LESSONS FROM 70 YEARS OF MINISTRY: ‘WHAT I HAVE RECEIVED I PASSED ON TO YOU AS OF FIRST IMPORTANCE.’ (PART 6) AVAILABLE ON ITUNES, SPOTIFY, GOOGLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE.
It is only through testings and trials that we learn who God is and what He can do. If we never had a problem, we would never know what faith in God could do. We all pray more when we are in distress; yet it is through difficulties we learn to trust God, to believe for miracles. God will use every difficulty to refine us, so that we become the person He can use for His Glory. The Bible says we are to be truly glad, to rejoice in our trials, because the testing of our faith, which is more precious than gold, may be found to praise, honour, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6-7).
If from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find Him, if thou seek Him with all thy heart and with all thy soul. When thou art in tribulation, and all these things are come upon thee, even in the latter days, if thou turn to the Lord thy God, and shalt be obedient unto His voice; (For the Lord thy God is a merciful God;) He will not forsake thee, neither destroy thee, nor forget the covenant of thy fathers which He sware unto them. (Deuteronomy 4:29-31, KJV)
Looking back, 2003 was without question the hardest year of my life! It began with the diagnosis of my lung cancer in the January. Then after the miraculous healing in February, by March the schedule of broadcasting the crusades live on TV precipitated an enormous financial crisis. It felt like I went through a whole lifetime in just one year, but through it all, God proved to be so powerful and worked so miraculously, it seemed as though I had started a whole new life. Yet I’m still only on the edge of the power God is about to manifest!
I will not drive them out from before you in one year, lest the land become desolate and the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased, and you inherit the land. (Exodus 23:29, NKJV)
I don’t preach an easy Gospel. Yes, I preach the Gospel, about the power and the glory of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God! But in Deuteronomy 4, Moses warned the people first they must go in and possess the Promised Land, but then (verses 26-27), once they were in, he said, ‘You’re going to go through difficulty and trial.’ When I preach the Gospel, I am a realist. I do not tell people that coming to Christ is suddenly an end to all their problems, everything will be transformed, living on cloud nine, twanging a harp! Let’s be realistic: the church is called into battle to fight for the Kingdom! Yes, me as an evangelist winning people for Christ, but also you, like me, fighting for those things which are our right to possess, like healing and deliverance. We’re at war with an enemy who is fighting to prevent us possessing. I hate the devil, and I fight him by demonstrating the power of God. You must fight him, not allow him to stop you receiving. Some look to the church for ceremony, for a formula, for peace, but I find God most, not in the calm, but in the reality of my life. I discovered a long time ago that the most important thing which creates character is not what happens to us so much as our reaction.
In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (John 16:33, NKJV)
Moses encourages the people in verse 29, ‘If from where you are… you will seek the Lord your God, you will find Him, if you seek Him with all your heart.’ So, in the midst of every distress, fear, want, even sickness - whatever situation you are in - there you will find God. So often we are told that if you want to find God, you’ve got to be ‘holy’, to give up everything, separate yourself, shut yourself up like in a monastery. No, the reality is that spirituality is not isolating yourself, not trying to be some kind of ‘holy’ person - it is you dealing with God right where you are. If you want to meet with God, you don’t have to wait until you have done this or that. I would never have become an evangelist, never seen a miracle of healing, if God had waited until I was perfect before He answered my prayers. I call on God, He deals with me where I am. That’s why I was healed. Not because I was ‘holy’. What God looks at are the deep desires of your heart.
How often do I pray? How regularly do I read the Bible?
I was once asked, ‘How many hours a day do you pray? How much do you read the Bible?’ The truth is, there are some days when I hardly pray, because I am tired, exhausted, I’m travelling. If I’m coming from Siberia, there are 36 hours in my day! Even the young men find it difficult to keep up with my punishing travelling/preaching schedule. Yes, believe me, when I’m in a crisis, I do fast and pray! But in some crises when I’m travelling and ministering, I just can’t fast - but God is right there in my crisis. We’ve got to search for God and find Him right where we are!
The night seasons of life
I will bless the LORD who has given me counsel; My heart also instructs me in the night seasons. (Psalm 16:7, NKJV)
By my bed I keep my ‘praying’ Bible, where God talks to me and I talk to God (this is just a Bible which I find easy to read, and where I mark Scriptures which speak to me). When I had the cancer I would wake up troubled in the night, pick up my praying Bible, and God would speak to me, and comfort me, and I would go back to sleep. I used to say, ‘If You’ve finished with me, just tell me. But if You have a whole new life in front of me and want me to get back out there in Russia, with a new power and a new anointing, to see things I’ve never seen before, then I want You to answer me and heal me.’ And He did!
We have a covenant relationship with God!
That is why He is the one who mediates a new covenant between God and people, so that all who are called can receive the eternal inheritance God has promised them. For Christ died to set them free from the penalty of the sins they had committed under that first covenant. (Hebrews 9:15, NLT)
We have a covenant relationship with God. It is not simply based on our faith, which is weak and can fail, but a covenant which cannot fail or be broken. When you come to Christ, you enter into a covenant relationship with God, signed and sealed by the blood of Christ. God separates you from the guilt and the power of sin. You are delivered from Satan and all his works - not when you get to heaven, but down here, in your crisis, in your distress, in all the trouble the devil puts upon you. Whoever you are, you are delivered by the power of the blood of Christ: the Scripture teaches, Whosoever will call upon the Name of the Lord will be saved. The sacrifice of Christ is an unbreakable covenant to defeat the power of the devil in your life.
Yes, we make mistakes, we fail, we fall. But He cannot fail us. The Bible reminds us that God came to deliver the sinner, not the righteous. None of us can enter the Kingdom of God through our own righteousness, so we cannot ‘earn’ the answers to prayer through our ‘holiness’. God did not heal my cancer because of my ‘holiness’, but because He is God!
In those days you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from God’s people, Israel, and you did not know the promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope. But now you belong to Christ Jesus. Though you once were far away from God, now you have been brought near to him because of the blood of Christ. (Ephesians 2:12-13, NLT)
This is what Moses was saying to the people: don’t look at the troubles, at the difficulties, at your sickness, your poverty. Look at God and you’ll find Him, if you do it with all your heart.
Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. (Psalm 4:1, KJV)
‘It is well with my soul’ used by kind permission www.vinesong.com