Night 2 UPCA Conference 2021

[Music] do [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] greetings to you all in jesus name welcome to our 2021 national women's ministries promotion today we want to share with you our theme for 2021 some important dates and hopefully some inspiration and encouragement as we enter into 2021 due to covert 19 our projects were limited and national ladies conference was postponed in 2020 but i am excited to let you know that our ladies conference will go ahead in 2021 and sister vani marshall is still the guest speaker for us on behalf of national women's ministries and all the local upca ladies groups we were able to celebrate with pastor van of the nazareth church in perth when they moved into their own building last october we gave them five hundred dollars towards office equipment that was a great encouragement to them and we celebrated with them so thank you for those uh groups that gave money as an offering to national women's ministries how wonderful it was to memorize 20 bible verses in 2020 and how powerful an experience to join with women all across australia and specifically pray for 90 days for our prodigals in july which was supposed to have been our national ladies conference women gathered in person via zoom or in homes for a special service with sister vani marshall the feedback from that event was wonderful and we were able to give sister vani an offering which she used to help with spreading the gospel over in india and we were very excited about that the 31 days of devotions from different ladies during july were also a great source of encouragement and connection for our ladies across australia we also read the book of psalms together from february to june so i pray that these different projects that we had that they were a blessing to you and help to keep you feeling connected with others during our times of lockdown during twenty twenty we continue to support the children at the audrey audrey system children's home in mizoram through the sponsorship program we currently have 44 children in that home in may 2021 28 women will hopefully travel to israel as part of the joint tour that was supposed to have taken in 2020 with upci women the two will be led by sister janet trout our ladies conference has been rescheduled for the 9th to the 11th of july so mark that in your calendar and plan as it was planned for last year we will all gather into the one place that stanwell chops in sydney to worship and praise god together what an amazing time it will be not only to see what god will do in our midst but be able to fellowship with one another over those few days i'm so disappointed that we will not get to see one another this week as is and has been my and many others usual thing to do in january for the past 30 plus years 2020 has been a different year for all of us granted that each one of us has gone through different types of experiences but i think i can confidently say that all our lives have been affected in some way yet through 2020 god has been faithful amen he's been faithful to you he's been faithful to me his mercies are still new every morning his grace has not diminished his love his presence and his control continued to be evident in our everyday lives god has kept me through 2020 and god has kept you through 2020 and that is something to rejoice about amen that is something to be thankful for as i was praying and meditating about 2021 and what our theme for this year should be for national women's ministries the word transformed kept coming to my mind and i know that all of us are familiar with romans 12 2 which says and be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and perfect and acceptable and perfect will of god there's been so much fear and anxiousness in our society due to covert 19 and the ramifications of the virus but you and i don't need to open a door to fear and anxiousness and even if we have opened that door unknowingly today we can slam that door shut that doesn't mean we ignore what is going on around about us but rather it means that we could we don't rather than conforming to this world and the fear that the media and those around us try and overwhelm us with that we allow our minds to be transformed through prayer through the word of god and changing our thinking and our behavior and continue to trust god that he is in control the one thing that i heard so many people express during this time of lockdown and social distancing is that it revealed to them what was going on inside of them the lack of interaction and isolation for some meant a questioning of their self-worth and who they really are this is because they relied on others or their position or their job to feed their self-worth who am i when all the outside influences to my being are removed the source of my self-worth has to come from god and his word having our minds transformed is not a one-time thing i believe it's an ongoing transformation throughout our christian walk we sometimes don't know what our minds need renewing from until we find ourselves in a particular crisis or circumstance ladies my word to you today is from the beginning of this new year despite what is around you be intentional in allowing the word of god to transform your mind from the inside out it will only happen if it's a conscious choice you make it will only happen if you question and challenge your behavior our department's goal for 2021 is to encourage you the women of the united pentecostal church of australia to continue to transform your minds to be more like christ to effectively prove what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of god for your life amen sometime in the next few weeks your pastor will be receiving information on the national women's ministry projects for 2021 you'll also find that information over the next few weeks through our national women's ministry facebook page you will now hear a short promotional clip from sister vani martial our guest speaker from the national women's ministries conference and then a great word of encouragement from sister connie bernard brother and sister bernard was supposed to have been with us at this conference and she was scheduled to speak at our nwm event so in lure of that we asked you to briefly minister to the ladies of australia so i ask you to open your heart to god's word today be encouraged let to the transformation begin in your life today as you enter into 2021 amen i'm looking forward to seeing you all at some point during 2021 god bless you [Music] limitations will not just disappear you have to tonight tomorrow every day but preferably start tonight to begin to make a mental intentional decision that the this particular embargo on your gifts talents joy peace belief faith is not gonna hold you back at things i can be healed i can be provided for i am forgiven completely and totally forgiven of the most vile things i don't care how vile it is you can't give a god a list vile enough that he won't forgive it your past has never been the measure of how god uses you in the present or the future never that's how powerful the blood is you see the blood separates you ladies i'm so glad to be able to be greeting you today i hate that brother bernard and i are not able to be with you we were both looking so forward to being there in australia and we are living in uncertain times i am here in st louis in the studio recording this and i just want to share a thought with you today i shared a devotion a couple weeks ago with some of our minister's wives and this thought has continued to be in my mind you know god he does have a sense of humor and there's a scripture that stuck out to me when i was doing one of my morning devotions and it's jeremiah 23 33 and it states when one of this people or a prophet or a priest asks you what is the burden of the lord you shall say to them you are the burden and i will cast you off declares the lord i actually giggled out loud when i read that scripture because i he was so straightforward in this translation brother bernard and i every year we will take a different translation and read the bible through each year and this translation it just stuck out to me that jeremiah was telling them that the lord said you are the burden and it struck me funny how that he just came right out and said you you're my problem you're the burden and i got to thinking about that and you know we're in such uncertain times and there's a lot of things that may just overwhelm us fear and doubt and uncertainty but when you just back up and think you know what this is a temporal world that we're living in right now we are living in this world doing what our god wants us to do so that we can go where he has prepared a place for us to go and everything that i do i think about what he wants me to be doing and that is reaching out to souls reaching out to people i spoke to the ladies there in australia several years back when we were there for your conference and one thing that i resonated in that that i spoke that day i still am resonating to everyone and speaking and sharing that our most important goal is to reach out to those that do not know him our goal is to reach out to those that are hungry for him we know him we are so fortunate ladies even in this world that we're living in the society and the problems and the crises that we have we have a hope we have a god that we can go to and there's so many out there that have no hope and do not know about what we have and it's our job to give it to them so this scripture one thing that i thought about in in the scripture of him saying we are a burden he was talking about the prophets and the priests that were prophesying lies and telling people and deceiving the people and i know we're not deceiving people but just that thought to for him i would never want him to say you are my burden you are the burden i want to be pleasing to god i want in my prayers every morning i pray lord let me be i don't ever want you to be ashamed of me i want to be someone that you are proud of we are his daughters he is our father and how many of you a lot of you may not been raised up in a good home but a lot of you you know you wanted to please your parents you wanted your daddy to be proud of you how many would you run to your daddy with a new dress and say look because you want to hear those words i'm proud of you i love you you can go into the scripture and you can look go into psalms go into proverbs go throughout the new testament old testament you will find that he loves us with an undying love he continually shows us grace and mercy and when i was thinking about being a burden it goes it takes me to so many you know have you ever done the the game where you give a word and then someone else it prompts another word and whatever that word is that they think of i do that in my mind a lot of times when i'm reading the scriptures or i'll start researching words but when i was thinking of you are a burden i think you know i want to be respectful i want to honor him with my life i want to i want him to be proud of me in that in a good way i want him to be i want to follow what he wants me to do his will in my life is the most important thing and that led me to scripture so if i could just leave with you this word number one he loves us most of all and there are times that you may feel like you fail him or that you have not really focused on him like you want to or spent the time with him that you want to every day is a new and fresh day i wake up in the morning and the first scripture that comes to my mind is this is the day the lord hath made i will rejoice and be glad in him every day is a new and fresh morning and day with him and you can start fresh every morning it does not hurt to start your prayer with lord i love you this morning forgive me anything in my life that's not pleasing to you anything in my life that is not of you anything in my life that does not give you glory i give it to you this morning i lay it at your feet i lay it at the cross we need to honor him with our life we need to honor him with everything we do and that leads me to just some scriptures i want to leave with you today proverbs 1 7 says the fear of the lord is the beginning of knowledge fools despise wisdom and instruction we need to always be desiring to learn more of him but the most important thing we can do is to fear him to have the wisdom of god and when you fear god that's a reverence that's not like you're afraid of him but that's a reverence that you honor him proverbs 10 27 says the fear of the lord prolongs life but the years of the wicked will be short you want to live long then fear the lord honor him proverbs 2 and 5 says then you will understand the fear of the lord and find the knowledge of god proverbs 9 10 says the fear of the lord is clean enduring forever the rules of the lord are true and righteous all together and the last one proverbs 14 and 26 says in the fear of the lord one has strong confidence and his children will have a refuge and to me i would have never even thought about putting those together but the fear of the lord in the fear of the lord one has strong confidence you can be confident when you fear him that means you reverence him that means you respect him that means you honor him and when you honor him and live your life for him he will reward you and those rewards come in ways that we never would even think it may come in a healing it may come in a blessing of a promotion in a job it may come with someone bringing you a word of encouragement the rewards of the lord are there so many ways that we are rewarded by him but the one thing that i want to leave you with is in the fear of the lord one has strong confidence and his children will have a refuge no matter what you're going through no matter what this new year holds for us you know that whatever happens that you have a refuge all you have to do is run and hide beneath his wings we have a refuge in him i'm so glad to be able to greet you today again i wish that i were there with you in person but this will happen again sometime soon and if not we will see you i will see you up in heaven i love all of you and i pray that all of you have a wonderful time and watching these services and if you're able to be together some of you i love you and god bless you [Music] hi everyone i'm actually at a picnic a church picnic and today is a very special day because it's the first day since the lockdown that our church has had the opportunity to be together and fellowship connecting with each other and actual connecting is what i want to talk to you about because in the upc we're going to start a new program it's a new initiative to connect people throughout australia who don't go to any of our churches who are in isolated towns uh or even in mines and things like that we want to connect them with other people of like faith we've actually found that there are a lot of people out there from different nations and from who are australians who actually don't think there's anybody else in the town where they are just this past week within the last two weeks i've spoken to a man who was in mount isa his family want to start to start a church and i said we'd do whatever we can i told brother morris about it and then within a couple of days brother morris said hey we actually know of somebody else that's in mount isa so we're in the process of connecting them so if you know anybody your friends those who have been in fellowship with you in the past whoever they are just send us a message with their details at contact upca dot org dot ayu i'll say that again contact at upca dot org dot iu that will come to us we will then follow it up we will we will do our best to connect them if we can't connect them then we will find somebody who can communicate with them and actually keep them in fellowship you see [Applause] i'm actually so happy to be here today enjoying this fellowship and yet there's a lot of people out there who are not getting fellowship like this and it's not because of covert it's just purely because of their location so join us in this this new initiative god bless you and thank you very much [Music] hi my name is warren love and this is my sign name [Music] i am from calvary chapel this is my story i'm deaf and i grew up in a christian family but church was boring [Music] and i i wasn't happy there [Music] my mum taught me to read the bible and then later i joined a deaf christian fellowship it was wonderful stories that i could understand there's about jesus and and his love for me i went to church and it was so wonderful i went to a pentecostal church and received the holy spirit oh god healed me his power is in my life [Music] yes he loves me and i love him yes in first corinthians [Music] chapter 13 verse 19 and now abides in faith hold hope love and love but there's these three [Music] the greatest of these is love hello everyone welcome to children's ministry this conference we're so glad you could join us and be a part of this ministry it's a special time for us and we hope you really enjoy it this year's been a little different hasn't it we've not been able to travel very much or not at all not being able to visit friends and family it's disappointing but in all these things we learn to trust god psalm 91 and verse 2 says i will say of the lord he is my refuge and my fortress my god in him will i trust and that's what we're learning to do we've got some wonderful things for you today and we hope that you join with us and first up we're going to have a time of praise and worship so join with me in prayer and then we encourage you to join the young people as they praise worship god both in singing and in movement let's all bow our head close our eyes our heavenly father we love you we ask that you'd be with us in every home today with every child every young person with every family watching this video that you would touch and bless and be honored the name of jesus would be lifted up we love you our god in jesus name amen join with us hi everyone we are so excited to sing with children all around australia today even though we can't be together in person we just hope that you'll sing with us and do the actions to these songs and worship god with us right now [Music] deep down down deep down in my heart i love you [Music] your jesus deep down in your heart yes i love my jesus deep down in my heart deep [Music] deep down in my heart i love you jesus do you love your jesus deep down in your heart yes i love my jesus deep down in my heart [Music] deep down down deep down in my heart deep down in my heart deep down in my heart we're going to move on to our next song now i hope you're going to join in and do the actions with us it's very easy so just follow along with us we lift our hands we give you the praise and we will [Music] we lift our hands to give you the praise and we will praise you for the rest of our days jesus we give you the praise we lift up your name heavenly father come in messiah and we will praise you for the rest of our the rest of days days we clap our hands in the sanctuary we clap our hands to give you the glory we clap our hands to give you the praise and we we will praise you for the rest of our days jesus we give you the praise for many well we lift up your name heavenly father come in messiah and we will praise you for the rest of our days jesus we give you [Music] messiah and we will praise you for the rest of our days [Music] why don't we all enter a time of worship wherever you are i encourage you all to worship god for who he is [Music] every breath that i take [Music] [Music] me [Music] this is my desire [Music] to [Music] i worship you [Music] in me [Music] oh [Music] i give you my soul [Music] me [Music] i live for you [Music] [Music] [Music] indeed it's wonderful to worship god and praise god it does something to our hearts it really does and when we give our heart to god and our life to god it pleases him so much it really does something to our hearts and our minds and strengthens us so next up we're going to go to sydney where someone very special is going to do a bible story with us and the bible is full of wonderful stories that really teach us so much but it speaks to our heart as well and the story that our next person sister helen is going to bring it was the young person back in the time of the book of judges and this young person was struggling just to eat to work and worship they were very difficult times but yet god chose him we hope you enjoy this and straight after that we have somebody from perth sister elizabeth who's going to go through with you through with you a wonderful memory verse from the new testament we hope you enjoy it sit down enjoy it as a family laugh together and listen together amen hello everyone it's sister helen cook here to tell you the story of from the book of judges in the old testament it's about a man who have three names so i want you if you've got your bible and mom and dad can help you to get your bible out go to the book of judges it's the seventh book in the old testament and go to the chapter six and there we're going to find the man who had three names i wonder who it could be does anybody know let me put this up and then i'll show you here the man with three names from judges chapter six let me tell you who it is his name was gideon and his name actually means warrior you see this word here it's kind of like a soldier yes but he was a warrior from god now gideon was an israelite and lived in the land of israel but they had been taken over by people from the east who what were called the midianites and there were thousands and thousands and thousands of them kind of like kind of like ants if you see a lot of ants and they had taken over as well so the israelite people could not eat could not drink didn't have any cows they had to hide to get food and one night gideon was working in the dark hiding from the midianites he was threshing the wheat to make bread and he had a visitor the visitor was the angel of the lord he was so scared an angel visiting me the angel said to him gideon the mighty man of bella and gideon said me maybe i'm the youngest in my family me a man of fella i'm from the poorest tribe in israel we've been taken over by the midianites and i'm going to be a mighty man of god and the angel said yes kidding because god is going to use you greatly you are going to deliver israel from the midianites and he said me yes get in you i'm going to give you your first job i want you to go and take out the grove that all the people have built to that that they go and worship the devil with gideon said well what can i do the only thing he could think of to do is to go and worship the one true god they didn't know his name was jesus they called him jehovah but he worshiped and that night he took his men and they snuck out into the grove where they went and made sacrifices to the devil and they got their asses and they cut down the truth and they cleared off where they worshiped the devil and they'd sacrificed unto the lord and they worshipped the one true god wow in the middle of the night so the next morning everybody got up and got so upset and so angry because here they were that the the devil worship the place they wished the devil was broken down and then gideon's father said i know who did this my son gideon was standing up for god and contending with the devil so i'm going to change his name to jeroboam means contender with the devil now gideon didn't do it on his own he had the power of god with him because he had worshiped first and that was the first thing that gideon had to do as the deliverer of israel the next thing gideon had to do was to gather all the people of israel and let me show you he got a trumpet can you imagine 22 000 people and god said no no no thought no but these people could beat the midi knights god said that's not how i'm gonna win this battle i don't have to have people i just have to have worshipers to win buttons so he said to the people if you are scared if you are tired if you are hungry go home so a lot of people went home and gideon was left with 10 000 men can i tell you what does it say down the bottom here no no no you said god i want i want the people to win by worship not with swords not with guns not with those arrows not with knives worship is going to win this battle and not all these people are going to worship i'm going to show you how to choose your men so gideon said all right go down to the river they all went down to the river okay everybody's thirsty get some water and some people went down and put their faces in the water and drunk like this and other people left the water up looking around and god said they're the people they're gonna win your battle and do you know how many there were 300 do you think you could win a battle with 300 gideon worshiped and god gave him the answer see when we worship god he will always hear us and always talk into our hearts and god gave gideon a plan he said divide the man into three groups of a hundred and tonight gideon i want you to go down to the camp and i want you to listen into a tent so gideon went with before his his his his psychic and they listened and they heard two millionaires talking they were talking about a dream and one of them said i heard and i saw in my dream that it was like something was thrown into a camper we all had to free and the other person said this is nothing but the sword of the lord and get in wow do you think gideon took action then no the bible tells us gideon worshiped before he did anything so gideon went and he'd got his men his three groups in a hundred and he said man there's something you're gonna have to do [Music] i want you to get a joke and i want you to get a torch and i want you to get um [Music] a trumpet and the bible says that i've got my i've got my trumpet and i've got my torch there's two things three things you've got to have the trumpet the jug and the torch and when i say the serve of the lord and gideon you then blow your trumpet turn on your torch and you watch the midi lights fleece so here they go and then they turn on your torches and the millionaires and israel won a great battle because gideon worshipped and he heard from the lord now that battle that and gideon was so amazing that two hundred two or three hundred years after his death they still remembered him by his third name jeremiah which means contender with the evil one and i want to tell you boys and girls that we can contend with the devil when we have bad thoughts in our hair when we want to disobey when we want to be cheeky or when someone bullies us we have a god if we will just go to him and worship him he will hear us and give us direction so let's practice that now let's let's do a bit of practice in our worship so let's lift our hands to jesus and say jesus you are awesome you're our god and we know we can rely on you so we give you all the praise and hi kids my name is sister liz what an awesome lesson we just heard from sister helen about gideon you know the story of gideon is found in the old testament that reminds me of a scripture that's in the new testament you know your bible's with you i've got mine can't go to church without your bible now can you well if you've got your bibles i want you to open up to the new testament to the book of second corinthians when you've got that we're going to go to chapter 10. in chapter 10 we're going to go down to verse 4. second corinthians chapter 10 verse 4. if you've got it you can read it with me you ready for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds it's a great scripture let's read it one more time let's go for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds you know there's some tricky words in this scripture but i think we can work our way through it first part says that the weapons that we use in our battle are not carnal carnal relates to our bodies our flesh or this earth it means we don't use weapons that ordinary soldiers use like guns or bombs or fists that's not how we fight our battle our battle is spiritual battle can happen up here the weapons that we use they are mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds but do you know what a stronghold is well in battle the soldiers will spy out the land to see which is the best place to attack the enemy and they will go and they will build up that place and make it stronger and stronger and fortify it so when the enemy comes to attack them they have a strong hold over that plane now that's what the denim enemy also does to us the enemy can plant thoughts in our mind like this you're not good enough your friends don't like you you don't have any friends jesus doesn't love you god can't use you and he starts to build up a stronghold in our minds the bible says that the weapons that we use a mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds but what are our weapons well just think about gideon what weapon did he use you worship god that's one of our weapons you know here's another weapon when we memorize scripture we can quote it and that's another way that we fight our battles so that's what we're going to do right now we're going to memorize the scripture the best way to do that is put some actions to it this is how it's going to go you ready for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but a mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds do you think you've got it you could try it with me this time ready for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but a mighty through god to pulling down of strongholds yeah you got it we can do this one more time a little faster ready for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but a mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds you got it so next time the enemy comes to attack you you just pull down those strongholds lift your hands and worship god and you can tell him this scripture you ready to do it one last time for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but a mighty through god to the pulling down of strongholds amen well our time today has only been short but it's been wonderful let's unpack what we've learned today what we've heard so we've started with praise and worship and that pleases god and it does something to our soul and we've had a bible story about a young person a young man who trusted in god and that's only one story out of many in the bible but he trusted in god through very difficult circumstances and he overcame he got victory and then we we covered the memory verse and the weapons we have are mighty through prayer pulling down strongholds so god has given us great things but how does that affect us well we go through difficulties we might have challenges at school we might have challenges with friends and there is a god who is so close to us jesus he is our refuge and our strength and we can find victory and help in him that's what we want to unpack from today's lesson he is so good he is merciful we can trust in him now this the season we've gone through is literally that it's only a season we're looking forward to seeing each other again in 2022 in the meantime we we pray draw close to god he will be with you he'll strengthen you we trust that you've enjoyed today enjoyed your time and are blessed we hope you enjoy the rest of conference with friends and family in jesus name amen [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] greetings everybody welcome to our second night of the general conference of the united pentecostal church of australia and we welcome you from all around australia and even around the world for joining us for this our annual event so why don't we open up in prayer and ask the lord to bless us let the spirit of god minister to you wherever you are and let god do a great work in the church let us pray father we thank you lord for this great time that we have together lord even though we are separated at different locations yet we are united as one body in christ and so we pray that your holy spirit would move in our services in our midst with god wherever we are and let your anointing be upon your singers and musicians upon the man of god that will bring the word of god to us today so we give you glory this day we honor you and worship you in jesus name amen praise god amen hallelujah let it be our prayer tonight that as we lift our praises unto god as we worship him and exalt his holy name that his glory will just come down and flow upon us and through us amen let's just worship him tonight as we give him praises [Music] [Music] god [Music] [Music] every part of our brains [Music] [Music] you're standing with us [Music] open open up the package slowly [Music] show [Music] show us your glory love we pray you show us show show us your glory love [Music] show us your power we want to see [Music] from your heart we believe that tonight god's opening up amen the heavens as the mighty river we have a reason to dance why don't we do that tonight just stand before the lord [Music] that we might be calm his righteousness his body was broken for our transgressions but i'm so glad that's not where the story is hallelujah gave me a reason to dance he gave me a reason to dance hallelujah gave me a reason to death [Music] foreign that's not where the story is me hallelujah [Music] is is is victory [Music] hallelujah gave me a reason to dance he gave me a reason to ahead and dance him there's freedom in the name of jesus there is liberty in the name of jesus let's continue to lift him up tonight [Music] out of the shadows step out of the grave break into the wild and don't be afraid [Music] run into wide open spaces [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] just as you are into the fullness [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] is [Music] let there be freedom [Music] [Music] the chains will [Music] jesus [Applause] [Music] [Music] oh [Music] and chains will fall upon [Music] let there be healing wasted graces just 24 years [Music] there is let there be freedom hallelujah let's worship the lord today let's worship the lord in spirit and in truth hallelujah [Music] let's sing there is no shadow that [Music] there is no shadow [Music] you've always been with us show me one thing he can't show me a mountain he's the god of the breakthrough if anything is possible oh show me show is possible there is a kingdom that is is show me [Music] is and break everything i will crush this appointment i will crush this show me one thing again show me a mountain he's the god of the breakthrough [Music] is [Applause] hallelujah anything is possible in your life anything is possible in your family and in your church and as we enter into this time of worship as we sing this blessing out over you over your family over your church grab a hold of that and allow that to take root in your heart and make the difference in your situation here today lord bless you and keep you make his face shine upon be gracious face toward you and give you peace [Music] the lord bless you and keep you make his face shine upon be gracious his face toward you and give you peace [Music] amen [Music] amen [Music] make his his face shine upon and be [Music] gracious [Music] me um um [Music] my family and my children and their children and their children and his favorite [Music] and your family and your children [Music] your family and your children and their children is is is [Music] ah family [Music] ah [Music] before me behind me he's always beside me no shadow no valley [Music] where he won't find me no i am not afraid he's before me he's behind me always beside me no shadow no valley where you won't find me no i am not afraid let's see before me behind me always beside me no shadow please is when i go through [Music] declaring victory i am [Music] [Music] once again we want to thank you for joining with us for our second night of our general conference our virtual general conference here the upca and we pray that the ministry of so far has been a blessing to you and we trust it has been as we come to the ministry of the preaching of the word of god i want to encourage you to open up your hearts and let the spirit of the lord minister to you even though we are separated at different locations yet we know that there are no boundaries to the presence of god so receive with faith god's word today and it gives me great pleasure to introduce our speaker this great man of god needs no introduction being known to many of us he is a prolific author whose books litter much of apostolic libraries and he is the general superintendent of the united pentecostal church international and so why don't we open our hearts and let's welcome to this conference reverend david bernard thank you [Music] greetings in the name of the lord jesus christ from the world headquarters of the united pentecostal church international in saint louis missouri usa i'm especially pleased to greet you the united pentecostal church of australia your general superintendent pastor john downes we appreciate brother and sister downs and their leadership and ministry over many years i also appreciate the invitation of the general board it's great to be with you and to greet you of course my wife and i were looking forward to actually coming to australia once again we always enjoy our times in your country and we're looking forward to the fellowship and the ministry together but coveted 19 has other plans but god is bigger than anything in this world and we're glad that we can use technology to still meet together my wife and i were also supposed to or i was supposed to uh visit the pacific region in december uh fiji and vanuatu but we've had to postpone that so hopefully all these plans are postponed for a year but in all things we trust the lord and i believe god truly has a plan god is working the events of 2020 the pandemic the resulting economic chaos social unrest political upheaval all of those things took us by surprise but they didn't take god by surprise and so now as we enter 2021 we still face uncertainty with the pandemic we we hope things will start settling down hopefully things will get back to quote normal whatever that might be but it's probably going to be a new normal probably some adjustments that we are making are going to be permanent and probably some issues we're still going to face we don't really know and of course just as we didn't know what was going to happen in 2020 so we don't really know what's going to happen in 2021 and that could be a statement that could cause fear and uncertainty but i want to tell you that in all these situations god has a plan and god is more than a match for any situation so we as the church as the people of god as the people of the name of jesus as people who are filled with the spirit as people who pursue holiness as people of the one true and living god we must rise to the occasion we must put our faith in the lord jesus christ and we must follow god's plan yes it is important for us to make plans i firmly believe that we should pray study take counsel together discern the will of god and make good plans for our local church for our national organization for world missions but having said that we know from experience especially this past year that our plans are likely to be disrupted if we don't have a plan however we're not going to accomplish much of anything if we do have a plan which we must then we should be flexible because we know that our plans are are going to be changed beyond our understanding but in those cases we go to god in prayer and say lord we prayed we've consecrated ourselves to you we focused on your mission we've unified we've sought to do your will we've planned we've projected we've done our best uh we've we raised the necessary funds and we're trusting you but all of our best plans will not be a success without you and so lord in these times of a certain week with certainty we trust you to give us wisdom and guidance we trust you to supersede our plans and fulfill your purpose and god will do just that i'd like to turn your attention to first kings chapter 19 which illustrates uh what i want to say it's the story of the prophet elijah i'll just pick an excerpt from the story for the sake of getting started it's found in 1st kings chapter 19 verse 15 and 16. god's instructions to elijah when he was in the wilderness first kings 19 15 and the lord said unto him go return on thy way to the wilderness of damascus and when thou comest anoint hazel to be king over syria and jehu the son of nimshi shalt thou anoint to be king over israel and elisha the son of shaphat of amo behola shalt thou anoint to be prophet in thy room in essence god gave instructions to elijah while he was hiding in the wilderness in the mountains and said anoint a new king for syria anoint a new king for israel and anoint a prophet to be your successor and so here's my message today god has a plan i'd like to encourage you that in every situation in every circumstance god has a plan remember god always has a plan when we look at the story of elijah of course we see from chapter 18 that he won great victory over the 850 false prophets on mount carmel as you know the story they decided to test who is the true god is it baal or is it jehovah yahweh and they were on mount carmel which was known as the home of the god baal i think it's interesting that when elijah uh challenged these false prophets and of course when you read carefully you'll find that everything he did was at god's command it wasn't his own initiative it wasn't just something he dreamed up but god had instructed him to do this so he challenged the false prophets of baal and the false prophets of the goddess ashtareth and he said let's test to see who is the true god let's pray to our respective gods and the god who truly answers with fire from heaven he is the true god and i think it's interesting that he went on the devil's turf he went on the enemy's territory went to the mountain where the followers of baal believed their god resided and he said i'll challenge you on your alleged god's own territory and i think that's interesting we as the church don't have to be in defensive mode but we can go anywhere and everywhere throughout the world in the name of jesus and in the power of the holy spirit and we can be victorious and so of course god did answer by fire baal never did because baal is not a true god and so all israel saw at least for that time that jehovah is the true god what an amazing victory what amazing vindication what an amazing revival and the prophets the false prophets were slaughtered the true prophet was vindicated and at least for that moment the worship of yahweh was restored in the land of israel of course right after that jezebel the wicked queen threatened to kill elijah and so he fled for his life he ran as far as he could go he fell exhausted under a tree and then he prayed to die as others have pointed out it's somewhat ironic elijah said go ahead and kill me lord he didn't really believe that he was just speaking from discouragement depression and physical mental and spiritual exhaustion because if he really if he really did want to die all he had to do was wait for jezebel and her minions to catch up with him and they would fulfill his request but god knew his frailty god knows that we're humans god knows our weaknesses and so instead of rebuking him as as god certainly could have done god could have said elijah i've given you this incredible victory can't you just trust me to protect you now but god didn't rebuke him god understood his weakness and his struggle god sent an angel the angel gave him food drink time to rest and then after that elijah traveled to a cave in the wilderness on mount horeb where he was perfectly safe from jezebel or any other enemy and then of course god spoke to him out of that in that time and ask what are you doing what are you doing here elijah gave a complaint he was still frustrated and if you look in first kings chapter 19 verses 9 through 10 you see that elijah's reply to god isn't very isn't very faith-filled but somewhat complaining um so the word of the lord came in verse 9 what are you doing here elijah and he said verse 10 i've been very jealous for the lord god of hosts for the children of israel have forsaken thy covenant thrown down thine altars slain thy prophets with the sword and i even i only am left and they seek my life to take it away in other words god you know why i'm here i'm here because of you i stood up for you i did your will i stood strong and now they're trying to attack me and kill me because of my faith in you in fact they've killed all the other prophets they've killed everyone else that has worshipped you i'm the only one left and they're trying to kill me too in other words what do you mean why am i hiding in a cave on the mountain in the wilderness i'm here because of you i'm here because i did what you wanted and look what's happened all of your people have been destroyed i'm the only one left and i'm getting ready to die myself and so god began to speak to him in that negative condition and i don't want to pause and say a couple things several things that might be relevant to us the first thing i notice is that there is a battle after the victory you know we believe god for victory we believe god for breakthroughs for revival for planting new churches for church growth for souls to be saved for miracles and we have many such testimonies that's been the history of our church from the very beginning god has done great things in our midst but sometimes we don't think about it that after a great advance after a great victory after wonderful plans are fulfilled sometimes there's a battle after the victory and in such times we need physical emotional and even spiritual renewal we can't make it on our own we realize that after a discouragement or a defeat or a struggle or a trial that we need god's help but sometimes we don't realize that after great victory we still need god's help and so sometimes we need to remind ourselves of our need to depend upon god so in this situation here is elijah god did give him the food the drink the rest that he needed but he still is struggling with the right attitude and so god begins to deal with him god obviously knows that he doesn't have the best attitude and so the lord says okay i want you to stand on this mountain a great wind came and you can imagine how afraid elijah must have been to stand on that slope and see the howling wind that was actually strong enough to possibly even blow him off the mountain and kill him to see boulder start crashing as the wind dislodged them maybe to see objects flying in the air no doubt he huddled against the rock and perhaps put his cloak over his head and tried to to survive until the wind would pass and then after the wind god sent an earthquake and again you can imagine cracks forming in the ground boulders crashing and elijah is afraid for his life and then after that earthquake the fire came and so we can imagine the brush on the mountainside the trees exploding the fire all around him perhaps lightning uh electrical storm and once again elijah's in danger for his life so uh elijah sees these dramatic manifestations and occurrences he recognizes the awesome power of god and he no doubt expects god to speak in such amazing circumstances such awesome circumstances but after everything calms down then god speaks in a still small voice and god asks the same question and elijah gives the same answer but reading between the lines there must have been a change of attitude i think elijah says the same thing but with some humility instead of anger complaining he says i'm here alone i'm afraid they're seeking to take my life i don't know what to do and it's at that moment that god gives him the instructions that i just read to you as my text god takes elijah alone fearful hiding not knowing what to do his faith is weak because it seems that god has forsaken him and he's shortly going to die but then god speaks and says no elijah i want you to go out of this cave out of the wilderness go back to the scene of action go back to society the very place where you're so fearful i'm going to use you you're afraid of king ahab and queen jezebel but i want you to anoint people that will overthrow their regime you're concerned whether you will even survive but you will survive your ministry will survive and it will extend to future generations in fact you're going to have a successor that's going to continue your ministry even after you're gone you're thinking everything is about ready to end right now but i've got to a plan for the future i've got a plan that will take care of you but also your ministry and the future work of god and so i see another point here that god speaks in various ways often in a way we least expect so through the difficulties that we've been going through lately we've had to make so many adjustments but yet god can speak in every circumstance even in ways we least expect and then of course my next point is my main point god always has a plan the situation isn't hopeless god always has purpose plan meaning and future and i will also say god always has a people elijah felt that he was the only one left but jesus said no your your mathematics is a little wrong not just one i have 7 000 who've never bowed down to baal we are not alone it may seem in our local situation that we are alone but we are not alone and then i noticed from this story that god doesn't reveal his plan until we are ready to receive it we would like god to reveal the future we would like god to reveal the whole year and what's going to happen and what trial will come and how we'll deal with that but that's not how god chooses to operate i suspect that if god did reveal some things we'd be so overwhelmed we'd just quit in discouragement or if we saw some victories we'd get so so lifted up and and boastful that again we would lose what god has for us so instead god asked us to walk by faith we don't walk by sight we walk by faith we must trust god there's never a place in our ministry where we don't need to trust god in fact i've learned that no matter where you go in ministry no matter how much you succeed in in your goals in ministry there are times where god will bring you back to zero so to speak there will be times where god brings you back to your first consecration and say are you willing to trust me are you willing to let go of your dreams and seek my will are you willing to change the course of your ministry or walk away from some of the things you've accomplished in order to go further into my will i believe every one of us periodically have to face the question are you simply willing to trust me no matter what so god has a plan but he doesn't always reveal his plan until we're ready to receive it and then finally i want to point out god's plan will return us to the scene of action yes there are times where we must retreat in solitude and prayer fasting contemplation even times of rest and relaxation they these times are very important to us there are times of regrouping perhaps you've seen this as i've talked to many pastors that during 2020 there was kind of a regrouping we couldn't get together as much as we would like and when we were able to have attendance in person it wasn't as great as normally and we weren't able to have the large meetings that we wanted to have and there are some people on the fringes that seemingly we've lost um and so there's been there have been some losses there's been some discouragement there's been some lessening of objective measurements of success perhaps we've also had some to pass away and here in the united states we've had a number of our saints and an increasing number of our ministers who have died of coven 19. we're thankful for many miraculous testimonies and we're thankful that that by and large the church is strong financially we've remained strong i'm happy to say our missions giving has stayed steady and even increased and so by all measurements of the the church is coming through this crisis with great strength poised for even greater revival so even in the midst of struggle and chaos and confusion and unrest and limitation the church is strong and we see a clear path forward however part of what has happened perhaps this past month or past few months past year is a little regrouping a little time to think to pray to seek god perhaps some time of forced inaction and those times are good and necessary but ultimately god's will is not for us to hide and wait and simply try to survive until the lord comes but he wants us to thrive he wants to move out of our comfort zone he wants us to be aggressive he wants to believe god for the unknown he wants us to conquer new territory for the name of jesus so i'm here to say that we will aggressively move forward in the spirit we will see what god wants to do we will have revival because god has a plan that's greater than mere existence that's greater than mere survival but god's plan is for the gospel to be preached in the whole world until the end comes praise the lord god has a plan and i'm happy to tell you that worldwide the united pentecostal church international is still fulfilling our mission of the whole gospel to the whole world by the whole church and i'm so thankful that the united pentecostal church of australia has been part of that mission for many many years you've taken uh the initiative and the responsibility not in only in australia in every part of your land uh going into the outback going into the cities establishing new churches but you've also extended to papua new guinea you've also extended to timor-leste and you've also partnered with indonesia and other areas of the pacific and you've got representatives from various islands of the pacific that are in the church so you've done your part in your area as well as extending beyond partnering with churches such as northeast india and i appreciate that i'm happy to tell you that this is indeed the mission and the vision of the united pentecostal church international there are 210 nations of the world as identified by the population reference bureau i'm happy to tell you we've continued to extend our presence we are now in 198 of the 210 nations that means only 12 have no witness at least as far as the upci is concerned but we are aggressively working to to reach those remaining 12. most of them are very small some are island nations of low populations some are very heavily muslim nations where it's challenging to find an open door but i will tell you without being specific in the last few years we've found been able to find ways to get in many of the muslim nations that were closed often through our own church members in existing muslim nations who can reach into areas where it's difficult for those in the west to travel and so god is helping us we're also in 34 territories for a total of 232 nations and territories our constituency is now over 5 million we have over well over 42 000 churches and preaching points it's exciting to see what god is doing so even in the midst of difficult circumstances the church has continued to grow in april of 220 when uh 2020 when um coven 19 began to hit the whole world um we had many meetings scheduled in latin america particularly the time of easter is the time of most of the annual conferences and so we were not able to have those in person instead we did an online service in spanish and i'm happy to tell you we made an evangelistic appeal and we had over a hundred thousand views and contacts for those online services and we saw over 1200 people receiving the gift of the holy ghost or being renewed in the holy ghost through those services in may of 2020 the weekend of the day of pentecost we decided to do online services in english and spanish again well over or approximately a hundred thousand views and contacts this time we had over 2400 receive the holy ghost or be renewed in the spirit so i just mentioned that as an example to show you that even though circumstances may restrict us though the word of god is not so restricted the book of acts ends with paul under house arrest in the city of rome but it also ends by saying the word of god was not bound he was able to minister the word of god freely and as some have pointed out the book of acts doesn't end with an amen because the implication is it's still going on we may the church may be in difficult circumstances we may suffer various limitations economically politically medically socially but god's word is not bound god will make a way where there is no way god has a plan i challenge you in your local church in your city in your nation god is working and if plan a doesn't seem to work god's already got plan b if one door is shut that means god is opening another door but we shouldn't be quick to give up if the door seems to be shut why don't we knock on the door because the lord says knock and it shall be open if you have to knock there's an implication the door is shut so don't quickly walk away from the shut door maybe it is god's way of telling you to go another direction but maybe it's god's way of saying persevere ask and it shall be given unto you seek and you shall find knock and it shall be opened unto you matthew 7 7 maybe we're supposed to be a little more aggressive in our prayers maybe we're supposed to seek maybe we're supposed to knock maybe we're supposed to push until something happens praise god because god has a plan and so i believe it's time for faith it's time for renewal it's time to hear the still small voice of god but then when we hear that voice it's time for action we cannot just stay where we are we cannot just hide and wait to survive but somehow we must hear from god and once we hear from god then we need to act praise god praise god as i've thought about all the things that have happened in 2020 and all the disruptions of the worldwide pandemic i think we can learn some lessons i've shared these elsewhere but let me just briefly point out a few things i believe god is showing us the importance of several things number one the importance of personal connections in home ministry small group ministry i think we've always known that to some extent and indeed in the book of acts we see the church met publicly but also from house to house we need to be reminded that while we love the large conferences and while we believe it's important to have large church gatherings church services yet there's also a component that's not simply in the public gathering or the public worship but it's through the one-on-one connections the home bible studies the home fellowship or friendship groups the the home devotions of the family and i believe god is reminding us of the importance of personal connections home ministries small groups the second thing i think god is showing us the importance of an online presence this was unknown to the apostles but that's been the case um throughout the history of the church we've used methods that were not known to the apostles the apostles didn't have the printing press they didn't have the automobile they didn't have the airplane they didn't have public church buildings they didn't have the microphone they didn't have video technology but as each of those things has come while those technologies have been used for evil they can also be used for good and i think god is telling the church to reach the almost 8 billion people of the world we're going to have to be innovative and perhaps through video and internet we can reach people that have never been reached before i believe that's already happening i believe thousands of people have visited an apostolic church service virtually that have never been exposed to the apostolic message people have heard the full gospel there have been some who've fallen away from the lord that have been reluctant to come to church but through an online service they've been able to find their way back into fellowship with god's people and so we're seeing people being renewed in the spirit and of course uh once they're renewed then they are restored to the fellowship of the church not merely virtually but in reality the general conference of the that we held here in the u.s we celebrated the 75th anniversary of the founding of the united pentecostal church and of course we were planning for a great celebration in saint louis but we had to shift everything online despite that what that means is our services and our seminars have been made online in a greater way and especially optimized for online viewing so that was a first for us to have a completely online conference and we don't know all the significance of the various measurements but according to the social media measurements we had over 114 000 unique views and to whatever extent that represents people we don't know exactly how that translates i do know that there are many groups of family groups or even entire churches who watch together on one device so who knows how many people reach but i'm confident it's more than have ever been reached in any one service of general conference anywhere and so i'm thankful that god is helping us to reach people in innovative ways so that's that's another lesson i think we've learned the third thing we've been reminded of the importance of organization and unity i don't think you have to belong to the united pentecostal church to be saved or to have a valid ministry but i do believe that it's scriptural for us to be united to work together to have mutual submission to have godly leadership to have organization structure to be united as acts chapter 2 demonstrates acts 2 42 they continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and fellowship breaking a bread and in prayers they assembled together and because of our unity we've been able to continue support for our missionaries all across the world including domestically we've been able to support evangelists we've been able to support new churches home missions churches struggling churches we've been able to reach out financially and support all aspects of the work of god that we couldn't do if we weren't united i'm happy to tell you our worldwide missions effort has just continued to go forward god has supplied the need in many different ways sometimes miraculously we've also learned and particularly in the united states we've learned the importance of political and social engagement it's not our job to be politicians or to promote parties or candidates but we've got to be engaged in our community because we have to protect our religious freedom we have to protect our freedom of assembly freedom of speech we have to make our voice heard the church can't be left out the church can't be ignored but somehow we need influence in our communities and god is giving us effective ways that we can have positive influence and then finally i would say we've been reminded it's not a new lesson but we've learned the importance of prayer no matter what happens we must pray we need god's wisdom we need god's guidance we need the power that comes from him we are not smart enough to know what to do in these uncertain times but god has a plan we're not powerful enough to fulfill what we think needs to happen we can't make things happen by our own human ability no we're not strong enough to push the right levers in politics or social life to get what we want so to speak but we know that god will anoint us to accomplish his will and so once again we're reminded of the need of prayer thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven and so i just want to remind you united pentecostal church of australia god has a plan he has a plan for your city for your congregation he has a plan for australia he has a plan for the pacific and you are a big part of that plan he has a plan for the united pentecostal church internationally he has a plan for our world no matter the circumstances god's in control trust in him god has a plan let's follow his plan god has a plan for your life and your ministry it's amazing what god can do in every situation i'd like to share a simple testimony i shared when i preached the general conference message um in in st louis perhaps some of you heard it um but there was a young man from a muslim country and just to make a long story short he immigrated uh to another country there we have churches that operate freely but he was an atheist nevertheless his mother had got converted in our church she insisted that he come to church he said he would on one condition he had a list of 50 reasons why he didn't believe in god he said i'll come to your church for the first time but i want to talk to your pastor and if he expects me to come back he's going to have to answer those 50 questions he's going to have to explain those 50 reasons why there is no god he's going to have to counteract them and give me an answer but as this young man personally related to my wife and me when he walked in the service he felt something he never felt before and he soon tears began flowing down his cheeks and he wondered at first what's going on why why am i crying what's what's wrong but then he realized for the first time in his life he was feeling the presence of god as he told me later he said pastor bernard in that moment god answered all 50 questions i didn't need to talk to the pastor about why i should believe in god i knew from that experience that god is real he exists that he was reaching for me obviously um as the story you you can know the rest of the story he was soon baptized in the name of jesus christ received the gift of the holy spirit and he's in our church today working for god there's another story that also happened i was preaching back in the church that i started a new life in austin texas and pastor shaw related the story to me a young man came there that morning and i don't i didn't know uh i didn't know him didn't meet him but heard the story later and he had been a practicing buddhist for 23 years and he would meditate according to the buddhist tradition and in one of his meditation sessions he encountered forces of evil it shocked him surprised him he became fearful and afraid it was apparently demonic spirit and evidently he must have been sincere in his search for truth even though he didn't really know god didn't know truth he was disturbed he was seeking more he knew something is wrong but he didn't know what was wrong or how to fix it so god was gracious to him and one night gave him a vision in the vision an angelic being spoke to him and said your answer is jesus christ jesus christ is the savior you need to seek him he woke up from that dream he decided to find a christian church he found a large denominational church began attending for about six months but he wasn't really finding the power they needed he wasn't finding the answers that he needed he began to tell people he was looking for something more and somebody said it sounds like you need a pentecostal church so he went online he searched for a pentecostal church in austin he found new life and he showed up that morning and as he later told pastor shaw he said when i walked in the door i realized this is what i've been looking for he felt the presence of god and sure enough that night he was baptized in the name of the lord jesus christ when he came up out of the water pastor shaw laid hands on him he received the holy ghost he began speaking in tongues as the initial sign as the spirit gave utterance i related those two testimonies briefly to tell you that god's plan goes above and beyond anything we can do yes we need to plan in those two examples we had a church we had a pastor we had a building we had a structure we had scheduled if we didn't do our part then these testimonies wouldn't have taken place but even though we did our part there's no way we could know who's coming and playing a careful strategy tailored to that person's need but that's okay we don't have to know everything we don't have to plan everything we don't have to have a strategy for everything because god has a plan god knew exactly who would come he knew exactly what they would need at the right time god moved in a miraculous way above and beyond our knowledge above and beyond our ability and god accomplished his purpose and so we the church were able to baptize these people in jesus name to pray for them to receive the holy ghost to incorporate them into the church and disciple them so we have a very important role to play but we can be confident that god is working above and beyond anything we can know that is not only true in individual testimonies that's also true in the life of a church that's also true in your ministry that's also true for the entire united pentecostal church of australia so i challenge you make your plans i challenge you to pray to study to work together to meet together to plan your strategy of how you're going to start more churches how are you going to reach new territory how you're going to grow the existing churches how you're going to break through barriers how you're going to train uh leaders and how you're going to operate your bible college and how you're going to disciple new converts and all the many things that are necessary but in the midst of it all realize god has a plan that's greater than our plan that god is at work if we will keep praying if we'll keep believing when you don't know what else to do keep doing what you know to do keep worshiping keep preaching keep teaching and god is going to fulfill his plan despite the circumstances and maybe even because of circumstances because i believe these circumstances have caused us to pray and trust god more than ever before and i believe these circumstances have caused many people to be more open and more hungry and more desirous of reality and truth than ever before so i believe we have a great opportunity for increasing revival after all god has a plan may god bless you in jesus name why don't we pray right now why don't we seek god together lord fulfill your purpose in our lives you know every obstacle you know every struggle you know every trial lord give us wisdom and strength to go through every circumstance but lord help us to seize the opportunities in our lives and in our churches lord help us to expand the kingdom of god fulfill your purpose lord fulfill your plan we need your strength we need your power we need the anointing of the holy spirit and we seek you in the name of the lord jesus christ amen amen [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign you

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Length: 145min 14sec (8714 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 03 2021