Sermon on 29 November 2020 by Ps Caleb
When Circuit Breaker started, I decided to do a teaching series and there was a lockdown in many of the countries One of the topic we talked about was on anointing but in the first few months, nothing much happened because God must have a change in us before there can be the infilling.
There is a demonic stronghold that is preventing all of the anointing and blessings from flowing through in our lives and we can read that in Ephesians. When people become too “religious” and engage in some of the pagan practices, it is keeping them in bondage and this is preventing the anointing from coming to the community. God gave me the assignment to take Woodlands for Christ and so I started doing my prayer walk around the area. As I was walking, God gave me the new mission to take it street by street and when I seek God and told God that I need help, I got 3 brothers volunteer to help me with this and now we are doing prayer walk at the area. We need to go about and declare about the goodness and greatness of God against the spirits in the community but today, not many people are doing it that’s why the anointing is so little. The bible says that we are called to proclaim. In my prayer walk, one of the things we do is proclaiming the goodness of God in words because it is the anointing that breaks the yoke.
It is also the believers who have the authority to stop the enemy from destroying people. The church has this authority to stop the devil. In Zechariah Chapter 4 when they were rebuilding the temple, God said its not by might or by power but by my spirit that the temple can be rebuilt. We cannot do the work of God with our own knowledge or experience. In my 24 years of church planting, the strategies are always different for every church because God’s plan is different so we must hear and seek the spirit of God so that God may direct us and we will follow. We must depend on the Holy Spirit to do the work of God. The power and anointing from the Holy Spirit will give us this ability to do what we need to do for God. But why is the anointing not flowing down and bubbling in our spirit?
When we look at the word of God, we get excited with what’s happening in the early church and what God is doing but we stop there. We should continue and say God whatever you did in the early church, do it here in today for our lives. We have stopped asking God that is why the anointing is not flowing and is a problem for Christians today. All who are seeking God for the lost souls to be saved will be empowered by the Holy Spirit because we are heading towards a major event that God had promised but has yet to take place. The major event is in Joel 2:28 which states that in the last days, God is going to pour His spirit on all men and that the sons and daughters will prophesy and that whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. There is going to be a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit and people will begin to feel guilty because the Holy Spirit will convict us of sin, righteousness and condemnation. God says that the spirit of God will pour upon all mankind not for a season but just for a short moment of time.
If the believers are not ready to cast their nets, they will miss the opportunity. People will be confused and feel lost when the Holy Spirit fills them so when this happens, we should be ready to prophesy and speak forth so that others will see the truth and the truth will set them free. God is now preparing the church for this day. In Acts 2, the Holy Spirit came in the day of Pentecost but only 120 of them were there and they were all Jews from Israel. Hence, whatever happened in Acts 2 is not what Joel had prophesy because Joel said that all mankind will experience it so it is coming and we need to prepare ourselves as believers. We need to root ourselves in the word of God and to be informed of the ministry gifts and the spiritual gifts. We need to be involved and let God train us to know how to release the spirit of God. Believers must be ready to preach the word so that we can save souls when the day comes. This word is the word that the spirit of God will put in our heart.
When Pharaoh had a dream that was troubling, nobody could interpret it and he was angry. But Joseph, a man of God who is a believer and worshipper of Yahweh, he received the gift of dream interpretation and he proclaimed it. By him proclaiming, it brought protection and healing for the nation. Wisdom was also given to Joseph to declare what God was going to do and that promoted him to become the Prime Minister. This is similar for Daniel when he interpreted Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.
This is not a one-off thing. In the old testament, only the priest, the prophet and the king receive the anointing and only some of them had pre-anointing like Samuel. The priest is to minister to the people of God to bring the presence of God to the people. The prophet is to receive the word of God and to declare to the nation. The king is to exercise the authority of God to bring peace, prosperity and safety for the people. In the new covenant, every believer of Christ have received that position to function as a priest, prophet and king. We have this 3 in 1 call in us. This means that we are set apart to God as a servant of God to minister to him through prayer and intercession for the people. When we hear God’s word, we become the prophet to declare the word of God to the people. In declaring the word of God, there may be spiritual forces of darkness to prevent the word from being proclaimed. Here comes the authority of the King to bind these spirits so that they will not hinder others from receiving the word. In the Kingdom of God, we are servants of God as priests, prophets and kings. The church as a whole is to function as this 3 roles and we have been given the anointing in Christ Jesus for us to function in these roles.
We need to go to Jesus to receive the authority because in Isaiah 61which says that the spirit of the Sovereign God is now upon me for He has anointing me to preach the word and to proclaim the word of God. Jesus also quoted this in Luke 4 and He was referring to Himself that the spirit of God was upon Jesus to anoint Him to preach and to heal the broken-hearted. The anointing is to continue to do the work of Jesus, to empower us to continue to serve. In Matthew, Jesus started preaching about the Kingdom of God and demonstrated the power through the healing of others. In the book of Acts, the early churches were demonstrating the power of the Kingdom of God through the anointing and empowerment of the Holy Spirit and healing was taking place to confirm the word of God.
As a last day church, how can we be lesser than the early day church. We will receive double portion of anointing unlike the early day church because that’s what the Holy Spirit wants to do. In the last day, the anointing is not upon just the church but the spirit of God will come upon all mankind and we need to preach the gospel to them. This is when the spirit of God will stir in us to declare about the power of God. We need to hence move with even more anointing. But are we experiencing it? Not yet. What is hindering us from moving with the anointing that we already have?
One reason is we have forgotten our calling. We have forgotten who we are. 1 Peter 2:9 states we are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. In the old testament, the priest must enter the tabernacle only with the garment then they have access to the tabernacle. It is required that they stay holy while they are wearing the garment. All of us are priest and we are to draw near to God. As priest and believers, are we drawing near to God wilfully and intentionally? That is the problem because we are not drawing near to God. People can come to church on a Sunday and they do not give God the top most importance but they put other things like appointments with others as more important. God expects us to draw near, to come to church to spend time with God. That is why we do not experience the anointing and we are not drawing near with the same excitement like David because we have lost the joy of the Lord in our lives. We need to draw near because the anointing is in Christ Jesus so we need to go to Jesus because the anointing is in Jesus Christ and we have access to the anointing in Hebrews 4:16. We can come boldly to the throne of God because of the blood of Jesus. Acts 10:38 shows how God anointed Jesus to cast out the demons and to heal which is what the churches are supposed to do today because we need to continue the work of Jesus. As priests, we need to draw near.
The priest garment must be pure and white linen and it cannot be stained. This will tell us what kind of things we can do and where we can go because we are wearing the priestly garment. There are some students who smoke while they are even in their school uniform. While wearing the uniform, they are representing the school and an organisation that stands for something. By smoking, they are belittling and mocking and slandering what the organization stands for. We are standing for and representing the Kingdom of God. We represent it through the priestly garment that we are wearing but most of us are not conscious and we do not remember this. Are we conscious that we are representing the Kingdom of God? As such, word of God says that we need to remain Holy and we are set apart to be exclusively used for God’s purpose. Do we recognize this? The garment we are wearing reminds us that we have been anointed by oil and have been set apart as Holy unto God.
So first, draw near. In James 4:8, Jesus said draw near to God and He will draw near to you. God is here to release the anointing and the revelation. We are also not conscious we are wearing the garment. We must start meditating and recognise that we are priests of God and this garment tells us that we need to walk and live as Holy for God and only with the help of the Holy Spirit we can lead a holy life. Many people have forgotten this. Only when we start functioning as a priest by worshipping God and dwelling in His presence and by praying for the people that the Lord will speak to us. The anointing of the Lord is precious so it is only given and revealed to those who are interested and have the desire to save souls. The anointing that comes upon us will give us the ability and revelations to speak the message of God.
How many of us are ready for Joel 2 events to cast our nets and to prophesy for them? It is time for us to be ready so we need to draw near and live and walk in holiness, to cultivate holiness in our lives. We need to be careful of the things we do and the people we mix with because these can contaminate us because we are Holy so let us never forget that. Allow the Holy Spirit to lead us and He will prepare us and direct us of what He wants us to do in the last days.
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