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(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) And a very good day, this is Pastor Marc Whelan with Touch of God.
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And today we will be discussing the importance of giving testimonies to other people, both your own personal testimony and the testimony of God. And that being the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. We'll be showing what a testimony is, how it gives God the glory and acknowledgement that he is so due for bringing about the miracle in our lives so that we can talk about it as a testimony. And that your testimony may have a lasting impression upon the people you tell it to, even resulting perhaps in their decision to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That's why it's so important to talk about this today.
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We have to give glory to God. We have to acknowledge him for all the goodness that he is and that he has performed in our lives. So what is the definition of a testimony?
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Well, the dictionary states a declaration by a witness under oath as that given before a court or deliberative body. All such declarations spoken or written offered in a legal case or deliberative hearing or evidence in support of a fact or assertion or proof.
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There are two main types of testimony, the Christian's personal testimony and God's testimony. And the Christian needs to share both. Sharing your personal testimony with others is a must for all Christians. When giving your testimony, you tell how you came to trust in Christ alone as your Lord and Savior. You tell how God opened your eyes on how you were a sinner in need of a Savior. We are sharing with others different events leading up to our salvation and how God has worked in our lives to bring us to repentance. Testimony is a form of praise and honor to Christ. We also use it as a way to encourage others. Know that every time when you're going through trials and sufferings in life, that's an opportunity to share a testimony of how God worked in your life and made you stronger as a result. Testimony is not only the things that we say, it's the way we live our life is a testimony to unbelievers as well.
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And that is true because you may not be telling someone about a testimony, but you may be observed by fellow workers at your place of employment or at a gathering of how you are behaving and how you are responding to others. Someone may be observing you and you are on display.
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You are a witness of the nature and the character of Christ because Galatians chapter 2 verse 20 says that we are not alive, but Christ is alive in us. Christ is alive in us to the degree that we are dead and he's alive in us. So we need to make sure that we represent Christ by our nature, our character, as best as we can. This is important because we have to look different and be different to the world and we are if we allow Christ to flow through us and the Holy Spirit to give us the words to speak to others. Now we must be careful not to lie and exaggerate about things when we're giving our testimony, our personal testimony. We must be careful as well that we don't brag and glorify ourselves, which is what some people purposely and unknowingly do.
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Instead of talking about Jesus, they use it as an opportunity to talk about themselves, which is no testimony at all. If someone were to say, I used to make lots and lots of money doing this sin and then Jesus saved me.
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Examine your motives. It's all about Jesus and his glory. Don't make it about yourself.
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Share today and build one another up because your testimony can have a huge impact on someone's life. Without God, we do not have any good testimony because he is the source of all good.
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So we cannot say that something great happened in our life and not credit God for the goodness because he is good. Everything good is from God. And we know this from James 1.17. It says, Every good gift and every perfect, free, large, full gift is from above. It comes down from the Father of all that gives light, in the shining of whom there can be no variation, rising or setting or shadow cast by his turning as in an eclipse. So how is a testimony established in the first place? How is one created? Well, in my personal case, I asked another Christian how I could get rid of an alcohol addiction of 20 years back in 2009. I had been drinking for the previous 20 years from age 18 to age 38. I had had enough and I did not know where to turn.
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And that is a key. Some of us may be still going along in a sin because we haven't yet had enough of it. So if you want to give it up, but you haven't yet completely had enough of it, you need to ask the Lord to give you a distaste for it, that you would want to give it up to him.
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Have the Lord help you give it to him. Help the Lord free you from that temptation so that your heart would want to give it to him. He is ready to take it. He's waiting for you. You're not a robot.
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You have a free will. He won't force it from you. He wants you and expects you to turn and be in repentance because of his goodness that draws you to repentance. But you have to make that decision.
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He is ready and waiting. As you'll see here that when I spoke to another Christian and I said, how do I get rid of this alcohol addiction? It's been 20 years and it continues to ruin my life and my days. The Christian said that the Lord spoke to him just that moment and said, you, Mark, take the first step. Then I, the Lord, will take the other 10 steps in order to deliver me. So I obeyed the instructions. I went home. I flushed the drink down the kitchen sink. I threw away all the bottles in the rubbish, in the trash. And the next day I noticed on the normal way home in my car, I would go into a shop and buy alcohol. But this day I had no urge, no desire to do it.
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Every day continued like this. And the weekend came when I would always go to the bars.
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And that first weekend and all the weekends since, and every day, that urge is no longer there in my soul to partake, to go and consume the alcohol. So the Lord has delivered me and freed me from 20 years of alcohol. And he was ready and waiting for me for all that time. He was waiting for me to give it to him. I could not deliver myself from it. I did not have the strength to do it.
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Only the Lord could deliver me from it because only he has the strength. Only he has paid for it to happen. His blood has paid for it to happen at the cross. Jesus has delivered me.
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So my free will chose to seek help. God's grace placed a Christian in my life who wanted to help me. But most importantly, he could hear from God and speak what God said to me. How many times does God want to speak through people to get to us, but he can't find anyone who even hears him.
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But even if they do hear him, they will actually pass on the message. Isaiah chapter 6 says, who will go for us? Who will go for God in your area of the town? Who will go for him in your street? Who will go for him in your household? Who will go for him in your country? There needs to be a rising up of the church that needs to be equipped to understand who they are in Christ, that they may be used as instruments of righteousness and instruments of speech to the world, no matter what the persecution. And this is what Jesus expects of those who come to him and make him their Lord. Now we are sons of God as born again Christians, and therefore we must be obedient to the one whom we serve. We no longer serve Satan. We are no longer lost. We are now found. We need to not just serve God, but be sons of God. And a son of a parent would always do what the parent expects. But God is not just our parent. He's our creator. He's our redeemer. He's our savior. He's the one that has paid our punishment at the cross instead of us. He continues to pour out his love as a result of his grace, his undeserved favor for us. God caused those demons of addiction to be gone from my soul and my body.
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God had delivered me. So the divine miracle caused by God's hand in this case was caused by me deciding to reach out to a Christian, asking him how I can get rid of this alcohol.
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And he heard from the Lord. And then I obeyed the Lord. And then the miracle came to pass.
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A divine miracle caused by God's hand could also begin by someone praying for someone who is in bondage. Say the mother or the grandmother of the son or the daughter that are in addictions or in a situation, that the Lord hears that prayer and causes a miracle. Or God being sovereign can decide to cause a divine event whenever he chooses. But remember that there is this interesting concept of a free will that man has that God will not violate. God wanted me to be delivered from alcohol for the entire 20-year period in my life. He didn't want me to get into it in the first place. He doesn't want to see any of his creation trapped in bondage of addiction. He could have taken it automatically from me. But if he took it once, that would be against my free will at the time because I wanted it. And he doesn't take anything from us that we desire or we want until we don't want it anymore. This can be drugs, alcohol, any form of addiction, any form of bondage. We need to seek the Lord. The children of Israel could not deliver themselves from Egypt. They were not very thankful for being delivered from Egypt. But it was God who delivered them from Egypt. He used someone to guide, to lead them out of Egypt. But God ultimately had everything good to do with that. The second thing that has to happen for a testimony to be formed is that I had to decide to believe that God was responsible for the miracle because there's no such thing as chance or luck. No matter how many people in the world say, oh, good luck.
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Oh, that was bad luck. Or, oh, that was just a chance thing. There's no such thing as chance or luck. So God can bring about a divine event, a miracle in your life to free you from something or to provide a new job for you that is something that is better than your wildest dream, as they say. You have to decide, was it a good thing that happened to me? Because in James chapter 1 verse 17, all good things come down from the Father of lights. That means there's nothing good on the earth that God did not arrange or create. That means we have to honor the Lord with all the good things in our life because He's the author of all those things. He's not the author of evil. He's the author of good. He's the author of forgiveness and love and long-suffering and patience and wisdom. In order for me to give glory to the Lord, I need to believe and accept that it was Him in the first place that was responsible for the good thing that He did in my life. If I didn't believe that God had delivered me from the alcohol after 20 years, then I would not be speaking about it frequently to other people, giving Him the glory, the praise and acknowledgement, and people would not be finding out that God can deliver people from alcohol.
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A testimony is not a testimony if the person does not acknowledge that the event was caused by God.
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God unfortunately receives no glory from miracles where the person assumes it must have been a chance thing or good luck. Neither of these are possible outcomes. So why do we give testimonies?
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The first thing is to give acknowledgement to God that He alone was responsible for all the good that happened which produced the testimony. Number two, to allow others to see the goodness of God so that they can understand His nature and His character. Number three, for others to consider a relationship with this amazing God in the heavens who already paid in blood on the cross for us to have a relationship restored with Him. Number four, to help build faith and trust in God that He can deliver the person hearing the testimony because the Bible says that the Lord is no respecter of persons. Romans chapter 2 verse 11 says, For God shows no partiality, undue favor or unfairness. With Him one man is not different from another.
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So this means if someone hears that I was delivered from 20 years of alcohol by God and they hear how it happened, then they have a reason to believe that if God did it for me, He would do it for them too. That is why often I tend to have people in my path who have problems with alcohol because God knows if He can arrange a conversation with me and that person, that that person will hear my testimony and they will be able to relate to me and I can tell them the truth of what God did in my life, that He delivered me and I haven't gone back to that drink ever since 2009, that very night that I took that first step and He took the other 10. The other thing about giving a personal testimony is you have to see how long you're going to be with the person in order to tell them enough to allow them to make a decision for Christ. If you are standing at a railway station and the train is about to come and the person is getting on the different train to the one you are going to get on, you may only have two or three minutes. So you have to think about your personal testimony and write it out, but write maybe three different versions of it. One is the full version with all the detail, that's if someone is in a coffee shop or in your home and they're sitting down and they have no rush to leave and there may be a 10-minute version which is smaller and then you have the really fast version which is maybe two or three minutes and practice them over and over again so that you don't need to carry that paper with you every time. So be conscious that the person that the Lord has put in your path to speak to, their soul is on the line and you need to make sure you can get your testimony out because it could be the very thing that allows them to make a decision for Christ before they breathe their last.
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Tomorrow is not promised, even the next hour is not promised to us. So we have spoken about giving our personal testimony, but there is one other type of testimony, that's the testimony of God.
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We see in 1 John chapter 5 verse 9 to 12 that God himself testifies of his own son. Verse 9 says, if we accept as we do the testimony of men, if we are willing to take human authority, the testimony of God is greater, of stronger authority, for this is the testimony of God, even the witness which he has borne regarding his son. Verse 10, he who believes in the Son of God, who adheres to, trusts in and relies on him, has the testimony, possesses this divine attestation within himself. He who does not believe in God in this way has made him out to be and represented him as a liar because he has not believed, put his faith in, adhered to and relied on the evidence, the testimony that God has borne regarding his son. Verse 11, and this is that testimony, that evidence. God gave us eternal life and this life is in his son. Verse 12, he who possesses the Son has that life. He who does not possess the Son of God does not have that life. So we see here that the testimony of God, the evidence is the testimony that God has borne regarding his son, that God gave us eternal life and this life is in his son. Remember that's why Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me or by me, depending on the version you read. Verse 12, he who possesses the Son has that life. He who does not possess the Son of God does not have that life. We must choose Jesus today. We are surely dying without life. Remember at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the Lord told Adam, in the day that you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will surely die.
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And they ended up eating that fruit in disobedience to the Lord's warning.
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So we need life, we don't need death, we need life and only Jesus has that life.
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And those who do not possess the Son of God does not have that life and they are surely dying spiritually. Revelation chapter 12 verse 10 and 11. So this is the revelation that John received of Christ Jesus. Verse 10, Then I heard a strong, loud voice in heaven, saying, Now it has come, the salvation and the power and the kingdom, the dominion, the reign of our God and the power, the sovereignty, the authority of his Christ, the Messiah. For the accuser of our brethren, he who keeps bringing before our God charges against them day and night, has been cast out.
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Verse 11 And they have overcome, conquered him by means of the blood of the lamb and by the utterance of their testimony. For they did not love and cling to life, even when faced with death, holding their lives cheap till they had to die for their witnessing. So we have overcome, conquered the devil by means of the blood of Jesus and by the utterance of the testimony within us, the testimony being God's testimony of his Son. That means the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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We also need to utter our personal testimony for people to relate to us and to find out what God has done in our lives so that they can see that miracles are still happening today by the Lord, not just the ones that they read about in the Bible. Matthew Henry's commentary on verse 11 is this. The servants of God overcame Satan by the blood of the lamb as the cause, by the word of their testimony, meaning the powerful preaching of the gospel is mighty through God to pull down strongholds. By their courage and patience in sufferings means they loved not their lives so well, but they could lay them down in Christ's cause. These were the warriors and the weapons by which Christianity overthrew the power of pagan idolatry, and if Christians had continued to fight with these weapons and such as these, their victories would have been more numerous and glorious and the effects more lasting. The redeemed overcame by a simple reliance on the blood of Christ as the only ground of their hopes. In this we must be like them. We must not blend anything else with this. So we must have a simple reliance on the blood of Christ today as the only ground of our hope. God is the source of all good. We must tell people about Jesus.
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We must tell them about how he delivered us and how he can deliver them, and we must preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and confirm with signs and wonders, laying hands on the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, speaking in unknown tongues, showing them the baptism of the Holy Spirit in us. We are in victory today because Jesus has already won the victory.
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We still have opportunities on this battlefield. The war has been won, but the battles continue, and we need to know that we are strong in Christ and that unity in the body of Christ and unity in prayer can accomplish much. Your faith in Christ can accomplish much. We must tell people about Jesus, or how else will they get to find him? How else will they be delivered from surely dying an eternal death and torment in hell in the place of destruction? How will they know about him unless we testify of the Son of God, Jesus Christ? If you would like to partner with us, our website is touchofgod.world. If you'd like to send us a prayer request, go to that same website, touchofgod.world, and you can send a prayer request, and you can also listen to past broadcasts.
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So until next week, you have a blessed week. Share your personal testimony, and share the testimony of God about his Son to others. Amen.
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(Transcribed by TurboScribe. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) And a very good day, this is Pastor Marc Whelan with Touch of God.
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And today we will be discussing the importance of giving testimonies to other people, both your own personal testimony and the testimony of God. And that being the good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ. We'll be showing what a testimony is, how it gives God the glory and acknowledgement that he is so due for bringing about the miracle in our lives so that we can talk about it as a testimony. And that your testimony may have a lasting impression upon the people you tell it to, even resulting perhaps in their decision to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That's why it's so important to talk about this today.
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We have to give glory to God. We have to acknowledge him for all the goodness that he is and that he has performed in our lives. So what is the definition of a testimony?
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Well, the dictionary states a declaration by a witness under oath as that given before a court or deliberative body. All such declarations spoken or written offered in a legal case or deliberative hearing or evidence in support of a fact or assertion or proof.
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There are two main types of testimony, the Christian's personal testimony and God's testimony. And the Christian needs to share both. Sharing your personal testimony with others is a must for all Christians. When giving your testimony, you tell how you came to trust in Christ alone as your Lord and Savior. You tell how God opened your eyes on how you were a sinner in need of a Savior. We are sharing with others different events leading up to our salvation and how God has worked in our lives to bring us to repentance. Testimony is a form of praise and honor to Christ. We also use it as a way to encourage others. Know that every time when you're going through trials and sufferings in life, that's an opportunity to share a testimony of how God worked in your life and made you stronger as a result. Testimony is not only the things that we say, it's the way we live our life is a testimony to unbelievers as well.
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And that is true because you may not be telling someone about a testimony, but you may be observed by fellow workers at your place of employment or at a gathering of how you are behaving and how you are responding to others. Someone may be observing you and you are on display.
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You are a witness of the nature and the character of Christ because Galatians chapter 2 verse 20 says that we are not alive, but Christ is alive in us. Christ is alive in us to the degree that we are dead and he's alive in us. So we need to make sure that we represent Christ by our nature, our character, as best as we can. This is important because we have to look different and be different to the world and we are if we allow Christ to flow through us and the Holy Spirit to give us the words to speak to others. Now we must be careful not to lie and exaggerate about things when we're giving our testimony, our personal testimony. We must be careful as well that we don't brag and glorify ourselves, which is what some people purposely and unknowingly do.
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Instead of talking about Jesus, they use it as an opportunity to talk about themselves, which is no testimony at all. If someone were to say, I used to make lots and lots of money doing this sin and then Jesus saved me.
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Examine your motives. It's all about Jesus and his glory. Don't make it about yourself.
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Share today and build one another up because your testimony can have a huge impact on someone's life. Without God, we do not have any good testimony because he is the source of all good.
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So we cannot say that something great happened in our life and not credit God for the goodness because he is good. Everything good is from God. And we know this from James 1.17. It says, Every good gift and every perfect, free, large, full gift is from above. It comes down from the Father of all that gives light, in the shining of whom there can be no variation, rising or setting or shadow cast by his turning as in an eclipse. So how is a testimony established in the first place? How is one created? Well, in my personal case, I asked another Christian how I could get rid of an alcohol addiction of 20 years back in 2009. I had been drinking for the previous 20 years from age 18 to age 38. I had had enough and I did not know where to turn.
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And that is a key. Some of us may be still going along in a sin because we haven't yet had enough of it. So if you want to give it up, but you haven't yet completely had enough of it, you need to ask the Lord to give you a distaste for it, that you would want to give it up to him.
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Have the Lord help you give it to him. Help the Lord free you from that temptation so that your heart would want to give it to him. He is ready to take it. He's waiting for you. You're not a robot.
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You have a free will. He won't force it from you. He wants you and expects you to turn and be in repentance because of his goodness that draws you to repentance. But you have to make that decision.
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He is ready and waiting. As you'll see here that when I spoke to another Christian and I said, how do I get rid of this alcohol addiction? It's been 20 years and it continues to ruin my life and my days. The Christian said that the Lord spoke to him just that moment and said, you, Mark, take the first step. Then I, the Lord, will take the other 10 steps in order to deliver me. So I obeyed the instructions. I went home. I flushed the drink down the kitchen sink. I threw away all the bottles in the rubbish, in the trash. And the next day I noticed on the normal way home in my car, I would go into a shop and buy alcohol. But this day I had no urge, no desire to do it.
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Every day continued like this. And the weekend came when I would always go to the bars.
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And that first weekend and all the weekends since, and every day, that urge is no longer there in my soul to partake, to go and consume the alcohol. So the Lord has delivered me and freed me from 20 years of alcohol. And he was ready and waiting for me for all that time. He was waiting for me to give it to him. I could not deliver myself from it. I did not have the strength to do it.
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Only the Lord could deliver me from it because only he has the strength. Only he has paid for it to happen. His blood has paid for it to happen at the cross. Jesus has delivered me.
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So my free will chose to seek help. God's grace placed a Christian in my life who wanted to help me. But most importantly, he could hear from God and speak what God said to me. How many times does God want to speak through people to get to us, but he can't find anyone who even hears him.
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But even if they do hear him, they will actually pass on the message. Isaiah chapter 6 says, who will go for us? Who will go for God in your area of the town? Who will go for him in your street? Who will go for him in your household? Who will go for him in your country? There needs to be a rising up of the church that needs to be equipped to understand who they are in Christ, that they may be used as instruments of righteousness and instruments of speech to the world, no matter what the persecution. And this is what Jesus expects of those who come to him and make him their Lord. Now we are sons of God as born again Christians, and therefore we must be obedient to the one whom we serve. We no longer serve Satan. We are no longer lost. We are now found. We need to not just serve God, but be sons of God. And a son of a parent would always do what the parent expects. But God is not just our parent. He's our creator. He's our redeemer. He's our savior. He's the one that has paid our punishment at the cross instead of us. He continues to pour out his love as a result of his grace, his undeserved favor for us. God caused those demons of addiction to be gone from my soul and my body.
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God had delivered me. So the divine miracle caused by God's hand in this case was caused by me deciding to reach out to a Christian, asking him how I can get rid of this alcohol.
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And he heard from the Lord. And then I obeyed the Lord. And then the miracle came to pass.
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A divine miracle caused by God's hand could also begin by someone praying for someone who is in bondage. Say the mother or the grandmother of the son or the daughter that are in addictions or in a situation, that the Lord hears that prayer and causes a miracle. Or God being sovereign can decide to cause a divine event whenever he chooses. But remember that there is this interesting concept of a free will that man has that God will not violate. God wanted me to be delivered from alcohol for the entire 20-year period in my life. He didn't want me to get into it in the first place. He doesn't want to see any of his creation trapped in bondage of addiction. He could have taken it automatically from me. But if he took it once, that would be against my free will at the time because I wanted it. And he doesn't take anything from us that we desire or we want until we don't want it anymore. This can be drugs, alcohol, any form of addiction, any form of bondage. We need to seek the Lord. The children of Israel could not deliver themselves from Egypt. They were not very thankful for being delivered from Egypt. But it was God who delivered them from Egypt. He used someone to guide, to lead them out of Egypt. But God ultimately had everything good to do with that. The second thing that has to happen for a testimony to be formed is that I had to decide to believe that God was responsible for the miracle because there's no such thing as chance or luck. No matter how many people in the world say, oh, good luck.
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Oh, that was bad luck. Or, oh, that was just a chance thing. There's no such thing as chance or luck. So God can bring about a divine event, a miracle in your life to free you from something or to provide a new job for you that is something that is better than your wildest dream, as they say. You have to decide, was it a good thing that happened to me? Because in James chapter 1 verse 17, all good things come down from the Father of lights. That means there's nothing good on the earth that God did not arrange or create. That means we have to honor the Lord with all the good things in our life because He's the author of all those things. He's not the author of evil. He's the author of good. He's the author of forgiveness and love and long-suffering and patience and wisdom. In order for me to give glory to the Lord, I need to believe and accept that it was Him in the first place that was responsible for the good thing that He did in my life. If I didn't believe that God had delivered me from the alcohol after 20 years, then I would not be speaking about it frequently to other people, giving Him the glory, the praise and acknowledgement, and people would not be finding out that God can deliver people from alcohol.
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A testimony is not a testimony if the person does not acknowledge that the event was caused by God.
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God unfortunately receives no glory from miracles where the person assumes it must have been a chance thing or good luck. Neither of these are possible outcomes. So why do we give testimonies?
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The first thing is to give acknowledgement to God that He alone was responsible for all the good that happened which produced the testimony. Number two, to allow others to see the goodness of God so that they can understand His nature and His character. Number three, for others to consider a relationship with this amazing God in the heavens who already paid in blood on the cross for us to have a relationship restored with Him. Number four, to help build faith and trust in God that He can deliver the person hearing the testimony because the Bible says that the Lord is no respecter of persons. Romans chapter 2 verse 11 says, For God shows no partiality, undue favor or unfairness. With Him one man is not different from another.
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So this means if someone hears that I was delivered from 20 years of alcohol by God and they hear how it happened, then they have a reason to believe that if God did it for me, He would do it for them too. That is why often I tend to have people in my path who have problems with alcohol because God knows if He can arrange a conversation with me and that person, that that person will hear my testimony and they will be able to relate to me and I can tell them the truth of what God did in my life, that He delivered me and I haven't gone back to that drink ever since 2009, that very night that I took that first step and He took the other 10. The other thing about giving a personal testimony is you have to see how long you're going to be with the person in order to tell them enough to allow them to make a decision for Christ. If you are standing at a railway station and the train is about to come and the person is getting on the different train to the one you are going to get on, you may only have two or three minutes. So you have to think about your personal testimony and write it out, but write maybe three different versions of it. One is the full version with all the detail, that's if someone is in a coffee shop or in your home and they're sitting down and they have no rush to leave and there may be a 10-minute version which is smaller and then you have the really fast version which is maybe two or three minutes and practice them over and over again so that you don't need to carry that paper with you every time. So be conscious that the person that the Lord has put in your path to speak to, their soul is on the line and you need to make sure you can get your testimony out because it could be the very thing that allows them to make a decision for Christ before they breathe their last.
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Tomorrow is not promised, even the next hour is not promised to us. So we have spoken about giving our personal testimony, but there is one other type of testimony, that's the testimony of God.
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We see in 1 John chapter 5 verse 9 to 12 that God himself testifies of his own son. Verse 9 says, if we accept as we do the testimony of men, if we are willing to take human authority, the testimony of God is greater, of stronger authority, for this is the testimony of God, even the witness which he has borne regarding his son. Verse 10, he who believes in the Son of God, who adheres to, trusts in and relies on him, has the testimony, possesses this divine attestation within himself. He who does not believe in God in this way has made him out to be and represented him as a liar because he has not believed, put his faith in, adhered to and relied on the evidence, the testimony that God has borne regarding his son. Verse 11, and this is that testimony, that evidence. God gave us eternal life and this life is in his son. Verse 12, he who possesses the Son has that life. He who does not possess the Son of God does not have that life. So we see here that the testimony of God, the evidence is the testimony that God has borne regarding his son, that God gave us eternal life and this life is in his son. Remember that's why Jesus says, I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me or by me, depending on the version you read. Verse 12, he who possesses the Son has that life. He who does not possess the Son of God does not have that life. We must choose Jesus today. We are surely dying without life. Remember at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the Lord told Adam, in the day that you eat of the fruit of that tree, you will surely die.
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And they ended up eating that fruit in disobedience to the Lord's warning.
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So we need life, we don't need death, we need life and only Jesus has that life.
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And those who do not possess the Son of God does not have that life and they are surely dying spiritually. Revelation chapter 12 verse 10 and 11. So this is the revelation that John received of Christ Jesus. Verse 10, Then I heard a strong, loud voice in heaven, saying, Now it has come, the salvation and the power and the kingdom, the dominion, the reign of our God and the power, the sovereignty, the authority of his Christ, the Messiah. For the accuser of our brethren, he who keeps bringing before our God charges against them day and night, has been cast out.
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Verse 11 And they have overcome, conquered him by means of the blood of the lamb and by the utterance of their testimony. For they did not love and cling to life, even when faced with death, holding their lives cheap till they had to die for their witnessing. So we have overcome, conquered the devil by means of the blood of Jesus and by the utterance of the testimony within us, the testimony being God's testimony of his Son. That means the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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We also need to utter our personal testimony for people to relate to us and to find out what God has done in our lives so that they can see that miracles are still happening today by the Lord, not just the ones that they read about in the Bible. Matthew Henry's commentary on verse 11 is this. The servants of God overcame Satan by the blood of the lamb as the cause, by the word of their testimony, meaning the powerful preaching of the gospel is mighty through God to pull down strongholds. By their courage and patience in sufferings means they loved not their lives so well, but they could lay them down in Christ's cause. These were the warriors and the weapons by which Christianity overthrew the power of pagan idolatry, and if Christians had continued to fight with these weapons and such as these, their victories would have been more numerous and glorious and the effects more lasting. The redeemed overcame by a simple reliance on the blood of Christ as the only ground of their hopes. In this we must be like them. We must not blend anything else with this. So we must have a simple reliance on the blood of Christ today as the only ground of our hope. God is the source of all good. We must tell people about Jesus.
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We must tell them about how he delivered us and how he can deliver them, and we must preach and teach the gospel of Jesus Christ and confirm with signs and wonders, laying hands on the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, speaking in unknown tongues, showing them the baptism of the Holy Spirit in us. We are in victory today because Jesus has already won the victory.
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We still have opportunities on this battlefield. The war has been won, but the battles continue, and we need to know that we are strong in Christ and that unity in the body of Christ and unity in prayer can accomplish much. Your faith in Christ can accomplish much. We must tell people about Jesus, or how else will they get to find him? How else will they be delivered from surely dying an eternal death and torment in hell in the place of destruction? How will they know about him unless we testify of the Son of God, Jesus Christ? If you would like to partner with us, our website is touchofgod.world. If you'd like to send us a prayer request, go to that same website, touchofgod.world, and you can send a prayer request, and you can also listen to past broadcasts.
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So until next week, you have a blessed week. Share your personal testimony, and share the testimony of God about his Son to others. Amen.
