scriptures, I won't go into them.

It refers to this thing the heavens are open.

And when the heavens are open, the glory of the Lord descended.

The glory came down on the earth, down into the temple, down into the sanctuary, the glory of the Lord, the presence of God.

I said initially, the battle really is for the presence of God, of who rules the turf.

There's a battle going on in the New Zealand politics right now of who gets in and why they should get in, okay?

And there's a battle for political turf right now in the natural, but in the spiritual, there are principalities that want certain political powers, ideally so that carrying all sorts of antichrist ideologies to get into the power so they can be an influence in the education, so they could be influenced through philosophy and ideology and so forth or media and so forth.

Okay, but what it is is in the midst of this chaos in the world that we live in, God has raised up his people.

And we are people of light, we're people of witness, we're people of transformation, we're people that live different.

We are sojourners, we are ambassadors, so we're like David, the psalmist, we're not of this earth.

We are carrying a different message.

The message that we carry is the kingdom of God, and the kingdom of God is displayed in our life, and we coexist, if you like, in the realm of the spirit with demonic entities and demonic powers.

We rub shoulders with them.

Some people carry demonic spirits, and they may be on a meeting tomorrow, or they may be uh you might rub against them and you try to talk about Jesus, and immediately there's a reaction.

Why is there a reaction?

Because they belong to the alternative kingdom.

They don't even know why they're got this antichrist attitude.

They don't even know half the reason why they're resistant.

It's just that they're great people, awesome people.

It might be your wife or your husband or a family member and so forth.

That's why Jesus, don't forget Jesus is a divider, too, because he says this don't think I brought peace, come to bring peace.

I've come to bring division.

Well, in the name of the law, where everybody is to come together and have a big one happy family.

Jesus Himself, he said, Hey guys, don't get this wrong.

I've called to bring dichotomy or to bring division, to turn a uh you and what you will see is in one household, three will be against two, and two will be against three, and and the father will be against the son, and the son, and the father, and the daughter against the mother, and it's because the gospel divides, because the gospel is the outworking of the kingdom of God.

There is a clash of kingdoms, there's no third kingdom, there's kingdoms of this world becoming the kingdoms of our God, but essentially there is the demonic enterprise, and there is God's kingdom, and that's why uh Joshua said, Hey guys, as for me, and my house will serve the Lord, but whose side are you on?

You can choose life, you can choose death, but you can't play, you can't play the middle field.

And I've said this before, please, and I'm gonna say it again, and I I'm not gonna get so determined in my mind and my heart not to get sick of this.

I'm telling you, I really want you to hear this.

There's legislation, please, that's coming.

Government legislation that's coming that's gonna knock on the door of the church.

We're seeing it in Australia now.

The Green Party, and I've Google searching to see how accurate this is, they're wanting to bring a blasphemy law through New Zealand.

They got rid of it only a few years ago.

A blasphemy law, but really it's to protect Islam.

If you don't understand what I'm saying there, it is this is that me as a preacher who wants to speak out and bring truth about the Muslim uh religion and Islam, uh all of a sudden I am uh under scrutiny now.

You don't think that's gonna come?

Watch.

Because the enemy knows how to remember Pontus, Pilate, and Herod became friends, they were enemies, but when it came to the cross, all of a sudden they became friends.

You watch every group, watch, how do you get oh, I just might as well go for the flow here.

How do you get radical Islam and LGBT plus community come together against Christianity?

How does that actually work?

It doesn't.

It doesn't work.

Radical Muslims kill homosexuals, our brothers and sisters, our relatives, they kill that's true, that they're completely opposed to it.

But why would they be working?

They're working in the Western world where where where the West democracy is dominant, they work together for a season.

Because the enemy knows how to bring all these people groups against the gospel of the Lord Jesus.

I'm not saying we're a minority, and I'm not saying we're we're like the guys in the dark in the corner.

No, I'm talking about a breed of Christianity that's very strong, that's got life in it, that's got substance in it, that transforms our communities, that brings change to the life, that breaks the power of change.

That's the Christian, you've got celebrities, sports celebrities around the world today that are absolute Christian heroes as they are proclaiming Christ.

It's incredible.

You read about them, you read their stories, it's amazing.

They're getting up there and they're bold and they're they're witness.

It is amazing.

God bless them.

Generals and states, but God has raised them up, and God will continue to raise them up.

We're out there a little bit, better get in.

So there are layers.

Layers.

Okay.

So remember in Daniel chapter 10, very quickly, he said this.

Daniel 10 · chapter mention

The Abraham uh Gabriel came to Daniel, flew.

And he said, From the first time, Daniel, that you prayed, your words were heard in heaven.

But as I prayed, I have been resisted 21 days.

But when I go back, he said, I will fight with the Prince of Greece.

It was the Prince of Persia, Iran, or modern-day Iran, that was contending with the press, stopping it coming through.

So that gives us an understanding of that spiritual belt.

Now, now in in 2026 terms, so we can understand this.

Okay, so basically, heaven, earth, demonic entity that sits over nations, sits over cities, here.

When we pray, our prayers go up.

What Daniel is saying, the writer of Daniel, Daniel, that his prayers were resisted 21 days, even though they were heard the first time.

And we get discouraged, we get upset because there's a delay around our life and so forth.

I want us to hold our course.

Jesus said, Will I find faith in the earth?

Keep on knocking, keep on asking, keep on seeking.

God, if you understand theologically, God is not uh absent from our prayers, he's a tentative.

But and but he works by invitation.

So we've got to pray.

We've got there's that interceding and travailing in it, and and that faith thing that keeps on coming because things have to be shifted, things have to be moved along the way.

And so one of the things that sits over us, I believe, is an area, and I'm gonna get into it a little bit, is there are stuff that sits around the church.

Mate, it's like a wet blanket, but I'll jump into it now.

Well, I'll tell you what, I'll go because it'll it'll it'll help us.

Okay, so how do we get an open heaven?

How do we get God moving powerfully uh and so forth in our midst?

Okay, where the people uh don't have the attitude of I'm failing, what's the point?

Nothing's changing, God isn't answering, I might as well give up, I feel exhausted, God is disappointed with me.

That stuff has gotta go.

Okay, okay.

The first thing how we get ourselves an open heaven is this you ready?

Exuberant and vibrant, unashamed exercising of high praise.

I'm telling you.

I am I'm telling you.

Psalms 22 verses 3.

Psalms 22:3

Hear it.

God is holy, and he inhabits and he's enthroned on the praises of Israel.

The word there, inhabit or enthroned, means to dwell or to sit down and to rule.

Or reread it.

But you are holy, seated down now and ruling in the praises of Israel.

He inhabits the praises.

The Bible says, put on, you have to put it on the garment of praise to lift what?

The spirit of heaviness.

It breaks the shackle of depression, it breaks the discouragement, it breaks that lowly thing that gets around our life, it breaks the humness, and it breaks the shackles of and and and it breaks that stuff in Christ as we declare his name as we praise him now.

But you know, some people, and I'll get down there a little bit, some people are too lazy to praise him.

Seriously now.

We just can't be bothered.

Oh imagine Jesus saying to us, well, actually, it's a distinct day that I can't be bothered going to the cross, Father.

Sometimes I think God gets a really bad deal.

Have you ever thought about that?

He gets the raw deal.

If it's supposed to be a covenant commitment, we've got to throw our all in.

It's not 90% God do and 10% when we feel like it.

No, it's it's we give our all in.

Our life is not our own.

Our life is to be a sacrifice, our life is to be a living witness.

I thought I would just say that this morning.

Praise is not a sing-along.

You ever thought about that?

So what does the praise was awesome this morning?

Lovely song.

I love that song about Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, Thursday.

I really like it.

It's awesome.

It's up, it's up.

Did you feel it was up?

And oh well, go live our lives.

Oh, we'll come back to go.

How do they sing that real cool song?

Oh, they didn't sing it today, sing this other nice song, and that was really cool too.

And it was like up here and and just really exciting and vibrant.

What a live church! Praise is something we put on.

It's an expression of what's happening.

It's an expression really of what he has done.

We don't get up.

I mean, how many older people can remember that Colgate advert?

Can you remember the cold advert?

And the girl I reminded because my friend always used to talk about it.

She gets out of bed, you know, lovely white sheets.

She gets straight out of bed, lipstick on all the clothing, yeah.

Uh uh, what is it called?

Attire, um, sleep attire.

She gets up, shh, ha, and she has this beautiful white teeth.

And uh, what does my cleans are showing and that sort of stuff?

You know, teeth are beautiful.

But my mate used to say, mate, nobody gets out of bed like that.

He said, Nobody gets out of bed.

He's he was on it like it was a big issue.

He said, That girl, man.

He said, Nobody gets out of bed like that.

And uh he said, I'm he's he's 18 years of age.

He said, I'm always tired, young fella.

I'm always tired, man.

Look at my face, I'm always tired, and that I'm going out there doing this stuff, but nobody actually gets out of bed like that.

He said, Man, I've got a problem with that.

But you know, we don't get out of bed like that.

We don't.

Well, you might, I don't.

I make the decision to get out of bed a particular way.

I could go this way.

Oh, what a terrible night's sleep.

I only had four and a half hours sleep and bad dreams, I must admit, and and so forth.

And it's just like, oh, I've got to get up and another day.

No, no, no, that's not the decision we make.

Or we could change the opposite way.

We can hop into the other quadrant and say, Praise God, I got four and a half hours sleep.

It could have been three and a half hours, like Zach was saying, praise the Lord, at least I slept.

There are some people on P today that aren't even sleeping at all.

Three and four days and not sleeping.

Praise God, that's not our dips, that's not our load right now.

But we get out of bed, we make the decision, don't we make that decision?

Hey, I'm gonna praise his name.

I'm gonna praise his name.

I'm gonna get out of this prison and I'm gonna get into praise.

I'm gonna lift them on the garment and praise them, gonna put them on.

We make that decision.

You say, Well, I'm living in a hell environment right now.

Wait till my wife wakes up, or wait till my husband gets up, then we'll talk about praise then.

You praise anyway.

Seriously now.

It might be the thing you might win him through your praise, you might win them through that beautiful smile.

Murray tells the story when Nancy got saved.

He said, I hated it.

It racked me up.

He said he hated it because she's born of the Spirit of God.

And would you like a cup of tea?

You know, all these good things.

I might, all these good things, and uh, but you know the thing is this, he said it got me a little bit.

But he said that you know what happened then.

I gave my heart to Jesus, and it is it's guns and roses from that time on.

Everything begins to work.

You know, you praise God honestly, try it.

The kingdom of darkness does not want you doing it, they want you to be a grump.

Yeah, they want you to be cold and stiff, they want you to be like this.

Work.

No, no, no.

We're gonna be on Monday morning, work, I've got a job, I'm employed, and I get tax rebates at the end of the year.

It's incredible.

I tithe and I can get a tax rebate on my tithing.

How good is that?

I can go to church.

This is a free land.

Amazing.

Like Jack was saying, there's so many things.

It's the first thing that opens the heavens is you and I coming together in joint praise, corporate praise, corporate worship, bringing a sacrifice of praise.

No spectators in his army.

Mate, we'd be in a lot of trouble if we were in the Israeli defense force right now and we're supposed to be uh engaging with Hezablah, and we thought, well, let the other guys go, you know, be out here hiding behind a rock.

No, you you enlisted, actually, you weren't enlisted, you got to take it, you got to draft it.

But you fight like everybody else.

You said what I'm saying now.

We bring our praise like everybody else.

The kingdom of God is vibrant with praise.

And do you know what?

Our insecurity hates it.

Our religious spirits hate it.

We say, Oh, I'm born this way.

What, born in lemon juice?

No, you were born, man.

You were born to be wild.

Seriously, you were born to make an absolute difference.

Not born to be irresponsible or reckless.

No, you manage your life well, but man, you've been born with a difference.

You carry something, you carry the living hope.

You go into work, you carry an atmosphere.

There's praise, there's worship.

We can clap them, we can shout, we can dance.

All these things.

This is good news, man.

Come on.

But but religion, this is what happens.

Religion, this is what religion wants to do.

Religion wants to put a wet blanket on the music.

Seriously, you gotta hear the hearing me on this one.

So the music's like ho hum.

It's music with no life.

We're singing with no echo, with no life, nothing's really happening there, singing the song because it's empty.

That is religion, and I hate its guts.

And I hope you do too.

Journey with us to break that over our lives.

We don't want to be like that.

That is not God's plan for the church.

High praise, you bring it into your home, but you bring that into here, honestly.

Kneel if you have to, stand, get on the floor.

It doesn't you don't have to I I laugh at the church because I know there's order and that so forth, but we've got seats that are so in line.

Isn't it funny?

Why don't we just have no seats?

I don't know, and then grab your seat.

Yeah, grab your seat out there.

It's just like it's just the British aspect of us.

I don't know, you know, but I'm sure in Jesus' time, John the Baptist, uh John and Andrew, would you put the seats out, please?

Put them straight.

I mean, I'm into straight seats.

I mean, I'm part of this, okay?

And I know when one of those seats are out.

In fact, this morning I came and I saw the whole row had just been out by an inch.

I thought, oh man.

But it's not about straight seats, mate.

It's about living straight, but not about straight seats, it's about, mate, bringing your heart in with fire, with breakthrough, with dynamo, with passion.

Passion, man.

Okay.

Number one, we're getting on, we're getting on it real fast.

Okay.

Well, praise, how about this?

2 Corinthians 20, verses 21.

Jehoshaphat up against Judah.

There's a coalition of many name uh nations gonna come on Judah.

So he's asked his people.

I love this.

He says, we need to pray.

Nation, we need to pray.

If we'd have a government or a prime minister that said that, that'd be awesome.

There's a whole lot of stuff happening in the United Nations, folks.

There's a whole lot of precious international pressures, but as a nation, I'd like us to seek God.

Wouldn't that be awesome?

A national leader like that.

We need to pray for that kind of leader to go in or to or to to manifest at that level.

We need to pray.

We need to bow our heads and we need to pray.

Get on the radio and pray a prayer.

Father, bless the cook islands.

Bless the nation of the island of Raraton.

Bless our people, protect our people, prosper our people.

Okay, that's what Jehoshaphat did, King Jehoshaphat.

Do you know what God gives him a strategy?

Drops it in, bing, strategy.

Do you know what he did?

Bizarre.

Oh, I wouldn't have done this.

I don't think he would have either.

And when he had consulted, 2 Chronicles 20, verses 1, consulted with the people, in other words, he'd spoken to them, he appointed those who should sing to the Lord.

2 Chronicles 20:1

Anyone can sing to the Lord?

Right, you're in.

You guys are in.

You put your hand up, you're part of this.

And who should praise the beauty of holiness?

As they went before the army.

Now, I don't know about you.

We're on the wash uh Washington right now, sort of are the guys that it's not always coming from the army, it's the Washington are determining what's happening a little bit with the Americans as far as um the think tank, the think tank.

But the Washington, Trump and his advance and the admin team are not gonna be saying, hey guys, really to defeat the Iranians, this is what I think we need to do.

We need to get um the churches praising God.

We're gonna send them and down the uh down the valley there, down the we're gonna drop them all over Iran.

We're gonna we're gonna praise, they're gonna praise God, actually.

Well, I think it's a great strategy.

A good way to massacre the church, isn't it?

Nobody does that.

Nobody says, okay, we're gonna fight the enemy, we're gonna put our band up front.

Imagine that.

Trauma, you go first.

Keyboard us.

Lead guitarists always hated the noise that are so loud.

You go third.

You singers, I hated your voices.

You're in there.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

They're all into it, and they're great musicians.

I can tell you that, because they I know that.

And it says, and when he had consulted with the people, he appointed those who should sing to the Lord and who should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army, and they were saying, Praise the Lord for his mercy endures forever.

So here's the army shields, spears, swords, rocking up.

Thousands of these guys.

All right, the bands up front, the bands right in front of them, all the singers in the bands, and what are they singing?

They're singing, praise the Lord for his mercy endures forever.

Praise the Lord for his mercy endures forever.

Praise the Lord for his mercy endures forever.

Praise his name for his mercy endures forever.

And then verse 22 tells us, now when they began to sing and to praise the Lord, uh, praise, the Lord set ambushes against the people of Amon, Moab, and Mount Seah.

And I read the rest of the story, they got dealt to.

In fact, how about this?

They end up turning on themselves and killing each other.

How about that?

The remedy?

File 32 on the way of war and the art of war does not say you put your band up first.

Seriously.

I've read the book on the art of war and it doesn't say that.

It doesn't say the way to win war and the way to wage war and to win is to put your musicians and your choir up front.

Choir to the trenches first.

It doesn't say that.

But God in his infinite wisdom understood the principle of praise that lifts the spirit of heaviness that in the realm of the spirit opens up the heavenlies, and God can come forth and deal with his enemies.

My goodness, that's the first one.

The last or the second one only today is the power of prayer.

Consistent, sustained praying opens the heavens.

Okay.

Now, with that, I gotta I just gotta get this one out here.

It's uh Billy Sunday.

It's a quote.

I wanted to learn this quote.

Fighting and contending for righteousness and prayer, breaking through in the spirit of prayer.

Billy Sunday said this.

Listen, I'm against sin.

I'll kick it as long as I've got a foot.

I'll fight it as long as I've got a fist.

I'll butt it as long as I've got a head, and I'll bite it as long as I've got a tooth.

And when it's old, fitless, footless, and toothless, I'll gum it till it goes home to glory, and it goes home till I go home to glory and it goes home to petition.

There is a fighting spirit that the church needs to have.

Seriously, honestly, men, we've lost our mojo, we've lost our fight.

Fighting for our children, our grandchildren, standing in the gap, getting up in the morning and praying, being the man that prays, walking the streets in prayer.

Do you know what?

I don't necessarily think we need a massive injection of funds from New Zealand.

We need a massive injection of prayer.

Prayer opens heavenly.

We are recognized, not by our education in the realm of the spirit, not by our Bible college degree.

We're not recognized.

Demons don't recognize that.

They recognize righteousness and humility.

They recognize whether we're under the blood or not under the blood.

They recognize whether we're living in victory and not, and they recognize our prayer life, whether we've got a hot channel between us and God.

You aren't to feel content about that, you are to build it.

The latter, you build the rest of it, you got what you're to build.

Build prayer.

Build prayer.

You say, Oh man, I have to struggle in my home.

Build prayer.

Keep on praying.

Keep on praying.

Keep on pushing through.

It'll build our character.

You say, I haven't got it yet, doesn't matter.

It'll come tomorrow.

Doesn't come tomorrow.

It'll come the next day.

Doesn't come the next day.

What are we gonna give up?

We're gonna give up on God, we're gonna give up on his promises because we got discouraged.

Discouraged, we lost our courage.

No, we're gonna continue to pray, it opens the heavens.

We're gonna walk the streets, it opens the heavens.

We're gonna pray around our house and around our sections and so forth.

And I got a conference to preach in uh Christchurch shortly.

I was saying to Gus this morning, it's a family conference, it's about family and so forth.

I'm gonna preach on the spirit of death.

Seriously, because I say there's a death against people's assignments, yeah?

Death against their destinies, death against people's minds with Alzheimer's and dementia, death to shut down our emotions, shut down our destinies, and there's death to bring premature death to the household.

Honestly, it's like rampant fire.

And so the thing is this with prayer, prayer, it opens the heavens.

You go through scripture, it's right there and in a couple of scriptures, then we close.

The fire in Leviticus 6, 12 and 13.

Leviticus 6, 12 and 13, the fire on the altar must be kept burning.

We complain so much, but we pray little.

Seriously, it's the Holy Spirit that convicts people and brings them into the kingdom of God.

Not our persuasion, it's the Holy Spirit on our words.

The Holy Spirit is activated through our praying, our travailing.

We have not because we ask not.

Ask and receive that our joy may be full.

Always pray and don't lose heart.

Pray without ceasing, praying always in the spirit.

Watch and pray always, continuously being earnest in prayer, continuously steadfast in prayer.

Pray day and night.

Luke 11, in the prayer of the Lord's prayer, what does it say?

It says this that we are to pray the kingdom of God to come on earth as it mirrors, as it replicates heaven.

What's up there?

Peace for a start, provision for a start, prosperity, abundance, righteousness, tranquility, joy, all that provision, miracle provision, it's there.

Order, divine order, soundness, wholeness, it's there.

And we pray that to come to earth, open heaven.

And I want to submit to you there is stuff around our lives that's holding your pace back.

Tries to manage, I mentioned before, your momentum.

It just seems to push we one step forward, two steps back.

Just causes us to live under and not over.

It erodes our joy, it erodes our faith.

Okay, so we need to honestly, honestly, some churches don't even believe in demons.

For goodness sake, what's happened to us all?

That is the that's the battle that we're in.

And so today I'm saying we need to praise his name, bring praise into the church, and we're gonna change our habits, we're gonna break off the insecurities, prepare our hearts.

Like this morning, to be honest with you, I was up at six o'clock, I was praying with Gus early this morning, and I was here at six o'clock in the morning praying early this morning before we have that other pre-meeting.

I go home and I thought, man, I'm tired.

I thought, mate, I don't know how I'm gonna make it through the service.

I need another donut.

I wouldn't have got another donut.

I juiced myself up.

Sorry, Selva, but um, I it's it's only it's only once a week, but yeah, there.

And um trying to wean off that last five years.

I thought, mate, I don't know if I've got the energy to actually do this.

I thought, help.

Whew, Zach's notices are sounding really good.

Maybe you should just go five, ten, fifteen, twenty.

Keep preaching, that's good, awesome, Zach.

Keep going.

And then I thought, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

I thought, no, no, no, no, no, just a bit of this, a bit of that, and get up there and you do the job.

You get up and you push through.

You get up in the morning, you push through.

Your marriage ain't going well, you push through.

Keep on loving your wife, keep on desiring her, keep on serving her, keep on cherishing her, keep on blessing her.

All the ladies in the house say, Amen.

Husbands, wives, love your husbands, respect them.

It's the number one thing they want.

Honor them.

Don't undermine them.

I heard some of the other day kind of undermine their husband.

I thought, come on, you have no idea.

Don't undermine your husband, don't call him hubby.

He's not a hubby.

He might have a hobby, but he ain't a hubby.

No, love your husbands.

They are the man, and they could have married somebody else, don't forget.

They married you.

Honor them, love them.

They're the guys that we could, if we are called to war, if we were, they would be the guys that would go.

You might have to go too, ladies.

But you know what I'm saying?

They're it, they're the main man in your life.

Love them, honor them.

You say, Well, it's not worth honor.

Oh, come on.

No, just do it anyway, and he might just soften up.

He just might say, Man, you are so awesome.

Thank you.

I've been a pig.

Sorry, I've been a uh a swine, I've been a uh I've been horrible.

It's a good word, church word.

It's terrible.

But you know, I'm gonna love, I'm gonna, I'm gonna love him.

Okay.

Get up in the morning, you praise for him.

And then what I want you to do, I want us to pray.

And I think it's longevity of prayer.

Ready for this?

It's longevity of prayer, it's continuous prayer, it's uh it's sustained prayer.

We need to pray.

And we need to pray.

I think sometimes we're hitting the enemy as echoes.

We have to go over the top.

More resources, more emphasis, more power, and more breakthrough into it than ever before.

I want you to uh to embrace the spirit of it.

Don't give up.

Don't get so naturally and calmly minded, you actually forget your way in prayer.

You're recognized in the realm of the spirit by how you pray.

Sometimes, sometimes you don't have to learn the very words of, oh gosh, how does David the psalmist pray it?

How is the pastor?

How is she praying?

No, that's okay.

You just pray how it comes out of out of you.

The idea is be real.

Even if it was something as simple, God, I need help.

My family needs help, we need help, our fire business needs help.

Help! Man, I'll tell you what, God hears that because he has a heart.

He says a heart that really just like wow.

So you don't have to get all religious.

I've got to know all these things.

Sometimes you sometimes knowing less is more, it's just a heart before the Lord.

It's the we use that modern word, a lot of preachers use it.

Posture.

We're posturing before the Lord.

We always have these trendy words.

Posture is the latest one, and uh, but we've got this posture, and we go before him in the simplicity of we are and we just pray.

Sometimes it's the simplest thing, Father.

I need you, I need to have a softened heart.

Lord, I want to walk in humility, I want to walk in grace.

Help me to love this nation, help me to love your nation, help me to love your church, love your people, Lord.

Help me to love myself.

Father God, Holy Spirit, come, move upon us, move upon us, and I'm gonna I'm gonna up the ante, Lord.

I'm gonna come, I'm gonna storm heaven.

I'm not gonna relent, Lord.

I'm not gonna stop like those two ladies that prayed and prayed and prayed, and revival occurred, like those that guy that called a prayer meeting and six guys turned up, and he turned up and then it turned up to 40, and then finally 10,000 people, men were praying in New York.

Just praying, just praying, getting prayer around our life, establishing prayer, not becoming lazy or discouraged or defeated and and and and and just going low like that.

No, we're gonna we're gonna pick up our weapons.

There's a thing that's out, I think, for every man, I honestly think, I think it comes back down to Genesis, that is an abdication thing.

We just naturally allow our girls to have the voices and and we abdicate and we hold back, or she'll do the disciplining, she'll do the checkbook or the the cards, that's just you'll organize it all.

Man, it's time to step up for all of us.

It's time to really take manhood at its best and really become at least start in the chamber of prayer, in the household of prayer, in the closet where nobody sees us, in the secret place.

We close the door where he sees us in secret.

We're gonna pray.

You say, Well, I'm a great study of the word of God.

Absolutely, you need to be a great study of the word of God, but don't circumvent prayer, don't not pray.

I just a man of the word.

No, you need to pray, need to travail.

Yeah?

Hey, God bless you this morning.

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