Andrew Wommack - Effortless Change - Part 6
Welcome to our Monday’s broadcast of the gospel truth. Today I’m continuing a series that I started last week talking about Effortless Change, which sounds like an impossibility but if you do it God’s way, it just comes effortlessly and I tell you this is one of my favorite things to teach on because this is just a foundation principle that will change your life probably more than most things you hear. Real quickly before I get in to today’s broadcast, let me just mention that we are now in our new building up at woodland park. We have 157 acres that I’ve entitled the sanctuary and this new building. We held our first classes in there January the 6th and I tell you, it is a «Praise the Lord».
Not only is it a beautiful building and it is going to enable us to minister to more students and this is just the first of two buildings that we’re going to be building. The second building will actually wind up being one and a half times bigger than this one, but it is just a tremendous facility. It’s a wonderful place. One of the greatest testimonies is that it was done debt free and I tell you, that’s a miracle! Well, it’s actually a blessing of God. It is not outside of the normal things. God used people and I just want to thank those of you that helped us to get this done. It is a real «Praise the Lord» and thank you very much and we’re having a special dedication on March the 22nd, that will the evening before the anniversary of my 46th year since the Lord touched my life and changed me and we’re going to have a special thing. We invite people to come. You would be blessed to come and see what God has done!
This is the house that God built and it is awesome! So today I want to get back into this teaching. I’ve been talking about that there is Effortless Change if you do it God’s way and Gods way is to take the Word of God like a seed and I made a major point of this that the Word of God is to the Kingdom of God the way that seeds are to this natural world. There is nothing that, you know, plant life, animal life, human life, all of it operates off of seeds and in the same way the Word of God is the seed that if you will plant it in your heart, it just automatically changes you. I spent over a week trying to really emphasize that point.
And then on last Friday’s broadcast we had just started talking about John the Baptist from Matthew, chapter 11 and Luke, chapter 7. There’s two of the gospels that record this and I was looking at it in my life for today Bible commentary. I’ve got one that I harmonize the gospels and put them into chronological order and one page you have all four of the gospels represented so that instead of going through Matthew and then Mark and then Luke and then John, you go through chronologically the events that took place and what this does, it allows you to compare these and it gives you a better understanding of what’s going on. For instance, these are some of the things that I’ve pointed out briefly last Friday.
In Matthew, chapter 11, after John the Baptist’s disciples came to Jesus, Matthew, chapter 11, they just asked this question in verse 3, it says, «Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another»? And in Matthew 11:4 it just says, «Jesus answered and said unto them». If you just read Matthew by itself, it might imply that he immediately gave this response, but when you read this exact same instance recorded in Luke, chapter 7. It says this in verse 20, it says, «And when the men were come unto him, they said, 'John Baptist has sent us unto thee, saying, „Art thou he that should come? Or look we for another? '“ and in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits: and unto many that were blind he gave sight. Then Jesus answering said unto them», and it gives the same thing that was said in Matthew.
But when you put these two together what you see is that for about an hour, Jesus didn’t even respond to John’s disciples. It’s like he just ignored them and he went about and he healed people and saw blind eyes open and lame people walk and he saw a person raised from the dead and all of these things and then he gave this answer and this answer basically was just «Go tell John what you’ve seen and heard, the blind see. The deaf hear. The dead are raised. The lame walk: and blessed is he, if he won’t be offended in me. And even though», you know, that is an answer to me it didn’t seem like as good of an answer as what he gave after John’s disciples were gone. So again, if you go back to Matthew, chapter 11, it says in verse 7, «And as they departed, Jesus began to say unto the multitudes concerning John».
If you read in Luke, chapter 7 it says in verse 24, «And when the messengers of John were departed, he spake unto the people». So again, here’s a little bit, there’s no contradiction. It’s just a little bit more detailed and it showed that it’s after Johns' disciples left that Jesus began to say all of these complimentary things and he began to make some kind of sarcastic statements. He said, what drove you out into the wilderness by the thousands? Was it to see the reeds blowing in the wind? Of course not!
They have been there for generations and there hadn’t been thousands of people go out into the wilderness and he says what drove you out there, a man in all of this fancy clothing? He says John wasn’t a very good fashion statement. He wore camel’s hair and it certainly wasn’t his special clothing and he was just saying these things kind of sarcastically and he says, what was it that drove people out into the wilderness by the thousands? He says, was it to see a prophet? And he says, yea, I say unto you that John was more than a prophet, and he refers them back to Malachi, chapter 3, verse 1, and this is an Old Testament prophecy and it says in verse 1, «Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts».
So Jesus was saying John was the fulfillment of prophecy! What a tremendous thing to say about somebody and you’ve got to remember that Jesus was the focus of everybody in the nation of Israel. I mean he was potentially, it wasn’t totally established in everybody’s heart yet. Of course, we know that he was the Messiah but they were hoping that he was the Messiah. Everybody was flocking to him and here was this man that was drawing all of this attention and if he would have said of John that this is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi, chapter 3, verse 1, what a tremendous stamp of approval that would have been from this man who was gaining all of this attention of all of these people. Seems to me like that would have encouraged John.
John was doubting that Jesus was actually the Christ because things weren’t working out the way that he had planned. It wasn’t exactly the way he had envisioned it. He thought Jesus was going to come and establish a physical kingdom and Jesus was establishing a spiritual kingdom in the heart of people and his physical kingdom that was prophesied in the Old Testament isn’t going to happen until the second return of the Lord, but that wasn’t real clear in these days. It hadn’t been explained and John was looking at what was happening and the fact that he hadn’t overthrown the Roman government. John was in prison himself and suffering and all of these things combined just to make him doubt whether he had really done the right thing by announcing that Jesus was the Messiah and so he came to Jesus and these statements by Jesus show that Jesus thought John was just an awesome person.
Let me read another verse here in Matthew, chapter 11, verse 11. Jesus said, «Verily I say unto you, among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he». Jesus is saying that John was greater than Moses, than Elijah, Elisha, David, Jeremiah, Isaiah, anybody you want to name. He was the greatest prophet, person that had ever been born prior to Jesus. What a tremendous statement and if John was discouraged and actually doubting whether he had missed it and spent his entire life preparing and then pointing the people towards the wrong person, I mean this was just a devastating time in John’s life and how did Jesus deal with him?
Instead of saying all of these complimentary things about he was the fulfillment of prophecy. He’s the greatest person that had ever been born on the earth. Instead of saying those things when John’s disciples were there, he waited until after they were gone and then he said this and you know this just bothered me for a long time because I thought Jesus, here was John, this man that you respected, said he was the greatest person that had ever been born among women and yet when he was in a time of crisis, you didn’t even answer his messengers at first, you ignored them for an hour, you went about doing all of these miracles and then just said tell them what you see and hear and he’ll be blessed.
If he’s not offended and then after his disciples were gone is when you said all of these emotional things that could have really blessed him, and that just bothered me. I thought here he was in trouble and he needed a hug and Jesus didn’t give it to him. Instead he just sent this message back and I understood that the scripture is accurate. I know that Jesus didn’t make a mistake, but I couldn’t understand it and you know, there’s a lot of people watching this program right now that we are a product of our culture more than what we would like to admit, but we really have become such a sensitive, touchy-feely type of culture that if somebody says something that rubs you the wrong way, I mean people just wear their feelings on their sleeve and they go by feelings. They have enshrined feelings to a place that it really occupies a place that’s more important than God.
There’s a lot of people that just if they don’t feel like it, then they don’t do it and you know, I think that this is relatively new, certainly in our culture, because there was a time that people just had to get up and do what they had to do whether they felt like it or not. But our modern day culture has just enshrined these feelings and there’s people, I have people come up in my prayer lines and they’re discouraged and depressed and so I say well what’s wrong? And they well, nothing’s wrong. Everything is just fine. I just don’t feel right and you know again, praise God I’m not God. If I was God, I would just drop-kick a person like that right off the earth into outer space, I mean the spirit of slap would want to come all over me.
I think it is very immature for people to just sit there and let their feelings control them when they have the smart and the intellect to know what’s right to do, but they just don’t feel like doing it. I tell you, that’s wrong and I think that previous generations didn’t have the luxuries that we have. They had to get up and go to work and provide for their family and do what they had to do even when they didn’t feel like doing it! You know, but in modern day people just, you know, go around sucking their thumb, talking about how they feel, and because they don’t feel right towards their husband or their wife, they just say well, I’ve lost the love. You’re just supposed to love them. I don’t care how you feel! Amen.
I know some of you don’t like that but I believe that’s an important point and so Jesus instead of just giving John some kind of an emotional response that might have blessed him that day, but then when he woke up the next day and didn’t feel good again, he would have to come and get another hug. You know what Jesus did? Jesus referred John back to the word! Now, I learned this because one day I was reading and this was after I had studied these scriptures in Matthew 11 and Luke, chapter 7 and I wasn’t even thinking about this instance with John the Baptist. I was just reading over in the book of Isaiah and in Isaiah, chapter 35, let me just read a few of the verses. These are verses that John was familiar with.
You know, when John was confronted by the pharisees and they said, are you the Messiah? He said, no, I’m the voice of one crying in the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord. That’s a quotation from Isaiah, chapter 40 and John knew these verses. He used them to defend his position and his announcement that Jesus was the Messiah. So John was familiar with these scriptures and one day as I was reading through Isaiah, I came to Isaiah, chapter 35, and if I was to take the whole passage of scripture, I’m not going to do that today, but you could show that these were verses that were written to the messenger who was going to prepare the way of the Lord which Jesus said was John. They were written to him and instructions to him about what to do and what the Messiah would do that he was preparing the way for.
So these were prophecies about the Messiah and how his ministry would be and look at this in Isaiah, chapter 35, in verse 3 it says, «Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees». In other words, this is God’s instruction to John about what his ministry was supposed to be like. In verse 4, «Say to them that are of a fearful heart, be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense: he will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert».
And as I read that, all of a sudden the Holy Spirit just took this and related it back to Matthew, chapter 11. Look at what Jesus said in Matthew, chapter 11 and this is the message that he told John’s disciple to take back unto him, Matthew, chapter 11, verse 4, «And Jesus answered and said unto them, 'go show John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached unto them. Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me'».
You know what I believe Jesus was doing. Instead of just giving John some kind of an emotional response talking about how wonderful he was and how he respected him, which would have blessed him no doubt, but it would have been temporary and it would have been dependent upon him having to come back and get another hug, another encouraging word the next day. Instead what Jesus did was refer him back to the Word of God. He pointed him to scripture and literally fulfilled every one of these things that it said the Messiah would do. Jesus opened up the eyes of the blind. He caused the deaf to hear, the lame to walk, he cleansed the lepers and he threw in the raising of the dead which wasn’t even one of the things prophesied. He not only did all of these things. He did all of them in one hour’s time. Man, that’s amazing!
You know, I’ve seen the dead raised. I’ve seen blind eyes opened. Deaf ears opened. I’ve seen people walk, but I don’t think I have ever seen that in one service and I’m not saying that I couldn’t. I’m not saying that I’m representing God perfectly, but I’m saying that this is just, you know, it’s one thing to see a miracle, but to see, just go out and in one hour’s time produce all of these miracles that were prophesied, there is no doubt that Jesus was the Messiah. A mere man couldn’t have done this! Plus he raised somebody from the dead on top of all of this and what he did, he fulfilled everything and I believe that the message that Jesus was sending back to John was John, what does the word say? What are the scriptures?
What was the promise of the scriptures, the ones that, you know, motivated him in the first place to become the man that he was and brought him to the position and to the place where he was able to turn an entire nation towards God! It was the Word of God and the Holy Spirit quickening these words to him and that’s what lit the fire on the inside of him. Now that fire was burning low and he was in a troubled spot and he was looking somewhere else. He was looking for just some kind of word or an answer and what Jesus did was refer him back to the scriptures, point him back to the same things that God had used in the first place and I don’t believe that Jesus did this because he didn’t respect John.
In fact the very statements that he made right here was that he’s the fulfillment of this prophecy in Malachi, chapter 3, verse 1. He is the greatest man that had ever been born among women. Jesus respected John so much that he referred him back to the word, and I tell you, when God showed me these things, it was a major, major impact on me because I was raised in the Baptist church. That is where I got born again. They did some good things.
I got some good things out of it but basically I was taught that the miraculous power of God passed away with the death of the last apostles, that we don’t see miracles today, that God doesn’t speak to us today, that you’re just saved and stuck until you go to heaven and when we all get to heaven what a day that’s going to be and the only thing to do as a Christian is just to lead somebody else to the Lord, but to have an intimate relationship with God, to flow in the supernatural, to see miracles happen and to hear God’s voice and to have God speak to you and all of these miraculous things, visions and dreams and all of this.
I was taught that all of that stuff was not for us today and when I received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, of course the Holy Spirit, the scripture says that when the Holy Spirit is poured out, your old men will dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions and all of these things, the gift of speaking in tongues and miracles and all of this. The Holy Spirit just immediately starts moving people into this supernatural realm and so when I received that I realized that I have been deceived. I had been told that those things don’t happen and man, I started hearing people talk about how that God spoke to them. They had a burning in their hand. They had dreams. They had visions.
God spoke to them, not only in their heart but in audible voices and all of these kind of things and when I got exposed to this, man, I just felt like I need to have these experiences and I started praying that God would just appear to me, speak in an audible voice. I started praying that, you know, just supernatural things. I was looking for the supernatural and even though God does speak in these ways and I’m not saying that it’s wrong or that it’s passed away, I believe that those things do happen today. You know, I believe that God’s best is to speak to us through the word because the supernatural. You know, some people say well man, you know, I just, I saw some kind of a sign in the heavens, you know. They pray and all of a sudden the sun comes out and they say well, that’s God.
Well the sun could break through the clouds and it could not be God. Those things, even though God can use anything like that to speak to a person, those things can be counterfeited! But the Word of God is the most sure powerful way that we have of hearing from God. I believe it’s God’s best way and I believe that even though God does speak and there are miraculous things such as visions and dreams and things like that happen, I don’t believe that we ought to be seeking that. We ought to be seeking to receive directly from God through his word and if he chooses to give us some supernatural manifestation, if a prophecy comes, if something supernatural comes, well then praise God, don’t despise prophesying and don’t turn away from it.
God uses these things, but we shouldn’t have to have those things. The Word of God should be enough. Romans, chapter 3, verse 4 says, let God be true, and every man a liar. We need to take God’s word and let it be the absolute authority in our life and I believe that this is what Jesus was doing with John. John was in an emotional state where he was discouraged, depressed, doubting everything that God had called him to do. His entire life, ministry, calling, everything was in the balance and he needed encouragement.
Most people today would have just gone and responded to him in some emotional way to try and encourage him, but Jesus referred him back to the word, not because he didn’t respect John, because he respected him so much. He wanted him to be able to get God’s best and God’s best is just standing and believing the Word of God. There is more faith involved in that than there is in seeing a vision, hearing an audible voice.
I tell you, God’s word is the greatest way that he has of speaking to us and I’m saying all of these things to underscore what I’m talking аbout: Effortless Change! People are wanting to change through having maybe some supernatural encounter, have somebody wave their hand over them or to do something and even though God can move in all of these supernatural ways, I’m telling you, the simplest, easiest, the predominant way that God moves in people’s lives is through the Word of God. You just take this seed. You plant it in your heart and if you leave it there over a period of time and mix it with faith, it just releases this supernatural power of God and God will manifest himself to you.
Now, I’ve got a lot more to say about this. I’m out of time today. We will continue this on our program tomorrow. So I encourage you to listen in and also I would encourage you to check out all of these offers, not only the teaching on Effortless Change that’s in book form, study guide, CDs and DVDs, but also this living commentary. This is one of the most important things that I believe God has ever led me to do. It’s a Bible commentary program where I have written footnotes on over 18,000 verses in the Bible and it’s updated continually. Also we have this Bible reading guide that is a free gift to you. If you will listen, our announcer is going to give you information about how you can get all of these materials and please, call or write today.