In my name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues, they will take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. So then after the Lord had spoken to them, he was received up into heaven and sat on the right hand of God.

And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word with signs following. We all need someone to back us, especially when you go out into this world as a believer, and you want to do any form of ministry. How do you persuade somebody that God is real? How do you prove that you're a believer, that you know the Lord? How do you show that God has called you and has a purpose for your life? God gave Moses a calling and a job to do.

And the first thing Moses said was, Lord, that sounds pretty good, but if I go out there and tell them this, they won't believe that you sent me. Not a chance. How do I prove to them that you sent me? And God said, I'll give you a couple of signs that you can perform in front of the people to confirm and to prove that I sent you.

God will always back you up, provided you put his kingdom first. But you see, backing up means he comes at the back. You see, we've got to make the first move.

We tend to wait for him to move first. Okay, Lord, as soon as I see you move, I'll follow. That was great for the Israelites.

You know, when the cloud moved, they followed the cloud. Sorry, we're in the New Testament now. See, God says, I'm there to back you the moment you move.

Well, Lord, could you just sort of give me a bit of an indication, maybe just twitch your finger or do something so that I know you're there? Well, you're going to have to take him at his word. He said he's going to be there. He may sometimes just give you a little prompt, say, get moving, get moving, do it.

That's the best you're going to get. Anybody who's given a prophetic word know that God usually gives you one or two words or just a little picture or a little nudge and says, speak. Okay, Lord, so just give me a little bit more so I know what I'm going to be speaking about.

He says, uh-uh, you just speak what I've given you and I'll give you more. See, we've got to take the step, then God follows and moves. And actually, sometimes if the word is clear and God has already given us a clear commandment in the word, such as, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel.

Are you waiting for him to say to you again, go ye into all the world? It's in his word. He's already given the commandment. In the army they have what they call the standing orders.

Standing orders means you do those without the officer having to repeat them. They're assumed that you're going to follow those orders. Yeah, well, you know, the sergeant didn't tell me that I should do that.

Yeah, well, the general has already laid out the standing orders, so don't wait for the sergeant to tell you anything. See, God in his word told us what to do. He's waiting for you to move.

He promised he'll back you, but he'll only back you once you move. Now, the first sign that you need to minister may come when somebody approaches you, when somebody asks you to minister to them. That's wonderful.

Those ones are so easy, eh? Breaking ice with people sometimes is really hard. When somebody comes to you and says, please can you pray for me? Can you help me? I've got a question I need answering. They've given you a sign, and now you know it's time to move.

So you might get a little nudge from the Lord. You may get somebody asking you. If you don't get any of those, the word says, go ye.

So you have no excuse no matter what happens. First move is yours, but be very careful. Be careful.

The Lord never imposes on anyone. When the Lord said, go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, he did not say, go ye into all the world and ram the Bible down the throat of every person you meet. See, he doesn't work that way.

He's a gentleman. He leads. He offers.

He doesn't impose. So be very careful in making your move that you don't impose. And as we go to look at some of the ways that God can use us, and we should expect to be used, the same principle applies to all of these.

We should not impose our will on somebody else. If they ask us for ministry, we can give it. If they don't, we have to wait.

Unless the Lord leads us to go and approach them and say, do you want ministry? And even then, if they say no, we've got no further step to make. Now all believers have this right. We all have the right to go and do the works of God and expect God to back us and to confirm the word that we speak with signs following.

Oh, you know, I thought that was only for the apostles. Well, there was 120 people there in that room on the day of Pentecost, and actually only 12 of them, actually 11. Yeah, the 12th one was reappointed already with Matthias.

It was 12 apostles out of the 120. When the Lord said, go ye, he said it to the whole crowd. There were probably even more than 120 at his ascension.

The command is to every believer. Now you say, well, what about the fivefold ministry? Well, they have a few extras that they can use. But what I'm going to share tonight is for every believer.

So if you say, well, I don't really have a calling. I haven't had any training. I'm not in any kind of ministry yet.

I'll have to wait. No, what I'm teaching tonight, you don't need to be in the fivefold ministry. So I don't want any excuses.

If you're a believer, what I have to say applies to you. These signs shall follow those who believe. In my name they shall cast out demons.

These signs, what's a sign? What is a sign? A sign is a mark, a proof. See, these signs are for us. To approve us.

That when we step out to do the work of the Lord, as believers, God shows by putting a mark on us. A sign for everybody to see. And people look at that and say, oh, I see that person is definitely a believer.

They are definitely anointed of God. They definitely have the right to do what they're doing. Well, one of the first things that every believer has the right to do, a sign that every one of us should manifest is the ability to cast out demons.

In fact, it's part of preaching the gospel. Now be careful. Casting out of demons is something that's involved when we go out to preach the gospel to the unsaved and where there are demon powers in unbelievers, we as believers have the right and the authority and we should cast those demons out in order that the gospel can go unhindered to that person and they can come to receive the Lord.

Now, casting out of demons is always done in the name. This is one time when you're going to do it by using words and you're going to use the name of Jesus. You're going to speak to a demon and you're going to say demon in the name of Jesus, come out of that person and leave them alone.

It's going to take words to do this. Okay. Now be very careful in handling demons.

Do not become over demon conscious and go looking for demons. Once you know you have authority of demons, don't think that you are so wonderful that you could walk into the middle of a seance and bind all the demons and spoil their little show because you the one will come unstuck. Okay.

If demons manifest, deal with them. If God gives you a revelation by the gift of discerning a spirit, then act on that revelation. But don't go looking for demons.

You will find them and you will find them in the wrong place and in a bad time and you will go unled and find yourself coming under a spiritual attack. Now that doesn't mean it's because you weren't spiritual enough or you weren't mature enough or you weren't trained. Every believer has this authority.

But if you do it the wrong way, I don't care if you're an apostle, you do it the wrong way, you'll get a lash back and an attack from that demon that will affect you because you did it wrong. Now this can be done by all believers. It has nothing to do with your righteousness.

You don't have to be afraid of demons because in the name of Jesus, you have the authority to command any demon power. Jesus conquered them on the cross of Calvary and we have the authority and the right to speak to any demon in the name of Jesus and command it to bow and it must bow. We have that authority.

You say, well, you know, I don't feel, I don't feel very spiritual right now and you know what? You know what? I lost my temper today and swore at somebody. What right do I have to deal with demons? See, it's not based on your righteousness. It's not based on how holy and spiritual you are.

It's based on the fact that you are a believer and you stand in the name of Jesus and you have the right and the authority to use that name. It's a legal standing. Nothing to do with your ability.

You need to be careful when it comes to dealing with demons in believers. We don't cast demons out of believers, although it may look the same. There is a lot more involved and I've covered this in some detail in my course on overcoming evil, on how to handle demons and deal with them.

All of this is available to every believer. Have you manifested the sign yet of casting out demons, of taking authority over demon powers and seeing them bow to the name of Jesus? If you haven't, perhaps you have failed to obey the first command of Go Ye. Because if you're going to go and minister to people, it's not going to be long when you're going to come in confrontation with these powers.

When you do, you better be ready to step forward and use that authority that God has given you. The second sign is speaking in tongues. Every believer has the right to speak in tongues.

Usually it only comes after we have received an experience where the Holy Spirit has come upon us after salvation, which we call the baptism in the Holy Spirit. If you've been baptized in the Holy Spirit, you have the right and the ability to speak in tongues. If you've battled with it, you can break through.

You don't think, well, maybe it's not for me. These signs are for those who believe. Do you believe? Are you a Christian? Are you born again? Then you have the right to experience this sign of speaking in tongues.

So when you're speaking in tongues, it's a sign again to others that the Spirit of God is upon you and you are really a believer. If I look at a person and wonder whether they're really a Christian or not, when I hear them speaking in tongues, I have to acknowledge God gave them the sign. They must be believers.

Even though I don't like the guy and he doesn't look very spiritual to me, and I just wonder sometimes he's either Christian the way he lives, when he's speaking in tongues, trust me, he's a believer. Now, what is this thing about? What is tongues for? Why is it given to us? Just as a sign? No, actually tongues is one of the most wonderful things, one of the wonderful gifts that God's given for us to use for ourselves personally. Once you can speak in tongues, you should use it.

You say, well, it's wonderful every now and then I go to a meeting and I feel the Spirit of God moving, and then I feel the urge to speak in tongues and it's nice. Well, you know, if you don't often get into those meetings, you may never speak in tongues. Speaking in tongues has been given for you to use, not just experience.

You should be using it in prayer to the Lord. Why? Well, firstly, scripture tells us that sometimes we don't know what to pray. What happens if you're going to pray for somebody, and you know a little about their circumstances, but you don't know everything, and you don't know what God is planning to do in that person's life.

How do you pray for them? You know, you can just bring them to the Lord and say, Lord, here's the person, I want to pray for them. I don't know what to pray, Lord, but you know what I should pray, so I'm asking you to help me pray the right thing in the Spirit. And you go off and you pray for the person in tongues for a while until you sense that God is actually praying through you.

It's a wonderful gift to use in prayer. Now, I use tongues to rebuke demons. It doesn't mean speaking in tongues automatically is an attack against the enemy, because actually Satan doesn't understand tongues normally.

He doesn't understand when you're communicating with the Lord. But when I'm talking to a demon in tongues, he knows exactly what I'm saying. I'm speaking his language.

So there are times when God has given me the ability to use tongues as a weapon, where I'm coming in confrontation with demon powers, whether it be in a person or in intercession, in spiritual warfare, where I come against that demon and I will rebuke it, and usually my tongue switches to one of the tongues that I have. I tend to use that tongue most of the time to rebuke the devil. Now, the trouble is when you speak in tongues, you never really know, do you, what you're saying.

The reason I know that I am really rebuking the devil is the Lord gave me a confirmation once. My late dad, he had an amazing ability to, at times, understand what I was saying in tongues, especially when I was specifically led to either pray or to rebuke. And I remember the one night we were having a group prayer meeting and I felt this urge to rebuke the devil, and my dad began to laugh.

And he said, let me tell you what you just said to say. And he gave me the exact, this is actually what you said to the devil there when you spoke in tongues. So I thought, well, I felt like I was speaking to the devil.

I wasn't really sure, but now God's given me a confirmation. I really was speaking to the devil in tongues. It's a very powerful thing to use.

Very powerful. And the devil understands it, trust me. Okay.

Tongues is especially important when you're praying for somebody else from a distance. Tongues is never for praying with a person live. Okay.

And I'm going to explain shortly why. If you're praying for somebody from a distance, as I said, you're not sure what to pray. God can lead you in intercession to intercede for that person and pray for them.

So tongues is always for you to help you minister more effectively and to do what God's called you to do. You should be praying in tongues daily out loud. It's extremely difficult to pray in tongues in your mind.

So perhaps it goes without saying that you should pray out loud. It took me a lot of practice to eventually be able to do it in my mind. And then my mind starts to stray.

You know why? Because tongues doesn't come through the mind. It bypasses the mind. So it's very difficult to pray in tongues without praying out loud.

So you say, well, you know, I spend all day at work. How do I get to pray in tongues out loud? You know, you can pray in tongues under your breath and just mouth the words. Nobody knows what you're doing.

I'm riding in the car. I'm speaking in tongues and sometimes the car pulls next to you and they think you're nuts talking to yourself. You can just put your hand over your mouth, but then you can speak out loud.

It doesn't matter. But if you work and there's other people there, you can still pray in tongues. You should pray in tongues daily.

Why? It opens the door for greater revelation. Because Paul says, if I pray with my spirit, I'm building myself up, building myself up spiritually. It also means I'm learning to hear the voice of my spirit.

And when God gives revelation, usually gives it via your spirit. So if you've learned to hear the voice of your spirit and God drops a little word in there, it immediately pops up out of your spirit and you hear, oh, God just spoke. Otherwise, it's going to be another noise amongst the midst.

God's trying to speak in your spirit, but you're not listening to your spirit. You're listening to all the other voices out there. You're listening to the voice of your mind.

You don't hear those little promptings. If you pray long periods in tongues, you become more sensitive to those inner promptings. Plus, if you're not a person who's used to speaking, speaking in tongues is a good way of practicing speaking.

You know what, I don't know what to say when I stand up to speak. It's easy. Shalababandalamakurabalatabarant.

Easy. The Holy Spirit just gives you all the words to speak. Practice it.

Practice walking up and down your room, praying in tongues, out loud, like you were preaching. And if you wanted to be a preacher, while you're praying in tongues, visualize yourself standing there behind the pulpit and preaching fervently while you're praying in tongues. See, you're practicing your vocal abilities.

It will teach you to speak a bit more clearly and more loudly. Speaking in tongues is one of the most important signs that God's given us as believers, one of the most important gifts that he's given us. And now I'd like to look at the third sign.

They shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. How do we heal the sick? When Jesus sent his disciples out, he told them to go and heal the sick. When Jesus gave the great commission, go ye, he said, and these signs will follow those who believe.

You shall lay hands on the sick. What was he saying? When you go to preach the gospel, you should be laying the hands on the sick. And if you do that, they will recover.

I'm not speaking about a healing ministry. I'm not speaking about an evangelist who has a healing ministry. I'm speaking about every single believer has been given the commission and the authority and the ability to lay hands on the sick.

So how do we do it? Well, firstly, you're going to have to touch them, because that's what laying on hands means. You're going to have to touch them. So, yeah, I'm a bit insecure and uncomfortable about touching people, you know.

Then you can't heal the sick. Because it comes by laying hands on people, not just from a distance, you've got to actually touch them. Let your hand be on them.

See, very important. So where do we touch them? Some people, they just kind of come. It'll sort of touch, you know.

You've got power in your hands. We want to get that power into their body. See, so touch their hands properly.

Touch their body properly. One of the best places to touch a person is on the head. Why is that? Because that's where the brain is, and the brain connects to the whole body.

Now, if you want to affect the body of a person, touch the part where the brain is, where the entire nervous system is going all the way down the spine and all the nerves, and actually, when you release power into that part of their body, you release it into every single part of their body automatically. Very, very powerful when you lay hands on a person's head. Now, if they've got a specific part of the body that's diseased, it might be better to lay your hand on that exact part of the body.

But, you know, there are parts of the body that we cannot lay hands on without being indecent. There's ways around that. The woman's got pain in her chest or her breasts.

You can't go laying your hands on her chest. So how do you do it? Okay. The way I do it is I tell her to put her hands on her chest, then I put my hands on top of hers.

So I can get pretty close to the bodily part without touching her indecently. If all else fails, lay your hand on the head. Or lay your hands close to where it is.

Lay your hands on the back instead of touching the front. Get close if you can. But you must lay hands on the person before healing's going to take place.

So now that we've laid our hands, what do we do? I tell you what's the mistake we all do. We begin to pray for the person. These signs shall follow those who believe.

They shall pray for the sick and they shall be healed. Does it say that? It doesn't say that. In fact there's only one place in the Bible that speaks about praying for the sick and that's in James where he says if there's anybody in the church that's sick, then call for the elders and let them pray over him having anointed him with oil.

You see that's not the kind of healing I'm talking about here. That is a specific ordinance that God placed in the church for believers. This kind of healing is for anybody, believer or unbeliever.

It's for any other human. In fact you're probably going to use this more in ministering to unbelievers as a sign to them that God is real. I've seen people do this.

Come we're going to pray for you now. We'll be like Lord in the name of Jesus we ask you to heal this person now. In Jesus' name Lord heal them now.

Wrong. Never seen it work yet. Your prayers are not for the person, your prayers are for yourself.

If you're going to pray when you're going to minister healing then before you lay your hands stand and pray. Peter prayed for ages the dead body and they commanded to rise. The prayer is for you it's not for them.

We sometimes think by the by all the words we pray by saying the right things we'll somehow get the healing to come. It doesn't come through your prayers comes through your hands and then you're going to pray in tongues that's also not for them it's for you. So don't think that to add extra power to your healing prayer we're going to pray in tongues over the person as if that's going to add extra power.

It doesn't. Now I know this is probably totally contrary to what you've ever seen or heard before. This is a revelation God's given me and it's real.

I've grown up through the years and watched people minister to the sick. I've seen people pray awesome prayers without results. Do you know why? Prayers, words that you speak come out of your spirit.

See only human beings can speak words because human beings have spirits. When you pray you are actually tapping into your own spirit. When you pray in tongues you are tapping into your own spirit.

Now I've taught elsewhere that there are two kinds of anointings that we can flow in. An internal anointing and an external anointing. Healing is never an internal anointing it's an external anointing.

If you want to minister healing stop trying to get it out of your spirit. You don't have the power there to heal. The power comes from up there and the power is in your body not in your spirit.

That's why laying on of hands is what releases it. The external anointing of God is upon you not within you. It comes upon you.

It's always described as the Holy Ghost coming upon. Releasing the internal anointing does not bring the external. Praying, long prayers, praying in tongues does not bring the external because you have no power to heal out of your spirit.

But you have the right, you have the sign as a believer to lay your hands and expect God to move upon you and cause that healing power to come through your body into the body of the person. You have to bring the external. That comes from your body and that's why the power is in your hands.

Now that power can vary in intensity. So don't think okay I'm going to lay my hands on the person and instantly they're going to get healed. Very seldom happens that way.

In fact the scripture says they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover. They shall recover. You see laying your hands on somebody releases a power, a healing power, a healing light that begins to radiate into that person's body.

You know we go to the doctor and he gives us pills and none of us expects that from the moment we swallow that pill everything's gone. Nobody's that stupid. Now I've swallowed a lot of pills in my life and I've learned it takes about 30 minutes for a pill to finally go through the threshold of the bottom valve of the stomach and start to hit into the rest of your body and for you to start to feel the effects.

At least 30 minutes before you start to feel the effects. So if you've got pain and you've taken a painkiller it usually takes 30 minutes to an hour at least before you finally feel the effects of that medication in your body. Now what if instead of treating that body with chemicals we're treating it with radiation power.

Do you expect that's going to work quicker? Might not. It may take a half an hour to an hour before the effects of hell. We don't have time to pray for that long.

I get tired standing there for an hour. I guess they don't have the anointing. It doesn't work.

We don't take the time to let the power of us into somebody. Us. We know when you take medicine after you've taken the first pill about four hours later or eight hours or whatever you're going to take another one.

It takes a while for it to fully have full effect. Well does that mean that that I only have to pray once? Why can't I pray now and give it time until the spirit of God begins to move and something begins to happen? You say so you feel better? A little bit. Oh I failed.

No no no no. Pray again later. Do the same thing again.

Do it again. Keep doing it again and every time you do you'll get greater confidence in yourself and the Lord. The anointing within you will begin to get stronger and increase and you may take 20 times of praying before you finally start to see something happening.

We're not talking about the gift of miracles here. We're talking about the inherent healing power that's available to every believer through the laying on of hands and nobody uses it. Oh we've tried.

We lay hands and we pray our little spiritual prayer and nothing happens. We say I don't have it. Sometimes actually you need to lay your hands and shut up.

Shut up. Shut up and let it work. You need sometimes a bit more than that.

Sometimes you need the person that you're praying with to actually participate in this. You see if the person is not ready for you to pray with them, if they don't honestly believe that God can work through you, they're going to block it off totally. So one of the things you can do when you pray with somebody and lay hands on them is to ask them to somehow visualize the healing power of God going through.

Now a famous lady who had a very powerful healing ministry some years ago by the name of Agnes Sandford. She wrote a book called The Healing Light which is now out of print. She was playing in some of these things before she even received the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

She was like a Episcopalian or something. Totally uncharismatic. But she would pray with people and sometimes she'd like she'll go to somebody in the hospital who's got pain in their body and I remember reading she was praying with this young guy and she said okay now I want you to help me with this because as I lay hands on you now I want you to imagine there's like a bright light that's just shining down through your knee here and making it warm and bringing healing power.

I want you to do that while I do my part. She got amazing results. Amazing results.

You see we always say well you know the reason you didn't get healed is because the person you prayed for didn't have faith. I had the faith but they didn't have faith. Well let's help them get faith.

One of the best ways of getting faith is for them to try and visualize it. I remember hearing Yankee Cho, the famous preacher, way back sharing an example of of how there was a guy who was knocked over by a taxi and and the taxi kept him in the car for hours because he didn't want to report it and eventually took the guy to the hospital and he was he was in a mess. There was little chance he was going to live and so he came to pray with this man and he said to him now listen I want to paint a picture for you.

There's a man he wakes up in the morning and he gets up and he greets his wife and he has breakfast and then he gets in his car and he goes to work and he has a wonderful day and he comes home safely. He said that man is you. He said I want you to see yourself the way you were the way it's meant to be.

He said I want you to keep seeing that picture in your mind. You are healthy. You will continue living a normal life and he laid hands on him and prayed for him.

God did a miracle, an amazing miracle. We should get people to participate with us. You say well you know what I don't know how this works myself but the Lord says we lay hands on the sick.

Now I know there's a power here and it's coming to your body and it's going to heal you and I want you to just help participate with me in this and I believe we're going to see God do something amazing. Encourage them to see it. It will help to release their faith and then once the power has flowed you've seen all the healing evangelists do this.

Encourage them to do something they couldn't do before. In other words let them put action to their faith and sometimes actually it's only as the person takes action that it happens. Man of the withered arm stood in front of Jesus and Jesus came to him and said stretch forth your arm.

Well that's stupid how do you stretch? Yeah. Rise take up your bed and walk. How can you tell a guy to do something? See when did he get healed? When did he get healed? He got healed as he took the action.

And very often the final manifestation of healing doesn't only come while your hands are laid on the person but when they actually release their faith through action. Encourage them to thank God for their healing. Help person to participate.

You'll be amazed. You'll be amazed what God will do through little you who's never ever flowed in any of these things before. Who doesn't even have any major calling.

Not been trained for ministry. You're not anybody important in the church. You're not one of the elders.

Heck you're not even a deacon. Then if you're going to speak words make sure that your words are not requests but they're commands. When you pray for the person do not ask God to heal them.

Instead speak healing. Instead command it. Be healed.

The Lord taught us even when we pray and the Lord's pray that our prayers should not be requests but they should be imperative commands. Come my kingdom give us this day our daily bread. We should be praying with authority giving commands.

And don't use repetitions. Oh you see them. Lord heal him in Jesus name, in Jesus name, in Jesus name, in the name of Jesus, in Jesus name, in Jesus name.

When I hear a person say in Jesus name over and over again I know that they're not expecting it to happen. We're trying to make it happen by saying words. Healing doesn't come through words.

Speak only when you're led. God gives you revelation. Share what you see.

Christ just speak the word of healing. Thank you Lord. Be healed in Jesus name.

Speak boldly. Speak with confidence. Whisper it.

You don't have to shout. Because your volume has got nothing to do with it. You don't have to push.

Have you seen preachers pray for somebody? In the name of Jesus. You know if the guy had a sore neck before he started he's worse now. There's nothing we can push the healing into the person.

It doesn't work. Signs and wonders should be normal parts of all ministry. Especially the ministry of evangelism.

When we go out obeying the Great Commission expecting that these signs will follow us as we preach the words. We should expect God to do something once we've done our part. You say well I'd love to do that.

I really don't have any gifts of the spirit. I don't have the gift of healing. There's only one gift that you need and that's the gift of boldness.

If you'll be bold enough to preach the word of God to put God on the spot and say God will heal you. God will set you free. To be confident enough to lay hands on them and let God heal through you.

You'll have the boldness to do that. All of these signs will become a normal part of your Christian life. Yes they will develop in time into something bigger as God calls you to different ministries.

And in the fivefold ministry God will give you extra things. He'll give you gifts of revelation that will go with it. And sometimes you will actually get a revelation that you can see what's wrong with the person's body.

He'll give you extra things you can use. But you don't have to wait for that. As a believer right now you can reach out and expect these things to be part of your ministry.

You can expect that when you preach God's word to go out and God will back you. You'll have signs following you. These signs should be a normal part of your Christian life.

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