Andrew Wommack - Effortless Change - Part 16

Welcome to our Monday’s broadcast of the gospel truth. Today I am continuing my series talking about effortless change. This is my fourth week teaching on this and this will also be my last week to teach on this and I really encourage you to please get these materials. We’ve got two very special offers. I’ve been emphasizing how important it is to just study the Word of God and know what it says and it’s amazing to me how many people claim to have a relationship with God and yet have never read his love letter to us, the Bible. It’s his book of instructions. It’s like an owner’s manual and people are trying to walk through life without knowing the instructions that God gave us for prospering and succeeding in life and so we’ve got some special things here.

One of them is this little read through the Bible in one year program that we’re offering. This is the actual program that our CBC students use and you can start at any time during the year. It doesn’t have to be January the 1st and in one year’s time you can read through the entire Bible. This is a free gift to you if you’ll simply call and request it and then we have also been really emphasizing this living commentary which is a Bible program where I have written footnotes on over 18,000 verses in the Bible and I tell you, this is powerful.

I have put as much as eight, well I’ve put actually a week’s worth of studying effort into writing one foot note before and I mean it’s taken me hours and hours to pour into just some of these things that help clarify and bring understanding to some of the scriptures and I tell you, you would benefit tremendously from it. Plus we have this book of mine on effortless change. This is one of the teachings that has just changed my life. We have it in book form, in study guide. We also have CDs and DVDs and the end of this week will be the end of our offering this over our television program, so I just would like to encourage you to please go to the effort of getting this because I know that this will change your life. It’s changed my life.

I’ve been talking and I’m right in the middle of a series teaching on the parable of the sower sowing the seed. The interpretation of this parable is in Mark, chapter 4, verses 14 through 20 and this is Jesus teaching and he said this in Mark, chapter 4 and in verse 13, he said unto them, know ye not this parable? And how then will ye know all parables? And I’ve already made this point but I just want to reinforce it that this is saying that this is like a key to understanding every parable that Jesus taught. If you don’t understand this parable and know how to apply it to your life, you won’t be able to apply any of the parables of Jesus and so this is a major, major focus. You’ve got to understand this.

This is Christianity 101! I’ve already taught that the seed is talking about the Word of God. The Word of God is to the Kingdom of God the way that seeds are to this natural world. Nothing happens in this natural world, no plant life, animal life, human life, is reproduced without seeds. Everything comes from a seed. Likewise in the Kingdom of God, everything has to come through the Word of God because Mark, chapter 4, verse 14 says the sower sows the word. The word is the seed and then this seed was sown in four different types of ground and this is talking about how that the Word of God has to enter into our hearts. It has to get below the surface. It has to go into our heart and our heart is made that it just naturally, automatically begins to start bringing to pass whatever seed is sown in it and you know, our hearts aren’t picky.

You can sow bad seed. You can sow fear and you know what, your heart will begin to amplify that and bring it to fruition and all of the things that you feared the most will come upon you, or you can sow love. You can sow the Word of God or you can sow anger, you can sow unforgiveness and you know, your heart is just like a piece of ground. A piece of ground, it doesn’t matter, if you plant corn or if you plant squash or okra or whatever it is. If you plant that seed in the ground, that seed will begin to germinate and that ground will start bringing the fruit that was in that seed. Likewise your heart will begin to start amplifying and releasing the power of whatever seed you put in it and sadly, most people, even most Christians, put more seeds of doubt and unbelief and fear and anger and unforgiveness and lust and all of these other bad seeds, most of us allow these things to be sown in our heart and then we wonder why we aren’t having a proper crop.

That’s just not the way that it works. This is a powerful principle and truths that these scriptures are teaching. So there was four types of ground. We’ve already talked about the first one. We’ve already spent some time talking about the second type of ground. In verse 16 it says, these are they likewise which are sown on stony ground: who, when they have heard the word, immediately receive it with gladness. Now this is talking about people who are excited about the word. They like it but they don’t have any root in themselves. That’s what the next verse says, verse 17, and they have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended.

And what I was sharing last Friday on this is that when the Lord showed me these passages of scriptures that I call the sower sowing the seed. This is exactly where I was in my walk with the Lord. I had received a Revelation of God’s word that was setting me free. I was, I received it with gladness, just exactly the way verse 16 says. I was excited about it, but I was in a denomination that did not embrace the same truths that I was sharing and they wouldn’t just totally reject me. It wasn’t like you were of the devil. They didn’t try and kick me out of this church but they just constantly picked away at me and said you’re extreme, you’re going too far, and they put limitations on me and I would go and hear a minister and get all built up by these new revelations, talking about that we’re righteous, not through our actions, but through what God did for us, that we can be healed today.

That God still does miracles, hearing about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and this empowering of the Holy Spirit, that enabled you to speak in tongues and communicate with God and do things. All of these things were just blessing my socks off, but the church that I was in didn’t believe in these things and they were critical of it. Again, there wasn’t total rejection but there was just constant criticism and I noticed a pattern, that I would go listen to another person minister, I would get excited over these truths, I would come back and for a week or two I would share these truths in my Sunday school class and with people and minister to people and I would see great things happen, but in one or two weeks, the criticism would get to me and I would go back and I would say the exact same thing in week three and number four, but it wouldn’t have the same effect.

It was just like it was falling on deaf ears, and I saw this happen so often that I got to where I actually anticipated it. I knew that for one or two weeks I would be able to minister these truths and see it impact people, but then after a few weeks it, I would be saying the same things and it just wouldn’t have the impact and during that exact period of time, when I was going through this, I read this passage of scripture and I realized that what was happening was I was preaching another person’s Revelation. I was mimicking what they were saying. My heart agreed with it. That wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t like I didn’t believe it. I did believe it but it just wasn’t rooted in me and then when affliction and persecution, notice what it says here in verse 17, it says they have no root in themselves, and so endure but for a time: afterward, when affliction or persecution ariseth for the word’s sake, immediately they are offended.

And this is what was happening to me, see, and I was a little confused because I didn’t reject these truths that I had heard. My heart had embraced them and if you would have asked me do you believe in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues, I would have said yes. Do you believe that God still does miracles today and that people can be healed and set free, I would have said yes! If you would have said, do you believe that a person is in right standing with God, not based on their performance but based on what God did for you? It’s not about your holiness. It’s about your faith in Jesus. If you would have asked me, I would have said yes, and see because I still believed those things and held to these doctrines, I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t working.

But the Lord showed me right here, it says, immediately they are offended. That doesn’t mean that they reject these truths. It doesn’t mean that they turn from them and begin to say I was wrong. I’m not going to believe this anymore. To be offended just means that you lose your confidence, that you become fearful of the criticism, that you’re afraid to stand on the things that you believe because of what other people think. Now, I don’t know if that touches you, but when I saw this, this was a major revelation to me. You know, I don’t believe that God created any of us to suffer persecution. I mean it’s, it’s just in our DNA to want people to love us. Nobody likes rejection. God created man for his pleasure and I think that there is just a desire on the inside of every person to love and to be loved.

I think that God made us that way and so rejection and criticism, persecution is something that no person in their right mind should like and I personally don’t like it! I didn’t like it back then. I still don’t like it. You know, it, it would just please me if everybody loved me. They don’t, but I’m saying I still have a desire. I don’t think God made us to want people to hate us and to enjoy this kind of stuff and so my point is that this is one of the ways that satan comes and tries to steal this word from us. If you’ll remember the teaching that I’ve been doing, this whole teaching is about the power of the word. It’s not about you. The ground by itself can’t do anything. It is only a receptacle for the Word of God.

The Word of God is what’s got the power in it and that word has to come into your heart and germinate and start releasing it but it will only happen in your heart! And so one of the ways that satan comes against us to try and stop the Word of God from working is to have the criticism, the rejection, the persecution from other people come against us and, and take away our confidence.

You know, it’s like if you bend down and pet a dog and if every time you do that, that dog bites you, pretty soon you’re going to quit petting that dog because you don’t like to be bit and likewise if every time you stand up for the Word of God, somebody comes out and criticizes you and rolls their eyes or you know, there’s just a million different ways that people can express their displeasure and show you how, you know, they believe that you’re just totally off base and if that happens over and over and over, your natural tendency is going to be to stop saying those things, to stop expressing your belief because you don’t like criticism and I’m saying that that’s the natural tendency, but it’s the wrong thing to do!

If satan can get you to be offended, you don’t have to reject the truth, just be offended. Lose your confidence. Lose your boldness. Get to where you won’t really express how you feel because you’re afraid that people may not accept you. They might reject you. If satan can get you into that mode then the Word of God will cease to produce. That’s what this is showing! The second type of person is not a person who totally rejected the word. They were excited about it. They received it with gladness but they weren’t able to stand the persecution and the criticism that came against it and because of that, satan stopped the growth of the Word of God and what it could produce in a person’s life and I know that there are people watching this program, there are millions of people watching this program that this is right where you are.

You may know the truth about something. You may know that it’s God’s will for you to prosper, but you’re afraid to stand on it because you’re going to be criticized and people are going to say that you’re one of those prosperity preachers or that you just are into greed and things like this. You know, I heard a friend of mine on television just yesterday. I was watching his program and he was teaching on prosperity and since I have mentioned that this television minister is a friend of mine, I’ve had some of my long time partners write in to me and say how dare you associate yourself with this person. He’s one of those health/wealth preachers and they have just basically cut me off because of my association with him.

I was telling him this and he says well, it’s funny because there are many of my partners that have cut me off because of my association with you! So it’s a two-way street. But anyway I heard this man pre, preaching on prosperity and his whole sermon was that prosperity is a by-product of relationship with God and his whole 30 minutes sermon was just talking about how important it is to know God and not be seeking things and not want all of this stuff! But then at the same time, it is a natural by-product of having a relationship with God. He wasn’t preaching against prosperity. He was just saying that true prosperity is having relationship with God and anyway my point for saying this is that see, there are some people that have heard prosperity abused and presented in a way that they have, they just come out against this and I have had people name me by name.

I’ve heard this on radio, calling my name and saying I’m one of these health/wealth preachers and they blast me and come out against me and the tendency of most people when they hear this kind of criticism is to just be offended. You may still believe God wants you to prosper but you aren’t going to say anything. You aren’t going to stand for it because it’s going to cost you something and I’m telling you, if that’s the way that you’ve responded, if you are going to overreact because of somebody’s criticism, even though you may still intellectually say I know God wants to prosper me and he’s going to meet my needs, you will not see that word produce because you’ve been offended and it will not bring forth fruit and this not only applies to prosperity. It applies to healing.

You know, I was just recently in a newspaper article. The previous major of woodland park came out and said these people believe that you can lay hands on the sick and they shall recover and they even believe that you can raise the dead and he said we don’t need this kind of ideology in our community and you know what? There’s a tendency to just draw back and, and to say well, I still believe this but man, apparently this is offending people, so I’m not going to say it. I’m saying that would be my tendency, but you know what? I’m, I’ve learned that if you become offended, if you become insecure, you lack confidence to speak the truth because of what potential results or reactions from people might be, then the Word of God will not produce in your life. I don’t enjoy criticism. I don’t like it, but you know what? It is not going to stop me!

I have learned a lesson through this and it changed my life. You know, I think I mentioned this briefly, but the night that God showed me this Revelation right here, specifically Mark, chapter 4, verses 16 and 17, my wife and I had been in this denomination that, you know, they didn’t totally reject us. They said they loved us but it was just constant criticism standing against us. It was like somebody just constantly putting on the brakes when you’re trying to accelerate and gain speed. That, it was just dragging us down and I couldn’t understand what was going on because for a couple of weeks I would be good and then I would lose my confidence in this and I would have to go back and listen to somebody again and the Lord used this verse to show me that I was letting afflictions and persecutions offend me and it was keeping the Word of God from working.

I remember this vividly that Jamie and I, it was on a Saturday night as we were praying and studying the word that we saw this, both of us received this as a Revelation from God. We knew that this is where we were and what was happening in our life and we made a decision that night that from then on we were going to stand for the word and if it cost us our best friends, if it cost us being in that church, if it cost us anything, God’s word was going to dominate us regardless of what the cost would be and I mean we made that commitment. We prayed and we committed this to God. The very next day we went to church and after the morning church service, we were over at some people’s house and this woman who had been a great friend to me, she’s still a friend.

God has restored this relationship over a 15, 20 year period of time, but this woman who was a great friend to me, like a spiritual mother to me and to my wife. She had great influence in our life. She got Jamie into a back room separate from everybody else and she started saying Andrew’s going over the edge. He’s just going off the deep end. You’ve got to stop him. You are the only one that can stop him and here she was, putting on the brakes, saying it in the name of love.

I love you! I love Andrew, but you’re getting too weird. You’re believing too much of the Bible. Amen! And she tried to get Jamie to stop and you know what, Jamie, because we had made this commitment, Jamie said that’s my husband. I’m in total agreement with him. It’s not just his Revelation. It’s my Revelation and said I resent this. How dare you do this! In the name of Jesus, I reject this, and you know what? We walked out of those people’s lives and we, within a matter of weeks, walked out of that church. It cost us our fellowship with this church, but we were not going to let people sit there and come against the word. We weren’t going to let affliction and persecution steal the word from us! And you know, for a period of time it cost us everything.

Later on, I haven’t got time to give the story but this, this woman and her husband, they were pastors, and they had tried to stay into that same denomination and believe the word and yet stay with a group of people that didn’t believe in these truths and over a period of ten or 12 years it basically cost them everything. They had lost everything and they were so desperate. They wouldn’t have anything to do with us, but it’s a long, miraculous story. God supernaturally put us back in their lives. We were able to minister to them. We were able to lift them up, bring them back into the ministry. God established and restored the relationship, but it took 12, 15 years. But I’m saying that this is what we had to do and there are some of you watching this program right now that you need to do this same thing.

Now, you might be able to do it more tactfully then I did. I was very young at the time. I’ve grown a lot. I’m more mature and, but I’m saying at the time, that was the best I knew how to do it. You need to do the same principle. You might be able to do it with more wisdom, with less consequences and less fallout but you need to take a stand for the Word of God and if someone is coming against the word, you don’t have to just totally reject it. Just let them tone you down, decrease your passion, lose some of your confidence and your security in these things that God has shown you.

Let those things happen. That’s being offended and that will stop the Word of God from working in your life just as surely as if you were to turn around and totally reject that truth and say I don’t believe it anymore and I know that was a major Revelation to me. I didn’t realize what was happening. There may be some of you watching this program that this is a total Revelation to you today and you are saying I just didn’t realize what was happening but now the Holy Spirit has shown you. He’s bearing witness and you are going to have to act on this. You’re going to have to take a stand. You’re going to have to grow a backbone and you know, I don’t delight in people rejecting me.

I know that there’s some people that think I do but I have just learned how important the Word of God is. I have seen the Word of God work in my life. I am so thrilled with what God’s word has done for me that I am so committed to the Word of God that I will endure criticism. I will say the truth. I will say what God has shown me in the Word of God and let the chips fall where they may. I don’t like people disliking it but I guarantee you, it’s not going to keep me up at night. I’m not going to worry about it because I am committed to the Word of God.

I encourage you to learn these same things. This has revolutionized my life. This is one of the most foundational important things that God has ever shown me and I believe it could become the same for you if you would just recognize that you have to take a stand on the Word of God and you have to defend it and if somebody comes out against it, you can be as loving and kind as you have to but you’ve got to resist the criticism, the persecution, and not let it turn you from your passion and confidence in the Word of God. You’re going to have to stand for the truth. You know, I’m out of time today but I’ve got a lot more to share. This has become a foundational truth in my life, and I’m going to continue this teaching on our program tomorrow and I encourage you to listen in.