Sunday sermon by Pastor Rajesh Mathew, 1 August 2021

The number 8 signifies new beginnings in the Bible. May the Holy Spirit release new beginnings in your life. Declare that this 8th month is a month of new beginnings and God will do something new in my life.

2 kings 7:3- 3 Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die?

• In this verse, the lepers are stating-- why should we sit here until we die! Motion means movement.

It is not sufficient to initiate movement, desire movement but movement needs to be initiated.

• There needs to be a motivation or action to initiate this. Motion has to be initiated. You need to move forward. In this verse we see that if there is no movement, there is death. All of you who are dying, need to receive life from the Holy Spirit!

HOW DO YOU INITIATE THIS?

1. SPEAK TO YOURSELF AND SPEAK TO ONE ANOTHER

• The scripture says that the four leprous men said one to another. People will think you are mad if you speak to yourself. The best message you can hear is the message that you speak to yourself. It is not pastor Rajesh’s message.
• Don’t sit there and keeps saying that no good will happen to me, I will remain sick, there is no way out for me, nothing will change in my life. But today if you open your mouth and declare that God will do something for me, He will pull me out, then God’s power will move on your behalf. Clap your hands and worship him

Luke 15:17 -17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!

• He came to himself and he spoke to himself. He told himself, go back to your father’s house, think about his food and think about how his servants live. Get up and and go back. He must have ordered himself.
• Order yourself, Yes, I will come out of my backsliding; yes, I will get back to God. I will dwell in His house forever.

You can never advice a man who will not advice himself.

• Unless one realizes that they got a problem, that person cannot find a solution. You have to admit first of all, that you have a problem. God won’t invade into your life to solve your problem; the Holy Spirit is a gentleman.

You have to tell yourself, I cannot be sitting with this issue, I cannot go on like this, my finances are not optimal.

• The blind man sat there are called unto Jesus. Then the Lord called back to him and asked him what do you want Me to do for you? People might say, did not God already know what he wanted! But God wanted to check his faith. God was measuring his faith.
• If I were the blind man, I would have given the Lord a big list. He could have asked many things- I need some money in my bank account, I want to marry a beautiful girl, I want a change in my social status, I want a child soon esp. since I am old. Jesus was giving him a blank cheque.

Jesus is giving a blank cheque to someone who is praying this morning, if you want only eye sight, then you will get only that. But if you want al ALL-ROUND recovery, He is able to give it to you. God “come by Lord and bless me in every area of my life”

• Beyond your eye sight, what else do you need? Why don’t you ask the Lord, ‘change me into a person who will bless nations, who will lend to cities!’

One man of God said, “two people were praying in a church. One was crying aloud, ‘Lord give me money to pay school fees. The other guy who was a businessman, prayed gently to the Lord, please add 10 crore rupees this month for my business.” Both of them were from the same church. The guy who needed 2000 rupees was screaming all his heart and praying but the other guy had faith for 10 crores. he Just nudged God gently in prayer asking for 10 crores! When this businessman heard the other guy vehemently praying, he told him, why are you screaming for 2000 Rs. I will give you that money; don’t bother asking God for it.

We think that we are stretching God by asking Him for too much. You can never stretch God, the one who created the heavens and the earth!

Open your mouth and ask Him what you want. ‘Lord, increase and enlarge my mind and my thoughts. Not to be a small community but a woman of God who will be used across nations to bring cities and people unto You.’

2. FOUR LEPROUS MEN

• In the Bible, number 1 signifies unity. God, the father, Son and the Holy Spirit; number 2 signifies witness; number 3 signifies perfection or completion and number 4 signifies Balance. We need to have an awareness that everything that you need spiritually, emotionally, physically and financially is there within you.
• Recently I understood that God doesn’t give new gifts or talents. It is all packaged and placed inside of you. When you received the Holy Spirit, you have received all that God has got for you. And when you pray, what has been placed within you only gets activated. May God change your perspective and open your eyes to see what he has kept for you.
• Hagar cried to the Lord for her son. God opened her eyes to see the well. The well was already there. She only had to see it. God will open your eyes to see what He has kept for you and your children.

God has retired. God is not working. He worked during creation, Genesis 2 talks about God resting after all the work. I am saying this honourably.

• There is a structure within what God created. There is an academic sequence and order in what He has already placed.
• For example, the Word says, ‘If you believe, confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you are saved. This is the system.’ If we pray for healing, 1 Peter 2:24 says by His stripes you were healed. Past tense. When Jesus died on the Cross of Calvary, your healing was purchased right back then. That system was put in place through the Cross.
• You need to activate that structure. He is Immanuel. Don’t scream and cry asking Him to come down into your situation! He is already there.

Archbishop Benson Raazi lived in Benin city in Nigeria, he is one of my heroes of faith. When he was a minster that city, there was a plan to hold a conference of the black magicians. This man of God said, ‘no, it won’t happen’. The leader of this black magician group said from Paris that even God wouldn’t be able to stop the conference from happening. When the press asked Bishop Raazi about this statement, he said ‘there is no need for bringing God into this. It is enough if I said it!’ it has been 40 years and that conference has still not happened.

• When the prophets of God speak, there is nothing beyond that! Today as a Man of God, I cancel every bondage and every plan of the enemy operating against your life. Every Blackmagic power be broken. There is dominion for you in the name of Jesus.
• In certain difficult situations that have been stubbornly residing on your life, there is a structure. That is fast and pray and that situation has to change!

Suppose a child goes to college and graduates go to university. That university was already there. It wasn’t built only after the student finished college! That structure was there and when the student follows the requirements of the structure, studies well, writes exams, passes exams, pays fees, only then she gets entry into that university.

• Similarly, God has kept a structure. Even within a ministry there is a structure. In your life, if you need to move forward, you need to realize the structure. If a church has to grow, God has kept pastors, teachers, apostles, prophets and all are needed for the church to grow. If you keep sitting alone and saying I have a relationship with God, and don’t need anybody else, you will not grow into Jesus.

The Psalmist says, “Let all that is within me, bless is Holy Name”. That means there something is already there within you! With that you worship Him.

• God has placed within you a plan, a university, a business, a building, a ministry for tribal people, an orphanage, God has placed something inside of you. This morning praise HIM and bless him. Then it gets activated.

If you realize that you are carrying something inside of you, you will be careful how you carry yourself.

• You won’t go around talking with everybody about everything. You realize you are VIP to God. You realize you are important and valued by God. You know there is something inside of you. You live with a different mindset.
• Paul was stoned by people, still he went forward. He was filled only with thoughts about how he will plant churches in Thessalonica, Ephesus, Corinthians! He knew he was an apostle of Christ. May that realization dawn on you.

You must live with a sense of value and importance. It comes from knowing who you are.

• Can a doctor ask a mechanic about treatment recommendations? Will that happen if that is the case? When you know what is inside of you, you are very careful who you will speak with and what you will speak. A Carpenter doesn’t ask a doctor how to make a stool! The doctor has no clue.
• If you sit in prayer and call on His name, that is where God will move.

Don’t sit with people who know nothing about your calling and spirituality and discuss life issues.

3. HAVE THE RIGHT COMPANY

• If you want forward movement, you need the right company. Wrong relationships can stop you from reaching your destiny in the Lord. Relationship/ friendship/ courtship means two people/friends in the same ship. Related in the same ship …all going to the same place. Ship is meant for taking you to your destination.

Your future is as important as who you relate with today.

• Today is friendship day. Friendship should be by choice. Select your friends with much prayer; select your friends who will look like your future. Choose a friend who is going somewhere. Choose a friend who will add on to your life (I am not talking about money here); friends who will add sound advice, counsel, encouragement.
• Jonah in the Old Testament, got into the boat. He was in the wrong way. The boat he got into was going another route. No one is wrong on their own. If your friend is not headed in the same destination as you are, then that friendship is wrong, but that person may not be wrong or bad. But your destination in the Lord is most important. Not that the person is bad but just that it will not take you to the same place.

Select your friends with much prayer; select your friends who will look like your future. Choose a friend who is going somewhere.

• If you want to walk in the destiny that god has for you, you stand with the church. • If you need to manage your friends, then there is something wrong. If you are always looking to patch up friendships and relationships, then there is something wrong.

One of my spiritual children once said to me—earlier I used to spend a lot of time with you but now I hardly get that chance. You are very busy. Then I told this person, its not all that… it’s just that you have your own plans now. The day you look to the Lord and want to connect with the anointing to serve Him as per the vision God has, automatically things will flow between you and me. But if that doesn’t happen, how many ever masala dosas or pani pooris we may eat together, we just cannot connect. That flow will never happen.

The right person is the one who will bring out the best out of you. Somebody who will say, ‘listen you can do it’. People who are your morale boosters.

Everything in life in obtainable.

If your friends don’t believe in you, he is not a friend.

The enemy of a dreamer is a non-dreamer.

• Lord, remove every friend that is not given to me by You. Let every relationship and friendship that is not by You, leave my life.
• Some of us are busy looking for friends. We are happy that 4000 friends on WhatsApp. Let’s see how many of these will come to your rescue to pay off your loans!!

Once a man of God said at one time people used to believe that poverty is a sign of spirituality. This pastor bought a car. People in his church thought that he became very worldly. One day during heavy rains, a church goer asked for a ride in that car and the pastor told him, “watch out! If you et into my car, you might just become worldlier or you may backslide. It is more spiritual for you to get wet and walk in the rain back home!”

Your best friend forever is Jesus in your life. He wants the best for you.

In real friendship you don’t have to impress anybody. They will accept you the way you are. May God bless you with genuine friends. If you have to force something out of somebody, it is not a gift and that relationship is not going to bless you.

4. LIFE IS BEYOND BREATHING.

• The lepers said, why sit here until we die? Some of you have roots on your church seats you have just been sitting there for so long! If you sit like that without any movement in your life, you will die spiritually.
• Life is about making an impact. If you sit on the same spot, your impact won’t last long. Lack of impact is sponsored by just sitting (doing nothing).
• However, you need to do what God wants you to. People who have this desire, will provoke motion. They will surrender to God.

5. FOUR LEPERS

Leprosy is an affliction. Leprous people cannot make an impact in their life. If you are afflicted you cannot move forward.

Psalm 132:1- Lord, remember David And all his afflictions;

Isaiah 48:10- Lord you have tested me in the furnace of affliction.

Psalm 34:18-19- Many are the afflictions of the righteous. But he Lord delivers him from them all. Affliction is

A disease Poverty Enemy’s tool to kill your speed Rejection

• You cannot understand how that affliction came into your life. The devil wants you to just sit and die. Let this affliction be cut out of my life, in Jesus name,

Rejection- Lepers were made to sit outside the city. You can’t hide your leprosy. People know you have that issue. People know you are an alcohol. They can all see your half formed fingers and nose and ears. They are cast out of the city.

Rejection is also an affliction. It tells you that you are a misfit to the community.

• Many people are not be able to adjust to your family life. The devil is at work and he is the one making you restless and stops you from uniting with each other and going forward.

2 kings 5:1-2- Now Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great and honorable man in the eyes of his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Syria. He was also a mighty man of valor, but a leper. 2 And the Syrians had gone out on[a] raids, and had brought back captive a young girl from the land of Israel. She [b]waited on Naaman’s wife.

• It talks about Namaan, a Syrian commander who had great victories BUT he was leprous. Some of our circumstances are like that--- people ask, “How is business?” we say, “All good BUT…” “how is this girl for a bride?” “She is good BUT…”

God intends that your life should be a WOW for others.

• Instead, we are in a situation where we have to explain, that means that there is a leprosy somewhere. Bank did not give us loan or pastor did not help etc. we try to find such excuses for our situations.
• Lord, set me free from my afflictions. I want to be available for You, I want to glorify You and I want to experience Your blessing in my life.

Exodus 3:7- 7 And the Lord said: “I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their [a]sorrows.

• Their condition was that of Affliction. Because of the taskmaster (the one who brought the afflictions). The devil initiates the affliction and your condition is that of struggle and the fruit is crying, weeping and tears and you are unable to move, you are only hoping against all hope. You are in a prison. A prisoner cannot travel or go on journeys, he can only see dreams.
• Abraham said to the Lord, is Eleazer my descendant? All his dreams and aspirations left him (genesis 15) because he was old and had no children.
• Affliction will cause delay, disease. When all this is operating in your life, you can’t move forward.
• The lepers realized that they don’t need to die.

Because Jesus died for you on the Cross, you don’t need to die in your afflictions.

• God said to prophet Elijah, “no you can’t die. You need to anoint somebody”. God says I have kept something ahead of you. In Christ you don’t die!

2 kings 7:3- 3 Now there were four leprous men at the entrance of the gate; and they said to one another, “Why are we sitting here until we die?

• If you have to MOVE FORWARD, YOU have to deal with the gate. Deal with the powers of the gate, as per demonology. In the Old Testament, the elders took decisions at the city gates. That is the place where laws are decided and declarations are established. The powers of the gates are those that do not allow you to make decisions

Genesis 22:17- 17 blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.

• God tells Abraham, I will bless you and make you rich. And make your descendants as the stars in the sky. Your seed shall possess the gate of the enemies. Every great man has a gateman standing. This gateman stops you from becoming you great.

Psalms 24:7-10- Lift up your heads, O you gates! And be lifted up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. 8 Who is this King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, The Lord mighty in battle. 9 Lift up your heads, O you gates! Lift up, you everlasting doors! And the King of glory shall come in. 10 Who is this King of glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King of glory. Selah

• The King has to go through the gates. The power of the gate asks “who is this king of glory” and we declare that it is the Lord Jesus. He who alone has victory over the demons and principalities. • There are principalities that will question you when you are about to go through the gates. You can hear voice that will say “why do you need to move?”
• Acts 12:10- 10 When they were past the first and the second guard posts, they came to the iron gate that leads to the city, which opened to them of his own accord; and they went out and went down one street, and immediately the angel departed from him.
• They came to the iron gate that led into the city. The gate opened on his own accord. There is a person there at the iron gate. This is a personification- a darkness.
• People will say discouragingly “none of you went to Canada, neither will you”. “Your grandfather failed at every business, you don’t do it too”. Those are the devils’ voices.
• Say” no, I am more than a conqueror through Jesu Christ. In Jesus Name I will go forward”. Proverbs 22:22- Do not rob the poor because he is poor, Nor oppress the afflicted at the gate;• There is a power that will oppress you at the gate.

Proverbs 17:19- The one who loves a quarrel loves transgression; whoever builds his gate high seeks destruction.

11 Samuel 15:2- 4- 2 Now Absalom would rise early and stand beside the way to the gate. So it was, whenever anyone who had a lawsuit[a] came to the king for a decision, that Absalom would call to him and say, “What city are you from?” And he would say, “Your servant is from such and such a tribe of Israel.” 3 Then Absalom would say to him, “Look, your [b]case is good and right; but there is no [c]deputy of the king to hear you.” 4 Moreover Absalom would say, “Oh, that I were made judge in the land, and everyone who has any suit or cause would come to me; then I would give him justice.” And so it was, whenever anyone came near to bow down to him, that he would put out his hand and take him and kiss him.

• Usually even kings used to take decisions ta the gate. Absalom stole the heart of the people at the gate. People come to meet pastor but he is stopped from doing so craftily by others. • Absalom says, “you are right but the king is not seeing you”. Just like how people say, Pastor doesn’t have the time you can’t let him on the phone!

There is craftiness at the gate. Let that break in Jesus name.

• Absalom sounds so spiritual here. He does so much hard work just to draw people away from David to himself!

Read verse 5 in MSG Bible- Whenever someone would treat him with special honor, he’d shrug it off and treat him like an equal, making him feel important. Absalom did this to everyone who came to do business with the king and stole the hearts of everyone in Israel.

• Absalom did this to everyone. One version uses the word respect. He did not accept respect just under the pretense of bringing people close to him. It is a crafty spirit. It will fool you and craftily take you away from God and the Man of God. Let that be broken in Jesus Name.

Romans 13:7- 6-7 That’s also why you pay taxes—so that an orderly way of life can be maintained. Fulfill your obligations as a citizen. Pay your taxes, pay your bills, respect your leaders.

• Give respect where respect is due. Real humility will accept respect. I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

You provoke motion by forcefully saying I am going to get up from the gate.

• People have limited us. They have placed us outside. But man-made limitations must be broken and move forward. Only the law of God must be followed. Some of you are going to go forward. He is giving you discretion and discernment to understand the powers of the gate. • Activate the grace of god and activate the gift of the Holy Spirit.