Addressing the Spirit of Poverty - Part 1 — Jackie Pullinger

Set us free from that spirit of poverty. Holy Spirit, we just invite you to come in power. Father just release your power and set us free from our spirit of poverty. I saw the Lord Jesus coming to some of you who have imprisoned spirits and Your personal spirit has been sitting alone in a prison and the Lord Jesus is coming to you now and And he's opening the prison door.

And in the name of Jesus I call forth your imprisoned spirit to come out and to live and to be free and to walk in the Spirit of God and to experience life in Christ. Come out and live in Jesus name some of you have been bowed down in sorrow and sadness and grieving and And the Lord Jesus is saying to you it's time to put off your grieving clothes and to look ahead.

Not behind at what you lost but to look ahead at what you are going to gain in Souls for the kingdom of God. For what you have lost is not even worth comparing to what the Lord is going to use you for to gain for his kingdom and Eternal purposes.

I saw some of you who could not come into the presence of Jesus because you can only present self and In the name of Jesus I speak to your personal spirit and to the eyes of your spirit. And I turn you away from presencing self.

And I turn your eyes up to the Lord of Lord and the King of Kings to presence Jesus. So that you can behold his face and be free from self and the poverty of self. Father release your power. Release your power.

Father in the name of Jesus I speak to the depression and the oppression that has been bothering some of you for a long time and I command it to fall off of you in his precious name the name of Jesus.

So that you can be free to experience joy and the joy of giving your life away For him. So Lord come. Father I ask that you would release the spirit of intercession upon the intercessors that you are raising up here tonight to birth ministers of Mercy and justice.

And Lord that these intercessors would be before you for vision for strategy for plan. For your voice for your face as to how you want to move in our midst and in our churches and in our cities. So release the intercessors father to birth.

What must be birthed now father as we look up to you? I? Pray that you would open up our eyes to see what you have for us tonight. To hear what you have for hear what you have for us to hear and father empower our feet to go.

And to do and to be obedient unto the word Let your anointing come upon Jackie As she ministers to us in your name in Jesus name.

Amen amen. Jackie would you come forward and would you welcome her as you would welcome the Lord himself. When I saw people in In sickness in bondage. I was moved with compassion I Healed them and set them free.

When I saw people like sheep gone astray I said Whom could I send. And my heart is still broken and filled with compassion will bring my heart To them.

The Jubilee Hope of God’s Banqueting Table

Prepare a banquet for you a banquet which is not only enough for you But also for your family and your friends. Come come to my banqueting table. Come and eat with me. That's what it says in Isaiah 25 6 on this mountain The Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples a banquet of aged wine the best of meats and The finest of wines.

We find that a lot of scripture talks about food. That's why The Chinese can identify very well though I Hong Kong team thinks that Canadians eat a lot. But the Bible talks a lot about food and my question is Is it talking about food?

I mean Are we really going to eat and drink? Because these terms are used fully. They feast on the abundance of your house. Psalm 36 8 you give them drink from your river of delights. Are we talking about spiritual food.

Are we talking about real food? Tonight I want to Talk about addressing the spirit of poverty and together with this the question of What do we actually minister now? Spiritual stuff or real food now.

Preaching the Gospel to the Hungry and Poor

Hong Kong used to be missionary land and We have two kinds of missionaries or two kinds of missions in Hong Kong. And we have on one side mission groups that Give up rice and noodles and blankets and So much so that some of those missions actually forbid their people To talk about Jesus.

Because It used to be that there was a term called rice Christian that is people would come for the food and So they began to say well, it's not fair to make them accept Jesus before you feed them. So feed them anyway, so you have that We have a polarism of missions on one side we have those that Do social work and very good work on the other hand.

We have those that say the words and we had a meeting of a group of us who were minister with street sleepers, and we were going around each one of us and sharing What the different groups were doing so we could encourage one another and Some of our people were saying well we we make friends with the street sleepers, and we visit them on Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and we give out rice boxes and we give out blankets and we pray with them when they're sick and And We take them to the doctor and we take them to the social welfare and we queue up with them to get registered to get their identity cards and so on and so we went around this circle and Finally we came to this Brother Who's from a different group, and he said we don't give out blankets.

We don't give out rice boxes. We just preach the gospel what is Preaching the gospel to the hungry you must Ask this question. Because in God's most mercy. I hope you'll meet the hungry we are that we are the only people in the whole world that have any answer for the hungry and we must ask these questions.

What is preaching the gospel to the hungry? What is preaching the gospel to the poor. How do we do it in the last two chapters of the Bible? There's this picture of of heaven. And I often think that it's the place that all love songs Are written about.

And it's a yearning in in in a man's heart for this place where Everything is alright like the Jubilee Gary talked about yesterday like that year when Everything comes right debts are forgiven and you get to go home.

And you get your home back and the family's there slaves are set free and all is right and in man there is that yearning for that place and To be with him where there isn't Any more poverty where there isn't any more sickness where there's no more crying with us No more death, and you're a boy once and he He was 13 when I first knew him he lived he lived in the walled city.

Poverty, Belonging, and Exploitation in the Walled City

And he had no parents, but the person who was Kind of bringing him up. He was a kind of step-uncle Moved to walled city because it was cheap, and he didn't go to school he couldn't afford to go to school and And so he hung around the streets, and he soon got to know a bunch of important-looking Guys and I must say they loved him.

I Often think the gangsters Love each other better than we do really they They called him their brother, and they let him belong and They let him sleep in their place, and they let him eat their food, and they gave him protection which was Why he joined them because you have to belong to someone you see and then they put him to work.

He was 13 or 14 when he began and his job was guarding the girls in a brothel. What a terrible way to start your life, and these girls had been sold into prostitution probably they'd been Raped by their boyfriends or seduced and then and then you're no no use so they used and then they will support the man who raped them and They guarded By these men and he was told to beat them if they tried to run away.

But you know they don't try after a bit. Because where would you go? I don't know who's God which one God's heart would yearn for more. The little boy who guarded all the little girls Who were being guarded, but I made friends with him.

It was harder to get at the girls you see. Later on we learned that the only way you could get to the girls was to pay so we would pay for their time. In order to sit with them the name of this boy was called each eye.

And he didn't understand at all When I was trying to tell him about Jesus. He didn't understand at all and later he got arrested and And because he was very young even though he he had done an adult crime.

They put him in the little boys prison so I went to visit him and I I tried to share about Jesus, but how do you do it? I mean if you if you haven't known the love of a mother or a father the words They don't mean anything so I prayed for him and I Said God whatever it is that you can do.

You have the way to get through to his heart because I don't know how to get through To somebody who's Involved in the sickest business you could be when he's so young and I came back To see him a week later, and he looked different tonight.

I said what happened and he said He said I had a dream The night after you left and in my dream He said I was walking on a mountain. I've heard this dream many times and he said It was a very beautiful mountain now that's Hard to understand if you're in walled city because in the walled city you can't see anything.

It's all dark. There isn't a gap between the houses. There they built them a few inches close to each other so no light can get down. You can't see the sky let alone the mountain. But he said I was I was on a mountain and it was very beautiful.

And he said there was a path on the mountain, and I was walking up. And he said there were beautiful flowers, and they smelt very sweet, and he said then a man came and he was dressed in a long white robe and.

And he held out his hand to me, and I knew it was Jesus that was 28 years ago. When he had that dream I'd love to say it was the end of the sad part of his story it wasn't. But what had happened through that dream Was That the yearning in his heart for that one.

And the yearning in his heart for that place Was there and he was hooked in the intervening years. He got on heroin of course. And he was in prison many times and we found him again. Few years back, and he came to live with us and our people prayed for him and In God's mercy he got off drugs just like everyone else pain-free.

He didn't really though Understand quite what had happened. He thought Jesus came into the world to make him a good man, and he was a good man. In our houses he knew how to keep the rules. And so he he went through our program until he got to a certain stage when he was with her a Leader that ran out of Patience and when the leader ran out of patience our guy ran away.

It does happen, and I was so sad because I remembered we can't lose this one. We can't lose this one. I remember so long ago. God put that hook in his heart. We must go find him, but we don't know where to find him.

Because he didn't go to home, but it's not that hard in Hong Kong cuz it's quite small place. Even though there's about 8 million people. It's still a small place. So we prayed and we've got about 12 teams that Spend their life taking care of the poor in their streets and in their areas.

And one of them found him. And he came back and this time it was different. I don't know why I really don't know why. I Don't know why but it was different somehow this time. It wasn't thank God. He's got me off heroin.

It wasn't thank God. He's done a miracle in my body. It was something to do with understanding his forgiveness and mercy. Which is even more powerful, and he's with us now. I Took him to Taiwan a couple of weeks ago.

He's now on one of our full-time ministry teams. And we've got about a hundred people that work with us none of them have salaries. He has no salary. He's been doing this for a couple of years. And he's so good.

And I We paid for his ticket and when we got to Taiwan He was wonderful and halfway through the trip in Taiwan. I asked him Oh, by the way, have you got any pocket money? I found out he got no money at all.

He was on a ministry trip, and he had nothing and he'd never complained. He he'd never asked he didn't grumble actually of course on ministry trips. You don't need money. I don't know whether you've experienced this, but you don't.

It's sort of something like When Jesus sent the disciples out and You know I usually come back with what I leave with it's Don't need it. But anyway, there's this man who's done no school. Who's been through horrors when he was so young now very happy to spend his days With no money.

No pocket money. No recognition and He spends his days walking and walking up and down buildings. Visiting the old people. There's a street sleeper. They visit who? Used to actually worship. Worship his own excrement and they you hear these guys talking about him.

And they just say oh, what a privilege God has given to us that we are the ones Who are allowed to show him? The sweetness of God's love and his mercy. What a privilege we have. How did this happen? I suppose it happened because He had a glimpse of then and so he is content because he has had the then.

To live now. Bringing the then now. And how does he do it? Well, sometimes with real food and sometimes by praying for people. I visited a street sleeper once and It is very unfair for us now because we've done this so long that the kind of street sleepers bush telegraph Has gone all around Hong Kong and you know, there's hardly a street sleeper in the whole of Hong Kong that hasn't Been prayed for and the majority of them know Jesus.

I'm not saying That they're they're all housed yet, but they know Jesus. Well, I visited this one one day and And we'd never met him before but he'd noticed his friends change and so when I Came to him.

I said Can I pray for you? He said I got this very bad chest pain. And I said I pray for you. He said I don't know if you if it's alright for you to pray for me because I'm a Buddhist. And I said that doesn't matter I pray for you in Jesus name.

He said I don't know if that's alright because I'm a Buddhist. I said it's fine I can pray for you in Jesus name you see because Buddha's dead and Jesus is alive and he said quite right so he said what do I have to do, you know as if it's going to be a punishment and I said nothing you just Close your eyes and Jesus is going to come.

Well, he's already very excited. And So I just put my hand out and I didn't say anything. I was praying all the prayers inside I Just was praying you Lord. Would you please come and touch him? And I had my eyes open and I was watching and after about a Minute, he began to smile and he was breathing Deeply and so I said How are you feeling?

And he said, oh, I feel very well in my chest and I said, oh that's because Jesus was God's Son and He could do things like that because he was God's Son. Will you believe that? And he said yes and Then I prayed silently for another half minute and And he's he said I feel very loose I feel very well and I said that's because When Jesus was on earth, he was he was down here 2 ,000 years ago he was always doing things like that and He knew how you felt sitting here.

The man lives under a flyover under an overpass and And he didn't want you to feel lonely and dirty and painful so Although he was always healing people. He put all your chest pains and your loneliness Upon himself and he died.

Will you believe that? And he said yes, and Then I said will you believe he rose again? And he said yes, of course He's just walked under the flyover. None of them have a problem With the resurrection and so I said to him well, would you like to follow him?

And he said silly question If he's God, of course, I will so I said tell him you'd like to follow him and please say thank you very much For for dying for you. And by the way, he'll give you a new language to help you talk to him so we began to pray in tongues and This is the easiest time to do this, by the way so He began to pray in tongues.

The whole thing had taken about two or two and a half minutes or 25 years. I don't know and then it was finished. I'd given him the rice box. It was all I had. They didn't have a home for him. Then we keep renting new places.

Because Because there's so many people that need a home and they all want to come and live with us. But we we can't find spaces quickly enough. So I had to leave him there and I said Well, I have to leave now but Jesus will stay with you and And He'll never leave you and you can talk to him in Chinese and when you don't know how to say it you can talk to him in the other language and that was all.

That day I could give him. But so much. How much was it the rice box? How much was it the prayer? Or how much was it that he was jealous? Or Got off drugs or found houses. I don't know. I don't know. You see I can't separate anymore.

Jesus’ Ministry of Food and Spiritual Life

What is actual food and what is spiritual food? I don't know. And if you read the Gospels, you'll find that Jesus. You couldn't always make out quite what he was talking about. He was obviously interested in food and On one occasion he he fed 5 ,000 then he fed 4 ,000 so he was interested.

He didn't say well, let's give them some Bible verses. Instead but on another occasion when his disciples said come and eat. He said I've got food. You don't know about. I want to see why Poverty was in the world because if you look in this book.

You'll find the first two chapters and the last two chapters are very similar. The first two chapters there's enough for man. There's no hunger and all his provision for intimacy with God all his provision for relationship all his provision for food.

Always met he didn't seem to at that time. Need clothes, so that wasn't a problem. All his needs were met and we see that the last two chapters of the book Is the same. What happened in between? Well in Genesis Chapter 3 we see the curses of this present evil age came upon man and The reason the curses came was that man had chosen to worship the other man tried to find intimacy a different way than through worshiping God a man trying to find knowledge and So he listened to the enemy and then became enslaved to the enemy and in Genesis 3 This is what the Lord says would happen to man if he did not worship God first and obey him.

I Don't think that it's God who's cursed man, but I think it's a Curse that man has brought upon himself. Verse 17 cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.

By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground since from it you were taken for dust you are and To dust you will return today, I'm just going to deal with the male part of this curse from this time onwards man had to earn his living in the first two chapters.

Man was allowed to work for fun, and he could play with the animals and manage the animals that that was it. But after he had disobeyed God and chose not to worship him first He bought this curse upon himself of having to earn his living By the sweat of his brow and it has been up until this time by sweat He would earn and for men.

By work they would find their identity Instead of in relationship with their creator. They would find their identity in their work. Some years ago. When I was exploring this subject I got a hint of it and this happened through my own sister.

And I noticed that my sister worked very hard. She was very bright. She was the cleverest one of the family but Everything went wrong with her life. Everything I don't know if you know people like that, but everything went wrong.

She married a man who cheated on her and She left him and she had to bring up two children and the man was very rich and never paid her anything so she had to work and She never had time with her children, and she got one disastrous job after another.

I Couldn't think how she could walk into such awful jobs but she was always doing it and she worked I mean she really worked hard and And she worked for bosses who never paid her and then she did all their housework as well and then she did extra jobs for them and she ended up running their businesses, and they never paid her and they cheated her and This happened time and time again, and I began to think She's under a curse and one time she was So poor that she decided that a good job.

She could get would be To look after some sick old ladies because you get paid quite well in Britain's and for doing this so she went to live in the sickle ladies houses and She could get quite a lot of money doing this and she rented her house out.

So she thought she could make up some income this way. Well her tenants never paid rent and When she went into the town that she lived she began to see her furniture in the in the second-hand shops and So she went to the police and finally these Tenants got taken to court and they were supposed to pay the back rent.

They were supposed to vacate the house. So they vacated the house, but when she went in she found they'd smashed everything on purpose. And they never paid the rent because they were bankrupt and so she was Thousands of pounds out of pocket.

So she got another job looking after sick old people. And the same thing happened twice, but God. She's obviously under a curse. Now this is what it says in Deuteronomy 28 this is another passage where it lists the blessings of worshipping and obeying God and Then it lists what will happen If we don't obey God.

You will so much first 38 and harvest little. You'll plant vineyards and not drink the wine. You have olive trees, but the olives will drop off. Locusts will take over all your trees and crops. This was my sister.

She worked hard, but got nothing in hunger and thirst in nakedness and dire poverty. You will serve the enemies the Lord sends against you. He will put an iron yoke on your neck until he has destroyed you.

Inherited Poverty, Debt, and Human Exploitation

Much of the problem that we have when we are discussing with ourselves How we are to share our money. Or our goods. Much of the problem that we think that we have is that we think we have earned What we've got and it is not true.

Did you know That in the Philippines one third of the national wealth comes from women Who serve in other countries as servants in Hong Kong. They are supposed to get a day off a week in other countries.

Not that they have no legal rights. These are women who never get to take care of their own kids. And they go to other countries and look after other people's kids. They miss their own children growing up and they get bonded to other people's kids.

For so little money and they have to send it all back to Philippines. That's how a nation is managing to recover her economy by exporting its mothers and its women and. They work and they work and they work and they work and what do they get?

And did you ever see that cover of Time magazine? When there was a little boy on the cover once and he was four. He was a slave In India and what happens in India is if you are in debt. Your children May be indentured.

Your children may belong to the person that you're in debt to. And so they start life four years old. He never will eat at his parents house. He never will be with his mommy. He never will go to school at four.

He's sweeping. For he is a servant and he works hard and he gets nothing. We think We've earned What we have. Whereas in fact All any of us have earned His death and if we can look at the beginning of Scripture and if we can look at the end if we can look to the kingdom that Will come and must start to come now We see that there is a different system in the kingdom and This different system is that there's enough for everyone.

You don't have to earn your living anymore. We are free From the results of the curse and I know hardly anyone who believes it and most of us Who are Christians because we happen to live in this age? Where we happen to use?

Sort of bits of paper and round coins that is called money most of us serve still a worldly system. When actually We don't need to be under this system at all and I mean at all We're as free as Jesus was when he was asked do you give temple tax well?

Okay, the answer is He's the son of God so he doesn't have to give temple tax. But because he's the son of man he will and then he gets his disciples to fish up a fish and Outcomes the temple tax you see he's free from the world's system.

Even if he lives in the world system. He does not serve it. He is not a slave to it because He's the king and We who belong to the king do not have to serve a system. Even if we live in it if we go on to look at the Deuteronomy passage clear that curses that are foretold for those who are Disobedient or do not worship the Lord it says that they are inherited.

And it says this will go on to the third and the fourth generation. So it's clear to see then that it's possible That children will inherit their parents Disobedience just the same as many of us Have inherited our parents Obedience and I met a very wonderful Canadian once his name is was Mark Bontane who Did a wonderful work in Calcutta in India, and he talked about the law of the harvest.

For many of us we enjoy Prosperity because our forefathers of Our countries or our cities or our families Did love God and the blessings are inherited and we forget to thank God and we think That is British or Canadians or whatever it is we happen to be we think we should have them.

So as blessings are inherited so are curses to the third and fourth generation and in verse 46 of Deuteronomy 28 it says These curses Will be a sign and a wonder to you and your descendants forever. I was amazed to find in a chapter about poverty as a result of Not following the Lord that the result Was to be a sign and wonder of an awful kind.

To Thessalonians 2 9 says in the coming of the lawless one who will be in accordance With the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles signs and wonders. We are living now in an age Where there has never been the poverty that there is now but worse.

We're in an age Where we are responsible Because we know about it and we're living in a time where we can read a newspaper about a million people Who are dying? through genocide and We can watch a TV program and see that the poor mothers Have no milk to feed the bones that are their babies and we can look at this and We can switch channels.

We can read as no other generation ever has About the poverty about the starvation about the floods about the calamities across the world and We turn our hearts off. Because we think what can I do? Well, we can do we can do.

We do have the answer. But we will need to be set free ourselves from the curse of poverty. For we will have no answer for the poor If we ourselves are not free from the curse of poverty and there are many of us who know Jesus Who are still living?

Serving the other system. Let's see How Jesus addressed the curse of poverty. We have a bunch of people and we've learnt Different Fashions and ways of praying and one of the ways of praying that people like to do quite a lot is gathering together in group groups and shouting and Even sometimes in stadiums To come against the works of the enemy if this is all that was needed.

That's what Jesus would have done but this is what he did. He addressed the curse of poverty by dealing with the spirit behind the poverty. Because it was through man's disobedience that Satan was able to bring sickness to bring poverty to bring shame and Sin into the world and the first way that Jesus Addressed the spirit or one example was the one that I spoke about this morning when the enemy tempted him and he said I'll give you all the kingdoms and the authority and the splendor of this world if you will worship me and Jesus said in Luke 4 8 Worship the Lord your God and serve him only we have found that the first thing we need to do in working with the poor is worship.

It's absolutely key and we fund by the way. This is most particularly true when we're dealing with prostitution. I Think it's something to do with Idolatry. But that's another subject. But if any of you here are working with women who've been in this shame Worship of Creator God who made us for intimacy is the best way we have fund of setting people free who Tried or been tricked into finding intimacy in any other way and We spend lots and lots and lots and lots of time In worshiping which is what Jesus did first.

Instead of instant ministry instead of clever ministry tricks. I will worship the Lord my God first. That will be first. One day in our wall city meeting we have these addicts meetings came in this couple and they slept in the street with their little son and their little son was about two at that time and This couple had been found by one of our outreach teams.

Our outreach teams are mainly people like It's either when I was telling you about Who've been touched by God's mercy and so love to share? Mercy and they had Heard that there was a place that you could start again and a place where there was a home and so they came Into the wall city meeting and we prayed with them and just like the street sleeper.

They came to know Jesus and the power of the Spirit came upon them and they spoke in tongues. This is all we do this before the meeting starts. This is all in the five minutes before Before the meeting started and then we came to worship now.

We don't explain it they understand it and During the worship the Holy Spirit came on another couple who started laughing and the new couple had their eyes open like saucers and they were looking at the laughing couple and I saw them and I said that's fine.

Enjoy it Because the Holy Spirit will come and touch you in a minute and a few minutes later. I saw the the woman Lying on the ground weeping and I said to her later What did you see and she said while we were worshiping I had a picture of a man on a cross.

And she said I knew it was Jesus and I understood That it was my sins that put him there and I could no longer stand. I Had to prostrate myself. No, man could explain that to her. It was revealed by his spirit and two days later Her husband slipped in a puddle in the street and died.

But at least he went to heaven and she came to live with us, of course and her son. Because of course how can you say to someone? Jesus loves you and leave them out in the street when you've got a room.

How can you it doesn't mean anything so she came and God did set her free From her drug problem and her poverty that was through worship. Jesus Gave up his life and we talked about this morning in Galatians 3 13 it says Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

For it is written cursed is everyone who's hung on a tree now we believe That in the coming of the kingdom of God By Jesus death on the cross. We believe that there is provision there for forgiveness from sins and We when we pray with people, that's one of the first things we would always say Do you know your sins are forgiven when people say well, I don't know you say yes.

Your sins are forgiven if you've asked we we want them to enjoy The knowledge that they're set free from sin now. We might also do this with people's sicknesses and I know that we're going to discuss this and practice this tomorrow.

We would say Jesus was hung on a tree and with his stripes. We are healed because he bore our pain and our sicknesses we can be set free fully then. But actually now and where we proclaim the kingdom we would expect to see this come at least in part and We'll go for it.

Now. We'll go for it for forgiveness of sins. We'll go for it. For healing the sick why not freedom from poverty. Why can't we go for? Getting ourselves free from the curse of poverty. That we may bring freedom to those Who are under poverty?

Worship as the Way Through Spiritual Poverty

I'm gonna ask Ron to share for a couple of minutes. No. Leave your paper behind.

I was in Hong Kong and in this training In this training thing in Hong Kong, which was like around three months and it's called a mobile which I Was in what they call a new boy's house, which is after the drug addicts have Known Jesus and they go to this house to to just learn a new life how to start a new life in Jesus and I Just learned so much from there Just really amazing how how they changed and How Jesus changed them and we worship there at least like twice a day What we call worship but then You know just once in a while things come up and You'd be like living with 15 babies who just started out and they don't know how to make decisions and and even if they they don't like Just if you can't go go for a walk one time because You got hang up and it's scheduled to to go out for a walk they'll get mad at you and then all they want to do is to run away because they thought they'd know how to do it and You would deal with all that constantly.