January 2012 – Sons of Issachar

37. Redeemed from the Curse

Mike Parsons –

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
Because the LORD has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives
And freedom to prisoners;
To proclaim the favourable year
of the LORD (Isa 61:1-2a).

God wants to provide for us financially, because the scale of the task facing the church in these days is so far beyond anything we could provide for naturally out of our own resources.

This scripture in Isaiah is one that you will find we quote a lot at Freedom. It is one of the foundational scriptures for us as a church. It sums up the heart of what we believe God has called us to do in our community. And where it mentions the ‘favourable year of the Lord’, that was the Year of Jubilee, the year in which all debts were to be cancelled, everyone was to receive back their ancestral inheritance, and all property that had been lost was to be restored.

God is saying that we are living in the Year of Jubilee; we can have restored to us what has been lost or stolen, and all debts are being cancelled (we have to understand that if we are in debt, we are under the curse; and if you read Deuteronomy 28, you will see that any kind of poverty is actually a curse).

Therefore you shall serve your enemies whom the LORD will send against you, in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, and in the lack of all things; and He will put an iron yoke on your neck until He has destroyed you (Deut 28:48).

In John 10:10 Jesus describes our enemy the devil as a thief, a killer and a destroyer. But,

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us – for it is written, “cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree” – in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. (Gal 3:13-14).

So the good news is this: we have been redeemed from the curse.

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36. Blessing the Whole Earth

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Mike Parsons –

There is a level of resources that the church currently does not have but is going to need in order to accomplish what God intends in these last days. This is no surprise to Him, and He has planned for it in advance, so that throughout scripture we can find His promises of a wealth transfer – of financial resources coming to His people in these last days, out of the world and into the kingdom.

Promises

We looked at some of those promises last time, and I encourage you to go over them again and again, until you grasp the magnitude of what God is planning. Those promises are there for us to begin to seize upon, and pray into, and to see them manifest. But to help us, one thing we have noticed before is that for every promise yet to be fulfilled in its fullness, God has given us forerunners, examples, little tasters if you will, that have already happened. So before we go any further in this post, let us look at some of those examples in the Bible, of wealth transfers that have already taken place.

The first of those is Israel coming out of Egypt. ‘I will grant this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall be that when you go, you will not go empty-handed… Thus you will plunder the Egyptians’ (Ex 3:21-22). You can read about it there (and in Exodus 12): they went out with all the gold and all the treasure of Egypt.

Secondly, Israel inherited the promised land. Maybe you have never seen this as a wealth transfer, but that is what it was. They didn’t go in to a land that was empty: it was full of all sorts of good things. ‘I gave you a land on which you had not laboured, and cities which you had not built, and you have lived in them; you are eating of vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant’ (Josh 24:13). We need to realise that God has a provision for us which has nothing to do with how much we can get for ourselves.

Again, maybe you have read the story where four lepers walked into the camp of the Assyrians – they were outcasts and desperate men – and yet they collected all the wealth of the Assyrian army, because God had come and scared the Assyrians, so that they had all run away (2 Kings 7). God can do that for us.

Joseph, as we have seen before, was promoted from the dungeon to the second highest office in the land and was able to administer all the wealth and produce of Egypt.

Covenant

Now Deuteronomy 8:18 says this; But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.

The reason God wants to bless us, to give us an abundance, is so that we can fulfil His covenant, the covenant in which He promised: ‘And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed’. Notice that the covenant is intended to bring the blessing of God, not to one person or even to one people, but to the whole earth. God’s desire is to see every family of the earth blessed, coming under His kingdom power and authority, and becoming part of His family. We are the people through whom He has chosen to accomplish that, and that is why He desires to bless us.

So if you want lots of money in order to have all kinds of nice creature comforts in your life, then you have really missed the point of these promises. The point of this transfer of wealth is to confirm His covenant and to enable His people to fulfil the dreams and visions that He has given them. God does want to bless us, He does want to transfer wealth to us; but we need to be positioned to receive it. We need to be prepared, so that when it comes we will not squander it, but will be ready to put it to proper use.

Over to you:
What dreams and visions has God given to you?
What financial resources would it take for you to accomplish them?
Are you expecting a wealth transfer?
(Please feel free to post your comments below).

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35. The Wealth of the Nations

Mike Parsons
with Jeremy Westcott –

We have begun to glimpse the scale of the task facing the church if we are to reap a harvest of harvesters and train them up effectively in the supernatural. But God has a plan to ensure we have the resources to achieve all that He is asking of us, and part of that plan is that there is going to be a wealth transfer, out of the world, and into the Kingdom of God, into the church (ekklesia). In order to equip the number of harvesters we are expecting to come in, we are seriously going to need extra resources – and on a grand scale. God wants to position us so that we are ready for that wealth transfer. There are plenty of scriptures that promise this, and we will look at some of them:

A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children, and the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous’ (Prov 13:22). Is there anyone righteous reading this? If so, then you can know that wealth is being stored up for you.

For to a person who is good in His sight He has given wisdom and knowledge and joy, while to the sinner He has given the task of gathering and collecting so that he may give to one who is good in God’s sight (Ecc 2:26). If you are good in God’s sight, then what should you expect?

He who increases his wealth by interest and usury gathers it for him who is gracious to the poor. (Prov 28:8). If you know what we do here at the Freedom Centre during the week, you will know that we are gracious to the poor. Therefore we can expect to receive the wealth that is being raised by interest and usury (the world’s financial system, which robs people).

We really need to get hold of these scriptures, meditate upon them, and start expecting to see these promises start to manifest.

Then you will see and be radiant and your heart will thrill and rejoice; because the abundance of the sea will be turned to you, the wealth of the nations will come to you (Isa 60:5). The ‘wealth of the nations’: you can spritualise that if you really want to, but actually it means ‘money’.

Your gates will be open continually. They will not be closed day or night, so that men may bring to you the wealth of the nations (Isa 60:11). That tells me that we need to be open, and ready to receive.

But you will be called the priests of the LORD; you will be spoken of as ministers of our God. You will eat the wealth of nations, and in their riches you will boast (Isa 61:6).

This is a powerful one in Haggai: “I will shake all the nations; and they will come with the wealth of all nations, and I will fill this house with glory,” says the LORD of hosts. “The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine,” declares the LORD of hosts. “The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former,”says the LORD of hosts, “and in this place I will give peace,” declares the LORD of hosts (Hag 2:7-9).

The Lord of the Angel Armies says that the wealth of the nations is going to come to His house when He starts to shake the nations. Who is His house? We are, the church is. And is He starting to shake the nations? We have seen that He is beginning to do just that. This scripture even talks about silver and gold – how much clearer could it be? God is promising financial blessing. And the glory of the latter house (that is the church) will be greater than even the former glory (of Solomon’s Temple).

‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you a future and a hope’ (Jer 29:11). I want you to grasp this for yourself as an individual today. The word ‘prosper’ means to be successful, to increase, and to have more than enough. That is what God’s plan is for you. You do need to position yourself so that you can receive it, and we will look at how we do that.

Beloved, I pray that in all respects you may prosper and be in good health, just as your soul prospers (3 John 1:2). ‘In all respects’. That doesn’t leave anything out – God wants us to prosper in body, soul and spirit.

Remember, we are not talking about having loads of money just for the fun of it. We are talking about having enough resources to be able to do all that God has called us to do, and even more than enough so that out of our abundance we can bless others. There will be degrees of this. You might only need a million pounds to accomplish what God intends for you – there might be some who need billions. There may be some who need 10p, who knows? But whatever the amount, you need to have enough to fulfil God’s will for your life.

We will pick this up again next time, as we look in the Bible at some examples of wealth transfers that have already happened.

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