In Nazareth, v22, the people were intrigued by Jesus, but they knew Him, he grew up in there, with them. Isn’t this Joseph’s son? And they became so indignant, they tried to throw Him off the cliff on which the town was built! But of course, He passed through the midst of them and carried on His way down to Capernaum, v32, where again, they were intrigued and astonished at His doctrine – BECAUSE HIS WORD WAS WITH POWER!

There was an evidence of Power in His ministry! In Nazareth they rejected Him, yes, but He came into Galilee ‘in the Power of the Spirit’. He read from Isaiah, saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me because He has anointed Me!” Thank God for the Anointing and thank God for the Power of the Holy Spirit! If you want to be effective in ministry – I want to encourage you – you NEED the Anointing and Power of the Spirit!

I started preaching as a boy aged 13, nothing happened, nobody repented – and my father said, “You NEED the Holy Spirit.” When I received the Holy Spirit, it transformed me! I became a preacher and an evangelist in the school where I was. I told the boys the truth, that without Christ you go to hell. That there’s only one way into Heaven – through Jesus. Jesus said you must be born again. There’s no other way! Saved by the Power of the Blood! That’s the truth. Good works don’t save you, being ‘good’ doesn’t save you. We’re not born ‘good’. The Bible says ALL have sinned and come short of the Glory of God. Repent and be baptised in the Name of Jesus – that’s the Gospel I preach, that’s the way into the Kingdom. Two of the boys in my class went on to become preachers. I hadn’t been to Bible College – but I had received the Power of the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel!

God chose an 80-year old man, born into a slave family, yet brought up in the king’s palace, who became a murderer, fled from the nation and spent his life as a shepherd looking after sheep in the desert! God told him, I have chosen YOU to go to Pharaoh and tell him to release all his slaves, empty the prison camps, set more than two million people free! Moses protested – I can’t do it, I’m not an ambassador, I’m not a statesman, I’m an outcast, I ran away from this nation because they were going to kill me for murder. All I have done for the past forty years is keep sheep!

Yet this man Moses had an experience with God – he had met God in the fire – and that fire came into HIM, transforming HIM, and now God takes the reluctant hero and commands HIM to do the impossible!

Challenge the greatest leader in the world, the most powerful nation on earth, demand that they release your persecuted, suffering people, command Pharaoh to let them go!’

Because Moses gave every possible reason why he could not do it, God had to use a lot of persuasion before Moses would agree – but then God said, ‘When you go, I will cause Pharaoh to rebel, he will not listen to you or do what you say, he will fight against you with all his strength! I am calling you to do something, which I Myself am going to make absolutely impossible! I will cause him to refuse you, and make him stronger than ever in his anger against you – why? So that I can then demonstrate that I am God by destroying the power of Pharaoh and delivering My people – and this will not be with human power. Instead I will demonstrate on the face of the earth the power of an Almighty God, such as has never been seen before – the greatest miracles ever seen!’

Everyone wants the anointing, we all sit in prayer meetings, but few will make the sacrifice of a life devoted to God. There is a price to pay in service to God. The Apostle Paul describes this sacrifice as 'reasonable' (Romans 12:1). Once God fills you with fire, it's your responsibility to keep the fire burning! The older I get, the more power I have, the more fire I have! I'm more on fire now than when I was first baptised in the Holy Spirit. That's how it should be! The fire shouldn't go out, it should burn brighter! How do we keep the fire burning? Sacrifice. The more sacrifice you put on God's altar the greater the fire of God in your life.

'Peace like a river' used by kind permission of Vinesong.

Original Air Date 27 April 2015

From one side of the world to the other, from America to Russia, from the north to the south – in the whole world – has ever any man seen a greater miracle than this happen, visibly, on earth? The answer is no! It is the greatest miracle ever. And it happened just forty years ago. What was it?

This is the background: God chose a baby, born to a slave woman, who became the son of the king’s daughter by the plan of God. Later, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Israelites and killed him. As a result, he fled Egypt to escape justice; married, had a family, looked after sheep and worked for his father-in-law until he was 80 years old; now suddenly God called this man, saying, ‘Go back to the place that you came from, challenge the greatest leader in the world, the most powerful nation on earth, demand that they release your persecuted, suffering people, command Pharaoh to let them go!’

Moses is 120 years old, but forty years before this something had happened which brought a bigger change to the nation of Israel than anything ever experienced in any nation before or since – the moment when God, for the first time, began to demonstrate the greatness of His power by working the most outstanding, visible miracles in front of the most powerful nation in the whole earth. Moses asks the people a question in two dimensions – time and space. First Moses says, from the very beginning of time until now, has anyone ever witnessed a miracle as big as this, the biggest, most earth-shaking demonstration of God’s power ever seen? Secondly Moses says, ask the question in space, from one side of the world to the other, from America to Russia, from the north to the south – in the whole world – has ever any man seen a greater miracle than this happen, visibly, on earth? The answer is no! It is the greatest miracle ever.

I’m looking at the start of the ministry of Jesus. In Luke 4:14 it says, ‘Jesus returned in the Power of the Spirit into Galilee, and there went out a fame of Him through all the region round about and He taught in their synagogues being glorified by all.’ He’s been baptised by John; and full of the Holy Spirit, He’s been led by the Spirit into the wilderness where He was tempted for 40 days by the devil! In v9, the devil takes Him to a pinnacle of the Temple, it’s the last of the temptations, saying, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down!” It was a challenge of course and Jesus resisted him, saying, “It is written, you shall not tempt the Lord your God.” There’s a big lesson here that we must be careful we don’t ‘tempt’ God in the wrong way by attempting to do something that is not in His Will for us. And the devil, having finished tempting Jesus, departs from Him – ‘for a time’!

That is very significant. The devil hasn’t left Him – only for a time.

So now Jesus returns from the wilderness, from being tempted, in the Power of the Spirit, and goes into Galilee. I want to emphasise: Jesus Himself NEEDED the Power of the Holy Spirit in order that He could fulfil His ministry. By v16, He arrives in Nazareth, His hometown where He grew up, and, as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and got up to read. They gave Him the book of Isaiah and He found the place where it is written, saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He – the Spirit of the Lord – has anointed Me to preach the Gospel to the poor, He’s sent Me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, and to set at liberty those that are bruised, and to preach the Acceptable Year of the Lord.” He closed the book and said, “Today, this Scripture is fulfilled!”

What He reads from Isaiah covers the whole of His ministry! For some of us, this is OUR ministry. It certainly is mine! I would say, as an evangelist, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and for 75 years this has been my ministry. 75 years ago, He anointed me to preach the Gospel. To the poor, to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance, to heal, to set at liberty those that are bruised – and to preach the Acceptable Year of the Lord. In other words – JESUS IS COMING! This is the whole of the Gospel that we preach! And as I read the New Testament, I find that Jesus spends more time talking about His Kingdom than He does teaching about healing and salvation.

I want to share with you something that God has been saying strongly to ME since 1992 and which is powerfully motivating MY life. And I want to give YOU the same strong spiritual challenge which Moses gave to Israel in Deuteronomy 4:32 – ‘Ask now of the days that are past, since the day that God created man on the earth, and ask from the one side of Heaven to the other, WHETHER THERE HAS BEEN ANY SUCH THING AS THIS GREAT THING IS, OR HAS BEEN HEARD LIKE IT?’ I have not found any other man who could make a statement as strong as this, that Israel had witnessed the greatest miracle ever! Yes, this was 3000 years ago, but I believe that it also relates to today, and will be EXCEEDED.