Set us free from that spirit of poverty.
Holy Spirit, we just invite you to come
in power.
Father, just release your power and set us
free from our spirit of poverty.
I saw the Lord Jesus coming to some
of you who have imprisoned spirits, and your
personal spirit has been sitting alone in a
prison, and the Lord Jesus is coming to
you now, and He's opening the prison door,
and in the name of Jesus, I call
forth your imprisoned spirit to come out and
to live, and to be free, and to
walk in the Spirit of God, and to
experience life in Christ.
Come out and live in Jesus' name.
Some of you have been bowed down in
sorrow and sadness and grieving, and the Lord
Jesus is saying to you, it's time to
put off your grieving clothes and to look
ahead, not behind at what you lost, but
to look ahead at what you are going
to gain in souls for the Kingdom of
God.
For what you have lost is not even
worth comparing to what the Lord is going
to use you for, to gain for His
Kingdom and eternal purposes.
I saw some of you who could not
come into the presence of Jesus because you
can only presence self, and in the name
of Jesus, I speak to your personal spirit
and to the eyes of your spirit, and
I turn you away from presencing self, and
I turn your eyes up to the Lord
of Lord and the King of Kings to
presence Jesus, so that you can behold His
face and be free from self and the
poverty of self.
Father, release your power.
Release your power.
Father, in the name of Jesus, I speak
to the depression and the oppression that has
been bothering some of you for a long
time, and I command it to fall off
of you in His precious name, the name
of Jesus, so that you can be free
to experience joy and the joy of giving
your life away for Him.
So, Lord, come.
Father, I ask that you would release the
spirit of intercession upon the intercessors that you
are raising up here tonight to birth ministers
of mercy and justice, and, Lord, that these
intercessors would be before you for vision, for
strategy, for plan, for your voice, for your
faith as to how you want to move
in our midst and in our churches and
in our cities.
So, release the intercessors, Father, to birth what
must be birthed.
Now, Father, as we look up to you,
I pray that you would open up our
eyes to see what you have for us
tonight to hear what you have for hear
what you have for us to hear.
And, Father, empower our feet to go and
to do and to be obedient unto the
word.
Let your anointing come upon Jackie as she
ministers to us in your name, in Jesus
name.
Amen.
Jackie, would you come forward and would you
welcome her as you would welcome the Lord
himself?
When I saw people in sickness, in bondage,
I was moved with compassion.
I healed them and set them free.
When I saw people like sheep gone astray,
I said, whom could I send?
And my heart is still broken and filled
with compassion.
And who will bring my heart to them?
I have prepared a banquet for you, a
banquet which is not only enough for you,
but also for your family and your friends.
Come, come to my banqueting table.
Come and eat with me.
That's what it says in Isaiah 25.6.
On this mountain, the Lord Almighty will prepare
a feast of rich food for all peoples,
a banquet of aged wine, the best of
meats and the finest wines.
We find that a lot of scripture talks
about food.
That's why the Chinese can identify very well,
though our Hong Kong team thinks that Canadians
eat a lot.
But the Bible talks a lot about food.
And my question is, is it talking about
food?
I mean, are we really going to eat
and drink?
Because these terms are used fully.
They feast on the abundance of your house.
Psalm 36.8. You give them drink from
your river of delights.
Are we talking about spiritual food?
Are we talking about real food?
Tonight, I want to talk about addressing the
spirit of poverty.
And together with this, the question of what
do we actually minister now?
Spiritual stuff or real food?
Now, Hong Kong used to be missionary land.
And we have two kinds of missionaries, or
two kinds of missions in Hong Kong.
And we have on one side, mission groups
that give out rice and noodles and blankets
and so much so that some of those
missions actually forbid their people to talk about
Jesus.
Because it used to be that there was
a term called rice Christian.
That is, people would come for the food.
And so they began to say, well, it's
not fair to make them accept Jesus before
you feed them.
So feed them anyway.
So you have that.
We have a polarism of missions.
On one side, we have those that do
social work and very good work.
On the other hand, we have those that
say the words.
And we had a meeting of a group
of us who were minister with street sleepers.
And we were going around each one of
us and sharing what the different groups were
doing so we could encourage one another.
And some of our people were saying, well,
we make friends with the street sleepers.
And we visit them on Mondays and Tuesdays
and Wednesdays.
And we give out rice boxes.
And we give out blankets.
And we pray with them when they're sick.
And we take them to the doctor.
And we take them to the social welfare.
And we queue up with them to get
registered to get their identity cards and so
on.
And so we went around the circle.
And finally, we came to this a brother
who's from a different group.
And he said, we don't give out blankets.
We don't give out rice boxes.
We just preach the gospel.
What is preaching the gospel to the hungry?
You must ask this question.
Because in God's most mercy, I hope you'll
meet the hungry.
We are the only people in the whole
world that have any answer for the hungry.
And we must ask these questions.
What is preaching the gospel to the hungry?
What is preaching the gospel to the poor?
How do we do it?
In the last two chapters of the Bible,
there's this picture of heaven.
And I often think that it's the place
that all love songs are written about.
And it's a yearning in a man's heart
for this place where everything is all right.
Like the jubilee Gary talked about yesterday.
Like that year when everything comes right.
Debts are forgiven.
And you get to go home.
And you get your home back.
And the family's there.
And slaves are set free.
And all is right.
And in man, there is that yearning for
that place.
And to be with him.
Where there isn't any more poverty.
Where there isn't any more sickness.
Where there's no more crying.
Where there's no more death.
I knew a boy once.
And he he was 13 when I first
knew him.
He lived in the wall city.
And he had no parents.
But the person who was kind of bringing
him up.
He was a kind of step uncle.
Moved to wall city because it was cheap.
And he didn't go to school.
He couldn't afford to go to school.
And so he hung around the streets.
And he soon got to know a bunch
of important looking guys.
And I must say they loved him.
I often think the gangsters love each other
better than we do.
Really.
They called him their brother.
And they let him belong.
And they let him sleep in their place.
And they let him eat their food.
And they gave him protection.
Which was why he joined them.
Because you have to belong to someone you
see.
And then they put him to work.
He was 13 or 14 when he began.
And his job was guarding the girls in
a brothel.
What a terrible way to start your life.
And these girls had been sold into prostitution.
Probably they'd been raped by their boyfriends or
seduced.
And then you're no use.
So they're used and then they will support
the man who raped them.
And they're guarded by these men.
And he was told to beat them if
they tried to run away.
But you know they don't try after a
bit.
Because where would you go?
I don't know who's God.
Which one God's heart would yearn for more.
The little boy who guarded or the little
girls who were being guarded.
But I made friends with him.
It was harder to get at the girls
you see.
Later on we learned that the only way
you could get to the girls was to
pay.
So we would pay for their time in
order to sit with them.
The name of this boy was called Ejai.
And he didn't understand at all when I
was trying to tell him about Jesus.
He didn't understand at all.
And later he got arrested.
And because he was very young, even though
he he had done an adult crime, they
put him in a little boy's prison.
So I went to visit him.
And I tried to share about Jesus.
But how do you do it?
I mean if you haven't known the love
of a mother or a father, the words
they don't mean anything.
So I prayed for him.
And I said God, whatever it is that
you can do, you have the way to
get through to his heart.
Because I don't know how to get through
to somebody who's involved in the sickest business
she could be when he's so young.
And I came back to see him a
week later.
And he looked different.
and I said what happened and he said
he said I had a dream the night
after you left and in my dream he
said I was walking on a mountain I've
heard this dream many times and he said
it was a very beautiful mountain now that's
hard to understand if you're in world city
because in the world city you can't see
anything it's all dark there isn't a gap
between the houses there they built them a
few inches close to each other so no
light can get down you can't see the
sky let alone the mountain but he said
I was I was on a mountain and
it was very beautiful and he said there
was a path on the mountain and I
was walking up and he said there were
beautiful flowers and they smelt very sweet and
he said then a man came and he
was dressed in a long white robe and
he held out his hand to me and
I knew it was Jesus that was 28
years ago when he had that dream I'd
love to say it was the end of
the sad part of his story it wasn't
but what had happened through that dream was
that the yearning in his heart for that
one and the yearning in his heart for
that place was there and he was hooked
in the intervening years he got on heroin
of course and he was in prison many
times and we found him again a few
years back and he came to live with
us and our people prayed for him and
God's mercy he got off drugs just like
everyone else pain-free he didn't really though
understand quite what had happened he thought Jesus
came into the world to make him a
good man and he was a good man
in our houses he knew how to keep
the rules and so he he went through
our program until he got to a certain
stage when he was with a leader that
ran out of patience and when the leader
ran out of patience our guy ran away
it does happen and I was so sad
because I remembered we can't lose this one
we can't lose this one I remember so
long ago God put that hook in his
heart we must go find him but we
didn't know where to find him because he
didn't go to home but it's not that
hard in Hong Kong because it's quite small
place even though there's about 8 million people
it's still a small place so we prayed
and we've got about 12 teams that spend
their life taking care of the the poor
in their streets and in their areas and
one of them found him and he came
back and this time it was different I
don't know why I really don't know why
I don't know why but it was different
somehow this time it wasn't thank God he's
got me off heroin it wasn't thank God
he's done a miracle in my body it
was something to do with understanding his forgiveness
and mercy which is even more powerful and
he's with us now I took him to
Taiwan a couple of weeks ago he's now
on one of our full-time ministry teams
and we've got about a hundred people that
work with us none of them have salaries
he has no salary he's been doing this
for a couple of years and he's so
good and we paid for his ticket and
when we got to Taiwan he was wonderful
and halfway through the trip in Taiwan I
asked him oh by the way have you
got any pocket money I found out he
got no money at all he was on
a ministry trip and he had nothing and
he'd never complained he he'd never asked he
didn't grumble actually of course on ministry trips
you don't need money I don't know whether
you've experienced this but you don't it's sort
of something like um when Jesus sent the
disciples out and uh you know I usually
come back with what I leave with it's
don't need it but anyway there's this man
who's done no school who's been through horrors
when he was so young now very happy
to spend his days with no money no
pocket money no recognition and he spends his
days walking walking up and down buildings visiting
the old people there's a street sleeper they
visit who used to actually worship worship his
own excrement and they you hear these guys
talking about him and they just say oh
what a privilege God has given to us
that we are the ones who are allowed
to show him the sweetness of God's love
and his mercy what a privilege we have
how did this happen I suppose it happened
because he had a glimpse of then and
so he is content because he has had
the then to live now bringing the then
now and how does he do it well
sometimes with real food and sometimes by
praying for people I visited a street sleeper
once and it is very unfair for us
now because we've done this so long that
the kind of street sleepers bush telegraph has
gone all around Hong Kong and you know
there's hardly a street sleeper in the whole
of Hong Kong that hasn't been prayed for
and the majority of them know Jesus I'm
not saying that they're they're all housed yet
but they know Jesus well I visited this
one one day and we'd never met him
before but he'd noticed his friends change and
so when I came to him I said
uh can I pray for you he said
I got this very bad chest pain and
I said I pray for you he said
I don't know if you if it's all
right for you to pray for me because
I'm a Buddhist I said that doesn't matter
I pray for you in Jesus name he
said I don't know if that's all right
because I'm a Buddhist I said it's fine
I can pray for you in Jesus name
you see because Buddha's dead and Jesus is
alive and he said quite right so he
he said what do I have to do
you know as if it's going to be
a punishment and I said nothing you just
close your eyes and Jesus is going to
come well he's already very excited and so
I just put my hand out and I
didn't say anything I was praying all the
prayers inside and I just was praying Lord
would you please come and touch him and
I had my eyes open and I was
watching and after about a minute he began
to smile and he was breathing deeply and
so I said how are you feeling and
he said oh I feel very well in
my chest and I said oh that's because
Jesus was God's son and he could do
things like that because he was God's son
will you believe that and he said yes
and then I prayed silently for another half
minute and he he said I feel very
loose I feel very well and I said
that's because when Jesus was on earth he
was he was down here 2000 years ago
he was always doing things like that and
he knew how you felt sitting here the
man lives under a flyover under an overpass
and and he didn't want you to feel
lonely and dirty and painful so although he
was always healing people he put all your
chest pains and loneliness upon himself when he
died will you believe that and he said
yes and then I said will you believe
he rose again and he said yes of
course he's just walked under the flyover none
of them have a problem with the resurrection
and so I said to him well would
you like to follow him and he said
silly question if he's God of course I
will so I said tell him you'd like
to follow him and please say thank you
very much for for dying for you and
by the way he'll give you a new
language to help you talk to him so
we began to pray in tongues and this
is the easiest time to do this by
the way so he began to pray in
tongues and the whole thing had taken about
two or two and a half minutes or
25 years I don't know and then it
was finished I'd given him the rice box
it was all I had they didn't have
a home for him then we keep renting
new places because because there's so many people
that need a home and they all want
to come and live with us but we
we can't find spaces quickly enough so I
had to leave him there and I said
well I have to leave now but Jesus
will stay with you and he'll never leave
you and you can talk to him in
Chinese and when you don't know how to
say it you can talk to him in
the other language and that was all that
day I could give him but so much
how much was it the rice box how
much was it the prayer or how much
was it that he was jealous or got
off drugs or found houses I don't know
I don't know you see I can't separate
any more what is actual food and what
is spiritual food I don't know and if
you read the gospels you'll find that Jesus
you you couldn't always make out quite what
he was talking about he was obviously interested
in food and on one occasion he he
fed five thousand then he fed four thousand
so he was interested he didn't say well
let's give them some bible verses instead but
on another occasion when his disciples said come
and eat he said I got food you
don't know I want to see
why poverty was in the world because if
you look in this book you'll find the
first two chapters and the last two chapters
are very similar the first two chapters there's
enough for man there's no hunger and all
his provision for intimacy with God all his
provision for relationship all his provision for food
all was met he didn't seem to at
that time need clothes so that wasn't a
problem all his needs were met and we
see that the last two chapters of the
book is the same what happened in between
well in Genesis chapter 3 we see the
curses of this present evil age came upon
man and the reason the curses came was
that man had chosen to worship the other
man tried to find intimacy a different way
than through worshiping God a man trying to
find knowledge and so he listened to the
enemy and then became enslaved to the enemy
and in Genesis 3 this is what the
Lord says would happen to man if he
did not worship God first and obey him
I don't think that it's God who's cursed
man but I think it's a curse that
man has brought upon himself verse 17 cursed
is the ground because of you through painful
toil you will eat of it all the
days of your life by the sweat of
your brow you will eat your food until
you return to the ground since from it
you were taken for dust you are and
to dust you will return today I'm just
going to deal with the male part of
this curse from this time onwards man had
to earn his living in the first two
chapters man was allowed to work for fun
and he could play with the animals and
manage the animals that that was it but
after he had disobeyed God and chose not
to worship him first he bought this curse
upon himself of having to earn his living
by the sweat of his brow and it
has been up until this time by sweat
he would earn and for men by work
they would find their identity instead of in
relationship with their creator they would find their
identity in their work some years ago when
I was exploring this subject I got a
hint of it and this happened through my
own sister and I noticed that my sister
worked very hard she was very bright she
was the cleverest one of the family but
everything went wrong with her life everything I
don't know if you know people like that
but everything went wrong she married a man
who cheated on her and she left him
and she had to bring up two children
and the man was very rich and never
paid her anything so she had to work
and she never had time with her children
and she got one disastrous job after another
I couldn't think how she could walk into
such awful jobs but she was always doing
it and she worked I mean she really
worked hard and and she worked for bosses
who never paid her and then she did
all their housework as well and then she
did extra jobs for them and she ended
up running their businesses and they never paid
her and they cheated her and this happened
time and time again and I began to
think she's under a curse and one
time she was so poor that she decided
that a good job she could get would
be to look after some sick old ladies
because you get paid quite well in Britain
for doing this so she went to live
in the sick old lady's houses and she
could get quite a lot of money doing
this and she rented her house out so
she thought she could make up some income
this way well her tenants never paid rent
and when she went into the town that
she lived she began to see her furniture
in the in the second-hand shops and
so she went to the police and finally
these uh tenants got taken to court and
they were supposed to pay the back rent
they were supposed to vacate the house so
they vacated the house but when she went
in she found they'd smashed everything on purpose
and they never paid the rent because they
were bankrupt and so she was thousands of
pounds out of pocket so she got another
job looking after sick old people and the
same thing happened twice and I thought God
she's obviously under a curse now this is
what it says in Deuteronomy 28 this is
another passage where it lists the blessings of
worshipping and obeying God and then it lists
what will happen if we don't obey God
you will so much verse 38 and harvest
little you'll plant vineyards and not drink the
wine you'll have olive trees but the olives
will drop off locusts will take over all
your trees and crops this was my sister
she worked hard but got nothing in hunger
and thirst in nakedness and dire poverty you
will serve the enemies the Lord sends against
you he will put an iron yoke on
your neck until he has destroyed you much
of the problem that we have when we
are discussing with ourselves how we are to
share our money or our goods much of
the problem that we think that we have
is that we think we have earned what
we've got and it is not true did
you know that in the Philippines one third
of the national wealth comes from women who
serve in other countries as servants in Hong
Kong they are supposed to get a day
off a week in other countries not that
they have no legal rights these are women
who never get to take care of their
own kids and they go to other countries
and look after other people's kids they miss
their own children growing up and they get
bonded to other people's kids for so little
money and they have to send it all
back to Philippines that's how a nation is
managing to her economy by exporting its mothers
and its women and they work and they
work and they work and they work and
what do they get and did you ever
see that cover of time magazine when there
was a little boy on the cover once
and he was four he was a slave
in India and what happens in India is
if you are in debt your children may
be indentured your children may belong to the
person that you're in debt to and so
they start life four years old he never
will eat at his parents house he never
will be with his mommy he never will
go to school at four he's sweeping at
four he is a servant and he works
hard and he gets nothing we think we've
earned what we have whereas in fact all
any of us have earned is death and
if we can look at the beginning of
scripture and if we can look at the
end if we can look to the kingdom
that will come and must start to come
now we see that there is a different
system in the kingdom and this different system
is that there's enough for everyone you don't
have to earn your living anymore we are
free from the results of the curse and
i know hardly anyone who believes it and
most of us who are christians because we
happen to live in this age where we
happen to use sort of bits of paper
and round coins that is called money most
of us serve still a worldly system when
actually we don't need to be under this
system at all and i mean at all
we're as free as jesus was when he
was asked do you give temple tax well
okay the answer is no he's the son
of god so he doesn't have to give
temple tax but because he's the son of
man he will and then he gets his
disciples to fish up a fish and out
comes the temple tax you see he's free
from the world's system even if he lives
in the world system he does not serve
it he is not a slave to it
because he's the king and we who belong
to the king do not have to serve
a system even if we live in it
if we go on to look at the
deuteronomy passage it's clear that these
curses that are foretold for those who are
disobedient or do not worship the lord it
says that they are inherited and it says
this will go on to the third and
the fourth generation so it's clear to see
then that it's possible that children will inherit
their parents disobedience just the same as many
of us have inherited our parents obedience and
i met a very wonderful canadian once his
name is was mark bontane who did a
wonderful work in calcutta in india and he
talked about the law of the harvest for
many of us we enjoy prosperity because our
forefathers of our countries or our cities or
our families did love god and the blessings
are inherited and we forget to thank god
and we think that as british or canadians
or whatever it is we happen to be
we think we should have them so as
blessings are inherited so are curses to the
third and fourth generation and in verse 46
of deuteronomy 28 it says these curses will
be a sign and a wonder to you
and your descendants forever i was amazed to
find in a chapter about poverty as a
result of not following the lord that the
result was to be a sign and wonder
of an awful kind two thessalonians 2 9
says in the coming of the lawless one
who will be in accordance with the work
of satan displayed in defeat miracles signs and
wonders we are living now in an age
where there has never been the poverty that
there is now but worse we're in an
age where we are responsible because we know
about it and we're living in a time
where we can read a newspaper about a
million people who are dying through genocide and
we can watch a tv program and see
that the poor mothers have no milk to
feed the bones that are their babies and
we can look at this and we can
switch channels we can read as no other
generation ever has about the poverty about the
starvation about the floods about the calamities across
the world and we turn our hearts off
because we think what can i do well
we can do we can do we do
have the answer but we will need to
be set free ourselves from the curse of
poverty for we will have no answer for
the poor if we ourselves are not free
from the curse of poverty and there are
many of us who know jesus who are
still living serving the other system let's
see how jesus addressed the curse of poverty
we have a a bunch of people and
we've learned different fashions and ways of praying
and one of the ways of praying that
people like to do quite a lot is
gathering together in groups and shouting and even
sometimes in stadiums to come against the works
of the enemy if this is all that
was needed that's what jesus would have done
but this is what he did he addressed
the curse of poverty by dealing with the
spirit behind the poverty because it was through
man's disobedience that satan was able to bring
sickness to bring poverty to bring shame
and sin into the world and the first
way that jesus addressed the spirit or one
example was the one that i spoke about
this morning when the enemy tempted him and
he said i'll give you all the kingdoms
and the authority and the splendor of this
world if you will worship me and jesus
said in luke 4 8 worship the lord
your god and serve him only we have
found that the first thing we need to
do in working with the poor is worship
it's absolutely key and we find by the
way this is most particularly true when we're
dealing with prostitution i think it's something to
do with idolatry but that's another subject but
if any of you here are working with
women who've been in this shame worship of
creator god who made us for intimacy is
the best way we have found of setting
people free who've tried or been tricked into
finding intimacy in any other way and we
spend lots and lots and lots and lots
of time in worshiping which is what jesus
did first instead of instant ministry instead of
clever ministry tricks i will worship the lord
my god first that will be first one
day in our world city meeting we have
these addicts meetings came in this couple and
they slept in the street with their little
son and their little son was about two
at that time and this couple had been
found by one of our outreach teams our
outreach teams are mainly people like it's either
one i was telling you about who've been
touched by god's mercy and so love to
share mercy and they had heard that there
was a place that you could start again
and a place where there was a home
and so they came into the world city
meeting and we prayed with them and just
like the street sleeper they came to know
jesus and the power of the spirit came
upon them and they spoke in tongues this
is all we do this before the meeting
starts this was all in the five minutes
before the meeting started and then we came
to worship now we don't explain it they
understand it and during the worship the holy
spirit came on another couple who started laughing
and the new couple had their eyes open
like saucers and they were looking at the
laughing couple and i saw them and i
said that's fine enjoy it because the holy
spirit will come and touch you in a
minute and a few minutes later i saw
the the woman lying on the ground weeping
and i said to her later what did
you see and she said while we were
worshiping i had a picture of a man
on a cross and she said i knew
it was jesus and i understood that it
was my sins that put him there and
i could no longer stand and i had
to prostrate myself no man could explain that
to her it was revealed by his spirit
and two days later her husband slipped in
a puddle in the street and died but
at least he went to heaven and she
came to live with us of course and
her son because of course how can you
say to someone jesus loves you and leave
them out in the street when you've got
a room how can you it doesn't mean
anything so she came and god did set
her free from her drug problem and her
poverty that was through worship jesus
gave up his life and we talked about
this morning in galatians 3 13 it says
christ redeemed us from the curse of the
law by becoming a curse for us for
it is written cursed is everyone
who's by
jesus death on the cross we believe that
there is provision there for forgiveness from sins
and we when we pray with people that's
one of the first things we would always
say do you know your sins are forgiven
when people say well i don't know you
say yes your sins are forgiven if you've
asked we we want them to enjoy the
knowledge that they're set free from sin now
we might also do this with people's sicknesses
and i know that we're going to discuss
this and practice this tomorrow we would say
jesus was hung on a tree and with
his stripes we are healed because he bore
our pain and our sicknesses we can be
set free fully then but actually now and
where we proclaim the kingdom we would expect
to see this come at least in part
and we'll go for it now we'll go
for it for forgiveness of sins we'll go
for it for healing the sick why not
freedom from poverty why can't we go for
getting ourselves free from the curse of poverty
that we may bring freedom to those who
are under poverty i'm gonna ask run to
share for a couple of minutes no leave
your paper behind um
i was in hong kong and in this
training this training thing in hong kong which
was like around three months and it's called
a mobile which i was um in what
they call new boy's house which is after
the drug addicts have known jesus and they
go to this house to to just learn
a new life how to start a new
life in jesus and um i just learned
so much from there um just really amazing
how how they changed and and how jesus
changed them and we worship there at least
like twice a day or what we call
worship um but then you know just once
in a while things come up and you'll
be like living with 15 babies who just
started out and they don't know how to
make decisions and and even if they they
don't like just if you can go go
for a walk one time because you got
hang up and it's scheduled to to go
out for a walk they'll get mad at
you and then all they want to do
is to run away because they saw they
know how to do it and you deal
with all that constantly and somehow it's not
just them that just brought out all this
stuff in you that you're thinking okay i'll
try to love them you try you try
your best and yes you try and you
know there you you try to develop relationship
with them and but this you can't write
letters you can't you can't read books and
even you can't choose to do much stuff
there but you just try to be friends
with them even when you go to the
bathroom or taking a shower they might just
kick out to open the door and there
they are you get used to it but
and after a while it's just like they
very easily get irritated and problems arise and
you think oh lord i can't deal with
this anymore i just can't and one time
we have a fight between a helper and
a brother and the brother doesn't like did
not like the way the helper deal with
the situation at all and so for for
the longest time was the longest several days
ever in my life tensions were just everywhere
in the air and wherever they go you
can see all these faces like there's a
war between the helpers and the and all
the other brothers or all these babies and
after a while i just don't know what
to do anymore i have i have this
night duty the night before and i was
really tired we watched the people that were
there from the first day to around the
10th or 15 days depends on how they're
doing physically and emotionally we watched them 24
hours just to make sure to protect them
and just take care of them as babies
basically give them what they need and i
was just so tired i just i just
want to go to sleep so bad but
i just could not go to sleep because
all its tensions were there and i know
i have to do something but there's nothing
i can do nothing it's just war so
and they were worshipping in the other room
and i was supposed to sleep because i
had my night duty the night before but
i didn't care i just i just thought
god really want me to go worship and
you know once in a while all the
brothers some of the brothers will oh they
just get very mad and want to leave
and a lot of them run away and
and you just feel like god i can't
i can't be friends with them anymore it's
just not worth it it hurts so much
it really really hurt and then you realize
all this stuff he's bringing out just because
you worship twice a day he touched you
so much that you realize you are not
adequate at all to do what what what
this you know it's you need a super
person to do all this work and i'm
not that i i can't i just can't
do it lord and some of them run
away and you but then it was like
god saying we hurt him a lot of
times but he still loves us so much
when i walk into that room of worship
on one side all the people all the
worship leaders all the people they were supposed
to worshiping it was like it's dead it
was dead because it's just not it's just
not worshiping there's the tension right there you
can just feel it and then on the
other side we have this guy who manifested
a lot because he's been doing a lot
of idol worship before he was a christian
and it's just so real and i said
god i don't care i just can't i
just can't make them follow jesus anymore so
i go in there and i i just
worship and before i know it i was
on the floor weeping or mopping the floor
and i just could not stop i just
could not stop yeah um and
amazing thing happens it was like it wasn't
me anymore god just somehow i don't know
how come in through the worship and you
know we say i when i before i
do this it was like i will go
to minister these people and things like that
but no that's not that's not it you
go there you find out you got ministered
much more than you minister to people there
i'd ask rodent to share because the temptation
when when people aren't behaving as nicely as
you hope is to run away and he's
chosen the better part which was to worship
through it and that is the way to
beat poverty the way that jesus chose the
way that he chose was to die which
was to give up his own will or
the what looked like the easier way and
to choose the will of the father and
he came with signs and wonders preaching the
kingdom of god and he said and gary
quoted this yesterday the spirit of the lord
is upon me because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor and
then he finishes up by saying today this
is fulfilled in your hearing today now now
i want to know if we believe that
jesus can set people free miraculously with a
sign and wonder from the spirit of poverty
i want to know what people look like
now it's quite clear if you look in
matthew 11 5 when john's people asked are
you the one jesus replied the blind received
sight the lame walk those who have leprosy
are cured the deaf hear the dead are
raised the good news is preached to the
poor it's quite clear what some of those
people would look like you would meet a
man running around saying i can see i
can see and if you knew that five
minutes before he'd been blind basically a miracle
and the lame man would be jumping up
and down i'm sure he would i can
walk i can jump praise god and i
know that the lepers would be feeling their
arms no marks i've got keen skin it's
clear what all these people would look like
after the signs and wonders that come with
the kingdom are proclaimed now as jesus says
but what did the poor look like are
they going around saying pastor spoke well this
morning good word what on earth did the
poor look like after they've heard good news
see i don't think many poor people hear
good news they hear a lot of good
advice a boy it makes you tired what
is good news if you're poor well i'll
tell you what one lady looked like i
used to visit her in a refugee camp
and she was a she was a very
beautiful lady she was about in her 60s
and in the refugee camp we have a
lot of vietnamese refugees at one time there
were about 60 000 and they had all
sailed across the sea the first lot in
big boats and the later lot in little
boats sometimes they're just 12 feet and there'd
be 40 people or so in the big
waves and the big wind and the typhoons
with no food and they were raped by
pirates and they had their food stolen and
many drowned along the way and this lady
met it and she had almost nothing and
i used to go and visit these huts
where they lived in three tiered bunks and
that was a family for each bunk and
she lived on the bottom bunk and i
used to go and tell her about jesus
and it was very hot and i never
could stay very long but she used to
meet me at the door and she had
a a bamboo fan and she used to
fan me all the way from the door
to the bed she was blind and she
used to fan me all all across the
room and then she would come to the
bed which was her home and she would
spread out imaginary she is wiping the bed
and then she would say please sit down
please sit down and i never felt so
well looked after in anyone's house and i
would pray with her and i would tell
her about the god who could open eyes
and she said well will you pray that
i can see my son my son is
in america my son is america will you
pray and lived there for some months we
used to pray that she would god would
open her eyes and she would see her
son and one day she got the news
she could go and i got a postcard
from america a few months later and she
said on the postcard i have seen my
son and he is most beautiful and i
knew that god had opened her eyes he
had healed her physically but you know she
was free from poverty before she went she
lived with no belongings but she wasn't under
a spirit of poverty she made me feel
so rich in her little house and you
know in china it's like that you must
be careful to go or not to go
to a certain village now i know that
it gets cold in your country here it
gets cold in china too the problem is
that in one family household it might be
minus 30 or minus 40 they only have
one quilt for the whole family and if
you go visit them they will give it
to you and you must take it you
must it's like when you visit the poor
they will give you their whole week's rations
for a meal and you must eat it
because they do know how to give you
see they're free from the spirit of poverty
what do the poor look like after they've
heard good news i know certainly on one
occasion there were 5 000 people going around
clutching their stomachs saying i'm absolutely stuffed thanks
could be another mouthful they had been healed
they had heard good news and they'd been
stuffed with fish sandwiches how much is then
how much is now one thing
that people often ask me about is money
where'd you get your money from and we
always answer in the same way we say
well we pray and they say yes yes
yes but actually from where and i was
talking to a uh the gang leader of
the wall city his brother once and actually
this guy uh he got a degree in
canada and he came to canada to study
law so he could go back to hong
kong and get all his gang brothers off
and in this is true and he came
back to uh hong kong and he was
the number two in the family the number
one was uh that controlled 20 000 men
and uh had his headquarters in the wall
city and he came to me and he
said look i've been hearing about you and
i don't understand how you operate where does
your money come from and i said well
we pray and he said yeah yeah yeah
but i mean you don't mean it falls
from heaven and i said well it might
do because you know that's how god often
did it and there was a knock at
that moment on the wall city door and
i have a very small room in there
it was it was about 10 feet by
about eight feet and uh there was a
stranger there and he said oh i've picked
up this letter now you can't send letters
to wall city because it's not a postbox
place and anyway nobody reads english and the
letter says jackie pollinger wall city and he
said i picked up this letter and i
looked at it and had a hawaii postmark
and i opened it and it had a
check-in for 15 american dollars from somebody
i never met i don't know who it
was and so i gave it to a
gang leader's brother and he said okay okay
okay point taken