By: Gen. Deborah Green
PRAISE GOD. Welcome to Battle Cry Sounding. What a privilege it is to be serving the One true Living God, and what a privilege it is to stand upon His Word, to believe His Word, to declare His Word, to walk in His Word.
The name of today’s message is, “What Jesus said.” Now, when I was studying this morning, this just leapt out at me from the Scripture, and I thought, “How beautiful that is!” Because you know, the Lord, when He gives us understanding, He does it that we could walk in that understanding; not that we could say, “Oh, that worked then, but not now!”
You know, what? GOD’S WORD IS ETERNAL. IT WORKED THEN, IT WORKS NOW, AND IT WORKS FOREVER. And that’s why Jesus is the Word—because it says, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Hallelujah!
Ok, today we’re going to be in John chapter 4. Now, the name of today’s message as I’ve just spoken and told you is, “What Jesus Said.”
But, the point I’m getting to today is going to be found in these Scriptures: John 4:46-54. So, turn there if you will, I’m teaching out of the Amplified version today.
Now, the Lord has us everyday on the subject of REPENTANCE REVOLUTION. He’s writing it on down, He won’t let go of it, and He’s making it known to us that we need to enter into and stay in repentance revolution.
And repentance is a neglected tool against the enemy. It is something that the modern church has done away with; they’ve eradicated it; they’ve done away with the fact that MEN ARE SINNERS IN NEED OF A SAVIOUR. Of course, we know they’ve invented their own ways.
I’ve said a few messages ago, and I’ll reiterate it: the church is anti-Christ. You want to look for the anti-Christ? Go to church. You want to take the 666, well, go there and you’ll get it—because it’s all man’s work. But, the true work that comes from God begins with what? His Word. It is.
You know, none of us should ever take the commands of God lightly. Because when God speaks to us, it’s that very speaking that brought life into being.
Now, what does it say here in the beginning of John? John chapter 1, it says, “In the beginning,” I’m in John chapter 1, Amplified version, “In the beginning [before all time] was the Word (Christ), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself. He was present originally with God. All things were made and came into existence through Him; and without Him was not even one thing made that has come into being. In Him was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. And the Light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness has never overpowered it [put it out or absorbed it or appropriated it, and is unreceptive to it].”
That’s the power of the Word. That is the power of the Word that God wants us to stand upon. And we’re going to find in this message that a man was rebuked by the Lord: HE ACCEPTED HIS REBUKE, he didn’t go pout like some big baby, he accepted his rebuke right on the spot, he did his repentance in his heart quickly, and he got the miracle that God had for him.
And the miracle that God had for him was also for his son who was healed by what? By what Jesus said. Did you hear me? By what Jesus said! In other words, the Word of the Lord. He wasn’t healed by doctors, he wasn’t healed by pills, he wasn’t healed by remedies, and he wasn’t healed by hospitalization and Obamacare and this…and that…. No! He was healed by the Word of the Lord.
Now, back to this “repentance.” After you’ve been to anti-Christ church and you’ve got your 666, REPENT. REPENT. If you’re an anti-Christ unbeliever and claim you’re a Christian, repent. If you question continually what God has to say, come down off your proud high-horse.
You know, when we always want to analyze, and suspiciously look at what God has said, it’s because of pride. God said unbelief is rooted in pride. It’s because we think we know more than God. IT’S TIME FOR REPENTANCE IN THIS PROUD FOOL-HARDY NATION. It’s time the church repents, it’s time individual believers repent, it’s time the whole nation repents.
But, going on, WE NEED REPENTANCE REVOLUTION in our lives, and we need to stay steadfast at that repentance. Because God will bless the humble, that is the ones that can admit, confess, their sin, change from their wicked ways, and believe in the Lord.
And you know, one of the tactics of carnality is to accuse the Lord—as though the Lord doesn’t know what He’s doing. Hey, wait a minute, what did it say in John 1? It said he was in the very beginning. In other words, honey, He was before your little smart mind came along, He was before my high mind came along, and He was BEFORE any of us were even thought of.
That’s something my grandfather used to say to us when we were kids. We’d say, “Oh, grandpa, when did you do that, or when was this?” “Before you were even thought of.” And old father time passed on—backslider that he was, and went to Hell.
But, the point I’m getting to, is before any of us were even THOUGHT OF, or maybe we weren’t thought of at all, maybe we were an accident, but before we were brought forth, the Word was, and the Word is, and THE WORD WILL ALWAYS BE.
So, when God gives us a command, stand upon the Word. That means DO IT. It doesn’t mean I get a Bible, throw it on the floor and stand on it. The Bible, folks, and I’m not demeaning nor degrading the Bible, but the Bible IS a series of data that is a recording, you might say, or a reiteration of what was spoken.
Now, a lot of people say, “Well, after that Bible was canonized, that did it!” Well, good, if your God stopped speaking when the Bible was canonized, fine, at least you have that. But, as for me, I believe God still keeps speaking. And why does He keep speaking? Because He’s alive—because He is alive.
Now, in John 4:46, what does it say? Beginning there now, “So Jesus came again to Galilee.” Well, let’s read verse 45 because in a sense, it explains to us why this man came looking for Jesus. It says, “However, when He came into Galilee, the Galileans also welcomed Him and took Him to their hearts eagerly, for they had seen everything that He did in Jerusalem during the Feast; for they too had attended the Feast. So Jesus came again to Cana of Galilee, where He had turned the water into wine. And there was a certain royal official whose son was lying ill in Capernaum. Having heard that Jesus had come back from Judea into Galilee, he went away to meet Him and began to beg Him to come down and cure his son, for he was lying at the point of death.”
Now, this is a pretty traumatic circumstance here. And the way the modernists portray Jesus, He would have probably called an ambulance, sent it to Capernaum, had him to pick up the son, rush him to this fabulously expensive, exclusive children’s hospital. You know, get all these tube and things running from the kid, immediately rush him in for 15 surgeries, and 400 tests, and you know, get blood samples from his toes, his nose, his eyelids; everything, right? This is modern medicine, and this is modern belief in God—rush your kid to the emergency. But, Jesus didn’t do any of that.
Now, I want you to notice here, this guy came asking Jesus, “Come on guy, I need help, my kid’s dying, he’s really ill, he’s not recovering, I’m desperate, I came seeking you out, I came looking for you, I heard you were here, I’ve heard what you’ve done, come on man, I need help! Please, I’ll even pay you.”
You know, he was urgent! And you don’t hear Jesus weeping over it. It’s just a fact of life—kid’s dying. So? “So what do you want me to do about it?” He didn’t even ask him that because the guy’s already saying, “and began to beg Him to come down and cure his son, for he was lying at the point of death.”
Ok, now this is Jesus. He’s a lot different than we want to make Him to be. The Bible says, “Jesus loves the little children,” and then the song says, “All the children of the world. They are ALL precious in the sight.” What about the children of the damned? “Let’s not talk about that!”
In verse 48, “Then Jesus said to him…” Now, here’s a guy who’s humbling himself, begging Jesus, beseeching Jesus, and what does Jesus say to him? “Unless you see signs and miracles happen, you [people] never will believe (trust, have faith) at all.” So He doesn’t say, “Hey, I’m coming with you.” He doesn’t say, “Hey, I’m going to heal your boy.” He doesn’t say, “I’ve heard your cry.” He said, “You lack faith.”
So, what is He doing? He’s rebuking him. This guy is in a dire straights, he’s in a desperate need, and Jesus isn’t some bleeding-heart who says immediately, “I will go with thee, and your son shall be healed; I will raise him up.” He doesn’t say anything like that. And this is the thing that’s astounding. He just said, “You lack faith; because all you want is signs and miracles.”
And you would think…us humanists, out of our humanistic training, and elevation of humanity above deity, we would think, “Man, what a cold-hearted dude! Here’s a guy bowing down low, begging for help, beseeching Jesus to come and heal his sick son that’s near to death, and Jesus is saying, ‘Do you know what? The problem with you is you want miracles! That’s what you want, you want a miracle, you want a sign, you want a wonder. Uh, excuse me Jesus, could you save the correction for later, could we just get on with the fact that the kid’s almost dead?”
No, Jesus doesn’t care what we think, He don’t care how we feel. He cares about His Father’s agenda. Come on. “Well, sister Deborah, you make Jesus to seem like He’s cold-hearted.” Why don’t we know Jesus the way He is? Why don’t we accept Him the way He is? Are we guilty of wanting to re-image God? Are we thinking that we need to make the I AM to our pleasure, to our appropriation, to our dimensions?
Hey, you want to know one thing I found out about Jesus? He will cold-heart you when He feels like it. You will be all full of self-pity, and you will be all full of your own cause, and you’ll just be crying out to the Lord, and living in the good old boy assumption He’s going to hear your cry. AND HE’LL JUST GIVE YOU A GOOD WHACK. SOBER YOU UP.
What did he do to this guy? He said, “Hey dude, guess what? All you want is signs and miracles. And that’s all you guys want. You don’t have faith in me, you don’t trust in me, you don’t believe in me, and you just want a show!”
Then it says, “The king’s officer pleaded with Him, Sir, do come down at once before my little child is dead!” So, the guy’s still not giving up on what he came for. In other words, he’s persistent, and insistent, but he’s also accepting what? He’s accepting his rebuke—because he’s not too proud that he huffs away, and speaks evil of that cult leader, and that he has to get himself all in a big turmoil, and lawsuit, and a heap, and an “I’ll get even with Him because He said that to me.” He just says, “Ok sir, please, my son is still dying.”
So, what has he done? He’s accepted the rebuke, he’s inwardly repentant because guess what? His thinking has changed. And then Jesus answered him. Because it says here, “The king’s officer pleaded with Him, Sir, do come down at once before my little child is dead!”
So, in other words, he’s still on the cause that his kid’s dying, but he’s got a different attitude. And this attitude is going to be reflected within the next couple of verses—because we’re going to see something about this man.
That gets me back to the original issue of repentance revolution. REPENTANCE MEANS THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR THINKING! Ok, now he took that rebuke. Jesus said, “All you want is a sign and a miracle!” And I’m sure the guy’s thinking, “Well, why else would I come running after you? Why else would I be seeking you out? Why else would I be begging in the public? I’m a high {up} guy!”
But he’s had to be humbled by his circumstance. He’s had to be humbled by the severe illness of his son, and he’s been brought down low to where he’s needy. And then when he’s needy, and he’s begging, he gets a good slap and the truth put right in him: “Hey, all you’re looking for is signs and miracles, and you’re meant to have faith in me.”
So he gets a good rebuke, but he takes it. When we take our rebuke, we’re not going to go around muttering and sputtering, and seeking to alter what was said; we’re going to accept it through what? Repentance—a change of mind / a change of behavior.
So then in verse 50, “Jesus answered him, Go in peace…” In other words, “Go on, I heard you. Go, get out of here.” “Go in peace; your son will live!” Now, when Jesus said, “All you guys want is signs, and miracles, and wonders,” did he go running with the guy—to the son? Did He lay hands on the son, and the son was instantly raised up and delivered from the sickness that was taking him near unto death? No. “Jesus said to him, Go in peace. Go on, go, your son will live. Your son will live.”
That’s all he said. He didn’t give them a demonstration, He didn’t give them a show, He didn’t give them a miracle, and He didn’t give them a sign. What did He give them? HIS WORD. Ooh, come on. Isn’t that sweet? Isn’t that exquisite? He gave him HIS WORD. And what did he rebuke the guy for? “You want a show, you want a sign, you want a miracle, and I don’t want that for you!”
He was saying, “But you never will believe (trust, have faith) at all—because all you want is the show of how great I can do things.” And He said, “I want you to believe.” So, He used the very thing for this guy that tested his repentance.
Now, you know, God can show us things about ourselves where we fail God, where we don’t believe God, where we don’t walk in and stand upon God’s Word, where we backtrack, or where we falter, or where we fall down, or where we fail. And when He shows us those things, and we repent, then we’re supposed to CHANGE!
And that’s why the world, and that’s why the church, and that’s why God’s own people hate repentance—because they don’t want to change. They don’t want to alter their thinking, they don’t want to alter their behavior, and they don’t want to do what it is that the Word commands them to do. And that’s all brought about by the disobedience that’s in the world in these times.
Now, “Jesus answered him, Go in peace; your son will live! And the man put his trust in WHAT JESUS SAID.” He put his trust in what Jesus said, not what he saw, not the show, not the miracle, not the sign, but what Jesus said.
So what was he doing? He was trusting in the Word above what his mind could conjure up as a circumstance: “Your son’s already dead. No sense going home. You’re going to face a cold body. You’re going to face a corpse, you’re going to face your wife weeping, and moaning, and screaming, and crying, you’re going to face all the servants blubbering. You should have got him to the doctor, no, you trusted Jesus. Oh, what a fool you are.”
It says, “And the man put his trust in what Jesus said and started home.” He started home. He started home by what? By standing, believing, and trusting in the Word that Jesus spoke to him—what Jesus said. What Jesus said! Is that Jesus dead today? Has that Jesus passed away? Does that Jesus no longer exist because we’ve canonized the Word? NO. IT’S THE SAME JESUS. Hallelujah! It’s the same Jesus.
And that man didn’t sit there and whine to Jesus, quibble with Jesus, blubber to Jesus, moan to Jesus. It says, “He started home.” Because why? He set his confidence in God. Who’s your confidence in today? Is it in the liar, the afflicter, the poisoner, the two-timer, the devastator, the destroyer? Is it in your own fat, blubbery, babified flesh? Or is it in what Jesus said? What Jesus says?
HEY, THAT SAME JESUS IS ALIVE TODAY. And do you know that same Jesus can give the Word today? He can give you the Word of life, He can give you the Word of healing, He can give you the Word of deliverance, and you have to trust. You have to trust. YOU HAVE TO TRUST.
So this guy here, he did the real thing with his repentance. He actually allowed himself to be revolutionized by that rebuke that the Lord put upon him. And He took action to revolution because it said, “He started home.” He started home. What? “Believing, and trusting, and hoping in God.”
Now, like I said, his mind could have been flooded with 10,000 thoughts from the liar, 10,000 thoughts from his own carnal mind. But it says, “He started home.” In other words, he took the action that displayed his confidence in what Jesus said.
Now, going on, “But even as he was on the road going down, his servants met him and reported, saying, Your son lives! YOUR SON LIVES!!” So, they were so excited that they were going after the master to tell him the truth that his son was recovered, that his son had come up out of this terrible thing that had him near unto death.
And it says, “So he asked them at what time he had begun to get better. They said, Yesterday during the seventh hour (about one o’clock in the afternoon) the fever left him.” Do you know when the fever left him? When Jesus said, “Go in peace, your son lives. Go in peace, your son lives.”
So, there was a boy ready to die. There was a boy, probably out of his mind with that fever, probably incoherent, probably delirious, probably halfway in a coma or stupor, and the word was given—what Jesus said, “Your son lives.”
And it said at that point it left him. The fever left him! “Then the father knew that it was at that very hour when Jesus had said to him, Your son will live.” Isn’t that splendid? I mean that is absolutely gloriously splendid and beautiful—that Jesus spoke it, and the man grabbed a hold of it—without a miracle, without a sign, without a wonder, without a show, without a demonstration, without a big parade, and crowds running. It was the Word. It was what Jesus said.
And I’m here today to tell you that that same Jesus is alive. He’s here, and you cry out unto Him; and He hears you. BUT DO YOU STAND ON WHAT HE SAID? Do you set to return home? Do you believe, and trust, and hope in what He has declared? Or, do you let the enemy rob you? Do you let the enemy take what the Lord has said and twist it, and pervert it?
Now, number one, this guy accepted his rebuke, number two, his repentance was real, and number three, he got his son alive; and healed completely. So, the challenge is on us. Come on, are we going to believe what Jesus said, what Jesus says? If we don’t believe, we lose. “According to your faith, so be it done unto you.”
If Jesus says, “I heal you,” you’d better stand. Come on. You’d better stand. You’d better fight. You’d better trust that what He’s saying is true, and not go back to your moping, and not go back to your self-pity slumber, not go back to your wallow, and not go back to indulging your symptoms. That’s another one too folks.
“Cough-cough spewwwww! Did everybody hear me? I’ve only gone through three bags of cough drops.” I hate cough drops. JESUS’ WAY IS SIMPLE: TRUST, BELIEVE, HAVE FAITH, AND RECEIVE. We bring in the complication—all complications that are based on unbelief. And unbelief is based on pride.
So, come on sucker, bow down. Come on, quit being a proud fool, humble yourself, repent, and walk out the repentance. Admit you need God, admit you need to stand on His Word, admit you need to believe what Jesus says; and keep believing it! Because He’s the One who is our deliverer; He’s the One who is our healer.
Now, let me finish off here with the last portion of Scripture. “Then the father knew that it was at that very hour when Jesus had said to him, Your son will live. And he and his entire household believed (adhered to, trusted in, and relied on Jesus).” So there you have it—the whole household came to believe in Jesus because of what? Because the man believed what Jesus said, and WALKED OUT HIS REPENTANCE. Amen.