Matt Hagee - The Awesome Power of the Anointing
When you read the Bible, you see through the pages concerning the topic of the anointing that, first and foremost, the anointing is God's idea. It's not something that was put together by a group of preachers and teachers who decided that we needed a special substance that we could use from time to time. The anointing is something that God told Moses, in the Old Testament, to create. And he gave him the exact ingredients for it. And each ingredient has a specific purpose. And the reason that God wanted Moses to have the anointing is so that everything that God was going to use could be anointed. So as we talk about the anointing, this is not a Christian doctrinal topic: this is God's topic, and it's what he wants to do in your life.
The second thing that you see in the topic of the anointing comes from the book of Isaiah. The prophet Isaiah is speaking to king Hezekiah concerning the problem of Sennacherib. And here is what the Lord said to king Hezekiah through the prophet Isaiah: he said, "The anointing breaks the yoke". Say that with me. "The anointing breaks the yoke". Just as it breaks the yoke of oppression in the life of king Hezekiah in the Old Testament, the anointing breaks every yoke in your life today. But before we begin to discuss more about the yokes that the anointing breaks, I want to begin by telling you some things that the anointing is not. One, the anointing is not a one-time event. And the reason that I say that is because sometimes, when it comes to our Christian faith, there are people who want to believe that one and done is good enough.
When you receive a gift, you say, "You know I've got that. Check it off the box. We're good". And there are some people that whenever it comes to receiving the anointing of the Lord, they say, "Oh, no, no, no, no. I got that back in '75". Well there might have been an updated version. I mean you update your iPhone every 14 days, so why not? Why not try this? It's not a one-time event. David, as a shepherd, he knew the purpose of the anointing from the relationship that existed between shepherd and sheep. In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is called "Our good and faithful shepherd". And the reason that a shepherd would carry a horn of anointing oil, as we have here in our graphic today, is that in the springtime when the grass was green and the sheep would go into the field and they would eat, the blades of grass would make tiny cuts in the sheep's muzzle up in their nose.
And as the flies would begin to swarm through the Spring's hot days, they would land on the sheep and they would plant their eggs on the sheep's face. And those eggs would get imbedded in the cuts. And then as the eggs hatched, the maggots would begin to eat the flesh of the sheep. There's a reason why livestock stand in the middle of the pasture and shake their head. It's because they're tormented by the flies. And so the shepherd, being someone who cared for the sheep, when he saw the sheep being tormented, he would walk to them. He would pick them up in his arms. He would take his horn of oil and he would pour it over the head of the sheep. This is where the verse from Psalm 23:5 comes from, "Thou anointest my head with oil". He was pouring it out over the sheep so that everything that was irritating, everything that was tormenting, everything that was frustrating, everything that the sheep could not get away from all by himself would leave him alone once he had been anointed.
Now the good news is, is that no good shepherd would use the anointing once. If he saw one of the sheep that was tormented on Monday, and he walked by him on Tuesday and the sheep was still tormented on Tuesday, the shepherd wouldn't take his stick and hit the sheep, "Bad sheep. I anointed you yesterday. And a little dab will do you: you're done". And sometimes we want to pretend that that's the way God treats us. If he pours out his presence, we don't need anymore of that, because I mean, we got it once. If he touches us, he touched us once. If he heals us, he healed us once. If he delivers us, he delivers us once. What if God wants to do more than just once in a while in your life?
The anointing is not a one-time event. The anointing is something that God wants to use in your life on a regular basis, so that no matter what the frustration is, no matter what the area of torment or concern is, you recognize that there's a good shepherd in heavenly places who sees your need. And not only does he see your need, but he can meet your need. And not only will he meet your need, but when he relieves you of that frustration and that torment, you're going to be set free: for whom the son sets free is free indeed!
The second thing that the anointing is not is the anointing does not help you avoid trouble. And that should be a relief, because sometimes we believe that: hey, I'm anointed. I can't have any bad days. Have you ever heard from somebody that whenever you come to Christ, I mean it's just get-out-of-jail-free city? If they told you that, they lied. The life of faith is not an escape from trouble. The life of faith is success through struggle. Look at David. David's anointed to be king. He doesn't go from kneeling under the anointing, straight to the throne. He goes from being anointed to fighting a giant. Not only does he go out and fight a giant, but just a few days later, he's in front of king Saul and he's playing his harp. He's using his gift. He's doing what God created him to do. And you would think that under the anointing, doing what God created him to do, that Saul would just lift his hands and bask in the glory of David's anointing. No! He picked up a spear and he threw it at him.
How's that for a performance evaluation on your job? Areas of improvement: duck. Take that to H.R. He threw a spear at me. I can't work in these conditions. David was anointed. And he ran and he hid, and he dwelt in the back of caves in the wilderness under the anointing. Jesus Christ was anointed. In Luke 4, he said, "Behold, the spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me". And everywhere he went, he was faced with trouble and struggle, because the individuals that surrounded him that were not anointed wanted to kill him, based on the anointing that was in him. You need to understand: when you walk under the anointing of God, the people, who do not have it, will want to hurt you because of it. The pharisees and the legalists, they all wanted to debate Jesus. They wanted to argue Jesus. They wanted to dilute the impact of his ministry. And they continued to do so until they finally came to the point where they could arrest him and kill him. The disciples were anointed.
Acts 1:8, it says, "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you". This was the anointing that God poured out from heavenly places in the upper room at Pentecost. Now what did the anointing get them? When they left that room, they went and turned the world upside down. When they left that room, they preached, and thousands came to Christ. When they left that room, they could touch the sick, and the sick would recover. They could touch the oppressed, and they would be set free. When they left that room, they got a guided tour of the dungeons and the prisons all over the world. They were crucified upside down. They were exiled. They were beheaded. Why? Because the anointing does not help you escape trouble. When you look at what the 1st century church went through, it makes the problems we're going through look pretty good.
The third thing that the anointing is not is the anointing is not optional. Everything that God wants to use, he anoints. Why did he tell Moses to create the holy anointing oil? Because he wanted Moses to anoint everything in the tabernacle, every piece of furniture, everything that had been created, so that God could come from heaven to earth and dwell with men. He said, "Moses, before I inhabit that place, anoint it. Anoint the priest. Anoint everybody who's going to be in there". Why? Because everything that God wants to use, he anoints. It is his mark of distinction upon your life. The difference between a sermon and an anointed sermon is not the words that are spoken, but it's the power of God that's in it. So what will the anointing do in your life? Jesus Christ was the anointed one. And here's what he told us in Luke 4: he said, "The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me". And he gave us several things that he was anointed to do.
The first thing that he said he was anointed to do was, "Preach good news to the poor". Say that with me. "Good news to the poor". Now whenever we read the word "Poor," immediately, our natural minds want to connect with finances. And certainly there is an area of your life that can be described in financial poverty. But in the Bible, when you hear about "Poor," what you're talking about is anyone who has an area of insufficiency in their life. You can be emotionally poor and financially rich. You can be physically poor and have all of your needs financially met. So when Jesus said that he was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, he was saying, the gospel, being good news, is that he was anointed with sufficiency in every area of your insufficiency. Now I don't know about you, but I am thankful to God that he sent someone who was sufficient in every area where I am insufficient.
In 2 Corinthians. It says, "Jesus, though he was rich: yet, for your sakes", say that with me, "Yet, for your sakes he became poor: that through his poverty, you might be made rich". This is the New Testament verse that says everything that he had in heaven, he gave to you. And he took every ounce of your insufficiency so that you, in faith, could receive his sufficiency. It's a powerful principle when you unlock it, because oftentimes, we beg God for what we should be believing for. And yet, here we have a book that has no lie in it. It is truth under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and it says that there is indeed a king who has not promised you everything: he has given you everything, everything that you'll ever need, every physical need, every financial need, every emotional need, every spiritual need, every need that you had in the past. He's the God of yesterday. He can go back there and meet it.
Every need that you have today, he's the God of today. He's already supplied it, every need that you'll ever have in the future. He's not limited by time. He's already in your tomorrow. He's preparing a table before you in the presence of your enemies. He is already there, waiting on your arrival, so that when you arrive, every need that you have is met. That God is the God who created the heavens and the earth. That God is the God who calls the stars by name. That God is the God who holds the mountains in a scale and the hills in a balance. And that God has given you all that you could ever need, according to his riches in glory! Child of God, don't look to the world and wonder where it's coming from. Look up and thank God that the answer is on its way! Jesus said, "The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me because he has anointed me", not just to preach good news to the poor but, "To heal the broken hearted".
You see, sometimes the insufficiency of your life has more than just an impact in your one-given area. Sometimes the insufficiency in your life will break your heart. And the longer you live in this world, the more you discover that there are so many ways for a heart to be broken. A heart can be broken by circumstances beyond your control. A heart can be broken by rejection and offense. A heart can be broken by the different things that individuals endure, the pains of their past, the fears of tomorrow. In every section of this sanctuary, there are broken hearts today. Every place that people are watching, there's individuals who are familiar with the pain of a broken heart. And it doesn't matter what corner of the globe you're watching in. It doesn't matter where you're sitting and hearing this sermon from. For as many ways as your heart can be broken, the good news is, is that there is one who can mend the broken heart that you have.
Today, people walk through storms and valleys and dark places, and they wonder: is life worth living? And the answer to that question is always "Yes". Because Jesus Christ, the anointed one, he walks through that dark place with you. And he says, give me the pieces of that broken heart and I'll mend it, and I'll make your tomorrow greater than you could ask, think or imagine. The spirit of the Lord is upon him because he has anointed him to heal your broken heart. Not only is he here to heal the broken hearted, but the Bible says he is here to give liberty to captives. "Liberty to captives". How powerful is this anointing? Not only does it meet your insufficiencies with his sufficiency, not only does it heal your broken heart, but whatever has you bound, he'll set you free. There's a lot of conversation that happens in this world today in the times that we live about the topic of liberty. Here in this nation, liberty is under attack. Everywhere you turn, you hear people talking about liberty and living in tyranny.
Let me tell you where the land of the free is. It's between this ear and this one. Here's what the Bible tells us, according to Luke 4: "The spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon him, because he has anointed him to declare that this is the acceptable year of the Lord". Now how many of you look at the circumstances around you, and go, "This is an acceptable year"? The problem that we have is that we listen to God's promises and we want to grade them by the world around us. That's not what God intends for us to do. We hear God's promises, and in faith believing, we recognize that he has the power to bring that promise to pass in spite of the circumstances around us. "This is the acceptable year of the Lord". Say that with me. "This is the acceptable year of the Lord".
I want you to begin professing that over your life on a daily basis. Why? For one, I am tired of hearing God's kids whine about the date on a calendar. You believed that you had it all figured out. But last year, he taught you to trust him. It was the acceptable year of the Lord. You faced needs and you wondered: how on earth am I going to make it? Then heaven moved in and you made it through. It was the acceptable year of the Lord. The same God, who was on his throne yesterday, is still on his throne today. And this is the acceptable year of the Lord. I do not know what tomorrow holds. But child of God, I am certain of this: the God that I serve is the one who holds tomorrow. And he is the God who has made a way where there seems to be no way. He is the God who has said, "Greater is he who is in me than he who is in the world".
So let the world rage and let nations roar. My God shall supply all of my needs according to his riches in glory! He has given his angels charge over me. No weapon formed shall prosper. He is a shield round about the righteous. His hand is upon my life. What can man do to me? If God be for me, who can be against me? Give the Lord a handclap of praise! As I mentioned earlier, the shepherd would carry a horn of oil so that he could anoint the head of the sheep and free them from every form of frustration. The frustration was caused by the irritation of the flies that were being birthed in their cavity in their nasal passages and places they couldn't reach.
Do you know what the New Testament, in one particular verse, calls Satan? "Beelzebub," which means lord of the flies. He's in charge of everything that torments you. Everything that the enemy wants to plant in your mind, every thought that the enemy wants to irritate you with, every frustration that he wants to distract you with, every problem that you have that you can't solve on your own, all of those things and much, much more: it is Satan's plan to use that to drive you crazy. But Jesus said, "I am the good shepherd, and I give my life for the sheep". The anointed one, Jesus, he's in this sanctuary today. And he wants to pick you up in his arms. And he wants to anoint your head so that everything that's frustrating, everything that's irritating, everything that's bothering you: whenever you receive that anointing, you go, "Ah, that's so good".
You say, "Well, I don't know how he can do it". That's not your job. His job is to do the anointing. Your job is to do the receiving. But David paints two pictures in this verse. "You anoint my head," that's the shepherd/sheep relationship. But then he said, "My cup runs over". Consider your life to be a cup. And if God pours his anointing into your life to the point that it runs over, then when it runs over in your life, it's going to get on those who are around you. You want this anointing. Why? Because whether you like it or not, whatever's in you is going to get on those who are around you. Have you ever been in a bad mood? And in spite of your best efforts, you can't keep your bad mood from getting on those who are around you. Have you ever been around somebody in a bad mood? And when you saw them coming, you were like, "Don't get that on me. No, no, no".
On the other hand, have you ever been in the presence of somebody who was just a joy to be around? And if you were having a bad day, and you walked up close to them, it just seemed like your bad day got a little better. What is it about them? Whatever's in you is going to come out of you and get on somebody close to you. So if you're the father of your household, you want the anointing to fill your cup. All of the absence and the pain of your yesterday, you want it saturated with God's anointing so that it flows down on your children and your wife and your business: so that it flows down into your grandchildren and into your community and into your church. No matter what it is in your life, whenever you have the anointing and your cup runs over, not only is there enough for you, but there's enough for those that are around you.
So that whenever God begins to bless you, he begins to bless them. And in blessing them, it just continues to go. Whenever you're empty, you're saying, "I'm living under this burden of a generational curse. I can't be blessed because dad wasn't blessed, and grandpa wasn't blessed, and we haven't been blessed for generations". But whenever you come to the anointing and you receive what Jesus Christ has already paid on your behalf, suddenly his anointing begins to break the yoke of oppression. It begins to break that curse of addiction. It begins to break the poverty and lack that was in you. And it begins to run over in your life, and come out of you, and flow into the lives of your children and into your wife. And your home becomes an anointed home. Where there was once torment, there's now joy unspeakable. Where there was once frustration, suddenly there's a victory.
Where you didn't know, now you can believe in confidence that you can do all things through Christ. Suddenly the impossible is possible, because you received the anointing that helped you understand that God can give you the strength to do all things. It's not just for you. It's for your children and for your grandchildren and for their children too, because there's more than enough. God will not stop pouring it out as long as you continue to open up your life and receive it. Child of God, my God shall supply all of my needs according to his riches in glory. Give the Lord a shout of praise in this house today! He is more than enough for me! Give the Lord a praise! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Today, if you're in this place and you need to receive an anointing, a place of his sufficiency in a place of your insufficiency, I want you to raise your hand right where you are. And then I want you to take that other hand and raise it in faith. One is confessing your need and the other is believing that you will receive. And repeat this prayer with me:
Lord Jesus Christ, today I receive the yoke-breaking anointing in my life. I am asking you to be more than enough for me, for my family, for my home, for my business, for my physical body, for my broken spirit. Today, in Jesus' name, I receive this anointing, so that everything that the enemy has used against me is broken. In Jesus' name, I am free: for whom the son sets free. Is free indeed.