“Well good evening. I hope you want to serve you on already. It’s a lovely day here in South Yorkshire.

Of course it’s pitch black at the moment outside but we’ve had a nice day, raining all day. And what I’d like to do is start off with wishing everybody a happy St Andrew’s Day for yesterday. I hope you had a good time. We would love to have been up there celebrating with you. But we weren’t. We were here in sunny old room.

So, the title of today’s broadcast really is challenging the status quo. By that time I want to ask you a question and challenge you.

I hope you’ll take it in the right spirit as that meant critically. It’s just a challenge. Just answer the question for yourselves and see what happens.

The question I want to ask you is what do go to Church core? Why do you know? What do you expect when you get there?

The Holy Spirit urged me to release this is because this is something I released probably a couple of years ago.

I released the Challenge then but nothing happened. No one took me up on it. What I’d like you to do at this time is if you’re challenged, share it. Share this broadcast when it’s finished. Share it and let other people challenge other people with the same thing.

The spirit is asking me to read something to you just a starting point. It’s from Matthew 11:7, 9-11.

The well-known story, I’m sure you’ll recognize it when we as we read it. As they departed Jesus began to say to the multitude concerning John.

“What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A read shaken by the wind. But what did you go to see? A prophet? Yes, I say to more than the prophet. For this is he of home is written. Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare the way before you. Assuredly I said to you, among those born of women, there has not risen one greater than John the Baptist, but he who is leased in the Kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

Well, now in passage I’m sure I’m sure you’ll recognize it. The LORD then asked me a question and he told me to do exactly the same thing in Church in general, which is why we’re doing this progress.

What do you go to Church for?

What do you expect to see or hear maybe when you go to Church?

Do you go just for some praise and some worship?

That’s wonderful. Praise and worship is absolutely wonderful. It can carry you into the presence of God.

Do you go for prayer?

Do you go for the prayer?

Do you go to hear a sermon?

I could, I could see a logical sound and correct sermon. Or maybe you even go just for the communion meal.

Linda and I, as many of you probably know, celebrate communion at home every day.

This is something The LORD asked us to do about six years ago and we still do it to this day and we will continue to do it as long as we go, as long as we can. But there’s a few other things that you can go to Church for.

Certainly you might go when notices are on to put some dates in your diary. Church events are coming up. I know how Church is very busy with events right now and it’s not even the full Christmas season.

Maybe you go to greet some friends and some brothers and sisters in The LORD.

I know we get greeted. We’re relatively new to our Church. We get greeted warmly and home in a homely manner and it’s lovely.

We have people just walk up to us who a couple of weeks ago we didn’t even know.

They say “Hi Chris, hi Linda, how are you?” It’s lovely to be greeted like that.

Do you plan your next street outreach? Now I know a lot of Churches don’t do street outreach but if you do, do you go there to plan that? Is that something you plan with your people there?

How about just going for a coffee and a natter? A chat, a biscuit. It’s amazing how many people do just go for the social science side of Church life.

Let me ask you something.

Do you ever go to Church specifically expecting God to do so?

Did you ever go think to go to Church specifically expecting to see God in action?

Expecting anything you possibly might see at healing meetings. That’s if you hold them in.

Do you guys expect you to witness this power?

It’s quite biblical. All the things I’m going to give you today are biblical, biblical, biblical based.

So do you go to witnesses power? 1 Corinthians 2:1-5. A demonstration of God’s power.

An excerpt from that, I want to read the whole passage.

“I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not a persuasive word of human wisdom, but in a demonstration of the spirit and of power that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

Did you expect that when you go to Church?

Do you expect that to see that when you go to Church?

Do you ever go expecting to see a miracle of healing perhaps?

This is so biblical and so many people avoid this subject. Mark 2:1-12. Again, an excerpt, I think. Maybe not. I’ll see how we go.

“He said to the paralytic, I say to you, arise, take up your bed and go to your house. Immediately he arose, took up the bed and went out in the presence of the mall. So they were all amazed and glorified God saying, “We never saw anything like this!”

Jesus didn’t pray to God for him to answer a prayer. He didn’t say, “Father will you heal?” He commanded the man to rise and be healed.

Acts 3 is another example of healing. Peter and John were approached the paralytic. They said simply, actually, 1-10, “Silver and gold, I do not have, but when I do have, I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. Once again, you see,”

it’s commanded. He told him, he said, in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.

To resume the quote, “and he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones were strengthened. So he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with him, walking, leaping and praising God, and all the people who saw him walking and praising God.”

That must have been some site, you know, for people not used to seeing that sort of thing. That blessed to take him in back is, of course, Jesus had been written very recently.

Many of them would have seen Jesus through the same thing, and now they say, it’s disciples doing it.

Another one, another subject which many Churches do avoid, do you go expecting to see deliverance?

Luke 8:26-39, talks about the man in the gatherings. A spirit called Legion was cast into all the peaks, and I’ve got here run, run, run, splash. Basically, Jesus didn’t command the Legion to leave the man and just go wherever.

He ordered them to go into the picture, enter the peaks, and the peaks immediately ran off the edge of the cliff into the water. Now this, of course, got Jesus into serious trouble with the owner of the peace, but we don’t know what happened. Nevertheless, he did so.

Another one to expect, do you ever go expecting to listen to a prophet?

I’ll take you back to the post-certain to the verses I first, our first motor when we came on, when I came in live.

“What did you come to see? I say to part of Jesus, begin to say to the multitudes, what did you come into the wilderness to see? A reach, shaken by the wind. What did you go out to see? A prophet? Do you know the rest? More than a prophet, John the Baptist.”

These are amazing scriptures. These are, if you like, the demonstration through the scriptures, that these things are all valid things for The Church today, for The Church at any period of time.

Do you ever go expecting to witness Salvation?

Now here’s one. Acts 2:46-47, “and thousands were added daily.”

To quote the Bible, “So continuing daily in one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they kept their food and with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people, and The LORD added to their number daily, those who were being saved.”

It’s amazing, it’s an amazing verse. Why doesn’t The Church see this nowadays?

You have to have a special meeting with someone that ran up bunker, up any here now, to bring it more up, to bring it to more recent. Someone like Nathan Morris is someone else, any of the current realm of evangelists, I know several evangelists who see this every day.

You see people coming to The LORD every single day to the preaching of the gospel and sharing The Church with them. Do you go expecting to have your faith levels raised up?

How do you have you raised someone’s faith level?

So testimonies, my own testimony, Linda testimony. We’ve seen from your reaction when we’ve broadcast these on here.

People are amazed by the things I see. People are much more likely to believe a testimony followed by seeing something actually happen than they are just hearing third-hand information on it.

A testimony, you cannot argue with a testimony, you are there. A testimony is an eyewitness report.

A Great Commission says to them, says to these in this instance, this is Mark 16:15-18, “and he said unto them, go into all the world, preach The Gospel to every preacher. He who believes and is baptized will be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned, and these signs will follow those who believe. In my name, they will cast out demons. In my name, they will speak with new tongues. In my name, there will lay hands on the sick and they will recover.”

I have omitted something deliberate in there, and that is that they will take up servants and they will drink in the same way as in the deadly. I think this comes in the realm of not testing God.

Nobody in the right mind just picks up a snake, not knowing whether it’s poisonous or not, and plays with it, or handles it. Both snakes just want to be left alone, and nobody drinks deliberately drinks anything deadly. The Word says that no one remains hurt.

I think this is referring to accidental consumption of poison. But let me ask you something else. From your expectations, what would The Church do if someone like Smith with us or A. Allen, William Barnett even came from into well-known prophet, come to minister, come to minister.

What would happen if Ron Harp Bunky turned up? What would happen if nice nice turn up? John Kilpatrick. These famous people who have a reputation of preaching and people get saved.

I’m not talking about these people in person, Mr. Sona, I’m talking about those who are like them and have a similar anointing to them.

These people, in most Churches, let me tell you, we know this from The Churches we’ve been in, some of The Churches we’ve been in anyway. These people would scare the pants off most congregations.

Most people in most Churches these days. People, it’s time for us to raise our faith levels, raise our trust, raise our expectations of both God and whatever we go to Church for.

A far too long we have watered down just about everything to do with our faith. We’ve tried to make things easier for those who are searching for God.

Our real problem is that we’ve made Church a little bit boring, so same old, same old. Nothing happens. So we’re so full of our Christianese jargon.

We talked about our redemption and justification to our faith and things like this.

This is Christianese jargon, and the average seeker doesn’t understand what you’re talking about there. Actually, many unchurched are very, very wary of Church.

We didn’t know that. I came across one young man as a serious alcohol problem. He came to Church. We didn’t know why he came to Church, but he stood outside and I’m not joking. This was a born fighter — this later.

He would fight with anyone. He would drink with anyone. He’d fight with anyone.

As he came along to Church and he stood outside shaking and crying, weeping, because as he put it, he was scared to end up, because I don’t know what goes on in there.

They’re scared to enter. They don’t understand what we’re doing there, Church.

When we come to Church, we must now express in the coming season, we must expect certain things.

We must expect to witness his power. We must expect to see God moving in miracles of healing.

We must expect to see people delivered from demons or from addiction, which is demon by another name.

We must expect to hear from a prophet. I was going to say “like me”, but perhaps not, you know, sometimes many times I get it wrong, I expect. But some prophets like Kim Clement, prophets like, I can’t name a couple, Virginia, Veronica West.

These guys have a Gift of Prophecy, but not many people have, and they’re so accurate, and they’re wonderful to listen to them when they do prophesy, we should pay attention to them.

How many people that we must expect to witness Salvation when we go to what is Church for?

How does a Church fulfill a Great Commission who doesn’t preach The Word to all people and start bringing people into Church to baptize them, bringing people into Church to meet Jesus, bringing people into Church to perhaps change their life completely, rescue them from whatever they’re addicted to.

We must expect to go to Church to have our face levels raised up. Expecting to hear testimonies, testimonies of healing, testimonies of God’s blessing, testimonies of what the world would call good fortune, and that’s a blessing by another name.

We must expect to have our face levels raised up. That Prayer is this, simply this. “LORD, please give us more firebrands, new Allens, new Bannems, new rivers, new bunkers, new faith-filled warriors like those old. Those who are unafraid to do the outrageous, those seeking the unthinkable and those believing for the miraculous. God, set out of expectation levels and our face at the level of the giants of the past that we may stand on their shoulders to reach even greater heights and see those greater things that Jesus prophesied for us.”

Just to bring this full circle, The Church that is founding two thousand years ago expected to see all these things I’ve mentioned. And more, we’ve slipped a long way back but think of we’re fighting back and it’s about to get a whole heap better as Revival comes into the land.

Hey man, that was my that was my offering for today, but I see it for a couple of minutes left. The LORD prompted me just before I came on, just before I came on to print this out.

This is something that Linda posted just morning and and something that she had, she had noticed on X and it just backs up considerably what I was saying just now.

This is from someone called Alexander Duncan, I just thought I’d share it.

Simply this, “The West, The Church in the West, didn’t reject Jesus, it rebranded him. We’ve turned the lion of Judah into a soft, inoffensive, hippie mascot who never confronts him, never speaks the hard truth and never offends anyone.

Let me tell you folks, that Jesus never existed. He never existed for one second. The real Jesus was strong, he was bold, he was fearless and unapologetic.

He spoke with authority, not approval. He flipped tables, he grabbed a whip over people, he rebuked corruption, he called men to repent, deny themselves and follow him, not to become poor, but to be transformed.

Christ was not weak, he didn’t beg for acceptance, he didn’t silence truth to keep peace. The West didn’t lose Jesus but he watered him down to justify cowardice and compromise.

If your version of Jesus never convicts you, never offends your pride and never demands obedience, it’s not Jesus, it’s an idol. That’s a very strong statement, that’s a very strong statement. It’s so close.

So far I thank you for everybody who’s been on here. I haven’t been watching the comments as they’ve gone through. I’ve just been concentrating on giving a message as I believe God asked me to give to you tonight.

So I pray now that you receive the Message and it will pull your heart, it will convict you perhaps of expecting too little from your Church and from your God.

I asked The LORD now to fill you with His Holy Spirit, to fill you with the best thing that it, to encourage your face, encourage you to expect more when you go to Church, for you to maybe even demand more when you go to Church and to become The Church that Jesus wanted us to become in the first place.

This is all in His precious and mighty name. Amen.”

Amen. I think God was my save for tonight. I’ll be coming back next week, I think, because I’ve got another one lined up. I tend to write these things a couple of weeks in advance and then mull over them and change them and chop them, change around, correct them.

I listen to The LORD and ask Him what He wants to do with them. But as with tonight, sometimes He says, “Just give it as you’ve got it written.”

Other times He changes it even as I’m broadcasting. But I hope this has affected you. I hope this has challenged you.

If it’s challenged you, share this post with others, share it as much as you can.

Challenge others in the same way — and if you want to challenge me, send me a message on Facebook or on Messenger. Keep it between ourselves as much as possible, send it on Messenger. If you want to public debate, have a try and have a public debate. If it’s two, if it’s two, come to the verse, I won’t make it public.

But do so. And with God’s blessing, I’ll leave you now. I’ll seem to bless you to keep you to the half to you to give you a good night’s sleep tonight. And to get you up ready to, ready to face the world in the morning.

So for now, it’s good night for me. I’ll see you again next time. Bye bye for now.”