Living Above the Clouds - Murray Watkinson

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

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

Thanks for joining us.

Um to be able to come into the presence of the Lord and just worship, magnify, lift up his name.

And um Kirana.

And uh it's just great to be here back on the island.

We're really, really excited to be here and what the Lord's actually doing.

And um I probably had about the worst uh year of my life in ministry over this last year.

And um, but I'm just so happy.

Uh it's hard to explain.

I feel like there's another song.

I'm so happy, and here's the reason why.

Jeez, it's just took my burdens all away.

I'm gonna I'm gonna share about living above the clouds.

And um, it's been a really interesting year, and it's a year that sometimes we don't understand when we go through times of battle, and other people don't understand our battles.

You ever notice that?

That other people don't understand when you're going through a battle, they don't necessarily understand.

And um, not that I want to uh align myself, but um in the scripture it was talking about Job and the enemy came and the Lord said, Have you considered my servant Job?

And then Job, who was a righteous man, goes through a horrendous lot of testing.

His family gets hit, you know, his livestock gets hit, his house gets hit, his finance gets bit, his physical health gets hit, and he goes through all of these, all of these incredible battles.

His friends that are close to him think that he must have sinned, you know, he must be a bad guy, and that's why all of this stuff is aptly hap happening in his life.

Um but read the book, it's really, really an exciting story.

And, you know, I've preached quite a bit over the years on the fellow, on the um, you know, we love the power of his resurrection, but there's something about the fellowship of his suffering that takes you deeper in the things of God, it gets you right down, um, I suppose where the rubber meets the road, and you can really encounter God in a very, very powerful, life-changing way.

Um, a few things happening, just a few uh uh announcements.

You probably met last time we're on the island, we had a another ministry couple with us, uh Wayne and Nikki Watson, and they were traveling with us at that time, and um they've actually become a part of our celebration now, they're connected relationally with us, and um, and they're gonna plant a church.

We've we've pushed out from the main church.

We've got a gathering now in Rolliston on the south and a gathering in Springback on the north.

And um Wayne and Nikki are actually gonna plant a church down there with the Rolliston Gathering Group.

And also they oversight um some churches in uh New Zealand that are also relationally connected.

We're not a denomination, you realise that.

We're not a we're not that kind of an organization.

We're a group of churches that are uh focused on the kingdom of God and we just connect relationally to fulfill God's purposes.

So there's a church way down by Invocago in a town called Oro Puki, and uh is one of Wayne's churches, and another church in Tianao, and they're also through Wayne and Nikki connecting up with what's going on.

And um, so there's exciting things that are happening in and in and around the church and in and around the kingdom.

I had um we had an outreach on Wednesday night before we left, we flew out on Thursday, and uh quite amazing because um had a couple of just very recent testimonies.

Um, uh a young Maori guy came up to me and said, Can I talk to you in the auditorium of the church?

And he's quite a big fellow, about 35, 36 years old.

And I said, Oh, you sure?

So we went in there and he kind of took me up the front of the church, and in the middle, he said, he said, right there is where my mum gave her heart to the Lord.

And uh I said, Oh, really?

Yeah, and he says, and took me over here, and he says, right there, standing there, he says, I was 10 years old, and um he said, Um, you'd you'd preach the message that morning, gave an altar fork call for people to give their lives to Jesus.

And he said, My mum and dad had gone through a big breakup, our family was just all disintegrated, and mum got saved there, and he says, and I got saved there.

And it's 25.

You give the Lord a hang, it was awesome.

I hadn't seen, he was a boy, and this is now uh 25 years later, and uh, and he came back and he said, You that day you came down off the stage and you gave me a word and said that God is gonna put a shield around your life and he's gonna protect you.

I couldn't remember any of it.

I couldn't remember the service, couldn't remember him, couldn't remember his mother, couldn't remember the word, couldn't remember anything, but I thought, what an amazing, exciting testimony.

Yeah, yeah.

Just God does stuff sometimes we're not aware, you know, God just uses us, whether we whether we're conscious of it or not.

And then on the same night, it was really interesting because uh a man, a pastor, his name's Paul Manniopoto, he has a smaller church, he said, like a word of faith church in um Woodend, which is probably only about 20 minutes' drive from celebration in Christchurch.

And um, so anyway, he came up to me, quite a humble guy, and uh he said to me, Would I be able to talk to you?

You like he's asking permission.

I said, Yeah, you know.

So we were having an outreach dinner, so piling up my plate with food.

I said, Well, let's sit together.

And then he said, I've been listening to you online, and um, and he said um about two Saturdays ago, I was on my way to work on Saturday morning, and the Lord spoke to me in the car.

He said it was almost audible and said, I want you to connect with Murray.

And um, like I don't know nothing about this, I hadn't been talking to the Lord or anything like about it.

I had no knowledge.

And so there he was.

He said, I came last Wednesday uh to the service, the Wednesday night service, and said, the Sunday following when I went into my church and started preaching, he said something happened to me.

He said, I can't really explain it, but he said, I just revelations just started coming when I was sharing the word, and he said, My congregation, it's only small, they started clapping because of the things that I was sharing because God was giving me revelation, and he said they've never clapped before.

He said, They've never done that before.

And he said, Something happened to me.

He said, I went on, I came along and something happened to me.

And um, and then he was he was kind of he was quite a humble God.

He said, He said, Would we be able to talk?

Would we able to connect?

I said, Yeah, let's connect, mate.

This sounds exciting what the Lord is actually doing in your life.

So, like I believe, um, I've been preaching quite a bit about the difference between um spirituality and religion.

And um, when you when you're walking with the Holy Spirit, there are miracles just waiting to happen.

There are miracles, predetermined miracle, the hand of God in and around your life.

God opens the doors that no man can close, he closes doors that no man can open.

And um amazing things are happening when you're walking in the Holy Spirit.

The greatest attack on the spirit-filled church, on the church, is to slip from uh an intimate relationship with God under the power of the Holy Spirit into religion.

And it says in the scripture, you know, where they had a form of godliness, but they denied the power.

And if you understand that, they were they were still praying, they were going to church, they were even probably tithing, well, maybe tipping God, not tithing God.

But anyway, uh they were going through all of those processes and everything, and and God understand when it says, but they deny the power, I I interpret and understand to mean but the manifestation of the power of God was not manifesting around their lives, the miracles were not taking place, the supernatural things um were not actually happening.

So before I came to Raratong, I I put together a message uh for you, God.

I felt the Lord had given me a word uh for the church, and then he wakes me up about four o'clock in the morning this morning with another word.

So I'm gonna preach two words this morning.

So um get your blankets out.

You might be here for a little while, but I'm gonna try and condense two into one because they do sort of go together.

And um because um um, you know, I haven't uh had all the time to do all of the study and all of those sorts of things, I'm just gonna go for it a little bit.

And um, and you just you just grab what you want and uh just push over to the side of the plate the things that you don't like, and uh not the veggies, the veggies are good for you, all right.

But um what you what you've got to understand is that we we we live in a natural realm, um, but the natural realm was created by God from the spiritual realm.

So God spoke into existence the earth and everything that's upon the earth.

It was everything that we see naturally around us is actually being created by God who is spirit, and it's been created by the spirit.

And sometimes in the church, people don't understand that the natural realm is in subjection to the spiritual realm.

There's there's two kingdoms, you know, it talks about the kingdom of this world, and there's a uh a spiritual force that's over the kingdom of this world, and then the kingdom of our God, the kingdom of God.

So there's a supernatural spiritual kingdom, and there's a natural kingdom that we are living in.

And uh day-to-day life is in the natural kingdom.

In the natural kingdom, there's all sorts of laws that are associated with the natural kingdom.

Um, you know, one of the laws that talks about at Rome, the law and sinner death, and uh, you know, we are dying, we're all getting older, and you know, there's decay that takes place, and all of these things that are taking place in the natural realm, but not so in the spiritual realm.

In the spiritual realm, we have everlasting life.

In the spiritual realm, things are not decaying, they're not deteriorating, they're not falling apart, um, there's no division, there's no brokenness, there's no broken hearts, there's no tears, there's no crying, there's no sickness in that spiritual realm.

And uh, when God begins to deal with humanity, because I'm gonna try and jump through a few things here quickly, when God uh begins to deal with humanity, um, you begin to see stories in the Old Testament, like Exodus chapter 12, verse 12.

Exodus 12:12

He says, and you'll know this is this is when Moses has been called the burning bush, and he's confronting Pharaoh under the hand of God, and um, and there's a spiritual confrontation that is actually taking place uh between God.

But it says, This is what the Lord, for I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, against all the gods, little G of Egypt, I will execute judgment.

I am the Lord.

Now the blood shall be a sign for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt.

So I want you to see here when God begins to deal with humanity after the fall, he deals on two levels.

First of all, he's gonna set Israel free from the slavery and the bondage of Egypt, and that's like us getting free from the spirit of this world, getting us free from the spirit of the world.

But what you've got to see is God does it two ways.

First of all, he addresses and brings judgment on the spiritual demonic forces that are actually reigning and ruling over Egypt.

Over every nation in the world, in the world, there are demonic forces that are arrayed or set over nations, and their desire is to manifest their personality.

The principality over a nation will manifest its personality over a nation.

So, you know, you go to different nations.

I can remember uh the first time I was in uh America and I was at um uh church by, I think the guy, I'm trying to think of his name now.

And anyway, there was a whole lot of um uh Korean people that had come over to the conference.

And when they had the altar call, the Korean people just rushed forward, like they were like a mighty force, like a mighty rushing wind.

Anybody who got on their road, they were pushing and shoving and and coming forward to the altar.

And you see, when you when you go to Korea, when you go to other nations, there are other principalities and powers over those nations that cause the people to be the way they are often.

Some nations might have a passive spirit where people are laid back and that other spirits that are over other nations, people are more aggressive.

There are different things that actually begin to take place.

So you so what you've got to understand is that uh God always deals on two levels.

He deals with the spiritual principality level, and then he deals with us on the natural level.

He actually brings those things down uh to us.

So um it's um you see it in the life of Jesus Christ.

So Jesus Christ, what you see is um he goes, he's baptized by John the Baptist, he comes up out of the water and God speaks audibly.

This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.

All of the people around here.

And then instantaneously he is led out into the desert.

The desert represents a place of death.

It represents a place of death.

He's read, he's led out into the place of death to confront Satan, the principality or the prince of all of the palities, um, the leader of the demonic crew, I suppose, face to face.

It's the same principle.

When God was going to bring the people out of Egypt, he destroyed, brought judgment on the gods.

When Jesus Christ is gonna bring the kingdom of God into the nation, into the earth, he goes straight out into the desert and confronted by Satan himself.

He defeats Satan.

He doesn't destroy him, he defeats him with the word of God, with the authority of the word of God.

He actually defeats Satan.

Straight after that, he goes out of the desert, you know, and uh he's been fasting 40 days and 40 nights, you know, and he goes straight out and begins to preach the gospel of the kingdom of God.

He begins to cast out demons.

Um, all sorts of things instantaneously begin to happen around the life of Jesus Christ.

Suddenly, people are rising up in opposition to him.

Suddenly, people are wanting to throw him over a cliff, they're cursing him.

The religious leaders of the time are actually coming up against him.

He goes into this um season for three years where he's in a spiritual battle.

You know, um, we've got to understand some things about um our salvation experience because I sometimes don't think people really lay hold and fully understand what has actually taken place.

You know, in the beginning, God created Adam, and out of the sight of Adam he took Eve.

And every person born on the face of the earth since that time were born through the conception of a male and a female.

But when you come to Christ, I don't think people understand that.

He says this over and over again.

He says, You are a new what?

A new creation.

You're a new creation.

So God comes along to a human, a human that is bound in sin, has been broken and polluted by all kinds of things that have come in and around our life.

And when we get this born-again experience, we become a new, we are created again.

We it's a new creation.

You've got to understand this, because in the scripture it says this that God gave them power to become the sons of God.

God gave us power to become the sons and daughters of God.

It was a creative move.

The interesting thing is, while humanity is being created, we're alive, but we're being created to become the sons and daughters of God, Jesus Christ was sent to the earth to be born as a woman.

When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law.

So you see this dynamic that's actually taking place.

God is sending his son to be born to reveal his humanness, and we, when we come and believe in him, are born again.

But it's not just a rebirth, it's a recreator.

We are created sons and daughters of God.

See, the life that Jesus lived on the earth was a demonstration of the life that we can live on the earth.

That's what it's about.

If you understand it, that's what it's about.

We are we are we are a born-again recreated spiritually.

I've been thinking a lot about this, and I thought, God, if you have you placed us back through the recreator power, we're a new creature in Jesus Christ back to an adamic state.

And I'm not saying, I'm not saying necessarily, but what I'm saying is something very, very significant took place when you were born again by the power of God and you became a son and God.

Sometimes in the body of Christ we don't act like sons and daughters.

We don't, we don't go into the throne room, we don't exercise the authority.

I don't know if anybody, um, I get caught a little bit sometimes on clickbait, and um, I go on to YouTube because I like watching, um, I've got preachers and that that I love and I really love watching them.

And then when you click onto the YouTube, up comes the page, and then uh, and then you've got uh the royal family going through all kinds of disasters over there.

Most of it's AI, most of it's a pack of lies, actually, that is on those on those sites and everything like that.

But you've got to get over into the spiritual stuff.

But you see, um uh like it's almost like Harry is not acting like a son any longer to the king.

He's lost his authority, he's made decisions, he's pulled away from the kingdom, he's set his own course, he's set his own direction, and he's no longer operating under the authority of the king or under the authority of the father.

You know, when you become a son of God, you that um that uh karma commandment that says honor your father and mother, you you have been recreated.

God is your spiritual father, and we are to honor him with every single thing that we do.

We walk now as a son, we walk as a daughter, we walk with the authority of the king.

See, it's um um so when we come in our life, what we've got to understand is the battle that we face is on two levels.

You've got a principality battle that goes on up here, and um, that God has given authority, He's given us authority to bind the works of darkness, and then we've got a natural level down here that we're living on.

Do you know what the enemy does?

When the enemy traps uh the church or non-Christians into the act of sin, it allows the enemy to get a grip on our lives, to stop our productivity, our dominion, and our fruitfulness.

That's what the enemy's trying to do.

He's trying to hold us back from the dominion that God gave us, the authority that God gave us, and the fruitfulness that God actually has desired for us.

And so um, Jesus Christ, there's lots of scriptures.

I've got this is a big message because it's two messages put together, but uh, there's lots and lots of scriptures that talk about it.

That talk about, you know, if we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive us our sin.

And then it goes on and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So you see, again, there's always these two levels.

So there's confession of sin actions and the cleansing of the impurity that comes from sin in our life.

The devil loves to get us to be involved in sin actions so he can bring about impurity in our lives.

And if you understand it and you've uh gone back and read the book of Leviticus recently, and that you'll read all about the sacrifices for atonement.

It they were not sacrifices so much for knowing deliberate sin, they were sacrifices for unconscious things that prevented Israel from being able to come into the presence of God.

So the purifying work, the washing of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, purifies you to enable you to come right into the presence of God.

It says in the book of Hebrews, enter boldly, you know, through the veil, by what?

The blood of the Lamb, by the blood of the Lord Jesus, that purifying, cleansing work of the Holy Spirit that takes place in our lives.

I just um I think we're in a new place.

I think there's a new thing going on.

Um so we see Jesus, he gets into the desert, he deals with the principalities and powers.

He goes and he begins to deal with the idolatry that's going on with the people.

He deals with human cooperation with demonic spirits, that's what sin is, is when we align ourselves under another spirit that does not have the character, goals, or of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So that's why when you go back in the I'm giving you a lot of stuff here, and it might be a bit hard to contain it all, but that's why the Bible addresses the concept of idolatry so strongly.

Because idolatry is worshiping another God.

And when you worship another God, you know what happens?

You begin to manifest the fruit of the other God.

So violence, anger, hatred, bitterness, resentment, adultery, fornication, uncleanness, um, uh same-sex marriage, homosexuality, they all they're all, if you understand it, they're all the manifestation of other gods.

That's that's when you if you get under another God, you will manifest the personality of another God.

When you, when I've I've actually prayed I've changed a little bit, and I don't want to get religious about it, but I I I actually uh uh use the term Yahweh quite often now because Yahweh was the sacred Hebrew name uh for God, and the Hebrew people so um uh had such veneration and honor for that name that they very rarely ever spoke it out loud.

They didn't speak it out loud because that name, the name of God was so precious and so powerful to the Jewish people.

But I want God to know that it's him and him alone that I'm worshiping.

I want God to fully understand.

I'm interested in no other God, I'm interested in no other way, I'm interested in no other salvation, I'm interested in no other savior, I'm interested in no other manifestation or fruit of any other spirit.

I just want the fruit of the Holy Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, goodness.

Meekness, self-control.

And so we align ourselves because years ago the Lord said to me that sin is actually a relationship with the devil.

And you get something like that as a seed thought.

And then over the years, I've been a Christian 50-something years now.

The Lord unravels that and you begin to realize yes, that's all about idolatry.

You get another God in your life and you'll begin to live another lifestyle.

If mammon becomes your God, you'll begin to connive and think, and your whole life will be dreaming about money and what money can do, and money can become your security, and all of these sorts of things come in.

It's because you've actually inadvertently gone into a relationship with another spirit, and often it happens in the church, people don't even realize it.

They don't even realize it.

Or if you get caught up with lust or feelings towards another man or another woman of the church, you're under another god, that's what's going on.

All of those other gods in the Bible were unclean, filthy uh gods.

They represented the character of the god of the gods they were.

These are the gods where people were sacrificing their children.

Um they were all kinds of uh hideous crimes and hideous things were going on um in the nations because they worship other gods.

And so we come back to Yahweh, the one true God.

We worship him and him alone, our focus is on him.

We want Yahweh, we want him to know and everybody else to know that we're not entertaining or having any other gods in our life.

One of the things that happened with the fall of man is humanity, we lost our spiritual authority.

That's why when you understand when you're born again and you're recreated, when you become a created being, not a not a being that just exists because of a husband and wife get together and you're conceived, but now God does a spiritual work of recreation in our life and he realigns us as sons and daughters of God.

We stand in a really different position.

And um, in that process, what God does is he gives us back our authority that was lost through sin.

He reestablishes our authority.

You know, um I I address, have been addressing in the church for some time now, um, there's a wonderful thing happening in the body of Christ, and and I'm really I get really excited about it, and I hope you might get excited about it too, because um there's a there's a whole theological stream in the last 20 years where the the modern theologians, these people are going back and they're calling it biblical theology.

In the old days we had when I went through theological college, we had what you call systematic theology.

Systematic theology kind of started where um somebody had an idea about how God was working and what God was doing, and they go to the scripture to prove the idea.

But biblical theology, they go to the scripture with an open heart and an open mind to understand what God is really actually saying to the body.

Do you know there's a lot of, say, I'll take a bit of a swipe here, reform theologians.

They're quite big, they're big online, they're all over the place.

If you don't understand theology, you're probably watching them without even knowing what they're on about.

They're cessationists, they don't believe in the apostles and the prophets uh meant to be functioning in the body of the church today.

They don't believe in signs and wonders and miracles, they don't believe in speaking in tongues, a prayer language that God can give us.

They don't believe that the miracles are for today.

They have all ceased, is what they actually preach.

It's a false doctrine.

It's a false, false doctrine.

You know what the Calvinists believe?

Here I'm getting in there.

If you're a Calvinist, God bless you.

May the Lord help you.

But um, the Calvinists believe this: they believe that uh man is totally depraved, and there's not even within the heart of any man the ability to choose or to want God.

So God predetermines who's gonna be saved and who's not.

He's already judged the whole earth, said you're gonna be saved, you and not, you are, you and not, you and not, you and not, you are, you are, you are.

He determined, you know what they also believe?

They believed that the miracles of God are God's sovereign acts.

But what did Jesus, what did let's come back to the life of Jesus.

What did Jesus do?

He knew he was a man, he knew he was a son of God, he knew who he did, and what did he do?

He went out and what?

Worked miracles.

He worked miracles, he didn't go out when he saw the demoniac and say, if it be your will, your sovereign will, Lord, come and set the demoniac free.

See, the reason this is important, it's important that you you understand biblical what the Bible really actually says and what the what is available to us in the Bible.

Because I think a lot of the body of Christ is living way beyond what God made available to us.

And you know what I think it is?

It's a filthy spirit of religion.

It's a religious spirit.

And the trouble is the religious spirit is a counterfeit spirit, it looks exactly like the real thing.

It stands beside the real thing, it prays, it closes its eyes, it lifts up its hands, it sings the song, it wiggles its rear end during the exciting worship songs.

It's right there, it's right there in the midst of it.

It loves to hang out in church.

That's where religious spirits hang out, they hang out in church.

And I tell you what, when you begin to move in the things of the spirit, you will experience opposition.

Where did Jesus' opposition come from?

Where did he really challenge the people?

Here he is with Zacchaeus, the tax collector, the sinner, having dinner, and at the same time he's talking to the Pharisees and saying, You brood of vipers, you uh painted sepulchres filled with dead men's bones.

Because Jesus Christ was aware that the religious spirit is one of the most dangerous spirits that's on the face of the earth.

And the trouble is it's often people that experience God in a powerful way that slip back slowly into religion.

And I tell you what, I know when you're when you're in religion, one of the things is you lose all your appetites for God.

You know, you think, oh, I wish the wish the worship's going too long this morning.

Oh, 6:30 prayer meeting, uh, you know, yeah, uh, I'll be all right because other people are there praying, that's gonna be okay.

Reading, like the word of God, I I see now the word of God, it's not a devotional book.

It's not daily bread, a little scrippy, you know, read a little scrippy with a little story related to it in the morning.

You think you're gonna survive?

That's like eating a cracker and getting through the day as a working man or a working woman, you're gonna have a good breakfast.

You've got to have a the word of God, it's not, it's not something we just add on.

It's an absolute necessity.

If you're not, if you're not in the if you're not in the warfare manual, if you're not in the word of God, and I don't mean just reading it like a storybook, it's not a no a novel.

Oh, what about David?

You know, David and Besheva, and then he organized for this one to get killed.

It's not that's not the book it's meant to be.

You're meant to go into the word of God, God, give me revelation and understanding, help me to see, Lord, what you are saying through this word, that's gonna radically change my life and make me like Jesus Christ.

Gonna make my character like Christ, make my conscience clear like Christ, and make me begin to walk with the authority of Jesus Christ.

I think we've asked the Lord to do a lot of the things the Lord told us to do.

And that's religion.

Religion does these flashy prayers, it likes to be seen, it likes to get up the front and do the flashy prayers, oh God, and all of this stuff.

Whereas it says uh in the Word of God, it says, you know, you don't have to be around seen to be praying or seen to be doing all your good work so people can notice what you're doing.

Because, see, that's religion, but this the realm of the spirit, those things are often, you break through in private, you come out of the private place and you do battle in the public place.

This is this is how God works.

So there's you've got to understand that the natural realm is in submission to the spiritual realm.

And um, I'm jumping between two messages here.

I hope you're doing okay out there.

Um but understanding that um that um Jesus was born of a woman, he he this the God was coming down to earth to understand our humanness and the battles that we would go through, and Jesus Christ was going to live in a victorious life, the God man.

We are recreated through rebirth in the spirit, and we too become a little bit in a way the man with a touch of God, the woman with a touch of God, spiritually alive, spirit alive in the Holy Spirit, and this is this is really powerful, powerful stuff if you get it.

Um God spoke the natural realm all into existence.

He just spoke.

Let there be light, let there be land, let there be animal.

He just spoke.

See, this is the spirit realm.

He was speaking things into existence.

It says in the scripture, for us, you know, the power of life and death is in the tongue.

And um, I know one of the things that God is really challenging, challenging the church on this day is how we speak.

And um, I've got to the point now where I just can't stand to be around negative, defeated people.

I know, and I'm a pastor, you know, I'm I'm called to minister to these people, and they drive me absolutely insane.

Sometimes you get around them and they just drain all of the lifeblood out of you.

You know, you you've got up in the morning, and in the in the place where I am, you know, now I have the privilege of being able to get up.

You know, I'm usually up by 5:30, 6 o'clock if I'm late, and I don't go into the church until about 10, and I'm just praying and in the word.

I'm not a big deal, it's not a big pharisical thing.

I'm not hammering away at God, God do this, God do that, God help me there.

I'm relaxing in the presence of God, allowing him to speak to me, getting in, digging into the word.

And then you go in and you get around people and you think, oh my God, you know, they sucked all the life blood out of you.

And he told, uh, you know, the husband's doing this, and the kids are gone mad, and you know, they're all limping around sick and you know, miserable, and I'm feeling depressed, and it's had a really hard week.

And I'm thinking, oh my God, you do you know him?

Do you I mean, somehow or other you got connected to someone else because my God doesn't live there, he doesn't live in that place.

It's like, for goodness sake.

And then what we could do is we could let's design a church around that thing, and let's just talk about the need for counselling, you know, and all the broken hearts and your broken, and all the natural things and all the things, and it's hard.

We understand.

We're the lovey dovey church, we'll rub your back when you come forward.

It's religion, it's religion, it's religion.

You've got to get hold of God, the word, the Holy Spirit.

You've got to live above the clouds, you've got to get up in the realm of the Holy Spirit where you're looking down on your circumstances.

You ever said that to someone?

How are you going?

Oh, pretty good under the circumstances.

Now, what are you doing under the circumstances?

Where's that in the Bible?

Where does the Bible say you will live under your circumstances?

Do you know?

Look, I'm not denying this world is real.

Okay, you're not feeling well, you go to the doctor, he says, Hey, you got cancer.

Thanks very much.

You notice how they are pretty negative, eh?

And then they give you like this.

They always give you the worst case scenario.

You're probably gonna be dead in a week.

Oh, thanks very much, doctor.

Go home and get yourself ready.

There is a scripture in the Bible that says, make plans, you know, because you're gonna go.

But anyway, we won't go there.

And um, sometimes when you hear the faith message and the miracle message, you think, oh, you're just a nutty, you've gone into denial.

No, no, the natural realm is real.

You can see it, you can taste it, you can touch it, you can hear it.

It's real.

Faith doesn't deny the reality of the battles that you may face on a day-to-day basis.

Finances are tight, the marriage is not going well, the kids are sick, you're sick, mum's on a deathbed.

See, this is this is all real.

I'm not denying any of that, but what I want to say to you today is the natural realm is in submission to the spiritual realm.

You're not denying it, you're not sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich so someone will come along and kick you in the rear end.

You're not sticking your head in this hand, you're actually acknowledging, yes, that's right.

Yes, they did test, yes, that's what the doctor says.

But I am a spiritual man, I'm a son of God who spoke this whole earth into existence.

This is who I am, this is who we are, this is who we're called to be, this is who I am.

So now from the spirit realm, I'm coming back to the natural realm and saying to hell with you, cancer.

Why not?

Why not?

I curse the cancer, I curse the sickness, I come against depression, I come against poverty, poverty.

See, these are all spirits.

It's all spirits, it's all substandard spiritual forces.

What did he say?

What did he say to Israel?

None of these diseases will come upon you.

Because why?

Because he just wiped out and brought judgment on the gods, little gee gods that were ruling and reigning over Egypt.

Egypt was a place of oppression.

They whipped the Israelites.

It's an amazing thing because in the midst of the battle and the whipping and the slavery and everything that was going on in Egypt, Israel was becoming the promised nation of God.

Yeah.

In the midst of the battle, in the midst of the torture, in the midst of the restraint, when they were living under the fear of death, you step outside of what the Egyptians want you to do, and they will bring judgment on you.

They'll kill you because you're just slaves, you're expendable.

That's that's the kingdom of this world.

You're an expendable in the kingdom of this world.

You know what I believe?

I believe a lot of Christian, spirit-filled Christians today are literally committing spiritual suicide.

Because they're allowing religion to seep into their lives and they're losing that contact they've they've let go.

I remember Jimmy Swaggard, he he he was a great man, a great evangelist.

He didn't have a great end, he got went through some real troubles and real difficulties in his life, but he used to sing this song and uh kind of an old-time gospel song, because I'm a bit of an old-time guy.

I had that.

What's that dessert with the cake?

It has, I got one, I brought one last night at the at the petrol station.

It has cake, fruit, and custard.

Trifle.

Hallelujah.

Have you tried those trifle things in the plastic?

They are good.

Man, I whacked that down, and then I thought, oh, Nancy's gonna want to share this.

So I went in the other room and ate it.

Some of this old time stuff.

We don't want old time religion.

Okay, Jimmy Swaggett, he sang this song.

And the words of the song were this: I don't need to understand, I just need to hold your hand.

And the message in that is staying connected to the Holy Spirit so you can see with spiritual eyes, hear with spiritual ears, speak the words of God out into your circumstances, so you can remain in that position of spiritual authority over all of the circumstances, the sickness, the struggles, the battles, the financial battles, all of the things in your life should be under submission to your relationship with God and the things of the Word of God.

All the promises of God's word are made to you.

They're all made to you as sons and daughters.

That's your inheritance.

Just like Jesus, it's your right.

It's your rights, it's your inheritance.

Now I know that exercising faith is not, you know, there's you we've got to understand some of these things because it's not as if that we are so empowered that we can just go and demand and command all of these things to happen at every time.

But what we're doing is we're moving in the authority of God.

There's an illustration, just I'll throw out.

You remember the story of Daniel?

And Daniel, you know, he went through some pretty big trials, old Daniel.

And um remember when Daniel called out to God, it took three weeks for the archangel Michael to come and deal with this demonic spirit of Assyria and all of that.

See, that's what that's what what you've got to understand about biblical Holy Ghost faith is you exercise the faith according to the word of God over your circumstances, over your situation, over your illness, and then you, how would I think you have to persevere in that faith to see, you know, because God might say you're gonna be you're gonna be healed of your cancer two weeks away on a Friday, because He's orchestrated a whole lot of other stuff around your life that's gonna be significant maybe to other people, to their faith, and the family's gonna be around and the miracle's gonna take place.

How God determines.

But but if you don't persevere in your faith, don't let go.

You just keep believing.

You just keep believing.

I've had I've had several minor healings in the last two or three.

Mate, I tell you, I was I was in such a state, I had believed that God didn't want to use me for praying for people's healing.

And I preached it.

And I said, I'd say to the church, this Jonathan, no way we're hearing it.

I'd say to the church, man, delivering, you got demons come and see me.

I love it.

You know, God, right back when I was a baby Christian, I started getting into situations where God led me into praying for people with demonic spirits.

It's like bread and butter.

You don't even need faith after the first few times.

You move from faith to fact.

You you move the first time someone's manifesting, and you're all nervous and scared, and you, you know, I plead the blood of Jesus in the name of Jesus Christ, you know, and there's this battle going on, they go, You're saying I take authority over you in Jesus' name.

What is your name?

You know, speak to me.

Anyway, that's the first time.

And then sometime, you know, those early deliverance things might have taken you, you might have been there for two hours, you know, going through this battle.

And oh, I remember I got called out.

I used to go out, I used to love it so much.

I'd get I'd people heard about the deliverance and they would call me up like three o'clock in the morning because somebody was manifesting.

And I remember I took off one night, and when I was younger, I was excited about those things, mate, we're going to war, and I had my Bible.

And uh, I went down to Richmond, you know, not that far from the church down there, and there was this whole lot of people in a flat.

None of them came to church.

I don't know how they even got my name, but I'm down there at three o'clock in the morning, and one of their flat mates is manifesting, he's going nuts, and he's manifesting.

And so they meet me at the door, they're all fearful, like Raratonga with the storm.

Batting the hatches, you know.

I had all these people saying to me, Oh, you uh what did Jesus do with the storm?

He rebuked it.

You know?

We've got people upstairs in the house, I didn't want to make a complete fool of myself, but I wanted to go out the front of the sector and say, I rebuke this storm in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Get off this island! Why not?

Jesus did it, didn't he?

And then his disciple at the Ormada said, Oh, what authority?

Where did this guy come from?

But he's got authority over the wind and over the waves.

You know, well, we're kids.

God's kids.

Look at that, the devil's having a fight back there, eh?

He's just full of hot air, that's all he is.

So we gotta we gotta understand we have to persevere in our faith to break through.

We're holding on to the things of God, but we are sons and daughters of God, and our authority and the things of the spirit have been absolutely restored.

There's scriptures in the Bible that we may understand, like greater works than these will you do because I go to the Father.

Why would even why would Jesus even see that?

Say that because Jesus Christ had to go for the Holy Spirit to come.

Do you know who the Holy Spirit is?

He's the Spirit of creation.

God is the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is God, God is Jesus, Jesus is God.

It's the Trinity, it's a bit of a hard one to understand.

There's a lot of theological explanation around it, but we know when Jesus Christ was on the cross, God was on the cross, that's the reality of it.

We know that the love of God, I love what Jonathan was saying earlier, because the love of God is such, the love of God is such that he would come.

I mean, we can understand it, he would send his son to come and die on our behalf.

So we see, look, you're worth it.

You you you guys are that's what God looks down on you.

He says, These guys are worth it.

What's the price?

My son.

Will you pay the price?

I'll pay the price.

God didn't hesitate.

Why?

Because you're worth it.

You you're you you're so incredibly valuable to God.

It's I don't I don't know if we really understand the love of God sometimes.

We're so valuable to him.

We're so incredibly valuable to him.

And you know that love of God, I I think I've been going through a bit of a love of God revolution in my life, actually, and just understanding at another whole level of how much he loves us and how much he wants us to walk in the authority that he's provided for us.

Everything he's laid out in his word for us to live in, he wants us to live and to walk in it.

If religion gets around your life, you'll become passive, right?

And and you'll become so.

Spiritually dysfunctional.

So we've got to keep that relationship, right?

We've got to deliberately resist the things of religion and walk in the things of the Holy Spirit.

We've got to understand that.

What did Jesus?

Matthew 28.

All authority in heaven and earth has been given unto me, therefore go and make disciples.

Luke 10, 19.

I have given you authority over all the enemies, or I think it's the snakes, you know, trample on snakes and scorpions.

What would Jesus, they weren't just words?

Jesus has all authority in heaven and earth, and his brothers and sisters, us, he also gave authority over what all the enemy's powers.

So why are we living under the circumstances and not over the circumstances?

When do we believe not what the natural eye can see or the natural ear can hear?

When will we believe what the Spirit of God has said to us, his sons and daughters?

When do we lay hold of that?

When do we really believe that?

When do we live?

You know, this is the challenge.

Because I I I think, you know, and I will look, I can prophesy end times because, you know, we're a day closer to Christ's return today than we were yesterday.

Okay, that's theologically sound, isn't it?

Tomorrow we'll be a little closer.

I'm not saying when the Lord will come back.

I don't know when the Lord will come back.

Even Jesus didn't know when he was on earth uh when he would actually uh return.

But I know how we're meant to live in the meantime.

We're meant to live as sons and daughters of God, operating in the authority that God has given us.

That's why the word becomes so so vital to us, because be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.

But I think the transformation of our life comes from being absolutely saturated in the word of God and understanding the promises that God has given us, and then choosing to walk according to the word and his spirit, not according to our circumstances or the flesh or the natural man.

I had I had a bit of a funny thing happen since I've been in Raratonga, just kind of a random thing, and I was trying to, you know, work it out.

But I had several people um ask me how old I was, right?

This is random, eh?

So even Grant yesterday would think and he says, How how old are you?

And I'm 73.

And the people that are living in the upstairs of my house, the wife said to me, she asked me once when we were alone, we were just talking on the balcony.

Another time when Nancy was sitting there, she said, How old are you?

And I said, I'm 73.

And she said, Oh, 73, like you know, like you don't look 73.

And I thought, Oh, hallelujah.

You know what I reckon it is?

You know what I reckon it is.

I'm I mean, I reckon God, I've got God has got a mission for me on the face of the earth, and I won't go until he's ready.

And God's going to keep me alert, quick, physically strong, full of the Holy Ghost, full of fight, full of facing the enemy, coming in confrontation, conf confronting the enemy, going through every battle that the Lord allows to come across my path until my mission on earth is finished.

I believe that God gives me strength and health.

I believe that's what I believe.

I believe like for years and years I haven't.

Well, part of the reason I struggled to pray for people for healing was because I hadn't actually been sick.

For yeah, I hadn't been sick.

And then I then I the first thing I did is I was out on this new tractor I brought, and I went to get up in the tractor and I slipped off and I pulled all the tendons of my shoulder.

They just tore it.

And if you've played sport and that, you guys will know what that's like.

And um, my shoulder wasn't totally dislocated, but like I was going home like this, I couldn't drive the car with that hand.

In the morning, getting ready for church, I was trying to put my shirt on like this, get that arm in first because I couldn't do anything with the arm.

And I remember going through, I got into church, you know, and you're nursing it, and a guy put out his hand to shake, and I went to shake his hand, oh my goodness, me, you know, I had to do a little girl shake with the left hand and um going in, and I'm up in front of the church and I'm whining, you know, I'm whining in front of the church, saying, Oh man, I slipped off the tractor and ripped my shoulder off.

It's really, really sore.

And you know, I'm going through the story, I'm putting my shirt on like this, and you know, you should all feel sorry for your pastor, feel sorry for me.

Go, oh, oh my, you know, and I'm going like this.

And then as I'm talking, I and and um I just put my hands up like that and got healed.

I right in front of everybody, and I'm going like this.

He just healed me right in front of everybody.

And so it wasn't, it wasn't really a sign for them, it was a sign for me because I had become so negative about the area of healing.

I told the church constantly, if you want, don't ask me to pray for you because you'll die.

That's what I used to say.

If I pray for your healing, you'll die.

That's not a very good confession, is it, Lord?

Is it?

But if you've got demons, come and see me.

I'd love to get them out.

You know, that's my bread and butter, that's where I work, that's where I operate.

And the Lord, the Lord, boy, the Lord had to give me, yeah, behind the woodshed one more time, you know, and a bit of a wacko.

And uh what he's saying to me says, you that that's not what I said in the word, that's not the mission, you're not selective about it.

Because I just I was filled with doubt and fear about the area of praying for miracle healing for people to get healed.

That's the truth.

You know, I can wrap it up in all the religious terms and that like, but that's the truth.

So God had to get that fear and that doubt out of me.

He had to do some surgery to get me sorted out.

So sons and daughters, son of God, daughter of God.

Kind of makes you want to sit up straight, doesn't it?

You know, son of God, daughter of God.

Um born again, but you're a new creation.

You you're you're you've you've been created anew by God, and you're now seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus, and all the promises of God have been made available to you as sons and daughters.

It's so, so wonderful, it's so, so powerful.

So it changes everything.

It doesn't matter, like, um, you know, I said I've probably had the worst year of my life in ministry over the last year.

I've had so much betrayal.

Mate, I can't go anywhere with I hear I had even the other day, someone goes and talks to Nancy and says, Oh, Murray doesn't believe in some sort of healing or something or other like that.

And I'm thinking, do I ever get to say what I believe in without other people saying what I believe in?

Murray said that.

I had someone come up to me and they they come up to me and say, Oh, so-and-so said that you said this, and you offended me because so-and-so told me what you said, and I say to them, why don't you just come and ask me and I'll tell you myself straight I can offend you just directly without people get mad at me because I I challenge the spirit of religion.

I was just at a meeting this last week, and the and the people were sitting in the room, and then one of them their faces was contorting.

And I said, Man, you've got bitterness.

There's bitterness in your life.

It's every it's evident.

I have not, I have not.

No, of course not.

You know, you're all you're doing really good.

You know, I'm not sure what's poking its tongue out at me, but it's exciting.

It's ex- isn't it exciting?

You say, oh no, I just go through life and everybody loves me.

When did God leave?

Well, wakey wakey, somehow or other, you're out of the battle.

I don't think Jesus could have a day in the life of his ministry where he said, it's just been awesome, everybody loves me.

You know what I mean?

Especially as getting near the end, Judas comes up, he's got a few coins in his pocket.

Jesus.

It's exciting, though, isn't it?

This is what this is this is it, this is what we're called to.

It's, I mean, come with me, church.

We gotta we just gotta march into battle with the authority that God's given us.

We don't have to get depressed, discouraged, down, overcome, overwhelmed.

We don't have to get depressed, we don't have to give up, we don't have to lay down, we don't have to go to bed for three days and not get out and face the sunshine.

No, you just get up, get up, get a hold of the Lord, and get on with the job that God has given you to do.

He'll give you supernatural strength, strength, he'll open your eyes to the spiritual realm, the ears.

Those with ears to hear what the Spirit is saying, let them hear seven churches of revelation.

That's what the Lord will do.

He'll give you supernatural strength, he'll breathe into your physical body so you can accomplish the mission and the calling that he's placed upon your life.

The devil can't take you out.

Don't be afraid of him.

The devil can't take you out.

And when you're when your mission is complete, God will praise God.

You're ready to go, you're ready to go at that moment.

And uh, this is exciting stuff, isn't it, Murray?

So we love the power of his resurrection, but we're not too sure about the fellowship of his suffering.

But I want to tell you that when you understand, when you understand the way God comes to you in those dark times, the difficult times, and you understand that is the place of divine transformation.

That's the place where God breaks a heart that needs to be broken, removes the power of other spiritual forces that have infiltrated into your life.

That's the place where it's just you and him alone, and you reconnect with him.

You know, you put your hand in his hand, you put your heart in his heart, you put your faith in him and his word and everything that he said, and then you get up and you go on to accomplish all the things that God has given you to do.

Yeah, give the hand give the Lord a hand and a blessing.

And uh I think I'm I'm gonna I could preach forever.

You know what preachers are like, and uh we can go on and on and on and on.

But um, that's that were the sort of the two messages put together that I felt the Lord wanted me to share with you.

And um, you know, I I believe if we lay hold of the things of the Holy Spirit, then look out Raratonga.

This island's never gonna be the same.

This island's never gonna be the same.

There's enough people in here this morning to make a huge impact on the island, and and and you know, like um religion's got a bit of a stronghold in Raratonga.

I'm not trying to offend, but it had you you know that, eh?

Religion's got a stronghold.

And they dress up for church on Sunday and live like the devil during the week, you know.

And see, that's that's that's part of what God wants to bring down.

He wants to bring down the religious spirit that is deceiving.

Some of these people are your family, that the enemy is deceiving, and they think they're gonna be alright.

But deception comes in.

Not we're not to be weird and super spiritual and strange about them, but we do have to love them and give them the message.

There's another way to live, and it's it's living in relationship with the Holy Spirit, it's living a spiritual life, powerful life with God, a life-changing life.

So let's stand together.

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