Sid: I tell you the rain is falling right now on Jewish people and Jewish people are ready to receive the Lord, their just waiting for you. I have on the telephone a man that God has been dealing with for a number of yea rs, John Finn; who has had three visitations from the Lord to show how we can literally recapture what the first Christians had. What the first literally Jewish believer’s in Jesus had, recapture in a way that many people aren’t looking for. Now John Finn, I really believe that, I have to tell you that when I first heard what the Lord told you, my brain went almost tilt for just a split second because I’ve been looking for the return of the miracles to win the unsaved. But the Lord is taking you in another direction, which probably will result in more miracles then going just for the miracles. Do you agree?
John: Ha-ha, I do now I do believe that miracles and healings are the dinner bell call to salvation. There is no doubt that the signs and the wonders are what perk peoples ears and get their attention. But it’s also true, that the New Testament teaches that the discipleship comes through Sons and Daughters, not just anointed meetings. And that’s the heart and the jest at what He was saying that February of 2001 when he said, this move is not a move of the masses it’s a move of the individual and as it was in the beginning so it must be now I’m moving in relationships. And that started me on a quest that whole rest of the year and then finally I found myself in Edmonton, Alberta Canada once again in November of 2001 and I was ministering in a church. Let me tell you Sid, this was a cool church, it was an older church building with kind of a white stucco, but it had seen it’s better days, the wood work was worn the stucco had some cracks and holes in it and it was in kind of a red light district of Edmonton. And I found out in talking to the pastor before the service that they minister to a lot of people from off the street, ex-cons, people with drug problems and such, but I was schedule to speak that Sunday evening and again in the middle of the worship service I saw Jesus come from about where the Worship Team was playing, six or seven steps over to me and this time the power was turned up. My strength left me; the Pastor next to me immediately fell to His knees and then face down on the floor. As Jesus came walking over to me He said this, “I love these kinds of people, and that was enough to blow my mind right there because I’m looking around and I know these people came in off the street. But what He meant by that is that there are no facades, they are real and genuine people and He loves to meet them where they are at. And my strength left me, I feel to my knees and later, three of our Bible School said, Jesus walked right by them afterwards, they saw Him as well. But He came over to me and He said, “You’ve learned much from your study of the Word and the people that I have brought across your path the last few months; He said, I want you to start a house church and a House Church network; and I want you to structure it in such a way to facilitate the development of House Churches around the world. And I asked Him why? I had the opportunity in this visitation and I asked Him why he wanted me to do it. It is against the time to come, in other words it’s a resource against the time to come you know. And is what we see happening right now, the Body of Christ moving outside the traditional; meeting people that Jesus loves, where they live. Whether it be the person off the street or just out of jail, that’s what He delights in and in fact later that night in the prayer line I was laying hands on a young woman. I found out later that she was twenty-two years old and I so a mini-vision as I prayed and I saw her dressing a mannequin in a department store window. And I saw her, you know in that display case fixing up the whole display case. And I had to prophecy to her because I heard the Father speaking so I just said, “Father God is speaking to you” and this is what He’s saying,” and He just shared his heart about how He gifted her with artistic talents and that He was giving her the ability to put thing together and to make things and to create things and make things beautiful for people to see. And she just started crying, and started crying and after I shared all of that I asked her “Well, was this accurate?” And she said, “I just got out of prison for eighteen months for dealing drugs.” And she said, “I just enrolled in a two year school that would teach me interior design and I just got a job in a store, and I’ve been working on a display case for the display window.” That is the Lord Jesus’ heart, that is the Father’s heart right there and that’s what we are talking about. No more spectator, no more church where it’s a spectator sport where people just sit facing all the same direction, facing you know listening to one anointed person. This is a move of Jesus meeting people where they are at. Matthew 25 says that when He comes back, the way He’s going to separate the sheep from the goats is this. I was sick, you visited me, I was in prison you visited me, I was naked, you clothed me, I was thirsty and hungry and you feed me and gave me some to drink. It is on a very practical level and you can only do that through based out of a home, based out of families, based out of relationships are work, based out of neighborhoods. And that’s where the Lord is moving and exploding all over the world today and there are so many miracles and so many people raised from the dead. Sid, do you know that there are over fifty-two nations right now that have been documented to have people raised from the dead from Christians.
Sid: I was not aware of that.
John: In fact I talked to a brother, I don’t have documentation but he says that it’s now over 70 nations have been documented to have people raised from the dead by Christians.
Sid: Let me take you back to something that the Lord said to you. You need to start these house churches because of what’s going to come. What is going to come?
John: Where to start? You know, one of the things that He told me, and let me just take you to this to 2005, when I was contemplating the changes that happened in the previous ten years from 1995 to 2005, in fact I was just driving down the road and I was saying and I would saying 1995; the Clinton Administration. The 9/11 happened and here we were in 2005 and in war and I don’t even recognize my country for what it was ten years ago. And He said, “If you think that you don’t recognize it now, truly I tell you, truly I’m telling you the truth, you won’t recognize it in another ten years.” And some of the things that He’s talked about when the previous election, the Bush – Kerry elections there was a different feel to it in the spirit. And I prayed and I was asking Him what that feel was and He said this, “It’s a spirit of socialism, and it can be delayed, but it won’t be stopped.” And I said, “Where does it come from?” And He said, “It comes from Europe,” and he says “There are those in America who want America to be European style nation.” And you know all of that entails, Sid are difficulties for Christians in the traditional format. What we see around the world, in times past when we say “Yes, look at the growth of Chinese House Churches you know, 130 to 200,000,000 Chinese all in house churches. But look at the persecution they have and we excuse, we write off home based churches because we think it’s just for times of persecution. But I’m telling you, when the Lord said that to me in November of ’01 and He said, I want you to do this as a research against a time to come, well you know that’s enough to get you thinking and I think that people sense now that something has changed in our world. And that’s why so many people are leaving the church. Not because they don’t like the church, and I am the first to acknowledge and bless and bless the traditional structure but millions upon millions of people are saying, “I want more, I want more.”
Sid: But you know millions of people are feeling that but they don’t see an option.
John: And that’s very true and the thing is that home based churches are under the radar of the traditional church. It’s kind of like going to a particular news network; you are not going to get the news from a certain point of view if all you do is hear that one channel. And it’s similar to that because within the context of the traditional, I think we said yesterday, that a lot of pastors think that revival to them means they are going to have to add an additional service on Sunday. Or that more people are going to come to their church and they don’t realize that God doesn’t need their structure. For the first 300 years Christianity started out in the homes, but the first home church if you will was Adam and Eve and the Lord in the Garden and He’s always had that structure. He’s always moved first from the home and the family and the relationships in the community; and that’s what He’s doing in the world today. Yeah, the Word and the Spirit do agree.
Sid: You know I’m reminded Jesus was asked what was the foremost the most important commandments and he said the, Schamah. Which is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your strength and to love your neighbor as yourself. It seems to me that a church that’s more like an extension of the family in the home there’s more likelihood for that to occur than a mega church.
John: Well, and that’s again if you look in the new testament it talks about the older men teaching the younger and the older women teaching the younger. It even mentions the older Moms you know in the New Testament Paul told Timothy to let the older Moms teach the new moms what it’s like to be a Mom. Well, you can’t do that in a program; that is only done through relationships. I remember when our first born, our first born was not sleeping through the night and we didn’t know why and my wife went to a mother of four that we knew and she came over and she said, her name was Jeanne and she said, “Show me what you do, show me how you put the baby to sleep. She came over in the evening and Barb got out first born son, he’s six months old ready for bed and everything. The first thing she said is that he’s cold; he’s waking up because he’s cold. Well you know what, we put some more blankets on him and that solved the problem. But she would never, she couldn’t have gotten that through a program; it’s only through the relationships and that’s the richness of it. Accountability comes through relationships. Sometimes people will say, yes but what about accountability? And I’m telling you accountability comes through the richness of the relationships that you have with others.
Sid: Well, a lot of people think that if you’re not a member of an organized church then you don’t have accountability, but the truth of the matter is most Pastors don’t even know the names of all the members of their church there so large. Whoop, our time is up.
