In this sermon, the preacher discusses the yearning in a person's heart for a place where everything is alright, like the Jubilee mentioned in the Bible. He shares a story of a young boy in India who becomes a slave at the age of four due to his family's debt. The preacher emphasizes that in the kingdom of God, there is a different system where there is enough for everyone and we are free from the curse. He also mentions another boy who grew up in poverty and got involved with dangerous people, but through a dream about Jesus, he found hope and eventually turned his life around.

Set us free from that spirit of poverty. Holy Spirit, we just invite you to come in power. Father, just release your power and set us free from our spirit of poverty. I saw the Lord Jesus coming to some of you who have imprisoned spirits, and your personal spirit has been sitting alone in a prison, and the Lord Jesus is coming to you now, and He's opening the prison door, and in the name of Jesus, I call forth your imprisoned spirit to come out and to live, and to be free, and to walk in the Spirit of God, and to experience life in Christ. Come out and live in Jesus' name. Some of you have been bowed down in sorrow and sadness and grieving, and the Lord Jesus is saying to you, it's time to put off your grieving clothes and to look ahead, not behind at what you lost, but to look ahead at what you are going to gain in souls for the Kingdom of God. For what you have lost is not even worth comparing to what the Lord is going to use you for, to gain for His Kingdom and eternal purposes. I saw some of you who could not come into the presence of Jesus because you can only presence self, and in the name of Jesus, I speak to your personal spirit and to the eyes of your spirit, and I turn you away from presencing self, and I turn your eyes up to the Lord of Lord and the King of Kings to presence Jesus, so that you can behold His face and be free from self and the poverty of self. Father, release your power. Release your power. Father, in the name of Jesus, I speak to the depression and the oppression that has been bothering some of you for a long time, and I command it to fall off of you in His precious name, the name of Jesus, so that you can be free to experience joy and the joy of giving your life away for Him. So, Lord, come. Father, I ask that you would release the spirit of intercession upon the intercessors that you are raising up here tonight to birth ministers of mercy and justice, and, Lord, that these intercessors would be before you for vision, for strategy, for plan, for your voice, for your faith as to how you want to move in our midst and in our churches and in our cities. So, release the intercessors, Father, to birth what must be birthed. Now, Father, as we look up to you, I pray that you would open up our eyes to see what you have for us tonight to hear what you have for hear what you have for us to hear. And, Father, empower our feet to go and to do and to be obedient unto the word. Let your anointing come upon Jackie as she ministers to us in your name, in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Jackie, would you come forward and would you welcome her as you would welcome the Lord himself? When I saw people in sickness, in bondage, I was moved with compassion. I healed them and set them free. When I saw people like sheep gone astray, I said, whom could I send? And my heart is still broken and filled with compassion. And who will bring my heart to them? I have prepared a banquet for you, a banquet which is not only enough for you, but also for your family and your friends. Come, come to my banqueting table. Come and eat with me. That's what it says in Isaiah 25.6. On this mountain, the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine, the best of meats and the finest wines. We find that a lot of scripture talks about food. That's why the Chinese can identify very well, though our Hong Kong team thinks that Canadians eat a lot. But the Bible talks a lot about food. And my question is, is it talking about food? I mean, are we really going to eat and drink? Because these terms are used fully. They feast on the abundance of your house. Psalm 36.8. You give them drink from your river of delights. Are we talking about spiritual food? Are we talking about real food? Tonight, I want to talk about addressing the spirit of poverty. And together with this, the question of what do we actually minister now? Spiritual stuff or real food? Now, Hong Kong used to be missionary land. And we have two kinds of missionaries, or two kinds of missions in Hong Kong. And we have on one side, mission groups that give out rice and noodles and blankets and so much so that some of those missions actually forbid their people to talk about Jesus. Because it used to be that there was a term called rice Christian. That is, people would come for the food. And so they began to say, well, it's not fair to make them accept Jesus before you feed them. So feed them anyway. So you have that. We have a polarism of missions. On one side, we have those that do social work and very good work. On the other hand, we have those that say the words. And we had a meeting of a group of us who were minister with street sleepers. And we were going around each one of us and sharing what the different groups were doing so we could encourage one another. And some of our people were saying, well, we make friends with the street sleepers. And we visit them on Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And we give out rice boxes. And we give out blankets. And we pray with them when they're sick. And we take them to the doctor. And we take them to the social welfare. And we queue up with them to get registered to get their identity cards and so on. And so we went around the circle. And finally, we came to this a brother who's from a different group. And he said, we don't give out blankets. We don't give out rice boxes. We just preach the gospel. What is preaching the gospel to the hungry? You must ask this question. Because in God's most mercy, I hope you'll meet the hungry. We are the only people in the whole world that have any answer for the hungry. And we must ask these questions. What is preaching the gospel to the hungry? What is preaching the gospel to the poor? How do we do it? In the last two chapters of the Bible, there's this picture of heaven. And I often think that it's the place that all love songs are written about. And it's a yearning in a man's heart for this place where everything is all right. Like the jubilee Gary talked about yesterday. Like that year when everything comes right. Debts are forgiven. And you get to go home. And you get your home back. And the family's there. And slaves are set free. And all is right. And in man, there is that yearning for that place. And to be with him. Where there isn't any more poverty. Where there isn't any more sickness. Where there's no more crying. Where there's no more death. I knew a boy once. And he he was 13 when I first knew him. He lived in the wall city. And he had no parents. But the person who was kind of bringing him up. He was a kind of step uncle. Moved to wall city because it was cheap. And he didn't go to school. He couldn't afford to go to school. And so he hung around the streets. And he soon got to know a bunch of important looking guys. And I must say they loved him. I often think the gangsters love each other better than we do. Really. They called him their brother. And they let him belong. And they let him sleep in their place. And they let him eat their food. And they gave him protection. Which was why he joined them. Because you have to belong to someone you see. And then they put him to work. He was 13 or 14 when he began. And his job was guarding the girls in a brothel. What a terrible way to start your life. And these girls had been sold into prostitution. Probably they'd been raped by their boyfriends or seduced. And then you're no use. So they're used and then they will support the man who raped them. And they're guarded by these men. And he was told to beat them if they tried to run away. But you know they don't try after a bit. Because where would you go? I don't know who's God. Which one God's heart would yearn for more. The little boy who guarded or the little girls who were being guarded. But I made friends with him. It was harder to get at the girls you see. Later on we learned that the only way you could get to the girls was to pay. So we would pay for their time in order to sit with them. The name of this boy was called Ejai. And he didn't understand at all when I was trying to tell him about Jesus. He didn't understand at all. And later he got arrested. And because he was very young, even though he he had done an adult crime, they put him in a little boy's prison. So I went to visit him. And I tried to share about Jesus. But how do you do it? I mean if you haven't known the love of a mother or a father, the words they don't mean anything. So I prayed for him. And I said God, whatever it is that you can do, you have the way to get through to his heart. Because I don't know how to get through to somebody who's involved in the sickest business she could be when he's so young. And I came back to see him a week later. And he looked different. and I said what happened and he said he said I had a dream the night after you left and in my dream he said I was walking on a mountain I've heard this dream many times and he said it was a very beautiful mountain now that's hard to understand if you're in world city because in the world city you can't see anything it's all dark there isn't a gap between the houses there they built them a few inches close to each other so no light can get down you can't see the sky let alone the mountain but he said I was I was on a mountain and it was very beautiful and he said there was a path on the mountain and I was walking up and he said there were beautiful flowers and they smelt very sweet and he said then a man came and he was dressed in a long white robe and he held out his hand to me and I knew it was Jesus that was 28 years ago when he had that dream I'd love to say it was the end of the sad part of his story it wasn't but what had happened through that dream was that the yearning in his heart for that one and the yearning in his heart for that place was there and he was hooked in the intervening years he got on heroin of course and he was in prison many times and we found him again a few years back and he came to live with us and our people prayed for him and God's mercy he got off drugs just like everyone else pain-free he didn't really though understand quite what had happened he thought Jesus came into the world to make him a good man and he was a good man in our houses he knew how to keep the rules and so he he went through our program until he got to a certain stage when he was with a leader that ran out of patience and when the leader ran out of patience our guy ran away it does happen and I was so sad because I remembered we can't lose this one we can't lose this one I remember so long ago God put that hook in his heart we must go find him but we didn't know where to find him because he didn't go to home but it's not that hard in Hong Kong because it's quite small place even though there's about 8 million people it's still a small place so we prayed and we've got about 12 teams that spend their life taking care of the the poor in their streets and in their areas and one of them found him and he came back and this time it was different I don't know why I really don't know why I don't know why but it was different somehow this time it wasn't thank God he's got me off heroin it wasn't thank God he's done a miracle in my body it was something to do with understanding his forgiveness and mercy which is even more powerful and he's with us now I took him to Taiwan a couple of weeks ago he's now on one of our full-time ministry teams and we've got about a hundred people that work with us none of them have salaries he has no salary he's been doing this for a couple of years and he's so good and we paid for his ticket and when we got to Taiwan he was wonderful and halfway through the trip in Taiwan I asked him oh by the way have you got any pocket money I found out he got no money at all he was on a ministry trip and he had nothing and he'd never complained he he'd never asked he didn't grumble actually of course on ministry trips you don't need money I don't know whether you've experienced this but you don't it's sort of something like um when Jesus sent the disciples out and uh you know I usually come back with what I leave with it's don't need it but anyway there's this man who's done no school who's been through horrors when he was so young now very happy to spend his days with no money no pocket money no recognition and he spends his days walking walking up and down buildings visiting the old people there's a street sleeper they visit who used to actually worship worship his own excrement and they you hear these guys talking about him and they just say oh what a privilege God has given to us that we are the ones who are allowed to show him the sweetness of God's love and his mercy what a privilege we have how did this happen I suppose it happened because he had a glimpse of then and so he is content because he has had the then to live now bringing the then now and how does he do it well sometimes with real food and sometimes by praying for people I visited a street sleeper once and it is very unfair for us now because we've done this so long that the kind of street sleepers bush telegraph has gone all around Hong Kong and you know there's hardly a street sleeper in the whole of Hong Kong that hasn't been prayed for and the majority of them know Jesus I'm not saying that they're they're all housed yet but they know Jesus well I visited this one one day and we'd never met him before but he'd noticed his friends change and so when I came to him I said uh can I pray for you he said I got this very bad chest pain and I said I pray for you he said I don't know if you if it's all right for you to pray for me because I'm a Buddhist I said that doesn't matter I pray for you in Jesus name he said I don't know if that's all right because I'm a Buddhist I said it's fine I can pray for you in Jesus name you see because Buddha's dead and Jesus is alive and he said quite right so he he said what do I have to do you know as if it's going to be a punishment and I said nothing you just close your eyes and Jesus is going to come well he's already very excited and so I just put my hand out and I didn't say anything I was praying all the prayers inside and I just was praying Lord would you please come and touch him and I had my eyes open and I was watching and after about a minute he began to smile and he was breathing deeply and so I said how are you feeling and he said oh I feel very well in my chest and I said oh that's because Jesus was God's son and he could do things like that because he was God's son will you believe that and he said yes and then I prayed silently for another half minute and he he said I feel very loose I feel very well and I said that's because when Jesus was on earth he was he was down here 2000 years ago he was always doing things like that and he knew how you felt sitting here the man lives under a flyover under an overpass and and he didn't want you to feel lonely and dirty and painful so although he was always healing people he put all your chest pains and loneliness upon himself when he died will you believe that and he said yes and then I said will you believe he rose again and he said yes of course he's just walked under the flyover none of them have a problem with the resurrection and so I said to him well would you like to follow him and he said silly question if he's God of course I will so I said tell him you'd like to follow him and please say thank you very much for for dying for you and by the way he'll give you a new language to help you talk to him so we began to pray in tongues and this is the easiest time to do this by the way so he began to pray in tongues and the whole thing had taken about two or two and a half minutes or 25 years I don't know and then it was finished I'd given him the rice box it was all I had they didn't have a home for him then we keep renting new places because because there's so many people that need a home and they all want to come and live with us but we we can't find spaces quickly enough so I had to leave him there and I said well I have to leave now but Jesus will stay with you and he'll never leave you and you can talk to him in Chinese and when you don't know how to say it you can talk to him in the other language and that was all that day I could give him but so much how much was it the rice box how much was it the prayer or how much was it that he was jealous or got off drugs or found houses I don't know I don't know you see I can't separate any more what is actual food and what is spiritual food I don't know and if you read the gospels you'll find that Jesus you you couldn't always make out quite what he was talking about he was obviously interested in food and on one occasion he he fed five thousand then he fed four thousand so he was interested he didn't say well let's give them some bible verses instead but on another occasion when his disciples said come and eat he said I got food you don't know I want to see why poverty was in the world because if you look in this book you'll find the first two chapters and the last two chapters are very similar the first two chapters there's enough for man there's no hunger and all his provision for intimacy with God all his provision for relationship all his provision for food all was met he didn't seem to at that time need clothes so that wasn't a problem all his needs were met and we see that the last two chapters of the book is the same what happened in between well in Genesis chapter 3 we see the curses of this present evil age came upon man and the reason the curses came was that man had chosen to worship the other man tried to find intimacy a different way than through worshiping God a man trying to find knowledge and so he listened to the enemy and then became enslaved to the enemy and in Genesis 3 this is what the Lord says would happen to man if he did not worship God first and obey him I don't think that it's God who's cursed man but I think it's a curse that man has brought upon himself verse 17 cursed is the ground because of you through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life by the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken for dust you are and to dust you will return today I'm just going to deal with the male part of this curse from this time onwards man had to earn his living in the first two chapters man was allowed to work for fun and he could play with the animals and manage the animals that that was it but after he had disobeyed God and chose not to worship him first he bought this curse upon himself of having to earn his living by the sweat of his brow and it has been up until this time by sweat he would earn and for men by work they would find their identity instead of in relationship with their creator they would find their identity in their work some years ago when I was exploring this subject I got a hint of it and this happened through my own sister and I noticed that my sister worked very hard she was very bright she was the cleverest one of the family but everything went wrong with her life everything I don't know if you know people like that but everything went wrong she married a man who cheated on her and she left him and she had to bring up two children and the man was very rich and never paid her anything so she had to work and she never had time with her children and she got one disastrous job after another I couldn't think how she could walk into such awful jobs but she was always doing it and she worked I mean she really worked hard and and she worked for bosses who never paid her and then she did all their housework as well and then she did extra jobs for them and she ended up running their businesses and they never paid her and they cheated her and this happened time and time again and I began to think she's under a curse and one time she was so poor that she decided that a good job she could get would be to look after some sick old ladies because you get paid quite well in Britain for doing this so she went to live in the sick old lady's houses and she could get quite a lot of money doing this and she rented her house out so she thought she could make up some income this way well her tenants never paid rent and when she went into the town that she lived she began to see her furniture in the in the second-hand shops and so she went to the police and finally these uh tenants got taken to court and they were supposed to pay the back rent they were supposed to vacate the house so they vacated the house but when she went in she found they'd smashed everything on purpose and they never paid the rent because they were bankrupt and so she was thousands of pounds out of pocket so she got another job looking after sick old people and the same thing happened twice and I thought God she's obviously under a curse now this is what it says in Deuteronomy 28 this is another passage where it lists the blessings of worshipping and obeying God and then it lists what will happen if we don't obey God you will so much verse 38 and harvest little you'll plant vineyards and not drink the wine you'll have olive trees but the olives will drop off locusts will take over all your trees and crops this was my sister she worked hard but got nothing in hunger and thirst in nakedness and dire poverty you will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you he will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you much of the problem that we have when we are discussing with ourselves how we are to share our money or our goods much of the problem that we think that we have is that we think we have earned what we've got and it is not true did you know that in the Philippines one third of the national wealth comes from women who serve in other countries as servants in Hong Kong they are supposed to get a day off a week in other countries not that they have no legal rights these are women who never get to take care of their own kids and they go to other countries and look after other people's kids they miss their own children growing up and they get bonded to other people's kids for so little money and they have to send it all back to Philippines that's how a nation is managing to her economy by exporting its mothers and its women and they work and they work and they work and they work and what do they get and did you ever see that cover of time magazine when there was a little boy on the cover once and he was four he was a slave in India and what happens in India is if you are in debt your children may be indentured your children may belong to the person that you're in debt to and so they start life four years old he never will eat at his parents house he never will be with his mommy he never will go to school at four he's sweeping at four he is a servant and he works hard and he gets nothing we think we've earned what we have whereas in fact all any of us have earned is death and if we can look at the beginning of scripture and if we can look at the end if we can look to the kingdom that will come and must start to come now we see that there is a different system in the kingdom and this different system is that there's enough for everyone you don't have to earn your living anymore we are free from the results of the curse and i know hardly anyone who believes it and most of us who are christians because we happen to live in this age where we happen to use sort of bits of paper and round coins that is called money most of us serve still a worldly system when actually we don't need to be under this system at all and i mean at all we're as free as jesus was when he was asked do you give temple tax well okay the answer is no he's the son of god so he doesn't have to give temple tax but because he's the son of man he will and then he gets his disciples to fish up a fish and out comes the temple tax you see he's free from the world's system even if he lives in the world system he does not serve it he is not a slave to it because he's the king and we who belong to the king do not have to serve a system even if we live in it if we go on to look at the deuteronomy passage it's clear that these curses that are foretold for those who are disobedient or do not worship the lord it says that they are inherited and it says this will go on to the third and the fourth generation so it's clear to see then that it's possible that children will inherit their parents disobedience just the same as many of us have inherited our parents obedience and i met a very wonderful canadian once his name is was mark bontane who did a wonderful work in calcutta in india and he talked about the law of the harvest for many of us we enjoy prosperity because our forefathers of our countries or our cities or our families did love god and the blessings are inherited and we forget to thank god and we think that as british or canadians or whatever it is we happen to be we think we should have them so as blessings are inherited so are curses to the third and fourth generation and in verse 46 of deuteronomy 28 it says these curses will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever i was amazed to find in a chapter about poverty as a result of not following the lord that the result was to be a sign and wonder of an awful kind two thessalonians 2 9 says in the coming of the lawless one who will be in accordance with the work of satan displayed in defeat miracles signs and wonders we are living now in an age where there has never been the poverty that there is now but worse we're in an age where we are responsible because we know about it and we're living in a time where we can read a newspaper about a million people who are dying through genocide and we can watch a tv program and see that the poor mothers have no milk to feed the bones that are their babies and we can look at this and we can switch channels we can read as no other generation ever has about the poverty about the starvation about the floods about the calamities across the world and we turn our hearts off because we think what can i do well we can do we can do we do have the answer but we will need to be set free ourselves from the curse of poverty for we will have no answer for the poor if we ourselves are not free from the curse of poverty and there are many of us who know jesus who are still living serving the other system let's see how jesus addressed the curse of poverty we have a a bunch of people and we've learned different fashions and ways of praying and one of the ways of praying that people like to do quite a lot is gathering together in groups and shouting and even sometimes in stadiums to come against the works of the enemy if this is all that was needed that's what jesus would have done but this is what he did he addressed the curse of poverty by dealing with the spirit behind the poverty because it was through man's disobedience that satan was able to bring sickness to bring poverty to bring shame and sin into the world and the first way that jesus addressed the spirit or one example was the one that i spoke about this morning when the enemy tempted him and he said i'll give you all the kingdoms and the authority and the splendor of this world if you will worship me and jesus said in luke 4 8 worship the lord your god and serve him only we have found that the first thing we need to do in working with the poor is worship it's absolutely key and we find by the way this is most particularly true when we're dealing with prostitution i think it's something to do with idolatry but that's another subject but if any of you here are working with women who've been in this shame worship of creator god who made us for intimacy is the best way we have found of setting people free who've tried or been tricked into finding intimacy in any other way and we spend lots and lots and lots and lots of time in worshiping which is what jesus did first instead of instant ministry instead of clever ministry tricks i will worship the lord my god first that will be first one day in our world city meeting we have these addicts meetings came in this couple and they slept in the street with their little son and their little son was about two at that time and this couple had been found by one of our outreach teams our outreach teams are mainly people like it's either one i was telling you about who've been touched by god's mercy and so love to share mercy and they had heard that there was a place that you could start again and a place where there was a home and so they came into the world city meeting and we prayed with them and just like the street sleeper they came to know jesus and the power of the spirit came upon them and they spoke in tongues this is all we do this before the meeting starts this was all in the five minutes before the meeting started and then we came to worship now we don't explain it they understand it and during the worship the holy spirit came on another couple who started laughing and the new couple had their eyes open like saucers and they were looking at the laughing couple and i saw them and i said that's fine enjoy it because the holy spirit will come and touch you in a minute and a few minutes later i saw the the woman lying on the ground weeping and i said to her later what did you see and she said while we were worshiping i had a picture of a man on a cross and she said i knew it was jesus and i understood that it was my sins that put him there and i could no longer stand and i had to prostrate myself no man could explain that to her it was revealed by his spirit and two days later her husband slipped in a puddle in the street and died but at least he went to heaven and she came to live with us of course and her son because of course how can you say to someone jesus loves you and leave them out in the street when you've got a room how can you it doesn't mean anything so she came and god did set her free from her drug problem and her poverty that was through worship jesus gave up his life and we talked about this morning in galatians 3 13 it says christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written cursed is everyone who's by jesus death on the cross we believe that there is provision there for forgiveness from sins and we when we pray with people that's one of the first things we would always say do you know your sins are forgiven when people say well i don't know you say yes your sins are forgiven if you've asked we we want them to enjoy the knowledge that they're set free from sin now we might also do this with people's sicknesses and i know that we're going to discuss this and practice this tomorrow we would say jesus was hung on a tree and with his stripes we are healed because he bore our pain and our sicknesses we can be set free fully then but actually now and where we proclaim the kingdom we would expect to see this come at least in part and we'll go for it now we'll go for it for forgiveness of sins we'll go for it for healing the sick why not freedom from poverty why can't we go for getting ourselves free from the curse of poverty that we may bring freedom to those who are under poverty i'm gonna ask run to share for a couple of minutes no leave your paper behind um i was in hong kong and in this training this training thing in hong kong which was like around three months and it's called a mobile which i was um in what they call new boy's house which is after the drug addicts have known jesus and they go to this house to to just learn a new life how to start a new life in jesus and um i just learned so much from there um just really amazing how how they changed and and how jesus changed them and we worship there at least like twice a day or what we call worship um but then you know just once in a while things come up and you'll be like living with 15 babies who just started out and they don't know how to make decisions and and even if they they don't like just if you can go go for a walk one time because you got hang up and it's scheduled to to go out for a walk they'll get mad at you and then all they want to do is to run away because they saw they know how to do it and you deal with all that constantly and somehow it's not just them that just brought out all this stuff in you that you're thinking okay i'll try to love them you try you try your best and yes you try and you know there you you try to develop relationship with them and but this you can't write letters you can't you can't read books and even you can't choose to do much stuff there but you just try to be friends with them even when you go to the bathroom or taking a shower they might just kick out to open the door and there they are you get used to it but and after a while it's just like they very easily get irritated and problems arise and you think oh lord i can't deal with this anymore i just can't and one time we have a fight between a helper and a brother and the brother doesn't like did not like the way the helper deal with the situation at all and so for for the longest time was the longest several days ever in my life tensions were just everywhere in the air and wherever they go you can see all these faces like there's a war between the helpers and the and all the other brothers or all these babies and after a while i just don't know what to do anymore i have i have this night duty the night before and i was really tired we watched the people that were there from the first day to around the 10th or 15 days depends on how they're doing physically and emotionally we watched them 24 hours just to make sure to protect them and just take care of them as babies basically give them what they need and i was just so tired i just i just want to go to sleep so bad but i just could not go to sleep because all its tensions were there and i know i have to do something but there's nothing i can do nothing it's just war so and they were worshipping in the other room and i was supposed to sleep because i had my night duty the night before but i didn't care i just i just thought god really want me to go worship and you know once in a while all the brothers some of the brothers will oh they just get very mad and want to leave and a lot of them run away and and you just feel like god i can't i can't be friends with them anymore it's just not worth it it hurts so much it really really hurt and then you realize all this stuff he's bringing out just because you worship twice a day he touched you so much that you realize you are not adequate at all to do what what what this you know it's you need a super person to do all this work and i'm not that i i can't i just can't do it lord and some of them run away and you but then it was like god saying we hurt him a lot of times but he still loves us so much when i walk into that room of worship on one side all the people all the worship leaders all the people they were supposed to worshiping it was like it's dead it was dead because it's just not it's just not worshiping there's the tension right there you can just feel it and then on the other side we have this guy who manifested a lot because he's been doing a lot of idol worship before he was a christian and it's just so real and i said god i don't care i just can't i just can't make them follow jesus anymore so i go in there and i i just worship and before i know it i was on the floor weeping or mopping the floor and i just could not stop i just could not stop yeah um and amazing thing happens it was like it wasn't me anymore god just somehow i don't know how come in through the worship and you know we say i when i before i do this it was like i will go to minister these people and things like that but no that's not that's not it you go there you find out you got ministered much more than you minister to people there i'd ask rodent to share because the temptation when when people aren't behaving as nicely as you hope is to run away and he's chosen the better part which was to worship through it and that is the way to beat poverty the way that jesus chose the way that he chose was to die which was to give up his own will or the what looked like the easier way and to choose the will of the father and he came with signs and wonders preaching the kingdom of god and he said and gary quoted this yesterday the spirit of the lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor and then he finishes up by saying today this is fulfilled in your hearing today now now i want to know if we believe that jesus can set people free miraculously with a sign and wonder from the spirit of poverty i want to know what people look like now it's quite clear if you look in matthew 11 5 when john's people asked are you the one jesus replied the blind received sight the lame walk those who have leprosy are cured the deaf hear the dead are raised the good news is preached to the poor it's quite clear what some of those people would look like you would meet a man running around saying i can see i can see and if you knew that five minutes before he'd been blind basically a miracle and the lame man would be jumping up and down i'm sure he would i can walk i can jump praise god and i know that the lepers would be feeling their arms no marks i've got keen skin it's clear what all these people would look like after the signs and wonders that come with the kingdom are proclaimed now as jesus says but what did the poor look like are they going around saying pastor spoke well this morning good word what on earth did the poor look like after they've heard good news see i don't think many poor people hear good news they hear a lot of good advice a boy it makes you tired what is good news if you're poor well i'll tell you what one lady looked like i used to visit her in a refugee camp and she was a she was a very beautiful lady she was about in her 60s and in the refugee camp we have a lot of vietnamese refugees at one time there were about 60 000 and they had all sailed across the sea the first lot in big boats and the later lot in little boats sometimes they're just 12 feet and there'd be 40 people or so in the big waves and the big wind and the typhoons with no food and they were raped by pirates and they had their food stolen and many drowned along the way and this lady met it and she had almost nothing and i used to go and visit these huts where they lived in three tiered bunks and that was a family for each bunk and she lived on the bottom bunk and i used to go and tell her about jesus and it was very hot and i never could stay very long but she used to meet me at the door and she had a a bamboo fan and she used to fan me all the way from the door to the bed she was blind and she used to fan me all all across the room and then she would come to the bed which was her home and she would spread out imaginary she is wiping the bed and then she would say please sit down please sit down and i never felt so well looked after in anyone's house and i would pray with her and i would tell her about the god who could open eyes and she said well will you pray that i can see my son my son is in america my son is america will you pray and lived there for some months we used to pray that she would god would open her eyes and she would see her son and one day she got the news she could go and i got a postcard from america a few months later and she said on the postcard i have seen my son and he is most beautiful and i knew that god had opened her eyes he had healed her physically but you know she was free from poverty before she went she lived with no belongings but she wasn't under a spirit of poverty she made me feel so rich in her little house and you know in china it's like that you must be careful to go or not to go to a certain village now i know that it gets cold in your country here it gets cold in china too the problem is that in one family household it might be minus 30 or minus 40 they only have one quilt for the whole family and if you go visit them they will give it to you and you must take it you must it's like when you visit the poor they will give you their whole week's rations for a meal and you must eat it because they do know how to give you see they're free from the spirit of poverty what do the poor look like after they've heard good news i know certainly on one occasion there were 5 000 people going around clutching their stomachs saying i'm absolutely stuffed thanks could be another mouthful they had been healed they had heard good news and they'd been stuffed with fish sandwiches how much is then how much is now one thing that people often ask me about is money where'd you get your money from and we always answer in the same way we say well we pray and they say yes yes yes but actually from where and i was talking to a uh the gang leader of the wall city his brother once and actually this guy uh he got a degree in canada and he came to canada to study law so he could go back to hong kong and get all his gang brothers off and in this is true and he came back to uh hong kong and he was the number two in the family the number one was uh that controlled 20 000 men and uh had his headquarters in the wall city and he came to me and he said look i've been hearing about you and i don't understand how you operate where does your money come from and i said well we pray and he said yeah yeah yeah but i mean you don't mean it falls from heaven and i said well it might do because you know that's how god often did it and there was a knock at that moment on the wall city door and i have a very small room in there it was it was about 10 feet by about eight feet and uh there was a stranger there and he said oh i've picked up this letter now you can't send letters to wall city because it's not a postbox place and anyway nobody reads english and the letter says jackie pollinger wall city and he said i picked up this letter and i looked at it and had a hawaii postmark and i opened it and it had a check-in for 15 american dollars from somebody i never met i don't know who it was and so i gave it to a gang leader's brother and he said okay okay okay point taken