Speaker 1: Get our Bibles up and out and let's lift them up and wave them around and make Jesus glad, the devil mad.
Speaker 1: Let's say this together Say, heavenly Father, I'm hungry for more of you.
Speaker 1: I draw near to you tonight and you draw near to me.
Speaker 1: Thank God for the Word of God.
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit, shine your light, illuminate my spirit with the truth so that my faith can grow and my spirit can be developed in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1: Let's look at Psalm 34 and also John 14.
Speaker 1: We'll start with Psalm 34.
Speaker 1: Verse one I will bless the Lord at all times and his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
Speaker 1: My soul shall make her boast in the Lord.
Speaker 1: The humble shall hear thereof and be glad.
Speaker 1: O magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.
Speaker 1: I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears.
Speaker 1: I want to read that last verse on 34 four out of the amplified classic edition, and it says in verse four I sought, inquired of the Lord and required him of necessity and on the authority of his word, and he heard me and delivered me from all my fears.
Speaker 1: Notice the word inquire and require.
Speaker 1: And then let's look over at John, chapter 14.
Speaker 1: Jesus is speaking on the night before he was crucified and he says in verse 13 and whatsoever you shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the father may be glorified in the sun.
Speaker 1: If you shall ask anything in my name, I will do it.
Speaker 1: And the word ask there in verses 13 and 14, it means to call for, to require, to demand your due.
Speaker 1: And so tonight, that is what the title of the message is and demand your due.
Speaker 1: And we're not talking about slamming our fist on the on the desk and demanding of God in a disrespectful way, but we're demanding of our covenant, we're making a demand on the anointing, we're making the demand on the word of God, we're making a demand that the devil take his hands off of our blessing.
Speaker 1: I made this comment Sunday.
Speaker 1: You know there's a there's a massive warehouse full of unclaimed blessings you might not have you've got.
Speaker 1: You might have some blessings that you haven't claimed yet, and most of the time the reason that they're unclaimed is because we're having a lot of lack of knowledge of what is available to us, or we don't know how to make a demand.
Speaker 1: We don't know how to cause that to flow toward us.
Speaker 1: And so here we.
Speaker 1: We have a covenant with God, a better covenant than than than David did.
Speaker 1: David, according to his covenant, inquired and required of God, according to his word, some things, and yet we have a better covenant than found upon better promises.
Speaker 1: David's covenant was based on the blood of bulls and goats.
Speaker 1: Our covenant is based on the blood of Jesus.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about, the last couple of Sundays, redemptive realities, and we've got to have faith in what the blood has done, it will do and has done and is doing now, and so that's the key to having a demand met.
Speaker 1: So here we have this superior covenant.
Speaker 1: Our faith should be making demands on our covenant and our faith should be demanding the devil to take his hands off of our blessing.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 1: And one of the best I think one of the best examples that I find in the Bible is Peter and John at the Gate Beautiful, there in Acts, chapter three.
Speaker 1: They went up to the Gate Beautiful at the hour of prayer and they encountered the lame man who was a certified beggar, certified by the Sanhedrin, and he qualified as one that you could satisfy by giving alms.
Speaker 1: You know, the Jews were commanded to give alms to the poor.
Speaker 1: So he was certified as one that qualified.
Speaker 1: If you gave him alms, then you fulfilled your duty to the law.
Speaker 1: And so he was looking for them to give him alms, and Peter a lot of.
Speaker 1: I've heard preachers say, oh, peter was so broke he didn't have silver and gold.
Speaker 1: All they could do was heal him.
Speaker 1: No, he had money.
Speaker 1: Peter had money.
Speaker 1: He didn't have money for him at that time.
Speaker 1: That wasn't the purpose.
Speaker 1: He said silver and gold I have by none.
Speaker 1: In other words, I don't have money for you, but I've got something better than money such as I have.
Speaker 1: Give I thee, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.
Speaker 1: So he issued a demand.
Speaker 1: Now, there's no evidence that this man had any faith of himself.
Speaker 1: He's looking for money.
Speaker 1: But since he didn't move right away, peter lifted him up by the hand, pulled him up and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength and he began walking and leaping and praising God.
Speaker 1: And so there you have a situation where Peter and John took Jesus at his word.
Speaker 1: He said he said you show, you know, I'm gonna confirm the word with signs following.
Speaker 1: You're gonna lay hands on the sick and they're gonna recover.
Speaker 1: See, they're out there doing it, they, they.
Speaker 1: This is just not very, very, very long after they were filled with a Holy Ghost, they went about doing good, like Jesus did, and healing all who were oppressed of the devil, for God was with them.
Speaker 1: So they made a demand on their covenant and got this man.
Speaker 1: So, you know, sometimes we can make demands for other people when they don't know their rights and privileges.
Speaker 1: So when Peter acted and jerked him up by the hand immediately, the power of God was released.
Speaker 1: Another one that I love to quote is Mark, chapter five, the woman with the issue of blood.
Speaker 1: Who'd heard about Jesus.
Speaker 1: What did she hear?
Speaker 1: Well, she heard about the Jesus that healed them all.
Speaker 1: And she and she's made her journey.
Speaker 1: She started, she started leaving the house and going to where he was.
Speaker 1: She'd been 12 years in that condition, had grown worse and worse, spent all of her money on doctors, and she continually said if I can just touch the hymn of his garment, I shall be whole, I shall be whole, I shall be whole.
Speaker 1: Every step she took she kept saying it I shall be whole.
Speaker 1: And when she got to him, she had to get on her hands and knees and crawl because the crowd was thronging him and touched the hymn of his garment and immediately she felt in her body that she had been healed of that plague and simultaneously Jesus felt virtue or power go out of his body.
Speaker 1: So at the moment she touched him, he knew nothing of her, he knew nothing of her, of her infirmity, he didn't even know it was her, but he felt and she felt that's what I wanted you to.
Speaker 1: The power flowed, he felt.
Speaker 1: She felt what did she do?
Speaker 1: What did she demand on her covenant, which was the Abrahamic Covenant?
Speaker 1: She made a demand on Jesus' anointing.
Speaker 1: She made a demand on the anointing.
Speaker 1: You know, I just love it.
Speaker 1: We've, for 29 years we've been having this church and we've always had an altar where people could come and have hands laid upon them and they could make a demand on the anointing.
Speaker 1: They could make a demand on their covenant with God.
Speaker 1: They could have a place, a place of a point of contact where they can count that they have received their healing or they've received their need, med or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: They come up for prayer.
Speaker 1: Many people come up for healing, but many people come up for other reasons and over all these 29 years we've seen such marvelous results from people getting knowledge, bible knowledge, of what they have in their covenant, and then making a demand on God's power.
Speaker 1: And that power meets that demand, praise God.
Speaker 1: So I just want to encourage you.
Speaker 1: I mean that warehouse full of unclaimed blessings.
Speaker 1: Let's empty that thing out.
Speaker 1: I mean while we, you know this world needs what we have and they're not going to get it unless we give it to them, and so let's get everything that we have come into us.
Speaker 1: Amen, oh, hallelujah.
Speaker 1: I remember one time I was building houses and I had an old Oldsmobile 98.
Speaker 1: It had 270,000 miles on it.
Speaker 1: I had a hundred and say four and 130,000 on them, overhauled engine and transmission.
Speaker 1: So I mean I knew that I was on borrowed time with that car and I had just signed a contract to build a custom home in Rosenberg.
Speaker 1: It was 57 miles each way from my house in spring to that job site and a lot of the miles, the last 15 or 20 miles of the journey, was out in the country.
Speaker 1: It was not in the city, it was out in the country.
Speaker 1: And I drove out there in that car and I looked around and thought, man, it's going to be pretty bad If this car breaks down out here I might be stuck awhile.
Speaker 1: You know didn't have a good sales signal in those days that sales phones weren't like they are now, and so I said I got to have a car and so I just went to the Lord.
Speaker 1: I mean I made a demand on my covenant, not in the way of an arrogance or anything, but I made a legal demand.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times our prayer has got too much begging and too much whining in it.
Speaker 1: Let's, when we come to God and we need something, we need something done.
Speaker 1: You know, jesus said there in John 14, he said you know, if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.
Speaker 1: What a?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's like a blank check If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.
Speaker 1: And I'm telling this story about this testimony of how I presented my need to God.
Speaker 1: But I was reading recently, brother Hagin was talking about PC Nelson, who was a great leader of the Semblings of God and he was a Greek scholar and he loved to read his Bible in the Greek.
Speaker 1: I mean, he didn't read his King James Bible, he read his Bible every day in the Greek.
Speaker 1: He was a Greek scholar because he appreciated the Greek language as a beautiful language, and the Greek language is what.
Speaker 1: What they wrote.
Speaker 1: The Bible in the New Testament.
Speaker 1: It's written in Greek and and it has idioms that the English language doesn't quite pick up.
Speaker 1: We don't get quite the the fullness of what the Bible is saying unless we can go directly to the Greek.
Speaker 1: And about John 14, 14, if you ask anything in my name, I will do it.
Speaker 1: Really, when you read it in the Greek, it reads more like this if you ask anything in my name and I don't have it, I will make it.
Speaker 1: Come on, lift your hands right there.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the worth, that's worth the whole price of the message tonight.
Speaker 1: If you ask anything in my name and I don't have it, I'll make it for you.
Speaker 1: Praise God, what a, what an invitation.
Speaker 1: We should empty out the warehouse of unclaimed blessings.
Speaker 1: And so, anyway, here I was and I had this car with a lot of miles on it.
Speaker 1: It was still running, the interior was falling apart, the headliner had fallen down, and I mean it was.
Speaker 1: You know, it's an old car, you know, and I've got to finish this house out in the country.
Speaker 1: I've got to have a dependable transportation.
Speaker 1: My business depends on it.
Speaker 1: So I made my case.
Speaker 1: I said, lord, I've got to have a car.
Speaker 1: It's not a luxury, I've got to have a car.
Speaker 1: I don't need a new car, I need a dependable car.
Speaker 1: I'm not asking for anything specific.
Speaker 1: You know what I need better than I need and you know what's available.
Speaker 1: In a hurry, I can't wait.
Speaker 1: I need, I feel an urgency that I need this car right away.
Speaker 1: And you know I've sown cars.
Speaker 1: I've given cars.
Speaker 1: You asked me to give one time an antique Cadillac 1940 Cadillac to Lakewood.
Speaker 1: I gave it and they sold it and made a bunch of money off of it and put it in the treasury and I sold that seed.
Speaker 1: But there have been other cars that I've given and so I have sown that seed.
Speaker 1: Now it's time for me to receive a harvest, and so I know I've got one.
Speaker 1: I know I and I need one and I need it fairly soon.
Speaker 1: And so I made my case.
Speaker 1: I made a demand.
Speaker 1: I make a demand on my covenant.
Speaker 1: I made a demand on what the blood of Jesus had backed up.
Speaker 1: And the blood of Jesus backed up and it'll be given under you.
Speaker 1: Whatsoever men sow with that shall he also reap.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's the covenant.
Speaker 1: And so I made a legal demand.
Speaker 1: See, that's what we need to learn how to bring to God our request legally, not with a bunch of tears and a bunch of whining and crying.
Speaker 1: Just make a legal demand on the covenant, and so you know, within a 30 day.
Speaker 1: Within 30 days, a young man called me and he had given me.
Speaker 1: He gave me a car.
Speaker 1: It was happened to be a Mercedes 300 diesel and it had 160,000 miles on it, which I knew as a diesel.
Speaker 1: That car was just getting broken in.
Speaker 1: When I finally got rid of it, several years later, it had almost it had right at 300,000 miles.
Speaker 1: I put 140,000 more miles on that diesel and, of course, when I did trade it in I mean it was junk, I used it completely up, but you know it met my need at the time.
Speaker 1: I mean it was such an answer to my demand.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you God delights, and if he doesn't have it, he'll make it for you, praise God.
Speaker 1: So the covenant is everything Jesus bought and paid for.
Speaker 1: And so you know, let's realize it's not about promises.
Speaker 1: God didn't promise to heal us.
Speaker 1: Heal us as a finished fact.
Speaker 1: God didn't promise to meet our needs.
Speaker 1: Our needs are already met.
Speaker 1: He beats everything.
Speaker 1: If you've got a need, there's already a supply.
Speaker 1: So let's begin to make those demands and see God move.
Speaker 1: I'm reminded of Wigglesworth tells a testimony, and he was traveling in his ministry and I think it was somewhere in Wales, and he heard about a man that was very sick.
Speaker 1: They had nicknamed him Lazarus.
Speaker 1: He said come.
Speaker 1: They said come, pray for Lazarus.
Speaker 1: And Lazarus was just almost.
Speaker 1: He wasn't dead, but he looked dead.
Speaker 1: I mean, he looked like he'd already died, like Lazarus.
Speaker 1: It was in the grave four days before Jesus raised him.
Speaker 1: And so he said well, I'll go pray, but I want five good believers to be there with me, to agree with me, not novices.
Speaker 1: I need people that know how to believe God.
Speaker 1: And so they assembled there at Lazarus's bedside in his home.
Speaker 1: In his home he was in the second floor of a home and in the bed he was emaciated.
Speaker 1: He looked just like he was dying and he was dying.
Speaker 1: And so they gathered around the bed and joined hands, and all they simply did was they just said the name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: That's all they did.
Speaker 1: They just said Jesus, jesus, jesus.
Speaker 1: It's just over and over like that for quite a while.
Speaker 1: And I mean God didn't tell him to lay hands on him, god didn't tell him to lay to anoint him with oil, he just had him approach it by using the mighty name of Jesus.
Speaker 1: And they all uttered that name in agreement.
Speaker 1: And after a while the power of God filled the room and the bed began to shake, literally began to shake, and Willisworth looked down at Lazarus and he said there's your healing, take it.
Speaker 1: And he didn't.
Speaker 1: And so he leaned over.
Speaker 1: The guy started trying to talk.
Speaker 1: He couldn't talk above a real faint whisper.
Speaker 1: So he bent over and the guy said I've been bitter.
Speaker 1: And Wickelsworth said well, repent.
Speaker 1: And I mean this man I mean I don't know what he said, but I mean it must have been like has a guy who turned his face to the wall and repented, you know.
Speaker 1: And he repented.
Speaker 1: And I mean he received his healing and within the hour he got up out of bed, he got dressed, he went downstairs, he ate.
Speaker 1: That night he came to the service and he testified.
Speaker 1: I mean all that was needed was that name, the name above every name, the name of Jesus and faith in that name.
Speaker 1: You know, revelation 1913 says his name is called the Word of God.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you have the name and we do, I mean you've got all you need.
Speaker 1: If you just ask in the name, if you make a demand in the name of Jesus, that demand has to be made and has to be met.
Speaker 1: So demand your due and Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: Come on, lift your hands right now.
Speaker 1: Father, we thank you tonight that we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Speaker 1: We thank you that we have a standing in the throne room of God.
Speaker 1: We have the propitiation.
Speaker 1: The blood of Jesus is there to make us worthy to come bold into the throne of grace to obtain whatever it is that we have need of and Jesus' name.
Speaker 1: I know many of you are facing things today that and many of you have needs that are dire.
Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you something there's nothing too hard for the Lord.
Speaker 1: He said if you ask something that I don't have it, I'll make it for you.
Speaker 1: Praise God.