Sondra Martin Hicks
Mike on our last time together, you were telling me to pretty much change my expectations and not think of God is as Santa Claus. Now, I've heard you teach before in you before you've shared an acronym CEPHAS we could begin today with you explaining that.
Mike Endicott
Yeah, this is because we needed a framework for sharing with other people. We listed down all the important things that journeys that we had to make backwards ready towards the early church and the power of the early church. And so and in fact, it came out as C E P H A and S which is the napkin to remember of CEPHAS which is Peters proper name before Jesus changed it. It's terribly important, because can I give you an example of the way this this works? Basically, to begin with is that what springs to mind is a pastor who retired early and came to see me with his wife. And he had retired early because he had stage four cancer he was on the way, the cancer was in his organs, really, you know, the spleen and bladders and bowels and but it got into his spine and he didn't expect to live that long. And he said to me when I pray with him, I actually, I hope gracefully declined and said, No, I won't, because what you're expecting me to do is to start pulling God down from Heaven.
You know, please God, would you turn up and help this man? I'm not going to do that. What I want to do instead is tell you about the Kingdom of God, which I did. It's taken a lot of understanding to get there and I hope to be able to share that with as many people as possible I can. And then we prayed together but I did the same thing. I proclaim the kingdom of God again, but in turns of Thanksgiving, you know, thank you Lord that..... and he said, thank you very much and they went. About, oh, a couple of weeks later, the phone rang and it was a gentleman, excuse me on the end of the phone, singing songs. And I said, Whoa stop, who are you? He told me it was him and he said, he was in the car park, the parking lot of the cancer hospital, just come out and been given the all clear, which is, wow, I mean, praise God. I've seen that so many times, it's just as exciting every time.
But about a month after that, he and his lady wife turned up on our doorstep at home. And they were passing by you wanted to, you know, say thanks, and that was nice. I said to to her, his wife, you know, how do you feel about all this? And she said, Well, it's fabulous, because we've got a new family life. Now I can plan holidays with grandkids and all that sort of thing, which is great, you know, and love it. I got my husband for a bit longer, which is beautiful. So I said, How do you feel about this thing? And he said, Well, I like all that, that she just said, Of course, I'm enjoying it enormously. But the greatest thing for me he said is that for the first time in my life, he said, the actual realization that Almighty God has actually stooped to touch me. And he says, just just blown me away. Ah, and that's the whole point, really, because it's changed his relationship with God entirely.
You know, what he said to me was, It's peculiar the way you pray. It said, because you didn't really you just told me about the Kingdom of God. I said, Well, that's that's how Jesus trained his people. So it's got to be good enough for me. And that was a wonderful thing. It wasn't long after that, you see the difference? It wasn't long after that before. This man came in the office and he sat down in front of me and he stank of alcohol. He said, Oh, I've just, you know, been given something like six weeks to live. I've got very advanced alcohol induced sclerosis of the liver. I said to him, well, well, how did that come about? And he said, Well, he said, my mother died and you know, I was an only child and lived pretty closely with her all my life, and she died. I remember standing in the graveyard, watching the coffin going down in the ground and I just thought, Gosh, I need a drink and I went straight down the pub and never come out since sadly. Oh, wow.
So all my training was yelling at me saying, Mike, you got to take him back. You got to look at the over bonding between him and his mother, you got to look at you know, the demonic aspect of alcoholism. You got to go through all this. God just says, no, no, no, just please tell him the good news of the kingdom of God and let him go. And that's what I did. I mean, it's a heck of a risk really. So I did, I just told him the good news of the kingdom of God and he went, in March, he went and I did I can't remember how long afterwards it was that he came back in the office again. He came out of hospital, got a taxi and drove straight to the office and came in saying that, first of all, he said the interesting thing he said, I never wanted a drop of alcohol since I left your office. Never even wanted it. And now he said my liver is completely you know, gone back to normal and I'm a fit as a fiddle.
I mean, it's extraordinary. So we developed CEPHAS. I'm not sure remember it now we can go into it much deeper, if you like. But basically, C is corporate, CE, the expectancy is really separate, but it's corporate expectancy. Yeah, okay. Where did I get to? P is persistence. Because honestly, I, if I just prayed once and said right off you go, I wouldn't see 90% of what I see, in terms of miracle working, very important, P. H is humility. Before God really it's the people that walk, you know walking in harmony with God through life of the people who see the most Kingdom moves going on. And authorities, A, lot of muddled thinking in the church about the authority of Christian. So we need to straighten that out for us. And S, of course stands for, of course stands for sonship that is to say, one's relationship with God through Jesus, and had to develop and build that.
And each of those are subjects in their own right. But here's the joy, that as soon as we begin to learn that stuff, as soon as we begin to practice life of lengths to God begins to change. What I'd like to do is to actually give you a picture of what that change is, is happens and what it's like, yeah, okay. And it's, it's like this, you know, that time of day when when you've had a really good night's sleep and you're waking up, and it's not quite awake, but you're not asleep, but you're not awake. You're halfway in between, and dreams become almost real at that point. You know, they're the ones you remember, I think, anyway, I was in that sort of interferes, it wasn't a dream, but it wasn't awake.
What I was doing was standing, it was a very hot day and I was standing up to my knees in on the side of a riverbank, wide, wide river and there were plants on the riverbank. And they'd been there all summer, and they were dry, and they were wilting, and they were going yellow. And so what I was doing was was scooping down with my hands between my knees and scooping up handfuls of water and chucking them on the plants.
Mike Endicott
Do one long enough and it begins to look if it's gonna turn a bit green. So we'll leave that one try another one. And keep on and I've been working all day and and my back was bringing the hurt I remember standing up stiffly and looking up and down the riverbank, there was millions of these plants. And think where's everybody else? You know, is this all left to me this all this, I'm not gonna win. You know, that must, must be helped somewhere. Let's go back, it's nearly time to go home. So I'll do a few more and then I gotta clean conscience. And I can go home. And then I had a horse coming up the the path on the side of the river, that clop clip clop just walking.
And I thought this is great, because I can stop now and give me an excuse to stop work and have conversation with whoever the rider is. So the rider appeared, stopped at the top, he was sort of sitting quite quietly had a huge brimmed hat. So it was all in shade his face couldn't see it. But he looked down at me and he said, What are you doing? So I said, Well, I'm trying to solve this plant's problem I know what the problem is. They're short of water. I'm digging in the river trying to get the water out and splash them it's terrific hard work, my back's aching I can't wait to go home and have a cup of something and but I just wish there was other people here you know who could help them take over from me and the guy on the horse said just look to me and he said follow me.
I thought not terribly original really Jesus said that. So anyway oh well you know get me out of here for a bit so I shuffled clambered up the bank got on the path and you didn't see any more the horse just set off on the path and walking again I'm walking behind the horse. In other words following I go and I go and I go and we go right around the corner and then he stops and he points down the bank and there's a boat shed there on the side of the river. And he said go in there if he goes in there is a gift for you. So I said that was kind, thank you very much. So down I went opened up the boat shed and in there was a fabulous, you know, oh gosh, it must have been 15 foot fiberglass dinghy, you know with two great big outboard motors on the back. I mean a boy dream you know.
And the engine were taken over I didn't even have to worry how to start the thing. And I just came out onto the river with it. Turn left to go up river pulled on the you know the accelerators and off we went the bow came out of the water we rocketed up there. And it was lovely because it's a hot day and all this air blowing in my face and cooling me down all over. It was absolutely fabulous and lovely time. I mean it was a real that was a dream in itself just doing that got up the end because the river of course going up river gets shallower and shallower. So I thought well I better turn around and get back.
So I swung the thing over, pulled on the accelerator and up comes a bow again down is turned off we come roaring back up the river. And I looked behind me and saw that the was a wake coming off the back of the boat, it was a wave Yeah. Which which went across the river until it hit the bank. And it was absolutely drenching, soaking the bank, you know, three or four foot up in the air. I mean, it was tremendous thing.
Of course putting more water on those plants and I would ever achieve. What's more, if I turned my head the other way, there was another way of going out to the other bank doing the same thing. So here were all these plants being saved back to life just because I was enjoying myself I was crazy. But I was just having fun time. And I got back as far as the boat yard and I looked up because I wanted to say thank you to the rider for my having enjoyed myself so much.
And of course he was gone, notnanyone there. So I moored up the boat and went home. But just just that picture of see that's exactly what kingdom life is like, you know, not being there. I was doing the right thing. And I was getting trying to water the plants. That was the point of issue. I was trying to save plants by watering them. But Jesus says if you do it the way I want it done, you'll find the results are a bit different. And and that's what I was doing. And that picture of the speedboat has become a real favorite of mine.
And it really does show me the difference of life. Now I just enjoy myself and so do other people who have been working with me over the years of jumping up and down the river of life, you know, in having a wonderful time, and people are getting mightily blessed in in the process is absolutely gorgeous. Peculiar it is honestly, it's in Christian terms, we've grown after 2000 years, so far away from the dictates that Jesus taught His disciples to do it, that we've just lost track of it. I mean, I had this phone call Sondra from from a lady.
I picked up the phone, she said, I can quote her. She said, I'm not the sort of person you would pray with, which is not terribly polite. So I said why not? And she said because I'm half Christian, half Hindu. Okay, I never asked her which half was which I'd done it. But I said what was prob and she said I got she got cancer in the lining of the womb. And she said they think it's gone through into the other organs you know, in that part of the world. But it's what they've said is words to the effect that it's terminal. They don't think I'll come out of the hospital. I gotta go in on Monday morning and have a hysterectomy.
But could you please, you know, pray for me? And again, I said, No, no, I'm not going to pray for you in the way that you think I am. Because you think I'm going to say Please, Lord, would you come down from Heaven? And but this is all wrong to me because He has come down from Heaven. He is here. It's called the Holy Spirit. I mean, you know, right? present with us. I don't need to get him out of Heaven to help you. That's what He's here for. We're trying to rebuild, you know, the Garden of Eden as it were. Where there isn't any cancer. So he said, All right. So I said, you know, are you sitting down? And she said, Yes. And I can remember saying, Have you got your seat belt on? And she said, yeah, so I just told her, I said in the beginning, in the first book of the Bible, blardy, blardy, blar, you know, and ran through it for her. But what I'm doing, you see in telling her the good news, as it as a fact, in her, not as an opinion or anything, is that it raises people's faith.
Because, yeah, faith is the central part of receiving. Okay. You can see that over and over again in the gospels, where Jesus is saying things like be done unto you according to your faith and your faith is he'll do and things like that. He says to people, you know, faith is a big part of it. But faith as you know, comes by hearing so you got to make them hear something, you got to tell them something, which will raise up their expectancy of God, that's where the expectancy is in CEPHAS. So I told her that.
I said, Now pray with you. And I went through it all again. Because it's new to so many people that that reinforcement is always good. But I went through it all again, as in thanksgiving prayer terms. And would you believe it? Should I say, How do you feel? And she said, Well, very strange, she says is the inside of me suddenly feels very peaceful. Which always good sign, good sign. So let me know how you get on. So she went off in that was on the Friday, she went into hospital on the Monday morning, she she then found that they did the hysterectomy, they did all biopsies and so on and so forth.
But throughout her body, the cancer counts were quite normal. You know, and last thing I heard of her, she was going around knocking on the doors of churches saying what can I do for Jesus? That's awesome, which is, which is what you want. That, you know, I honestly, it's just like riding a speedboat, I enjoy it. It's fun. There's no problem, no pressure at all. I used to wear out pairs of jeans on my knees, no pressure at all, because you're working with the Jesus on the CEPHAS.
Sondra Martin Hicks
What do you say to when you pray for someone and they're not healed? Or you're praying and they're sick and they die? What do you say about that?
Mike Endicott
Well, the first thing you have to do is to get to I think the first comment I would make is that actually, people don't ask me, Why have I not been healed? People don't, and people down the centuries have said, Oh, pray for me, please. And then gone about their business. I've never already turned around and said to other people, why hasn't God healed me, a little bit freightened of the answer. Actually a big answers the P in CEPHAS, which is persistence, that we teach people from Scripture to be persistent. I'm sure I've said it before, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say 90% of what I do, if I wasn't persistent, there's to stay sticking with people until you get what you want.
Same thing again, just and this is because we've all got gates, doors in our hearts, which very often are locked and bolted. And it's not just the Church's teaching over the centuries, is that ordinary people are worthless, you know, sinners and fairly horrible people. And you got to repent and get me to say Massey's view, you got to go to confession. I mean, they've hammered us for centuries. And so we feel pretty low about whether God would actually want to do business with us personally or not. And and then, of course, there's our upbringing. And we have mums and dads who tell us we're silly and stupid and unintelligent, so and so's and we're not trying hard enough at school.
And you know, all these things really mean that these gates and doors that we've got have got very rusty hinges. And the best way I can explain this to say that Jesus on the cross has undone the locks and the bolts on those gates. Yeah, to get in. What prayer give us like you and me our duty, our responsibility under the, you know, our succession of Father Son, Holy Spirit in us that our duty is to keep leaning on that game, pushing it a little bit and pushing it a little bit against the rusty hinge and pushing a little bit. And it opens a bit more and a bit more and a bit more. So if somebody ever says I would always say to somebody do is there any difference? And if they say no, there's no difference.
They say, All right, let's have an appointment next week, and we'll have another go at it. Yeah. I would say it's not about as problem as you think it is. I'm just trying to remember. I wasn't actually there at the time. There's a couple of people who work with me, we're in the office and a guy came in he was diabetic and had injured his foot and gangrene and set in and they were going to amputate the lower part of his leg. And, and they said I wasn't there but they said that they, he took the strapping off and showed them and it said not only was it almost black, his leg, but it stank. And you know they being desperately kind about it. And this guy was not a Christian, by the way, by his own admission. So these are the two ladies in the office proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to him.
And they said to me that as we did that, you could actually see the line between the black and pink here, coming down his leg, across the ankle and out through the foot, and it was gone. And all the pain was gone on everything. And he just said all thanks a lot. That's wonderful. He got up and walked out. I think he said, How much do I owe you actually, but oh my gosh, and he just left. And we were so excited I happen to ring up a friend of mine who's a pastor in the states told her the same that story and she said was funny, you should tell me that.
Because she has she had a member of our congregation hospital waiting for her foot to be amputated for exactly the same reasons. So she said she hung up the phone on me and jumped in the car and drove around the hospital straight in to see this lady who was lying there in the bed waiting for, you know, can be inspected pre op. And she sat there and proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom of God to us. It isn't that interesting, shouldn't pray in the sense of peace, God just proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom of God. And she said while she was the doctor turned that while she was just then said, don't just want to have a look at this foot, make sure we got the right leg we're going to cut on. And he lifted up the bottom of the blanket looked at her foot and the doctor said, I'm sorry, I'm not going to operate on that, that's perfectly normal. So when is one gets used to this, it's fabulous line for tell you I cannot encourage people enough.
But in the end, the problem is the one that I don't like is when people say are you saying I don't have enough faith to be healed? Because that that is right out of the ballpark that that is a nonsense, because you know, the reason people don't get heal most often is because either we're not persistent or because they have lost knowing how to catch. Well, it's our job as prayer givers, it's our job as Kingdom walkers if you like, it's our job to raise people's expectancy of God. In other words, push their gates open so that God can get in and do the business. So it isn't their fault.
That's the bit I wanted to emphasize. It isn't their fault they don't get healed. It's usually my fault if they don't. My response to that is to go back to God and apologize. I'm sorry, I think I must have got it wrong, or I haven't understood it right? Or please teach me more, will you or Please give me another shot, you know
Sondra Martin Hicks
What about if you were praying for a person, and they said, Oh, I believe in God, and I believe in healing and all of this but somewhere deep down inside, they feel like somewhere in their past they had sinned against God and really never been forgiven? Would that keep them from getting healed?
Mike Endicott
Yeah, the keeping the door shut actually. Yes, but every time I proclaim the goodness of the kingdom of God in the way that you do it, you know, if you start saying to them, God, Jesus never turned anybody away. Anybody? Jesus didn't go down a line of lepers looking for baptism certificates before he healed somebody. Yeah. Jesus didn't go down the line the lepers saying, well, you're old and ancient, you're gonna fall to bits anyway, let it go.
You know, he didn't. He said, Yes. You know, people who've done awful things in their lives and feel they never been forgiven and so on. You know. I mean, look, look at the woman caught in adultery, for example. Jesus never accused her anything. He said, what's going on? And he got rid of the people that would judging her, you know. Jesus is on our side is not on. Right. The whole business of the cross, the whole business of His ascension and coming in the Holy Spirit is all because He's got to be with us.
If He was satisfied with ignoring you, He'd stay in Heaven. That easy, but He hasn't. So I mean, it just got to keep at it and I don't know sometimes, of course, it's so deep that you just don't win Sometimes during this process of trying to knock their gates open enough they go and die in the process, which is even more frustrating. Yes, yeah. But if it didn't do this, you wouldn't see a fraction of what we do see.
