GREET RUFUS & THE YES IN GOD’S NO’S

A man who appeard in a vision who changed the course of world history. How to be led, hear God’s voice, and find God’s will for your life.
“Khesed…mercy…love. It’s God’s nature, His essence. Don’t forget that, through all this, don’t forget that. Judgement is His necessity, but His nature and essence, His heart, is love. He’s the one always calling out to the lost to be saved.”
― Jonathan Cahn, The Harbinger: The Ancient Mystery that Holds the Secret of America’s Future

Is what the wind, the breath, the holy wind. That’s what it means.
If you’re walking with the wind, the wind is at your back, you’re going.
But if you’re walking against the wind, it’s going to stop you.
Now, verse four.
Now, while they were passing through the cities, they were delivering the ordinances for them to follow, which had been determined by the apostles and elders in Jerusalem, the Jerusalem Council.
So the churches were being strengthened in the faith and were increasing in number daily.
The word decree also is, can be translated as dogma. Now, this is grace. Some people preach grace.
So they preach a form of grace saying that if you ever say you have to do something that’s not, that’s not the Bible.
Well, well read the Bible because the Bible is filled with, you ought to do this. You should do this.
You must do this. It’s still grace.
You know, people, it’s not biblical to say grace is so much that you can’t say should or what do they say?
You should never feel guilty. No, you should feel guilty if you are in sin. If you’re away from God.
So then you can get back and then stop feeling guilty.
But God uses all those things you can get just as you can make a do a dogma about grace.
That’s not really the grace of God.
Paul is the one who taught the most about grace and look what he says.
And he is very strong about his preaching.
So they’re following, the churches are following the decrees of Jerusalem and they’re living in obedience and repentance and they’re also living in revival.
You do not have revival without repentance. You don’t have revival without holiness in some form.
It’s not about what people say. So it’s about real holiness. You don’t have revival with it.
You want revival in your life, repent of anything that’s not gone. That’s the first step.
I mean, you know, the, the, the, the thing here, you know, that’s one of the problems with modern Christianity or modern Western Christianity.
It’s all about comfort and all about God will work for you and God will be your personal trainer and God will make you feel better and give you success.
That’s not really the gospel. Yes, God will bless you according to righteousness, according to his will, if you’re following him, so they grew, people are getting saved and they were preaching the gospel.
One of the also great problems of the modern church is that the absence of people actually spreading the gospel.

I don’t mean the professional evangelist. I mean, you every one of us. He didn’t say the professional evangelist.
You go. He said, you all my disciples, you all go and we need to do that or we’re not following God.
And now the, and you know, now we think, well, a lot of the culture is getting so, so evil and so oppressive, so canceling things.
You know, somebody just told me there was a video up of mine that just got taken down.
I don’t even know what video was, but we never had that before.
I mean, we’re the, well, I don’t know, we gotta check it out but we have been canceled at least once over doing nothing different than we have always done, which is to preach the word of God.
But that doesn’t mean you stop preaching the word of God and get on the defensive you, it means they need it more.
It means now is the time to be all the more on the offensive.
That’s how it was back then Verse six.
So they passed through the Fran and Galatian region after being for forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia, forbidden after they came to my, they were trying to verse seven to go into the and the spirit of Jesus did not allow them.
Wow, they were forbidden. The Greek word stop prevented, kept from withstood by the spirit from preaching the word in Asia.
It was a Roman province of Asia. Paul will minister in that area at another time.
But right now they are forbidden by the Spirit.
How well we don’t know, could have been through doors closing, hindrances, obstacles, things not working out, could have been a prophetic word.
It could have been, could have been persecution, could have been a dream.
Could have been a strong check prophecy, lack of peace, but they were prevented from spreading the gospel in that area.
The Holy Spirit empowers us. He, he comes about, he anoints us, but he also prevents us.
Not only does he lead us to go, he also leads us to stop.
And the stopping is just as important as going.
If you don’t believe that, try driving without stopping, it’s just as important you got to go but you gotta stop.
You know, the, the spirit in Hebrew was what is what the wind, the breath, the holy wind.
That’s what it means. If you’re walking with the wind, the wind is at your back, you’re going.
But if you’re walking against the wind, it’s gonna stop you or it’s gonna make, it’s gonna make it hard for you to go against God’s will.
And that’s good when you have obstacles in your life.
When you have obstacles, you might be saying, you know, well, ok, that means it’s, you know, God’s not leading that or, or you know, or, or something’s going on.
But how about God may be leading me even in the obstacle there are times that obstacles are not of God’s certainly.
And the enemy, if you know, something is definitely God’s will for your life or God’s will in the Bible.
You know that then, and you know where it’s just going against that.
Well, you know, then that’s, then you push through.
But other, there are times that the obstacles are not from the enemy, but maybe from God.
And he may be saying, wait, he may be saying no either way but the spirit leads through the yeses of God and the nose of God.
Just like how many parents you only say yes to your kid.
You can’t, if you love them, you have to say yes and no.
So God examples in the Bible, Balam is going out doing what he knows. He should not do.
He’s gonna try to come up with a prophecy to curse Israel and his donkey stops him.
Thoms donkey stops him. It’s God trying to stop him.
Moses is heading to Egypt and yet he said he was almost killed because he was not obeying God.
He didn’t circumcise his kids. So God was, it was withstanding.
There’s a story of, of a man who, who, who was a famous preacher.
He fell in a fog and he tripped over just beyond where he tripped was a cliff.
The fall stopped him from dying and he, he came to the Lord.
We gotta thank God, not just for the yeses but for the nos, even when we don’t know what, we don’t fully understand them yet.
My wife Renata had some work to do that would take her to the World Trade Center.
The last minute it was canceled the morning, it was the morning of 9 11.
Now, if Paul was led by the spirit and he had to be restrained, he’s trying to get into Asia, the province and the spirit stopping him and all of them.
Well, if he’s led by the Lord, why did he have to be restrained?
Well, you don’t always know God, I don’t care who you are. If Paul didn’t always know God’s will.
I mean, he knew the, the moral will, but if he didn’t know He knows what it was, then, then we all have to be seeking God at every moment.
The spirit leads in all sorts of ways in your life. Sometimes it’s what you feel.
Not always, sometimes what you feel is wrong, but sometimes the spirits in it.
Sometimes you’re saying, I just don’t feel peace about this and it’s God, you know, and but, but also, you know, the, the question is they weren’t wrong.
They were wanting to share the gospel. So that was right.
But God said not there, not now, not there, but God still honored their hearts.
If your heart is right, seeking truly the will of God, the heart of God doing his will.
And even if you don’t know in your mind what the next step is or you, you made a mistake about what it was but your heart was right.
God will still lead you. Look at the magi, they were pagan astrologers, yet their heart was open, seeking God and they got to the place they got to Bethlehem.
There are those who have not asked God’s will and they made major believers, made major decisions and they regretted it.
Seek God before you make a big decision but seek Him in all things.
But you’re gonna embark on a major course or a change.
You better know God is leading you seek God’s will. How do you know God’s will?
God will lead you through your heart.
As he said, He’ll lead you through open doors sometimes and He’ll lead you through closed doors.
We’ll never get every decision right?
But if your heart is right, you’ll end up there and remember to value the nose of God, the, the closed doors of God as much as the yeses and open doors because God promises to work everything in your life for good.
If you’re following God everything in your life for good, you will be saved by His yeses and you’ll be saved by his nose.
There are believers, I could tell, you know, I mean there the story where they were supposed to get on a plane and they did, they just switched, they felt let to go somewhere else and the plane crashed, they would have been killed if they weren’t open to the spirit of God or the God’s leading.
Perhaps every and the other thing is in every no from God.
There’s also a yes because if he says no, for one thing, he’s got to have a will for you.
So there’s got to be yes, for something else.
So every no from God say, ok, then what’s the yes, I’m ok with it.
If I’m not gonna do this, I’m gonna seek God’s will because there’s always gonna be a will for God.
It’s not gonna. So if it’s not here, the will of God is continuing somewhere.
The story of the one who true story of the man who was going on a mission, want to go to a mission field and they turned him down because of health issues.
So instead he started, he, he worked on a business.
I think he he his father, he inherited from his father, became multi multimillionaire gave to missions more than he could have ever done on his own when we were losing our building in Garfield because the, the lease was running out and they wanted to build ultimately a Walmart, we saw this building here and loved it right away, but it went under contract to another, to a business, to a Chinese business.
So we looked around after that building, after building, after building, after building, this was like the the first or second place we looked.
But then after that, it was just long looking and, and there was nothing, nothing.
And we kept talking and the, the realtor said, stop talking about that other building. It’s gone.
Finally, we settled on renting on some industrial space. But we kept having this building in our heart.
Rena said, I just don’t feel this one.
I said, well, you know, if God doesn’t want it, we’re seeking him, he’ll stop us just when we’re about to sign the contract on that space.
I get a message that this building is back on the market. Just at the moment.
It was the last moment, God prevented us from going to the other building and then gave us this building.
Now, if Paul, the question is if Paul who wrote all this, if, if he could want to do something that wasn’t God’s will not morally wasn’t against God, but it, it wasn’t God’s perfect will.
How much more do all of us need to be seeking God’s will?
So how do you know in God’s God’s will for your life?
Well, first, you have to be seeking it.
You don’t get God’s will without seeking it, meaning, you know, because God wants your heart involved in it.
I mean, he may force something there, but he wants your heart to be involved.
So you gotta be seeking the will of God. God honors that second.
And how many times I’ve said this many times, it remains just as important now, as ever, the most important thing you have in your life to know the will of God is this.
They say, what about the spirit? Absolutely. The spirit.
But you don’t, our interpretation of the spirit’s leading is not always right.
Yes, you gotta be led by the spirit. But this thing is not interpretation.
This thing says this way, that way. I mean, on the major things, it’s very clear for your life.
This is filled with the will of God for your life.
And he said, well, now, now he said, well, that’s general, it’s not me.
Well, wait a minute, God wrote this book, knowing you were gonna live and knowing one day you’re gonna open it up.
I wasn’t gonna share this because I’ve shared this, but I’m gonna throw this in right now.
You know, I, I, I, I, when I was working, uh, when I got, I came to the Lord, but I’m working with disabled Children and I’m in a room and there’s a guy, some of, you know, some guy on the other end and, and he’s smoking and, and I, this guy is not a believer, not that you can’t smoke, but you shouldn’t smoke in a but, but he’s doing that and, and, um, and I have my little Pocket New Testament.
It’s kind of on break. I open it up and it, and, and he, and his name was Rufus is, uh, and, and I open up and it says, greet Rufus.
It was in the end of Romans where Paul says, by the way, say hi to this one, this Roman and Rufus.
So I said, all right, Lord.
So like I say, hey, hey, hey, Rufus, I’m greeting you because actually I was just reading the Bible and it said greet Rufus.
He said, yeah, he’s the Bible.
He says, I’m a, I’m a believer, but I’ve been backsliding and it says, well, it says, greet him and his mother says, yeah, my mother’s been praying for me.
My mother has always been the mother of Rufus and the Lord ministered to him.
But the thing is Paul just wrote that greed, Rufus.
God knew he was gonna write it, put it in the Bible.
Now, I’m not saying the word was for me like, but I’m saying is yes and no.
God knows everything he knew one day. I would open the Bible to that.
So how can we say that God doesn’t have a word that’s specifically for your life. Hey man.
But see, but now, but now let’s go even beyond that, the general will of God that’s in the Bible.
Well, the thing is this, it may be general, the will of God speaking to everybody.
But when you apply it to your life, it becomes specific to your life.
It becomes part of the specific will for you that God has.
Hi, I’m Jonathan and I hope you are blessed with the video.
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