The Power of Confession – Bill Johnson (Full Sermon)

Death and life are in the power of the tongue. Pastor Bill Johnson shares with us how to contend for a breakthrough with our words. We were created in His image and He spoke the world into being. Let us declare with confidence that God will do the impossible.

[Applause]

thank you thank you

thank you thanks thanks you’re so nice

eric sends his love by the way he is uh

on his way to

new zealand to our bethel we have a

bethel plant there

and he is going to be with them great

great group of people

all right it’s been a while since i read

this one

two elderly couples were enjoying a

friendly conversation

when one of the men asked the other fred

how was the memory clinic you went to

last month

outstanding he replied they taught us

all the latest psychological techniques

visualization association etc it was

great

he said that’s great what was the name

of the clinic fred went blank

he thought and he thought but he

couldn’t remember then a smile broke

across his face

he said what do you call that flower

with a long

stem and thorns he responded do you mean

a rose

it’s a yes that’s it fred turned to his

wife and said

rose what was the name of that clinic

[Applause]

all right that’s just that’s just plain

pitiful that’s what that is that’s just

all right uh open your bibles to the

40th psalm

we’ll bounce around a little bit i’m

i’ve got to kind of feel my way through

this

i when i came here earlier this morning

i had a specific thing that i was

planning on teaching today and i i

i don’t know what to say i just

felt like god was tampering with me

and and felt us to go in a direction

i don’t have a teaching i have a subject

so i’m going to talk my way through it

by the fourth service

i should have it down so i figure so if

any of you want to stay for the next one

i probably won’t have it down there

either

i i really felt the lord touching my

heart about something how many of you

let me ask a question first

how many of you have had unusual

breakthrough answers to prayer

miracles something happened some area of

your life in the last 90 days

put a hand up okay because about 90 days

85 days or so ago made this proclamation

about 90 days of breakthrough and um

i i actually what happened was i was in

vacaville on a saturday

i was teaching at a conference there and

i found

myself saying uh this begins

a 90-day period of time of extraordinary

breakthrough

and it wasn’t uh premeditated it was

i really felt it was a prophetic unction

came out of nowhere i came here the next

day made the same announcement

just believing that god wanted to bring

unusual breakthrough

that’s always the case but there are

times where god is breathing on

something that you just need to give

attention to

and what i felt about today is what i

was going to teach on i’ll have to do

another time

what i what i felt today when i was in

here praying i get here early eric and i

usually get here together early and

we go through the sanctuary and just

pray for an hour an hour and a half or

so before

we have our staff prayer meeting at 7.

and we pray going through the building

what i felt today was

was i was supposed to talk to you about

something give you tools

a tool specifically to help sustain a

lifestyle of breakthrough

and so that’s what i want to do that’s

what i want to do i want to talk to you

and we’ll look at a few verses but i

basically just it’s

it’s like one of those one-point

messages i’ll drag it on just so we

filled the time but uh

i’m i’m going to talk to you for a

little while and then we’re going to

in the celebration of communion together

at the end

but um yeah let’s just do it

psalms 40. just going to read

two and a half verses beginning with

verse 9.

i have proclaimed the good news of

righteousness in the great assembly

indeed i do not restrain my lips

o lord you yourself know i have not

hidden your righteousness within my

heart

i have declared your faithfulness in

your salvation

i have not concealed your

loving-kindness and your truth

from the great assembly verse 11

do not withhold your tender mercies from

me oh lord

go back to verse nine i have proclaimed

the good news of righteousness in the

great assembly

indeed i do not restrain my lips o lord

you yourself know

i have not hidden your righteousness

within my heart i’ve declared your

faithfulness

in your salvation i’ve not concealed

your lovingkindness

and your truth from the great assembly

do not withhold your tender mercies from

me o lord

here’s what i want here’s what i want to

talk to you about

there’s a theme i don’t emphasize enough

but there’s a theme that is woven

throughout the new testament

and that is whenever there is a bold

proclamation of the gospel on the part

of the people of god there is a bold

response from heaven

to bring breakthrough they they run

parallel courses

when something is boldly proclaimed here

it is boldly responded to there

we see it in acts 4 29 a verse that i

quote often because of its effect on

on my own thinking on my own life but in

this

uh in acts 4 29 peter has just gotten

out of jail

peter and john they go to a prayer

meeting and peter prays this prayer

lord take note of their threats and

grant that your bond servants can speak

your word with all boldness while you

extend your hand to heal and signs and

wonders take place through the name of

your holy servant jesus

so peter and john were arrested for

boldness it says in acts 3

in acts 4 they are released from jail

they go to a prayer meeting and they

pray

god give us all boldness so here here is

the request

is god we want to be more bold more

effective

in our proclamation of what is true but

we are asking

in response to our boldness that you

would extend your hand to heal

and the signs and wonders would increase

this particular psalm is this confession

of david

and he says god he says i i’m not with

help i’ve not withheld what you’ve shown

me about you

i’ve not withheld the story of your

righteousness i have boldly proclaimed i

have declared i have confessed

now and he’s asking for the lord to

respond

to his point of personal need

the picture that works for me it’s

almost like

my proclamations are seeding the cloud

of the rain that’s actually going to

fall upon my own life

it’s the bold proclamation it’s the bold

confession

i i am sorry that

through the years the subject

of confession of faith has been twisted

occasionally to be a self-serving tool

to get god to do what we want

i get that i know that but it doesn’t

cancel out the effect

of the absolute truth of the gospel the

bible teaches in romans 10

that confession is made

the confession of our faith is made unto

salvation in other words

we make this confession of our faith and

it’s what seals the deal it’s what

completes that which is in the heart

what is in the heart

has to be proclaimed it has to be

declared it must be confessed

life and death is in the power of the

tongue

i think maybe maybe one of the ways to

look at it is

that god made us in his image

and he spoke the world’s into being

many of the problems that exist

in our lives

we’re given places of influence and

power and strength

because of improper conversation

for many people their goal in life is to

vent

when they have something going wrong and

all they do

is add to the strength of that

particular problem

i’ve tried to make it a practice in my

own life i will not talk about a problem

with anyone who’s not a part of the

solution

which cuts down a lot of conversation

not going to talk to someone just to

vent i’m only going to talk if i am

looking for a redemptive solution

and i beli i believe that they are a

part of it

life and death is in the power of the

tongue it means that you and i have

the ability with our speech to bring

life to a dead situation

or to kill a live situation

peter denied the lord three times

and in the gospel of john the 21st

chapter

jesus has the disciples together and he

asks peter he says do you love me

and peter says i do

and then he waits a moment he says peter

do you love me he says

lord you know i do i love you he asked a

third time

do you love me it’s interesting that for

each denial the lord gave peter an

opportunity to reaffirm his place in him

through proclamation through confession

and it needed to be not a happy thought

it needed to be not a warm buzz

feeling it had to be the proclamation of

truth coming out of peter’s own mouth

life and death is in the power of the

tongue

i went through a

pretty major struggle for me physical

struggle here three years ago right now

and i remember when it was over

and i was restored to health and i was

at a a place of

full recovery i remember pondering

looking back over the previous several

months and

the things that i had learned things

that i had gone through i

i would lay in bed and just read

promises i would watch videos of

prophetic words i would

of course in my own bible reading i’d

read till he speaks

and and i i was looking for i found

myself

wanting some key you know that he would

reveal some great key to me that would

unlock everything

and maybe he did but it came differently

than i expected

and at the end of maybe four or five

months

of a real challenge i came to the

conclusion

that bold faith stands on the shoulders

of quiet trust

and what he was working to build in me

was the quiet trust

that that anchor of the soul that says

regardless of circumstances

i know where my confidence is and the

opportunity to make that proclamation

that opportunity to make that confession

the most famous verse in this regard is

out of mark chapter 11. if you turn

there with me it’d be great

i know that there are times in

recent church history where people have

used this particular verse

thinking that they can use it to get god

to do whatever they want

and while i do apologize for that i also

want to say

don’t react to error and create another

error

the abuse of a principle doesn’t give me

an excuse for no use

of a principle my hands are not clean

because i dropped the subject

if it says so in the word then i have to

find out how to apply what god has said

to be true

and mark chapter 11 gives us a very

profound lesson

to me it’s a humorous chapter and that

towards the beginning of the chapter we

find

that jesus curses a fig tree for not

bearing fruit out of season

i just think that’s the coolest thing

ever that jesus cursed a fig tree

when it didn’t bear fruit in the wrong

season

what does it mean i don’t know i just

think it’s cool

i cursed a fig tree because it wasn’t

bearing fruit out of season what i have

come to the conclusion

in is this is that jesus is the only one

who has the right to expect the fruit of

the impossible

out of our lives the resurrection factor

makes nothing impossible and qualifies

you and me as a participant

in the unfolding of his conflict with

the impossibilities of life

you and i are instruments of the

redemptive work of jesus to see

impossibilities bow

so he curses the fig tree as the

disciples in jesus walk up

upon the dead fig tree verse 20. he said

now in the morning as they pass by they

saw

the fig tree dried up from the roots

peter remembering said rabbi look the

fig tree which you cursed has withered

away

jesus answered and said to them have

faith in god

some translations in fact say that

phrase with me have faith in god say it

with me

have faith in god says let’s say it

together come on as of course

have faith in god you did good

um some translations including the

young’s translation

says it should be translated have the

faith of god

have the faith of god which is

interesting because god has

quite a bit of faith

verse 23 assuredly i say to you whoever

says to this mountain

be removed and cast into the sea and

does not doubt in his heart but believes

that those things he says will be done

he will have whatever he says read it

let’s read it again verse 23

assuredly i say to you whoever says to

this mountain be removed and cast into

the sea

and does not doubt in his heart but

believes that those things he

says will be done he will have whatever

says the emphasis

without question is on the proclamation

of truth

now i don’t think we have the luxury of

just saying whatever we want

even though there is life and death in

the power of the tongue i

i the heart of the believer is to find

what god is saying to find his word in a

given situation

but once we’ve received the word of the

lord in a given situation it is up to us

to make the proclamation

that those things would come to pass i i

can just tell you

out of my own experience and i’m in the

middle of the journey like everybody

else

but of my own experience i’ve had a

number of times where i’ve i have heard

clearly from the lord what his will was

in a situation

and i have stood back waited for it to

unfold and most of the time it doesn’t

until i step in and start enforcing

enforcing decreeing declaring what the

lord has spoken to my own heart there is

role that you and i play and for some

reason he has

chosen to respond to the decree the

declaration of surrendered believers

those who say the will of god god being

glorified is all i want

i’m going to take i’m going to harness

my own conversation

and i’m going to make sure that i

proclaim that which you are saying god

and in a given situation making that

decree

joel chapter 3 says i think it’s verse

10 says

let the weak say i am strong

say that with me let the weak say i am

strong

the reason he had to say that is when

you need to say it

is when you’re least likely to say it

the reason it needed to be a command is

because

the times when it’s the most effective

in our life is when we’re not

prone to make that kind of confession or

declaration

it’s easy when you know when you’ve had

this miracle and that miracle to

stand up and say i just feel so strong

right now i feel so mighty in god

and there are times where it just feels

i i just feel that i’ve been in

in situations where it just seemed like

boom boom boom miracles happened here

there and there

and i just i just feel so strong and

powerful in the lord in the lord

but there are other times man words

there’s a fight going on and

it’s a struggle and it’s the thing that

i at least feel like saying

and yet that is when it is most

necessary to be

said bold confession i am strong

my translation says let the weak say

i am a mighty man

for women of course i am a mighty woman

but i’m

i’m not going to make that confession

because of the power of confession i

don’t want anything to happen while i’m

up here

oh i am a mighty man

how about this be a year

that we work hard to embrace what the

lord has declared over our life

and make that the only thing we say

i don’t mean you don’t seek counsel i

don’t mean you don’t bring a problem up

and get advice

i don’t mean that living in denial is

not a solution

but there are times where we actually

fuel and feed

conflicts and problems in life we make

them bigger than they are because

they’re the topic of our complaint

topic of our conversation and i feel

like the lord wants to just

increase the use of a particular tool

that he taught his own disciples

that whatever you say

you’ll have the problem is

we have much of what we’ve said

amen bill good point

where this is all headed today as i i

felt earlier today

when i came in is that we would just

share in communion together as a church

family

and and i want to just take you through

it i want to take you through

what i do i i’ve done it i’ve done it i

think a couple times in the last maybe a

year

year and a half but i felt to do it

again today where

we’ll just take communion obviously at

the end of the message here in just a

few moments

and i want to walk you through the

beauty and the privilege of proclamation

of confession of faith

of looking in the face of an obstacle

looking in the face of a problem

and making a confession i uh

i remember shadrach meshach and abednego

you know they were thrown into this

fiery furnace

and they made this confession god will

deliver us

and then they said even if he doesn’t

we’re not bowing

and i just i like that approach it’s

like i’ve only got one option he’s it

there there there’s no plan b there is

no plan b

there’s plan a a i’m going with a

and uh and there are certain moments and

times in our life where there are

situations that are coming up

that just you have circumstances that

need to hear the word of the lord

you have circumstances that need your

proclamation

of faith your proclamation of what god

has said

i remember somebody asked the question

i think it might have been john arnold

which by the way

i fly to toronto this week for the 25

year anniversary of the toronto outboard

it’d be so fun yeah one

one big party yes sir it starts now

yeah amen

but he asked this question once he said

what’s more powerful the word of the

lord in jesus’s mouth or the word of the

lord and yours

if it’s the word of the lord

it’s equally powerful out of any mouth

it’s released from

and that may sound blasphemous to some

but jesus

chose to live with the restriction of

being a human

even though he’s eternally god and he

would only say what he heard the father

say and it was

all powerful but it was because it came

from the father

and that same word coming through you

and through me

i just i guess i just want to encourage

you drive around town make proclamations

make confessions over circumstances

over impossible situations when you

least feel like it is when it needs to

proclaimed and confessed the most bold

and uh so we’re going to do that uh

we’re going to do that together today

i want to ask the ushers and folks that

are helping with communion to come

right now if you would and and our staff

and

ministry team line up along the front

we’re going to all share in communion

together here

in just a few minutes

so if you would come pass up the

elements and don’t take them yet

as i want to we’re going to we’re going

to share in that

journey together

today i’ve had two services already so i

forget where i’ve said what

did i mention to you that benny has a

book coming out

on communion not here okay she has a

book coming out in just a few weeks

on on the power of communion

and

she had a friend write her

send her an email or text and forget

which

some time ago and she was in her friend

was in the hospital

had seven different conditions she was

terminal she was dying

she had seven conditions that they could

not fix

had no solutions for and so her friend

wrote benny and told her the news

and benny wrote back and said you need

to take communion every day

and she did i forget how many weeks i

think it was three weeks but i don’t

remember for sure

her friend wrote her back and said she’s

out of the hospital

completely well everything everything is

fine

communion is not to be approached as a

magic pill

it doesn’t help in fact it hurts

a person if we don’t give it proper

estimation or value

the way jesus does and

jesus took um have you guys all been

served up here

no you haven’t okay can i get someone to

oh you are coming thank you sir don’t

pass me by

that’s all i’m saying

on the passover night

jesus took bread and he broke it

he broke the bread and he made this

statement he said this is my body

now i know that there

are probably some catholics here

episcopalians

who would have a different approach than

my historical background but i remember

my dad teaching on his once

and he said jesus said this is my body

he didn’t say it represents my body

he says it is and i feel like it’s

important for us to approach it the way

jesus said it

that we have the same value and respect

for this that we’re about to do again

it’s not the magic pill that fixes

everything

it is the person that we come to in

absolute surrender

that jesus made full and complete

provision

for you and me to be healed to be

forgiven

be to be delivered and for poverty to be

broken off

poverty is actually one of the targets

of the redemptive work of jesus

and i believe we’re going to see in this

house every single person

who has had poverty as a part of your

background

of some multi-generational that it is

breaking

and the lord is is resetting that part

of life for us

when i take the broken bread

the body of jesus there are certain

confessions that i like to make

over the whole communion time i usually

take probably 20 minutes or sometimes

even 30

minutes for it we only have a few so

we’ll have to abbreviate it

but i want to at least give you an idea

of my approach

when i hold the bread the body of jesus

i like to make a confession by your

stripes

i was healed by the stripes of jesus i

was healed

it’s extremely important that

we begin to contend for what jesus made

provision for

and that is the subject called divine

health

i have stated it before it would be

tragic to come to the end of time

and have the only generation that lived

in divine health

to be israel in the wilderness not born

again

in rebellion against god they had a

period of time

where they were in divine health

clothing didn’t even wear out

i believe it is the provision of the

lord in his suffering on our behalf

jesus bore stripes in his body through

brutal beating

as an atoning work to deal with the

power of sickness and disease

so i’m going to ask if you would just

stand with me

and we’re going to make some bold

confessions proclamations

together by the stripes of jesus

i was healed

by the stripes of jesus i am healed

[Applause]

when i do this i purposefully bring to

mind people that need miracles

in the body people that i know people

that are either family members or dear

friends

and what i like to do is take this

moment to come before the lord

and to make that bold confession by the

stripes of jesus

and then mention their name

by the stripes of jesus mark is healed

of cancer

we’re not talking mind over matter we’re

not doing mental gymnastics

we’re declaring a reality that has not

yet been fully experienced

and i want to and so i i take that

moment and i just make the proclamation

by the stripes of jesus cancer is

defeated in mark’s body

by the stripes of jesus deafness is

defeated

in that manner that woman by the stripes

of jesus parkinson’s

is gone in alan’s body in kathy’s body

we make these decrees these confessions

i want you to do it right now over a

family member or friend

two or three that you can think of that

just need a miracle i want you just to

see

the broken body of jesus as more than

enough

for the problem they’re facing do it

right now if you’re joining us at home

on betheltv

if you’re able to join with us do the

same thing do the same thing

just make the confession of proclamation

by the stripes of jesus

cathy was made he made well by the

stripes

of jesus brenda was made whole

by the stripes of jesus

just make those confessions

proclamations

the stripes of jesus

now i want you to hold this body of

jesus in front of you

lord we give you thanks that you were

willing

to suffer the way you did to disempower

disease infirmity and afflicting spirits

i thank you for this right now in jesus

name now there’s one more thing

jesus said in ephesians 2 that he bore

on his flesh

the dividing wall between jew and

gentile

it is a prophetic prophetic picture of

him

bearing in his flesh

the penalty for all division

tomorrow’s martin luther king day racial

divide

guess what the suffering of jesus is

The Power of Confession – Bill Johnson (Full Sermon) | Bethel Church

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