Sermons

So today I wanted to have you turn with me to Mark chapter two. Mark chapter two. I'm going to talk to you about "A Way When You See No Way". Let me repeat that, "A Way," everybody say that. "A Way When You See No Way." When it seems impossible. When it seems difficult. When it seems you can't go on. When it seems you have no hope. When it seems your future is not as bright as you'd hoped it'd be. How do you find a way when it seems there is no way?

Mark chapter two verse one. First verse says, "And when he returned to Capernaum," this is Jesus, "after some days, it was reported that he was at home." He came back to this city called Capernaum, it was his hometown as he got older and then the headquarters of his ministry. It was his home where Peter lived, so he would visit Peter and Peter's mother quite often. There was many times where you would find him at Peter's home. If you remember, it was where the first disciples were called. The first disciples were called by Jesus at Capernaum. It was where Peter, James, and John, and the sons of Zebedee, where Andrew and Philip were called into the ministry. So this was a hub of great activity, great things happening for the kingdom of God, very much like Cebu, right? Where God is doing great things and God is on the move.

This is where, in chapter one verse 30, if you back up, there was a revival, a spiritual awakening taking place in Peter's home. Peter's mother was sick, Jesus was in the village teaching. Peter's mother got sick and when she got sick, Jesus came home and touched her and she got up and made them food. How many say amen for some food? Made them some food. They were so excited, people found out that Peter's mother was so sick and Jesus touched her, she got up. So people started coming knocking on the door. "We heard there's a guy that does miracles here. Can we come in?" So Jesus would pray for them and they would get healed. Then her friends came and they would get healed. There was this massive move of God because of the healing power of God. How many of you know that where the spirit of the Lord is there, there is the presence of the Lord to heal? And when the Lord heals, amazing things happen.

This house became full of people thrilled to see this move of God in Capernaum. And Jesus, in the middle of this awakening, revival, miracle-working moment, says, "I need to go pray." He spends the night in prayer, and after spending the night in prayer he says, "Hey, you know what? I've got to leave Capernaum. There's other cities I need to go to." Now, the night before, the Bible says the whole city, chapter one, the whole city, almost the whole city had gathered to come here Jesus preach. Almost the whole city brought lame, and sick, and deaf, and blind, those who were paralyzed, those who could not walk, those who had skin diseases like leprosy, those were demon-possessed. They brought them. It was just this amazing time. Wouldn't you love to have been there? Yeah. Wouldn't you love to have been there to see what Jesus was doing? You would hate to miss that meeting, right? I mean, this is a good meeting, it's going to be good. You missed the opportunity to say Amen there. This is going to be a good meeting. Thank you.

But this one that Jesus was at, you don't want to miss that. If you lived in that village and you missed it, it's what we call in the United States, that's a hot ticket. It's a hard ticket to get, but they got in, they crowded around the house. And in verse 34 chapter one says, "And many of them were healed." And now in chapter two, it says, "And when Jesus returned to Capernaum," he came back to his hometown, came back to Peter's house, and it begins to tell the story of a man who lived in Capernaum, and the Bible says he was paralyzed. He couldn't walk. I'm going to suggest maybe later that he might have been a paraplegic. Couldn't even move his arms. His legs and his arms were immobilized and he had to have other people carry him around. He couldn't drag himself, he couldn't walk on crutches or in a wheelchair, he had to have someone else help him.

There's this man in the city, it appears to me that he missed the first meeting. Jesus had just been there maybe a couple days before and he heard about this awakening and he heard about all these people healed and he heard about the power of Jesus, but he was laying there on his bed, on his mat, immobilized. He seems to have missed this first miracle-working crusade. He might have been hearing the amazing stories, maybe some of his friends who were paralyzed had been at that meeting and now they were walking around. They were like, "Look. Look. I can walk." He's going like, "Good for you." Wouldn't you feel bad if you missed that meeting?

So Jesus comes back to this town and he's still in his bedroom. He's still on his mat. He still can't move. He missed the first meeting, now he hears Jesus is back. What's happening here it says, verse two, "And many were gathered together so that there was no more room, not even at the door, and he was preaching the Word to all of them." That's Mark chapter two verse two. "They gathered together, no more room, even at the door, and he was preaching the Word to them. And they came to him bringing a paralyzed man." The crowd started gathering again. Revival number two. A second chance. Another awakening. They bring the masses to him again, but here's this man and he's lying in his bed again, and he's hopeless again, and he's unable again. There's no way for him to get up and go.

Could you imagine if you were him? I like to use my imagination when I read the Bible. Could you imagine him lying on the floor or maybe he's able to sit up a little bit and he looks out his window and there's crowds of people running and he's yelling out, "What's going on? What's going on?" He doesn't know what's happening. They're running by, and all of a sudden he hears the news, "Jesus is back. He's coming to heal again. He's coming to preach again. He's coming to deliver again. We're so excited." And he's going like, "I can't move. I can't go." All these years, I picture him as being a man who, maybe his mother had to take care of him. Washing his clothes, bringing him food. She couldn't carry him there. Everybody was at this awakening except for him, so his heart says something like this, "I keep missing out. There's great things happening, but I keep missing it. Maybe I'm not called. Maybe I'm not chosen. Maybe I don't have a purpose. Maybe God doesn't have a good plan for my life. Maybe I have expected much and now I'm going to receive little." He was missing out on his miracle. He could have been saying to himself, "I'm a two-time loser. I lost out on the first miracle, now I'm going to lose out on this one because I can't move. I can't go. There's a commotion in the city. There's another opportunity for revival, but things will never change for me. The way it is now is going to be the way it will always be." My marriage will always be the same, my sickness will always be the same, my finances will always be the same. The problems I have in my church will always be the same. My inability to reach out to the lost, my powerlessness will always be the same. Praying for the sick and seeing them not healed, that's the way it's always been, that's the way it's always going to be. I tried once and I couldn't get there, now the second time opportunity comes up and I still can't get in.

There's something missing in his heart and he can't seem to experience the fullness of what God has for him. He probably is saying to himself, "Nothing changes, no matter how much I hope for things, I don't change. No matter how much I dream about things, I don't change. No matter how much I pray about things, I don't change. No matter how much I desire a new chance to come into this revival awakening that God has, I can't move. I'm paralyzed. I'm stuck. I'm unable." And I have met pastors all around this globe who love Jesus with all their heart. Who pray, and fast, and seek his face, but nothing seems to be moving. They seem to be paralyzed. Seem to be stuck. They're wondering, "When can I get into the house? When can I get the touch of God? When can he move in my life? When can I see miracles take place? When can I see revival? When can I see awakening? When can I see more than I'm seeing right now?"

And there's this hunger in our heart for more, but we feel like the paralytic. I'm just lying here. Day in and day out, I'm just lying here wondering, "When is it going to happen? Isn't there more than this for me?" And I picture him lying on that floor, maybe tears in his eyes. Sad, broken, crying. "I can't get in. I can't move." And all of a sudden, his door opens and it's four of his friends. Could you imagine that? "What are you doing here?", he says. "I thought you would be at the revival. I thought you would be getting touched, but you care about me? You stopped for me. You came to pick me up." And the Bible says, "They picked him up and they carried him to Jesus. They took him where he couldn't go himself." Here's a man who couldn't see a way ahead and now God sends him a way maker. Somebody to bring you to that place of your revival. That's what this meeting is about.

Pastor Claude who is going to preach this next session, and myself and Kelly, as she sings, and Tina, as she helps lead these conferences, we hope to be four friends to you today. To lift you up when you are paralyzed. To speak hope into your life when your dreams seem dashed. We're bringing you to Jesus because it's at Jesus's feet you can be touched, you can rise, you can walk, you can stand, you can become whole. Somebody shout Amen for me today. Do you believe that? One more time, come on, let's give him praise. Thank you, Jesus, that you're a miracle worker. You're a way maker.

He's thinking to himself, "What kind of future do I have?" And his friends show up and now all of a sudden there's miracles taking place. There seems to be a little ray of hope. There's a way when there's no way. There's a breakthrough of God's promise. There's a way out of discouragement, my friends. Did you hear me? There's a way out of discouragement. There's a way out of feeling like you're an underachiever, lying down, can't get up. There's a way out of that. There's a way out of not accomplishing the things that God has put in your heart to accomplish. There's a way out of that. Even when there seems no way, God is making a way for you to rise up and possess all that he has planned for you. Somebody say amen one more time, are you ... 

So I've got four things I want to tell you real briefly and then pastor Claude will come. Number one, sometimes we need someone in our life who believes there's a way when we see no way. Amen. Sometimes we need somebody to pick us up when we can't pick ourself up. Sometimes when we don't believe anymore, we need somebody in our life who believes for us. When we've lost hope, when we've given up, when we say we're not able anymore, we are paralyzed. We can't move. God will send somebody in your life to say, "It's time to move. It's time to go. It's time to get up. It's time to get up." And they pick him up. They pick them up and they carry him to Jesus, and he's all excited like, "I missed the first meeting. I thought I was going to miss the second meeting, but I'm not missing the second meeting. I'm going in. I'm going." But he gets there and there's no tickets left. No tickets left.

It's almost like ... You heard of Kanye West? Who's heard of Kanye West? Wave at me if you've heard of Kanye West. Okay, four of you. Wow. Okay. He's this world known singer, particularly in America, and he is right now doing every Sunday because he got saved, supposedly. They said he got saved. He's one of the number one rappers in the world. He got saved and now he's, instead of doing rap concerts, he's doing a thing called Sunday Service. So every Sunday he's meeting in the largest auditorium in Los Angeles, it's called the Los Angeles Forum and he's having Sunday Service. A big choir, 150 voices. He's rapping, and he's singing, and he's preaching, and you can't buy a ticket for it. It's like 17,000 people fill this auditorium almost every Sunday now, and you can't get a ticket. So your four friends came and picked you up and said, "We're going to go hear, Kanye. It's going to be hot ticket. We're going to get in that thing. It's going to be rocking and jammin'.

It's going to be music, and testimonies, and a powerful story of this top singer getting saved on fire for Jesus. We're going to go in, man." And you get there and they're sold out, and you're just thinking, "Man, I wish we had got her earlier. I missed the first meeting, now I'm going to miss the second one. I can't get in." There's even a crowd at the door. The house was packed and even around the outside you couldn't even get to the door, it was so packed. And his friends have an idea. "Let's go up to the roof and break a hole through the roof and let's lower you on your bed right in front of that." So you went from hoping you could get into through the balcony, sitting in the very back hoping just to get a seat, maybe you can see the little speck down there on the stage of Jesus. And instead your four friends say, "When there is no way, we're going to make a way for you.

When you can't do it yourself, when you can't get up, when you can't get in, when you can't make it work, we're going to have faith for you." Not only just to get near Jesus, but you know what they do? They open up the hole, and I don't know how they knew where Jesus was. But it was perfect because when they opened the hole, it was right at Jesus's feet and that's what good friends of faith do. They don't get you just in, they get you near. They don't just leave you laying on the side over there. They say, "We're bringing you right to the feet of Jesus. You're going to get closer than ever before. You're going to have the greatest awakening you've ever had. You're going to see supernatural things like you've never seen before. You're going to see the glory of God if we have to break down this roof. If we have to yell, 'Fire.' And everybody runs out the building and then we'll bring you into Jesus, we're going to do it."

You need friends in your life who have so much faith they say, "We're going to get you in no matter what. We're going to get you up no matter what. Your miracle is not going to be delayed any longer, you're not going to get stuck in your paralysis. God is going to move in your life." So they open up and they get at Jesus's feet. Sometimes we need someone in our lives who believes there's a way when we see no way, four good friends in your life. I want to encourage you, faith needs friends and friends need faith. You can't do it on your own. You were never meant to do it on your own. So many of us are struggling in our ministry not seeing success because we want to be the man. "It's all on me. It's up to me. I'm the one." And you become an individual rather than a team. All the faith that you have is all about your faith and not relying on the faith of others. Sometimes we need someone in our life to pick us up when we can't get up on our own.

Secondly, they lower Jesus. This man gets to Jesus's feet and his friends are still up on the roof and they're so excited. "Jesus has been healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, and now we lowered this man and He's going to touch our friend. And our friend's going to get up and he's going to dance. We're going to meet him later on at the party. We're going to dance and celebrate." But Jesus doesn't heal him right away. You know what Jesus does? He reaches out and touches him and says, "Son, I see these brothers of yours, their faith." And they're going, "He saw our faith. He's going to do a miracle, he's going to get healed.", "I see your faith, so son, rise up." ... No, excuse me. He says, "Son, your sins are forgiven." The guys on the roof were saying like, "We didn't bring him here to get his sins forgiven, we brought him here to walk. You're missing the mark, Jesus. We didn't break that roof ... I mean, You could yell out the door, 'Your sins are forgiven.'.

But we wanted You to touch him and make him walk, and You didn't do it." You see, there's something that you need to know, that Jesus ... Listen to this carefully. Jesus makes a way in you before He makes a way for you. That's my second point. First, when you need others to bring you in. The second one is He makes a way in you before He makes a way for you. You see, we want Him to make a way for us, "Give me a revival in my church. Let there be a hundred souls saved this year. Fill the baptismal tank. Let there be such an awakening that when we open the lid on the baptismal tank, people just start jumping in like fish." That's what we want. But sometimes Jesus works on the inside before He works on the outside. Sometimes He says, "There's some things in your heart that I need to look at. There's some issues we need to deal with. There's some habits and patterns." There are some leaders, I meet them all over the world, they're so passionate that that passion often turns into anger.

And they're frustrated with people and are angry, and they're barking orders and commands and trying to make things happen in their own strength. And they want to have a revival and they come and say, "God, maybe this conference we're going to could be the awakening of revival. I'll finally stand and the revival will come into my church and my city." And you come to a conference like this and God says, "First thing we need to do is take an inside look to look at the heart. And so there are there some things that I need to deal with to prepare you to walk, to prepare you to run, to prepare you to have wings like eagles and fly. First I have to prepare something inside of you." Amen. And so He's preparing this man by forgiving his sins. Jesus makes a way in you before He makes a way for you. His four friends were thinking, "Walk." And Jesus was thinking, "Live." His four friends were thinking, "Run." And Jesus was thinking, "Be whole spirit, soul and body." Jesus might've made the man walk, but the man might have walked right out the door into his sin. And so Jesus was not just interested in him being able to walk. He's not just interested in you having a church that grows ... although He's interested in that for sure, but He's interested in as that church grows, it grows holy. It goes powerful. It grows sound in doctrine. It grows in good discipleship. It doesn't excite you like, "I can walk and run now. My church can do fun things." It's a church that has depth to it. It's a church that knows how to pray, get ahold of God. Through the storms, through the difficulties, through the times where you don't feel like you can walk anymore, you're still holding on to God because something inside of you has changed. He works on the inside before He works on the outside. Number three. All right. "Now, some of the scribes ..." this is verse 6, "Now, some of the scribes were sitting there questioning in their hearts." I hope you haven't come to this conference like that, "Is this thing going to be any good?

I got on a boat and came all the way over here. I don't know who these guys are, I never heard of them." When I was a little boy, everybody read The Cross and the Switchblade. Now we ask, "Who's read The Cross and the Switchblade?" And like six people will raise their hand. It's old school kind of, in some ways. It's a great message. And so when you come to a meeting like this, what is your expectation? Or when you pray, what is your expectation? When you fast, what is your expectation? What are you believing God to do? To be in your life? The Pharisees were sitting there questioning, "Is this going to work? Should this work? This isn't my theology. I don't yell, 'Amen.' At the preacher, I don't clap my hands. I don't sing." I was in a country that used to be a former Soviet Union country, and I was doing a conference like this on a Saturday night. And on Sunday morning I was supposed to go to a church to preach. The pastor of that church was there. And in this country, they don't believe in clapping their hands.

I didn't know that, so I told everybody, "Clap your hands. Let's rejoice in the Lord." Everybody kind of clap their hands. And that pastor came up and said, "You can't preach at my church because you told the people to clap hands." And let's put our hands together and thank the Lord that you're allowed to clap your hands here. Right? Amen. So the leader of the conference said, "Don't worry Pastor Gary, that church won't have you, but this other church will have you." And so I said, "Okay. Yeah, I'll go that church instead." Well, that pastor came to hear me preach that night and at the end he came up, said, "That man can't preach at my church." And I think it was Bettina or some other said, "Why not?" And they said, "Because he has long hair." I'm like this guy in the Bible. Oh for two, I can't get up and get into these churches. I need somebody to help me in, maybe with that haircut or teaching me not to clap hands. I was in an environment where there was opportunities for miracles, opportunities for awakening, opportunities for revival, for God to do great things. And they were sitting there with their hands crossed saying, "We have questions about your motives. We have questions about the way you operate, the way you look, the way you talk." You can miss a lot by getting stuck in your own way of doing things, your own denominational style. The way you dress, the way you talk, the way you sing, the instruments you use or don't use. You can get stuck in a pattern of history that becomes dead tradition rather than the life of the Spirit. And the Holy Spirit wants to bring life. He says, "Unfold your hands and be open to Me. I have miracles for you, I have glorious things for you. Open up your hands." So this third point is there's always someone to tell you there's no way. Have you noticed that in your life? There's always someone who will fold their hands and tell you, "You can't do it. It's impossible."

When my father first went to New York City when he was a young pastor, he was pastoring a small church in a very rural farming community and he saw these gang members in New York City and drug addicts in New York City that no one was reaching. He went to go to New York City and a revival broke out. Thousands of young people got saved, gang members, drug addicts, alcoholics, street kids, homeless kids coming to Jesus by the thousands. His own father was the head of the denomination in that whole region where he lived, and his own father said to him in the middle of this revival, "You're wasting your time. You shouldn't do this. Those kids don't want to hear about this. You need to get back to your church." What his father thought was if you walk the streets of New York City, just reaching out the gang members, you'll never rise up through the denominational ranks. So he told my father, "You can't do it. You shouldn't go. Don't waste your time." There's always someone in your life to tell you, "There's no way, this is not going to work."

There are people in your own church who will tell you, "Pastor, that's not going to work. You want us to pray for 21 days straight? You want us to fast for a week? That's not going to work. Nothing's going to change. Our city is too difficult." When I go to different cities, you know what things I always watch for in the leadership? And I am so thankful for the leadership here because I did not hear this here. But in a lot of places I go, they give you the bad report. Do you know what I mean? "The Philippines, it's so bad. It's so hard. We have so many street kids here. We have so many alcoholics here. Demonic possession is so strong here. Religions are so dead." And it's almost like a report of what God can't do. But I'm thankful for men like this and the bishops and the leaders here, is that I'm hearing them say, "I believe God can do it. I believe God can do good things. I believe God can change our nation. I believe God can change our city. I believe God can change this whole environment."

We don't need people who can tell us there's no way, we're already wondering at ourselves. We need people who can tell us there's a way, "Hold on, you can go." Last thing number four, your way requires your weight. I know that may sound strange when you hear that. When you're taking notes, write that down and it'll make sense in just a moment. Your way, the way ahead, the way up, the way of healing, the way of revival, the way of miracles requires your feet to get up and go to do something. Kelly, if you can hand me that. This is the mat. That's good. Just like that. All right. This is the man's mat. The men, they came down from the roof. He laid it down on the ground. The man was laying, he was ... You can't see me, but I'm still here. Okay? He's laying there. I told you earlier, I'm not sure he could even move his arms.

He's laying there. I told you earlier, I'm not sure he could even move his arms because if he could move his arms, he probably would have put just two guys, one carrying one arm. His arm around one man, his other arm around another man, he probably would carry them in. Because he was on a mat, he was probably laying there and so it's a ... Hello, everybody. I have never done this in my life. I've never laid down while I was preaching.

I've been tempted to lay down while others are preaching. This is the first time. He's laying there. It's one thing to get near Jesus. He's thinking, "This is so sweet. I didn't think I'd get into this house. Man, my friends, they love me so much. I got everything I need now. I'm just so happy to be here. I got Jesus preaching to me. I've got good friends who are up on the roof, cheering me on. I got my sins forgiven." Then all of a sudden Jesus says something. " Get up. Get up." The man says,

"You don't understand. I actually don't walk. I don't know if you knew that or not. I thought you could tell from the mat and the floor, but I can't walk." Jesus says, "No, you get up." Now he can't rely on his friends. Your friends can get you near, but your friends can't get you up. You can get close. You can have the emotions, you can have the songs, you can have the good vibes from Jesus, the good feelings, but at some point in your life and in your ministry, he's going to say those words to you.

"All right, now. You got in. You're close. You're near, but now you got to get up." This man has to make a decision because he has to start putting weight on something now, right? He has to, "Man. Look. My arms. They're holding me up. I haven't sat up in a decade. Look. I got strength in my back." Jesus says, "No. Come on. I told you, I didn't say get halfway up. I told you to get all the way up. I didn't say go into halfway revival, halfway spiritual awakening, halfway faith. I said, get up!"

The man starts putting weight on his legs and he's getting to his knees and all of a sudden he's getting, and he's standing up. He's standing up. He's standing up. He's healed. Jesus tells him to ... You see, sometimes you just have to get up. You're tired, but sometimes you have to get up. You're frustrated, but sometimes you have to obey the command of Jesus. Get up and go again. Sometimes you don't feel like walking the next mile, but Jesus says, "Keep walking. Keep moving. Keep believing. Keep trusting."

Your church feels like it's dead. Get up and believe there's a revival coming! It's been years since you've seen souls in mass come to Jesus. Jesus doesn't say, "I'm so sorry. Just lay there and I feel bad for you. Let me encourage you. Let me sing a praise song over you." No, he says, "Get up! And believe me! That I am about to move in your church, to move in your city. You have to put weight on your feet. You have to start walking. You have to start believing."

You can't rest on your friend's faith. You can't listen to the doubters anymore that says there's no way. You can't listen to the doubt in your heart that says, "I don't know if I can stand up." Jesus says, "Stand up." I want to tell you, stand up when your church seems to be failing. Stand up when your marriage seems to be falling apart. Stand up when you don't feel like you have any finances. Stand up when you don't feel like you have the energy to go on.

Stand up. Keep walking, keep believing, keep trusting because God is about to move through you, in you, and because of what you're doing. He tells him, "Pick up your mat." The man picks up the mat and he's going, " I don't want to pick up this mat. I want to burn this mat. I want to burn my history. The thing I trusted, the thing that I was comfortable with." You see, some of us need to get up off that mat of addictions. To get up off that mat of pornography. To get up off that mat of selfishness, of laziness, of helplessness, of hopelessness, of despair.

Because we've been laying on the thing for so long, it actually becomes like a comfort blanket to us. "I like my mat." You know what? A lot of people like their mat because people give them sympathy. "Oh, you're married to that woman? We need to pray for demonic ... Get rid of that thing." "That feels so good to have these people comfort me." "I'm struggling in the hardest area of the Philippines. There's no way revival is going to happen here."

It feels comfortable just to tell that to people. They say, "I'm so sorry you're working in this area of the country." Pastor Claude is about to preach in just a moment, works in one of the hardest, most devout Catholic areas in the world. 99 point something percent Catholic. It's not Evangelical. People don't get born again. If you have a big church in Quebec, Montreal region of Canada, you have 100 people maybe, and maybe five of them got saved in the last ten years.

He could have sat on the mat and said, "Our church in the first few years grew to 150. That's comfortable. I don't have to walk anymore. I don't have to get up anymore." But he got up and said, "There's more." Then his church grew to 200, then 500, then a thousand. Now it's one of the largest churches in Canada. 5000 people. People are being saved. 180 people got saved last week. 180 got saved last week. He's not relying on his old mat.

We pick up the mat and Jesus says, "Pick it up." Why does he say, "Pick up your mat?" You want to burn your mat. You want to burn your history of failure. You want to burn your history of not being able to get up, your history of paralysis. You want to burn it. Jesus says, "No. Carry it with you. Take up your mat and walk because your mat becomes your message." Your mat is your message. Look what God has done. I used to lie on this thing day and night, and now I'm just carrying it around.

It used to be what I would cry myself to sleep on at night because I couldn't get up. I was paralyzed, but now I carry it around and say, "Look what Jesus has done for me. He touched me. He cleansed me. He washed me. He made me whole. He made me free. He set me free. He's delivered me. He called me. He chose me. He put me in a place of authority in his Kingdom," but I came from this. I came from a drug addict. I came from a broken home. I came from a rough marriage. I came from all kinds of problems, but now I take up my mat and walk.

The last thing Jesus says in the middle of this meeting, okay? This man got the hot ticket and he's there. Everything's happening. He stands up. It's exciting. He hears Jesus. He says, "Get up." He gets up and he says, "Take up your mat." "I take up my mat. What's next?" Jesus goes, "Go home." "What? The meeting's not over. We haven't even had the closing song yet. There's more miracles that are going to take place." "No," Jesus says, "Go home." What this man has to do now is take his mat and he has to work his way through the crowd.

Where's he going by? He's going by ... Forgive me for, I'm going to let you guys be the Pharisees here for a minute, okay? How many of you know these aren't really Pharisees? These are good men, these are real men of God. All the Pharisees were in the front row with their hands crossed questioning whether this has happened. Jesus says, "Take up your mat." He takes up his mat and he goes, "Now go home."

He's looking at, "How do I get home?" He couldn't get in the front door. He can't climb up back up to the roof, so he has to take his mat and he's going by all these Pharisees. He's like, "Excuse me. Sorry. Sorry." This smelly old mat that he's been lying on for 20 years. "Sorry. Excuse me, can I get through here?" I think Jesus is laughing like, "Isn't that great? Look at that." He's rubbing it in their face. He's getting out of this building, but there's something else he's saying to him is, and I love this. He says, "Go home."

This boy, he walks home. He walks home. Isn't that great? "There's a meeting going on still, but I don't care because I can walk. How many times have I been carried through these streets? Look at me now, I'm walking. I'm walking." Then he gets to his house and he goes, "I've not walked through this door ever in my life. I was born this way." He opens up the door. He's never opened up the door himself. He opens up the door, this thing works.

His mother's probably in the kitchen. Or maybe, "He's gone right now. Let me clean his room." Because how many of you know boys don't clean their rooms? All right? I got three boys and I know what it's like. She's cleaning his room and she says, "Honey, are you home?" "Yeah, Mom." "Did your four friends bring you home?" "No, they're still at the meeting. They're on a roof." "I told them to get off that roof. What are they ... " She's rebuking them and she's still cleaning.

Oh, man. Then she turns around. In the doorway, she sees her son and he's standing there.  "Mama, thank you for taking care of me. You don't have to anymore. Thank you for bringing my friends around to carry me, but you don't have to carry me anymore. Look, Mama. I can walk. Look, I can move my legs. I'm free. Look. We don't need this mat anymore. It's my message. It's my testimony. I'm going to keep it, but I don't need it anymore because the thing that I longed for is now here. The forgiveness of sins is mine. The healing of my body is mine."

I want to say to you in closing today, that thing that you were dreaming about, that you are dreaming about. The purpose of God, his plans for your life. You know you're called to it. You're desperate for it and you're hungry for it and you want to see God move! But you're lying there saying, "I don't know if this mountain's ever going to move. I don't know if this healing will ever come. I don't know if this revival will ever come."

You're laying there and I want to say to you today, Jesus says for you, "Get up." Your church is down? He says, "Get up." Your body's sick? He says, "Get up." Your mind is depressed? He says, "Get up." Your emotions are depleted? Get up! You can't go on? Get up! You seem like there's no way when you're trying to find a way? He says to you, "Get up." Start believing him. Start trusting him. Start saying, "I believe that he has a place for me."

"I believe he has a plan for me. I believe he can make me walk. He can make me run. He can create a revival, a supernatural awakening." He is going to use you. I believe this. All's he's asking is put a little bit of weight on your legs to believe in him. Stand up and say, "I'm going to stand when I don't feel like standing. I'm going to walk when I don't feel like walking. I'm going to run when I don't feel like running. When I feel like giving up. When I feel like I can't go on, Lord, I'm going to listen to your voice. I'm going to get up again."

I want you to do that right now. Just get up while you're standing. Just get up and as you're getting up, almost picture this being like, "Okay. I was paralyzed when it came to what I was dreaming about. My destiny, my future, his plans for me. I was stuck. I couldn't get up, but I'm going to put some weight on it and I'm going to believe God now for the awakening." What are you hoping for? What do you dream about when you're laying on your mat at night? When you're crying out to Jesus, "Touch this area of my life. Touch this area that is so in need. Touch my life."

Some of you have experienced what I and my wife experienced in our life, is children who ran away from God. Some of them actually got involved in drugs. One of my sons became homeless, and we were lying on our mat of despair saying, "Is there any hope?" Then Jesus touched our son and rose him up. Maybe it's a prodigal son. Maybe it's a difficult ministry task you're in. Maybe it's things that I couldn't even begin to describe, but it's a dream that the Holy Spirit put in your heart, but you've not experienced it yet.

This is your get up season. This is your get up touch. You've come into this place. It's not enough just to get near Jesus. It's not enough just to be near. You need to get up yourself. Others can get you in, but it's up to you to get up. I'm here to call you in, but you have to get up. It has to be your faith. Holy Spirit right now in the name of Jesus, do what we can't do ourselves here. Let us hear what we can't hear ourselves.

Let us see through the eyes of vision that we can't see through ourselves. Let us believe things we can't believe for ourselves. Let us go places we could never go by ourselves, and let us get rid of that mat mentality. That bed mentality that says, "I'm too small. I'm too young. I'm too old. I'm not a big enough name. I don't preach well enough. I don't have enough money.

I don't have enough of this or that." We forget all that and say, "Jesus, we're getting up now. We're getting up today. We're going to believe you for great things today. We're going to stand strong today. We're going to run and not grow weary today. We're going to believe you for mighty things, God. We will not be sidetracked. We will not be put off. We will not be delayed in the mission and the task that God has for us. We believe." Say that with me. We believe.

We believe. One more time.

Now one more time, like you really believe it. Like you really believe it. We believe!

Hallelujah. Let's put our hands together. Thank the Lord. Amen.

Finally, listen, this wouldn't be possible without the vision of Pastor Gary and Kelly Wilkerson and World Challenge who literally had the vision for this, not only here in Jacksonville, but they're doing this all over the world. And so, I've had the privilege of not just growing up with them, but also seeing what God is doing through World Challenge and through their leadership. They have come behind this, supported this. And so, it is just an absolute blessing.

Gary and Kelly took the baton from Pastor Dave Wilkerson and Gwen Wilkerson, and World Challenge is doing a phenomenal, phenomenal job. I want to encourage you, when I'm working on the elliptical, I'll download and listen to Gary's podcast. If you've not done that, it is tremendous. His new book that just came out, this is just so important. So I really encourage you just to get connected with World Challenge. And don't let it just be what happens here. Let it go beyond this place. So thank you to Pastor Gary. Thank you, Kelly, for what you've done for this conference.

Okay, let's date ourselves. I know we dated ourselves, I mean, when we heard Pastor Matt go, "I can't take notes fast enough on my phone," we already know that's a young guy. So let me date ourselves for just a second. How many remember, I just want to make sure. How many remember the days the TV was like the size of the stage. Anybody remember those days?

Yeah.

Okay. How many remember this terminology, rabbit ears on top of the TV. Do you guys remember those? And if you couldn't get a picture, you put aluminum foil. How many of you remember those days? Okay. And then the upper class people had an antenna on the house. And so, some people would be moving the direction of the antenna just to make sure.

I mean, when you turned it on, let me just tell you something. There was a white dot and I remember the white dot that kind of turned into a... So in those days, there was no remote control. There was a knob that was always lost, and so there was a pair of vise grips that you'd always turn. How many remember the vise grips. You're going like, "Can somebody put the knob back?" If it falls off, put it back on.

When you look at TVs today, I mean, it's 4K now, high-def, that you get to see every bead of sweat. You get to see every line in every old person, the crow feet around their eyes, everything on high-def comes on. This is really important because when you think about it, and you think about high-def, there's no better place or no place that we need to make sure that we're allowed to go high-def than in the church.

Now, let me just be honest. The church cannot just be a place to succeed. It also has to be a safe place to fail. Let me say that again. It cannot be a place that you just applaud success. It has to be a safe place to fail, because if I have a family that only... As a father, if all I do is applaud my kids when they do well... My son last weekend was swimming at the... He swims for Liberty University, was swimming at the regionals at University of Maryland.

North Carolina was there. Penn State was there, all these head schools. And so we were so excited. He prayed. He goes, "Hey, just pray. I'm swimming 500 breasts. I'm swimming 200 breasts and the IM, could you just pray?" Breaststroke is his stroke. So we prayed. Our prayer for him Is always, "God let them swim like sharks are chasing him." That's what we pray every single time. And so, we were so excited. He made it to the finals. Didn't win, but made it to the finals.

But if that's the only time that I can applaud him, but it's not a safe place. And college, his first semester with calculus and all this stuff has been a real difficulty. But if we're not a safe place to fail, then we're an unhealthy family. Because if you want this to be a healthy church, it has to go high-def. It has to be a place that people can be real, show the lines, show the sweat, and show the pain that goes on.

Great things happen. There was an amazing revival that took place in the Book of Ephesians, in the book of Ephesus... in the City of Ephesus. But in Acts 19, a revival started because people went high-def. Let me give you this two really important verses because I want you to see, when people find a safe place to be real, it's amazing how contagious it is.

This is the revival of Ephesus that rocked the city. Listen to these words. It says, verse 18, said, "Many of those who believed..." Now that watch this, believers about to go high-def, 4K, "... now came an openly," this is a key word, "confessed." Keep that up there for just a second, "... what they had done." This is high-def, I believe, let me be real. Let me say that again. I believe, let me show you the lines and the sweat. They confessed what they had done.

Watch the ripple effect. This is verse 19. "Then a number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls together, burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to 50,000 drachmas." Did you see what just happened? The Christians went high-def and then the occult people started confessing their stuff because they knew this is a safe place.

They knew that there was a moment here that they realized that this was a place we could be honest, because what we start to figure out is this. We have mistaken the church, we've mistaken sometimes a conference. When you see pastor Gary or Kelly singing or myself, and Pastor Carter and Pastor Gary. This is not a museum or a hall of fame. Let me just tell you this. Listen to me close. This is a hospital where people get better. It's a hospital where sick people get better. And starting with me as one of the sick patients in here, that is getting better.

When you come to the Springs Church, it can't be a hall of fame that nobody can measure up. It has to be a hospital where we're all getting better, and we realize that it's a high-def place, that we can celebrate the successes, but we'll also say, "It's safe to fail here." Does that make sense?

Yeah.

And the place, wherever church you're from, if we don't have that, then what it does, you're creating a hall of fame that's not even real. It's not even real because none of us can live up to that. Let me tell you why. A.W. Tozer, one of the great Christian Missionary Alliance writers writes these words. Let me read them to you, and you can get down as much as you can. But this is what he says. "10,000 thoughts a day pass through our minds, and they try to predict what we will become."

Let me say that one more time. He said, "10,000 thoughts a day pass through our mind." And he says, "And every one of them are trying to predict what we will become." I am telling you that's true. I don't care what position you hold. I don't care if you're a senior pastor, worship leader, volunteer, whoever you are, watching on our webcast, or maybe you're downloading this, you're going to see this a week later, every day there's 10,000 thoughts that pass through my mind trying to predict what we will become. And this is so important because it's that mind battle that we're always facing.

This is what I want to do in the next few moments. I want to tell you two crazy stories, one biblical, one personal, and then I want to just give you a New Testament principle. So I'm going to tell you my personal crazy story, then David's crazy story, then I'm going to give you the New Testament principle. We're good with that? Everybody good? So you have a chance to write some things down.

When I first went to Detroit, I told you, that was Gary and Kelly, when we went up there, many people don't realize this about Detroit. The second targeted place by the FBI and the federal government after 9/11 was Detroit, because many people forget this, is that though most of the attacks happened in New York City, and then also in Pennsylvania towards going to DC, Detroit is the second largest Arabic population in the world, only second to the Middle East.

We have whole sections of Detroit that streets and signs are all in Arabic. Where I lived in Detroit, there were sections that they got legislation passed that every day they'd have a call to prayer from the mosques, that would be all over Detroit. Some of my favorite food is Lebanese food when you go around there. But it was amazing to see the Muslim and Arabic influence in Detroit.

I have friends that have given themselves literally for decades, learned Arabic, and instead of going to the Middle East, like our sister that Pastor John talked about who's doing an amazing work there, these folks have given themselves to a city within the city called Dearborn, Michigan, where Ford company is, and are pouring into the learning Arabic and ministering on a slow, but watching people's lives change there. It's pretty amazing to see what's happening.

Well, let me tell you a crazy thing that happened. One of our music people met this woman named Minas from Iran. I'm sorry. Yeah, Iran, at the university there, one of the University of Michigan satellite campuses. During the break of this night class, she sees our music person reading their Bible. She goes, "Oh, you must be a Christian." She goes, "Yes." She goes, "I need your help." She said, "Since being 13," she's now in her late twenties, "I've been receiving visions of this resurrected Jesus who is speaking to me. I come over to this country. I don't know what to do next. And so I know he's resurrected. I know he's alive. Tell me what to do."

And folks, can I just tell you. That's not uncommon in the Middle East, because you always need to remember, though men shut doors to the gospel, that doesn't affect God at all. He can come in any way He wants to come in. So I'm listening to our music person tell us the story. So Minas is getting these visions of resurrected Jesus, wants to know what she's supposed to do next.

So the person goes, "Well, come to the church and talk to Pastor Tim." So I'm thinking, "Okay." So I'm talking to somebody who's had visions of Jesus, resurrected Jesus. And she goes, "What do I need to do next?" And I thought, "If Jesus has been witnessing to her, don't mess this up." That's what I thought. I could just see the resurrected Jesus doing a great job. And then all of a sudden he has her on the line, and Tim comes, snip, and so messes the whole thing up.

I was so proud of myself. I said, "I have nothing to say. Do exactly what he tells you to do. If he's talking to you, you don't need to hear from me right now. You need to keep talking to Jesus." This woman, literally born and raised in Tehran, seen Jesus and is now a follower. So she then asked me, she said, "Well, Jesus told me I'm supposed to be water baptized. I said, "Yes." So we water baptized her, which is a huge deal in that community, a huge deal. Water baptized. And these are the words that she said.

I said, "Anything you want to say before we baptize you?" She said, "I know one day I'll go back to Iran, and I'm ready to die for my faith." And I'm sitting there going, "Would you baptize me?" At that point, I'm going like, "I don't talk to resurrected Jesus. I'm not into death. And so this is just not going really well, this water baptism." And this is genuine sold out... I mean, I'm looking at a sold-out person that already has given everything to Jesus.

All good. Fast forward, just a couple of weeks later, we have morning prayer meetings at our church. And then on a one cold Monday morning while I'm praying, this is the day after, or a couple of weeks after her water baptism, we released the church to pray. Everybody comes in, it's cold morning. We start praying, and I watched this man come in from the back. He comes in. I've never seen him before, or at least I couldn't recognize him or I didn't recognize him.

And he was wearing, I think they call it like a keifa, wearing it around his face and he's walking and I'm going, "Oh my goodness. This is it." I said, "If she was prepared to die, am I prepared to die?" I've been talking to my Minas. She's born again, I'm baptizing her. 9/11 just took place recently, so, I'm in this mode. My mind is going crazy. And I watch him walk in, stop at the front, look around, and go kneel at the front seat.

I don't know what to do at this point. We have no security. It's early in the morning. This is it. I'm not going to be able to do Springs Conference. I'm not going to do anything here. It's all done at this point. I really wasn't thinking about you. I just want to tell you. And so, I was just thinking to myself, "What in the... I didn't know what to do.

My mind, I'm going like, "I'm going to die. Okay, let me just make sure I'm saved." And so, I'm going through everything in my mind because I'm going, "After this meeting, it's over." So I'm just going, "Let me at least get one good prayer in before it's done." Then it was just like so gnawing at me that I wanted to see if I can provoke it to happen faster just to see if this is... If it's going to happen, let me at least go...

So this is high-def, I'm going to go 4K with you. This is honest confession. So I was walking by him and I would say phrases loud as I was walking by him. Keep this in mind. I'm the senior pastor of the church having mind problems because one of those 10,000 thoughts got in there. He's been sent here to kill me because I baptized Minas. So I'm walking by and so I'm just going, "Jesus, I thank you that you are Lord." And so I would just kind of go, and I just keep going. Nothing. Nothing.

So I'm going, "Okay, so let me get a little bit more specific." So I go, "Thank you that you are greater than Allah." And so I'd walk by at that point, nothing. I mean, I just hear this mumbling that he's praying, I'm going like, "He's not hearing anything that I'm saying." And so I'm just going by and I'm just going, "Your word is true. Jesus is resurrected, Jesus is King, and Jesus is the only God," and nothing.

And so I'm going like, "Okay, he's cool cucumber right there." This is not going the way I... he must be a professional. So I'm thinking to myself, when it's all said and done, we call everybody in a circle and I just figure there's power in a group of us that we can take him. And so, we call everybody together. And all of a sudden, I see the keifa come off, and it's one of our college students. And I'm sitting there, and he goes, "Pastor, why are you yelling at me during the whole prayer meeting?"

And I'm going, "What are you wearing that thing for? He says, "One of my roommates had it," or something. I didn't even know what he found. He said it was cold outside. I could not go 4K on him and high-def going like, "Well, I thought you were here to kill me and I thought you're Al Qaeda." I didn't have that. I wasn't 4K-ish at that time.

And I'm looking at that going, "How does one of those 10,000 thoughts lodge... Okay, listen close. And how does it go, you're pastoring in a ministry, here it is, from head to foot? That literally you start acting out what you're thinking. I'm acting out the fear. I'm acting out what was going on. And then as I read the story of David and thought to myself how he goes from an amazing moment, a miracle, and then finds one of those 10,000 thoughts lodging in his head, it's exactly what happened to him.

And all of a sudden, from miracle, where he experiences God doing something, excuse me, in chapter 26 where he sees God put 3,000 men to sleep, that he was able to, with Abishai, walk into the center of Saul's camp, take his water jug, take his spear, come out, and God put them all supernaturally to sleep to show David, I got you. I'm protecting you. My hand is upon you. An incredible miracle.

He was being hunted down. Think about this for a second. Saul has hired 3,000 men to kill one kid. Now, you know that's an anger issue. When you're paying 3,000 salaries and health insurances to kill a kid, you know you've taken this to the wrong... You have blown up this narrative. So 1st Samuel 26 is God showing kind of like the Minas moment. I'm talking to somebody. I've only heard stories and I'm talking to somebody, a woman from Iran, from Tehran, Iran, who has heard and seen Jesus, saved, has a heart that is not afraid to die.

And I'm watching this, and how do I go from watching a miracle into head games? Because every day, 10,000 thoughts, whoever you are, will pass through your mind trying to predict what you'll become, every single day. And if we don't get high-def and go 4K, then what we do is, listen close. When we don't get high-def and 4K, it goes from head to foot, and you start playing out the stuff that you are thinking and you're going like, "Really, does that really happen?"

Let me show you. So David has just experienced the miracle. That's chapter 26. God shows up. He shows him that I got you covered. Saul is not going to win this thing. And literally, here's what's crazy. I want you to get this. He is just a few chapters away from putting the crown on his head, a few chapters away. So he's on this journey, has seen the miracle of God. And now I want to read to you his Monday morning prayer meeting moment. His Jesus is Lord to the guy with the keifa on.

I want to read to you what happens. Miracle, chapter 26. Chapter 27 starts. Let me read to you these words. Here it is, verse one. "But David thought to himself," here's the mind part, head to foot, thought to himself, "One of these days I'm going to be destroyed by the hand of Saul." Well, he just got delivered. Where does that come from? 10,000 thoughts. He said, "The best thing I can do," really, this is the worst thing he could say, "The best thing I can do is to escape into the land of the Philistines."

This is really gone south. "Then Saul will give up searching for me anywhere in Israel and I will slip out of his hands." Verse two then says, "So David and the 600 men with him left and went over to Achish, son of Maoch, King of Gath." And then I will skip over to verse 7. And it just says that David lived in Philistine territory for a year and four months. Talk about going from a miracle to a mind battle from head to foot, after seeing that.

I thought I had problems on that Monday morning prayer meeting. That's problems when you look at this, and you think to yourself, "How does that happen?" It all starts with the mind. David thought to himself... It's when those mind battles begin to come, those rogue thoughts that are telling you, "You're not supposed to be here. This is not where you're supposed to be. This is not ministry. Your kids are going to fail. Your marriage is in trouble."

Here's the part I want you to write down. Jot this down now. I want to give you just a couple of quick thoughts. Number one, David keeps silent about that thing he should have confessed. David keeps silent about the very thing he should have confessed. People are afraid to tell others their battles because of what they're afraid they'll think. One of my friends always says this, jot this down. You're only as sick as your secrets. You're only as sick as your secrets.

It's that moment that those mind battles start creating some narratives, that if it doesn't go 4K and if it doesn't go high-def, that it's going to find its way from head to foot. Listen really close. This is the part. Now some of you may get angry with this, but my flight's at 1:00, so it's okay. So I'm not really afraid, well, maybe a little bit still from the guy of the prayer meeting. But let me say this.

I want to say this to you, and instead of getting religious about the semantics of it, listen really close because I'll give you the scriptures to it. If you want forgiveness, we confess our sins to God. Is that a problem? If we want forgiveness... Let me read it to you. 1st John 1:9. "If we confess our sins," is 1st John 1:9, "he is faithful and just or righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Let me say that again. I want you to write that phrase down. You're going like, "Well, that doesn't sound..." The next thing I'm going to say is where you're going to get angry? Let me say it again. If you want forgiveness, you confess your sins to God. Okay. Listen to me close. If you want healing, you confess your sins to godly people. Okay. You can get his ticked as you want, but you're only as sick as your secrets. If you want forgiveness and go to heaven, confess your sins to God, and God has set up the body of Christ, and he says, "If you want healing, we confess them to godly people."

James 5:16, "Therefore, confess your sins to God." No, no, no. It doesn't say that. "Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another so that you can be," what? "healed." What kind of person should I talk to? The effective prayer of a righteous man or woman can accomplish much. Some people are sitting here that have been forgiven but have never been healed.

Pastor Gary preaches one of the most amazing messages. I don't even know if he's going to be doing it today. When he speaks about trauma, the things that happen. Are you doing that? Oh my goodness. Okay. Is that two o'clock? Whenever it is. Whenever it is, that means you have to show up. He doesn't know when he's doing it. So you better be here. It could be Sunday, it could be tonight. And you'd better buy all the videos. $25, $25, you buy all the videos.

So here's the deal. There are people, and... Listen, I've heard him. We've done things around the world, and I've heard this message probably four or five times. And every single time, it has done something to me. Every single time, I know there's healing in that. And I'm just telling you, most of us here know how to get forgiveness, but many of us here have never gotten healing, because we have never gone 4K or high-def, which not only brings healing to us, but according to the Acts 19 revival, begins to send healing and ripples to your entire church.

When you have a safe place that you can begin to confess. Healing does not come from the church. Healing comes from the people you are honest with. Just because you showed up at church doesn't mean you get healed. Healing comes from the people you're honest with. Let me say that again. Healing doesn't come from attending church. Healing comes from beginning to be transparent with godly people. That's what it is.

You're just going like, "I've been in church, I'm still the same way." That's not what James 5:16 is talking about. Pastor Gary and I do this all the time. We talk about this because we're part... We always say this to each other. And we've talked about this in different parts of the world. We've talked about it in Finland and in Sweden and all over, and we'll say this.

Now, this is where it's going to get a little crazy, but we'll tell people all the time is you can read your palm and decide what your future is going to be. Now you're going like, "Okay, now this is weird." Okay. Stay with me for just a second. Okay. I want you to tell your future. You can post this. You can go, "Pastor Tim's reading palms." Okay. Get ready because you're going to read your own palm. Hold your hand up right now because you're going to read your palm.

This is it. Hold it in front of you. Hold it in front of you because I want you to see it. Get ready to read it. Here's how you could tell your future. Tell me the five most important relationships in your life and leave out your wife and your kids, or your husband and your kids. Tell me the five most important people in your life. Think about them just right now. Who are they, the five most important people that you can go high-def and 4K with because here's the deal. You can put your hands down. It's starting to look silly.

Everyone's going like, "What's up?" Listen to me. My friend used to say it like this. "Show me your friends and I'll show you your future." This determines your longevity in ministry. Let me say that again, this determines... I just read your future, because if you couldn't fill that in, it is a real rocky road ahead for all of us.

Gary and I talk about this all the time. He just goes like, "Yeah, you're one of my fingers." I call him up and go, "You're one of my fingers," because it's that important. If you can't think of... And it's not your spouse. If there's someone you cannot go high-def and 4K, listen to me close, then it's going to go from head to foot because one of those 10,000 thoughts every single day is trying to predict your future.

It tried to do it with David. It tried to begin to challenge his future. According to James 5:16, when you connect honesty and transparency, that's the confession part, listen to me close, when you connect honesty and transparency with a praying godly person, effectual, fervent prayers of a righteous man. So let me say that again. When you take honesty, transparency, 4K, high-def, and begin to connect it godly praying person, that's the second part of the verse, here's what's amazing. Healing is close by. Healing is close by.

4K, with a godly person, not just anybody. When you connect those two things together, then healing is close by. Someone asked me, a leader asked me in New York City not too long ago. They were talking about there's been a little bit of a stream from singers, and worship leaders, to authors who have kind of chucked the faith. I'm not saying anything that hasn't been gone public, but it kind of started a little bit with Joshua Harris, the guy who wrote, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. And now thinking through...

Someone asked me, he goes, "How do you write a book that, man, I read as a teenager growing up in my youth group, as a youth pastor, you're giving it to all your kids, going, "We kissed dating goodbye," and all of this stuff. How does a guy like that all of a sudden go rogue? Then he said this to me. He goes, "Should I be afraid of this?" I said, "Let me just tell you something. Hold your hand up, because if you can't..." I said, "The problem with Joshua Harris is this. He had no fingers that he can talk those thoughts through."

Folks, listen to me just for a second. This is really important because this is huge. And this is what I told him. I said, "Who Joshua Harris processed with was with the trinity, me, myself, and I. And when you process with you, here it is. David thought to who? Himself. David started processing with himself. That's not where it happens. When you start processing those 10,000 thoughts with you, I'm telling you, you end up, verse two, crossing over.

I'll get to this in a second. But here's what's crazy. It cost him a year and a half of his life, a year and a half of Philistine territory because he had no one to go public, to go 4K with the rogue thoughts. And this is so huge for us to understand because it's in those moments that this is what it's going to take, both humility, and it's also going to take some security in us to go, "It is a safe place for me to talk this through and for me to say this."

When I was going through one of the hardest and darkest seasons of my ministry life... I'm so grateful for Pastor Gary and Kelly. We've sat in restaurants, in different spots of the world that I'm able to, there's a safe place to process. Pastor Carter is one of the fingers. I don't know which finger Gary is, but he's a good finger. Pastor Carter just thought about that. I was going like, "No, no, keep going. Okay. Okay. Good. Good. Get that out. Okay. Of those watching online, get rid of that one.

When I was going through one of the darkest moments and feeling like, "Oh my goodness, what am I going to do?" At that time, it wasn't life-giving until I came to one spot. I just happened to be reading. I was reading the letters of C.S. Lewis from his atheist and young days all the way to the days he's got married, Joy Davidman, and all the great things. Reading someone's letters is like reading their text messages. It's like you're getting raw stuff.

And I read something that I just go, "These were the thoughts that were going through my mind." I want to read something to you that I literally wrote this in my journal. I said, "That is me. That's me." Listen to this. C.S. Lewis wrote this in his journal in February 9th. The date's important, 1923. And I want to read to you what he said because, when he writes this, he's bookless and jobless. He hasn't written one book. He has applied to teach at Cambridge, couldn't even get into Cambridge.

My kids thought this was fantastic. Do you know C.S Lewis failed the entrance test, in his biography, failed the entrance test to get into Oxford twice. He couldn't pass the math part. And so, the only way he got into Oxford's is because he served in the military, and on the third round they just go, "If you served, you get to go to Oxford." And so my kids are going, "See, you don't have to be good at math and you can still go to..." I said, "Let's all relax, okay?"

Here's what's crazy. Hasn't written a book. He's jobless. It's not the C.S. Lewis we know today. He's a C.S. Lewis in training. And here's what he wrote in his journal. Listen to these words. He said, "I was getting into bed and was attacked by a series of gloomy thoughts about my professional and literary future." And this is what he said. He said, "At that moment I started to realize I may not be that great of a man after all."

I'm just telling you, I read that and it became emotional to me, because I'm going, "That's what I think. I'm going... I feel like everything's closing in on me, going like, "Man, I thought I was something." And all of a sudden you go, "I may not be that really good of a guy after all." And it wasn't until, you're ready for this, 10 years later that all of a sudden he starts to write. In fact, it wasn't even 10. It wasn't until 19 years later that he begins to write some books. After that, you start to see Screwtape Letters, the Narnia series, and finally Mere Christianity. But to think about that battle that was trying to go from his mind to his feet to go, "I can't get a job. My writings, nobody even wants it. I may not be that great of a writer and great of a man after all."

Pastors, leaders, look at me. We all go through this. This is the man that Time Magazine says is the most prolific Christian of the last century, is C.S. Lewis of the 20th century. To think what his writings and what his work has done, from apologetics to children's books, of what it's done, we all face those 10,000 thoughts. But the goal is when it goes from head to foot and then all of a sudden the rogue thought begins to start controlling our actions.

And here's the part that's crazy. Last thing I'll say, and then I'll just give you a great principle. The problem was when David doesn't go 4K, when we don't go for 4K, the Bible says this, "He crossed over with 600 men." Think about this for a second. David crossed over, but not just David. David and his men, 600 men, that doesn't even include the families that had to go with them because he wouldn't be honest. Everybody had to be in the wake of his destruction, for the next year and a half because David wouldn't be honest, because David wouldn't be transparent, because David wouldn't begin to go 4K.

Then all of a sudden, when we begin to either confess to one godly person, if we don't confess to that one godly person, to that James 5:16 person, then we can take unsuspecting people over to a place that we would never want in our heart, but they go with us. It's not just our feet that go, it's their feet that goes.

And here's what's crazy. Can I just tell you? I don't know if you caught this, the crazy region where his feet go, do you remember what it said in verse 7? They went to Gath. How insane is that? Some of you are going like, "What do you mean, Pastor Tim?" Listen, do you know what Gath is? Do you remember the name of the giant that David killed with the stone? What was his name?

Goliath.

Okay, but he wasn't called Goliath. He was called Goliath of Gath. Do you know where David goes? He goes for a year and a half to the city of the giant that he killed. I want to go, "You're out of your mind." David goes, "Mm-hmm, I am." That's what it does. The rogue thought now puts you in Goliath's home town. I wanted to go, "Are you serious?" David's thoughts now, I don't even know how you process that, because now you're at a point...

I want to share something with you and then give you this principle. Next month, Cindy and I are going to celebrate 23 years of marriage. I'm so excited. 23 years, and I probably learned... We have probably learned one of the greatest things, the healthiest habits for our marriage in the last year. We're slow learners. So it's taken us 22 years to learn this. One of the great things in our marriage is this. We're good apologizers, because we...

This is our rule. If anybody comes and apologizes, it's not your place to defend it. It's your place to go, "If it's big to them, it's big to me and I need to apologize." I'm not there to defend it or explain it. I'm there to apologize for it. When you start defending your actions, whether with your spouse or with leadership or a friend, let me just tell you something, you're going to have real shallow relationships, because if it's big to them, it needs to be big to you.

So when she comes to me and she says, "Hey, when you said it with this tone of voice," I'm not going like, "Well, you just misunderstood. You didn't understand. I was having a hard day." Okay? It's about to go real south at that point. What you need to remember is this, if it's big to them, it's big to me. I don't need to defend it, explain it. What I need to do is I need to apologize for it. Baby, I'm sorry. Even though that wasn't my intention, I was wrong. If that's the way it came across, I'm wrong. Please forgive me. We're good apologizers. But let me tell you where it came to. A confrontational apology, we'd been good at for the last 22 years.

Let me tell you what's changed us. It is what I call conviction apologies. That's what's changed us. It's apologizing before the person comes to you. It's beginning to speak things before you get caught or confronted. It took our marriage, and even the way we lead our staff and our people to a whole new thing. I'm not waiting for a person to come to me so I can apologize. But when I'm living under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, one of those 10,000 thoughts going like, "I shouldn't have said that to Cindy." That's the Holy Spirit. That's not the devil. That's the Holy spirit, and that's when I'm able to go to her and say, "Babe, I'm sorry."

I'm not waiting for her to confront me. I'm moving based upon what I'm feeling and sensing in my heart that's sensitizing us. That's developing a habit not only to strengthen our marriage. Listen to me close. But, man, that could develop a habit right here in a church and with your leadership, that you're not waiting... That when you can come off a stage or come out of a meeting or come and say, "Hey, Pastor John. I'm so sorry. I said something this way. I should have had a better tone of voice in saying it. Please forgive me on that."

Do you know what that does when it's a conviction apology instead of a confrontational apology? Man, you are training yourself for high-def. You're training yourself for 4K when we could begin to move upon... And I'm telling you, young married people, if you can get that now, oh my goodness. Don't wait for year 22 like Cindy and I, because the issue is, I don't want to be a good apologizer. I want to be a good confessor. I want to make sure that my life is beginning to go that direction, because when you confess, you're taking the legs out from something growing that wants to grow bigger inside of you.

When you confess, you're shedding light on something that incubates and grows in darkness. When you confess, you're building trust from vulnerability, not portraying invincibility. So let me close with this, and if we can get a keyboardist up here, we'll close at this and I'll be done. The spiritual warfare chapter that is considered of the New Testament, would be something like Ephesians chapter 6, put on the full armor of God, and we're supposed to fight the principalities, powers of dark.

I want to show you a principle that's easily missed from that. I want to show you something that I've learned even with those five fingers in my life. What's interesting is that there's a couple of contrasts here. The first contrast, the Bible says that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, darkness, high places, spirits in high places, all those things. And we understand that, that our battle's not people, our battle is what we're facing.

My wife just said to me last night, was just posted. I don't know what it was. One of the democratic nominees for president was asked this question. He says, "Will you revoke," just sent to me last night. "Will you revoke..." What's is it? What is his name?

Yeah, it's something like that. What is it? No, it was Beto. It was Beto who said this, from Texas. Beto said this, from Texas, who was kind of the star guy, said this is, "Will you revoke the churches non-profit status if you become President that will not marry same-sex marriages?" He says, "It will be the priority of my administration." That's what he said, the priority. And then you understand, our battle's not Beto. We're fighting principalities, powers of darkness.

That being the case, that's the first contrast that we see in there. But there's another contrast that we forget. And let me tell you what that contrast is. It is how we fight those 10,000 thoughts, how we wrestle and fight this, because it's not people. It's a fight every day in leadership with those 10,000 thoughts that are trying to predict our future. And here's what's crazy. This is what it says. It says, "When we're dealing with spiritual warfare, this is what we think."

Let me do this. Let me explain it to you this way. Worship guy. I'm going to need you. Okay. So here it is. Tell me your name again. We met last... Sheldon. Okay, Sheldon, it's great. Go stand over here. You're going to be the devil. You are the devil. Okay. Sheldon's a... Okay. Take the coat off. I want you to be all in black. So here it is. Sheldon... Yeah, play godly music. Don't play evil music. I don't want to hear any evil music. Okay. Sheldon's... how old are you?

23.

Okay. Sheldon's a pretty big boy, okay. So, mean, I'm a little... So let's pretend this is ministry, family. This is the stuff that I have to protect. So Sheldon, I want you stand over there. I want you to try to get through me. Okay. Tonight, my daughter has a production. I've got to get to it. So I just need you to go just a little bit... So let's not get really into it, but for just...

I want to apologize to everybody online that you have to watch this happening here. Okay? I need you to try to get to that. Okay, so Sheldon, you ain't so bad. What are you going to do? Sheldon? Okay. Come on. What are you going to do? Oh my God. Okay. All right. That's the devil. I'm just going to tell you that right now. Okay, Sheldon, give me this. Go back over there, devil. Okay. Here's the part. Stay over there. Don't go anywhere. You're not going to be able to lead worship ever again when I'm done with you.

Okay, so here it is. Here's the part I want you to get. The other contrast that we miss is the most important, and this is what it says in the Bible. It says this, "We wrestle not," is what it says. What that means is it's not mano-a-mano. That word wrestling was used for two men going back to back. In fact, it was the wrestlers of that time. It's not what you see on TV. It was literally they oiled their bodies down and fought till you killed somebody.

And this is what the Apostle Paul says. He says, "You'll never win, if it's me and Sheldon, devil Sheldon, I'll never win this battle. I mean, he's throwing me off. I mean, takes the microphone off. And so you're sitting there, "I can't win this battle." But here's the deal. Look at me folks. I'm not a wrestler. I'm a soldier. I'm not a wrestler. One of the greatest thing... Okay. Argue what you want. Greatest man movie ever, Gladiator. Greatest man movie ever. Let me just tell you something.

So Russell Crowe, people are going, "Oh, Braveheart." Okay, whatever. So here's what happens. Men walking around in dress? Please. Here's what happens. Devil, okay. No, take that off because I need you to be at full strength. So, Russell Crowe, when he finally gets to Rome, it's their first time during the Gladiator games. And he's in there. They still don't know. Commodus, that still doesn't know that that's Maximus. And so this is what he does.

He has his mask on. He's the Spaniard, has the mask on. And all of a sudden, he says, "We don't know what's going to come out of those doors. But he says this, "If we fight together, we will win. And what they did was they pulled a move that was known only to the Roman soldiers. You would see that you saw it in the first battle and you see it there. When the shields come down and they become as one, what they call that is locking arms.

He says, "If you fight alone, you will die. If we fight together, we will survive." And so, that tells me. I can take... Okay, Skinny Matt, come on up here right now. Tall, skinny Owen. Come on up here. Okay. Look at these guys. They're nothing. You can blow them over. God forbid if they ever wrestle. God forbid if they ever wrestle. Thank God they got saved. And could I say something? Can I say something really cool? I just heard this, 20th anniversary, that Pastor John Bailey led Pastor Matt to the Lord 20 years ago just recently. If he didn't, he'd be a horrible wrestler.

But we're not wrestlers, we're soldiers. And as wicked and evil as Sheldon is, we can't... He'll never be able to sing. He's going like, "Oh God." He's going to have 10,000 thoughts. I'm a wicked man. I want you to think about this. I'm not a wrestler, I'm a soldier. So, as soldiers, because that's when Paul says we wrestle not, but put on the full armor of God. He goes, "Wrestling is not it? You've got to go Roman on this thing. So Pastor Matt, get on this side. Pastor Owen, we lock arms.

Okay, devil, let's come on now. See what you can do. You can't do anything at that point and everything changed. Thank you, devil. Thank you, skinny guys. Okay, listen to me close. Stand with me for a second. You can't do this by yourself. Here's our Pentecostal roots. Come to the altar and just confess to God. That's okay. But let me just tell you something. That doesn't send healing to our lives.

It can kickstart something. Maybe it can kickstart the honesty, kickstart the transparency. But today, man, I want you to take a real good look and go, "Man, I've been going all wrestling with this stuff. I need to be a soldier on this, because I'm telling you, Pastor Gary and I, and Kelly, when I think of the season they have gone through, the season I have gone through, can I just say something, I couldn't have made it by myself. I couldn't have. I'm grateful for the fingers that I can go to and say, "Talk me off this ledge because I'm about to jump."

Well, Pastor Tim, like Joshua Harris, have you ever gotten atheistic thoughts? Look at me folks. Yes, absolutely. Put yourself in a painful situation. You're going like, "Does God even exists and you're going like, "Man, I preach every single Sunday, four services every single Sunday." I do. But you know what I get to do? I get to begin to go to people, go 4K, high-def with them and going, "Hey, pray for me. I'm battling this."

The church is not a hall of fame. The church is a hospital with people just getting better. So can we close with this? Can we move closer? I want you to not hold hands, lock arms with somebody as we get ready to close in prayer. Reach across the aisles. Don't be alone over there. Reach across those aisles, east and west. Move in close towards Des Moines, Iowa, here. Could you just look to the person on your right, left, and just go, "Hey, we're in this together."

We're in this together.

I want to pray for you. Man, if there's ever attack on music, you guys have to learn to lock... Not now, but you have to learn to lock arms together. You really do, because you're going to face rogue thoughts. You're going to face those things. And so, today, as I pray for you, that doesn't mean you're healed. It just means, God, give me the right people in my life. Give me the right people. Man, I'm so grateful I'm forgiven, but I want healing today.

Right now in the name of Jesus, as we end this session, Lord God, I just want to kickstart healing. I want to kickstart soldiers here, Lord God. I pray you raise up men and women, raise up leaders and students here today, those listening live and those who are going to download this and listen to this in the days to come, I'm asking, Lord God, that you would bring soldiers together, Lord God, locking arms to say, "I can't do this without you. I can't do this."

Too many things have come out of those doors like the gladiators that have killed too many leaders and believers and led them to everything from suicide to atheism. And, God, I'm just telling you, we've all faced those thoughts. We've faced suicide. We've faced atheism. Those are the 10,000 thoughts. And every one of these leaders, starting with me, have faced those 10,000 things trying to predict my future. But God, today, when we hold arms, we say that, no, we're not going to let these things predict our future. We let God predict our future. We let your scriptures predict our future.

Would you give them ministries and churches and places that is not only a place that celebrates victory, but is a safe place to fail? Let our ministries and churches be high-def. Let us not be afraid of the beads of sweat, the sores, the pains, and the hurts. But God, let it be a place that sick people are getting better because we are connected together. God, forgive us for crossing over, David, taking his family for a year and a half.

Forgive us, Lord God, of taking people because we wouldn't be humble enough, and we wouldn't be transparent enough to go, "This is who I am. This is what's going on." God, help us. Help us, Lord God. God, do such a great work here amongst these leaders that the greatest thing that can happen is then the move from forgiveness. Some of them have been forgiven for 20 years, but have never been healed. But God I just pray today, fill up their hands with godly people that will pray for them. We are your soldiers, in Jesus name, and everybody said, amen?

Amen.

God bless you. God bless you, leaders. Bless you

That was very gracious of you, pastor John. Thank you for that introduction. And for everybody who is here today, can you believe with me that we're going to have an encounter with God. Every time we open God's word, we should be changed. We should be transformed from where we were to where God is taking us. That's been the... it's been the source of my love for the Lord and the strength of my life. I've been a student of the word of God from the day I got saved.

I remember when I first came to Christ, I was a young police officer and I was working a radar. They used to call it; I don't know what they call it now. They used to call it radar back then. Speed gun. Okay? And I used to pray for rain because when it rained, the radar didn't work. So, I could park behind a building somewhere and I would open the word of God and I would weep. I would weep in my car. I'm talking about real tears and I would read Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, I would read, and every word was life and I believed it and continue to believe it to this day. 42 years later, I still believe the word of God as much or hopefully more than I ever have in my life.

And every day when I go to the word of God, I'm always trusting that there's going to be something of his mind and his character built into my life and into my heart. And as we shared this morning, you can't believe if you don't know what you believe. A lot of folks are trying to build their walk with God on emotion, on high times and good experiences in the church, nice music, and it's all great, but you can't believe on that. That will leave you short at some point. You have to get in the word of God. Another blessing the Lord put in my life is that I didn't just search out the sweet things. I searched out the bitter things too as well.

And even the bitter things are sweet to those that, the scripture tells us, to those that do love God. I wasn't just trying to build the Christian life on the palatable parts of the word of God, but on the parts that are difficult to digest, harder to hear, and I didn't ever try to push it away and just create or craft a Jesus that makes me happy and comfortable, but I wanted the real Christ of the Bible. It has been an incredible journey. I have to tell you it's been a miraculous journey. It's been a journey beyond my deepest expectations. And it's left me now, I'm 66 now and it's left me with an understanding that with God all things are possible. That's where I began, and now I'm starting to believe it even more.

I don't look at anything as impossible anymore. If God is in it, if it's in his heart, if it's in his mind to do something, he's well able to do it. And I want to share with you... these are just thoughts from my heart today. I don't have any notes or anything. I just want to share with you a thought that I feel he's given me from Genesis chapter 18. I'm going to entitle it, again, as I did this morning, "It's Time to Believe". It's Time to Believe. It's time for you and I to come back to where the church began. Empowered by the spirit of God, enabled by the word of God and moving in unison with the plan and the purpose of God.

And I believe that it's possible for you and for me, for all of us, and we've got to get out of any place and every place of unbelief, anywhere where we've settled in and said, "This is as far as I can go and I can't go any farther." I challenge you to banish that thought. I challenge you to put that thought under foot because God can do whatever God wants to do. And when he finds a heart willing to believe him, there's no limit to what God can do. When I was a young cop, I remember I was walking the beat and I had never preached a sermon anywhere. I had no speaking ability whatsoever. I was not a candidate for the ministry, but I felt the Lord ask me a question, "How many souls would you like in your lifetime?"

And I saw in responding to that what I felt was an overture from the Lord, I said, "God, I would like to win 100,000 people to you before I die." And then I began to be specific in my prayer. I said, "I don't want these to be just people who raise their hands in services, but people who actually live for you, serve you, walk with you and one day end up at your throne and where you can actually look at them and say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." Now that was an impossible prayer for me in my circumstance in life and my abilities and everything else. That was never going to happen. No ministry credential, never been to Bible school, nothing like that.

Fast forward from that moment on the street to many years later, I was in the field in Nigeria and we're in a place... there was civil war, the city of Jos, Nigeria. And I remember we brought together into that place 500,000 people every night. And it was a volatile situation because they were at civil war, militant Islam versus nominal Christianity more or less. One group would rise and kill and burn the other group and they would rise and kill and burn the other side. The last time they had been publicly together, 6,000 people died. So, you can see how volatile this was. We were the first gathering in months allowed to be together outside the city.

And we didn't know how many people were going to come, but a sea of people showed up. I preached that night on the emptiness and the worthlessness of all religion from the parable of the Jericho road, both Christianity and Islam, all religion that has no compassion for its neighbor. At the end of the message, I basically gave an invitation to receive Christ as Savior. But I did say to the people words to this effect, "If you have no intention on forgiving your brother, if you have no intention on stopping the murder and the carnage and the hatred and the vilification of one another and all the other things that go on in this society, then don't deceive yourself into thinking that eternal life will be yours.

But if you want to truly live for God, if you want the Jesus Christ of the Bible, if you want to live for God, if you want to forgive your neighbor, I'm asking you now to raise your hand and receive Christ as Savior." And I was told that if the numbers were correct, the local people estimated the crowd between four and 700,000. There was no way to really measure it. We settled in at five. If the numbers were correct, more than 100,000 people raised their hands that night to receive Christ as their Lord and Savior. I went back to my hotel and in my hotel, I got down on my knees beside my bed to give God thanks for truly a miraculous night.

And then suddenly I remembered the prayer that I prayed when I was a young police officer many years before walking the beat, and before I could even open my mouth to say thank you, the Lord spoke to me and said, "Carter, don't limit me. Don't limit what I can do. Don't put parameters around my compassion. Don't put parameters around my power. Don't put parameters around my ability. I am God. I can do whatever I want to do." Now fast forward from there to just a couple of months ago, I took a stroll down Broadway one night. I was walking from where the church is down to Penn Station. And I walked right through Times Square and folks, it's like Sodom and Gomorrah.

I can't even begin to describe to you what's going on. Let me just give you one example. They're painting naked people there now. Tourists pay to paint people. I mean, it's just unimaginable. If you ever wondered in the Bible what Sodom looked like, that's probably what it looked like. The conversation is less than idiotic. I don't even know how to describe the conversation. The drugs are being sold openly everywhere. The prostitution that's going on, on the streets, it's just... and that's only the beginning of it. It's almost every sin you can think of is being committed there. And so, I was so overwhelmed by what I was looking, because I don't go down there very often.

I was so overwhelmed, I started praying out loud. I started first saying, "God have mercy on the people." And nobody much cares. You can pray out loud there, nobody cares what you're doing. So, I start to pray and then I started to point to people, different groups doing different activities. "Have mercy on those people. Oh Jesus, have mercy on these people." And once again, I felt the Lord asking me, "How many souls would you like before you die?" And I prayed a prayer and I said, "God..." And immediately as I felt the Lord ask me that question again, I thought of the king in the presence of Elisha as he was dying and he sat straight there on the ground, and he only struck it three times and the Elisha said, "You should have hit it five or six. You would have had a full victory over the Syrian army. Now you're only going to get a temporary deliverance."

Based on that story, I said, "Lord, I'd like 60 million souls before I die." Now see how quiet it got all of a sudden, right? See, we're talking about what, what's the theme of this conference? It's Time to Believe. Is God able to do that? Is God able to bring a spiritual awakening to this nation? Is God able to... I'm not talking about just brand-new souls, but I'm talking about churches coming back to Christ. I'm talking about Christian believers coming home to God. I'm talking about God doing what only God can do. I'd rather die on the side of faith than live on the side of unbelief. Given the choice, that's where I'm going to finish out my days.

I'm on the radio now and I speak to almost one to three million people a day as I'm told by Ambassador Communications. So why should I consider it an impossible thing that God could grant that many souls in this last hour of time? If we don't believe God, we're to be pitied of all people because we have all the history, we have the teaching, we've got the tapes, we've got the testimonies, we hear what God has done, we talk about the great awakenings throughout history. And if we are the final generation before Christ's return, aren't we to be pitied if we've come to the place with all of our history and teaching that we simply don't believe God that he's able to do what he's always done?

And of course, now it starts with the individual. That's what I want to talk about for just a few moments this afternoon. It starts with you. It starts with me. What am I willing to believe God for in my life? As a believer, I can fall short of what God could do, I'll still go to heaven. You'll still go to heaven. We're believers in Christ. We have this inheritance of eternal life with God because of Jesus Christ. But we can fall short of what God has for our lives just by simply building parameters around ourselves. We choose to believe what others have said about us or we choose to believe the frailties of our own hearts rather than what God is speaking.

I'm continuing the theme that the Lord started me on this morning for you, for people that are gathered here today. We're not the largest crowd in history, but neither was the first church. They were only 120 in that upper room and eventually even the Roman army bent its knee to the presence of God through 120 people that God was able to speak to and empower. And they come out of that upper room, thrust themselves into the marketplace and in many cases, many of these people knew that doing this was going to cost them their lives and many of them did. It cost them everything to do this. But they came out in the power of God and they began to speak.

It says in the Greek, the megaleios of God. That's what other nations heard them and said, "We hear them speaking in our tongues, the wonderful works of God." It says in the King James. But the word in the Greek is megaleios, and what it means is the anticipated outworkings of the inward presence of Christ. Now upon them they were speaking about things that God was going to do and how God was going to do it and who he was going to use to do it. Truly amazing. This is the difference between 3,000 plus people coming back from the temple where they had been reading things about God that were true. Those people that had just come from the temple, they were opening the scrolls, they were reading Isaiah or other scriptures. They were reading and it was all true, but it was all just facts about God.

And on the way home they encountered 120 people that had met with God. There's a huge difference between the two. They're going home filled with unbelief. They have a lot of history, but they're filled with unbelief. They meet 120 people coming out of an encounter with God filled with faith. Oh, I tell you one more time, it's time to believe. It's time. We've got to become the church again in this generation. The way things have been done, there's been great good done. I don't negate it, but the hour now, the hour requires something else. Something new, something old maybe that we rediscover one more time.

Genesis chapter 18. Father, thank you for your word. Your word is indeed a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. I thank you Lord that your word tells us that the entrance of your words gives light. So, God today give us light, illuminate our path. Show us Lord individually, corporately, where you can take us as the people of God. I pray, Lord, that you would enable me by your Holy Spirit to speak the thoughts of your heart. My voice is powerless. Yours can create a universe. And so, God, I pray for the grace to disappear that you may appear. I pray that my thoughts would be brought into subjection to yours. I pray, God, you'd take this frail old man one more time and use my life for your glory.

You promised that the glory of the latter house would be greater than the former. And in the scriptures, we see that you saved the best wine for the end of the wedding feast. So, Lord I stand today on that truth and I believe, oh God, if I will yield to you that the years that remain will be greater than the years that have gone before. Thank you, Lord, for the privilege of gaining fruit for your kingdom. Thank you, my God, for the ability to yield to you, to recognize the weaker we become, the stronger you become. And so, Lord, thank you. Open every heart. Open every set of ears here today, God. Help us to believe you again. In Jesus name.

Genesis 18. It says, the Lord appeared to him, that's Abraham, by the terebinth trees of Mamre as he was sitting in the tent door in the heat of the day. He lifted his eyes and looked and behold three men were standing by him. Now there's opinion about this, but I think it's generally accepted that it was a pre-incarnated appearance of Christ and two angels, two messengers, were with him. I'm not here to debate that, but that's generally what's said about it. He ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the ground and he said, "My Lord, if I've now found favor in your sight, do not pass on by your servant."

And this ought to be your cry today and mine. Oh God, if I've found any favor in your sight, would you please Lord, don't pass me by. Pray that right now. Let that be your prayer. If I've found favor with you, God, don't pass me by for somebody else. Don't keep walking. As you come close to the place where I am, where I dwell, where I'm sitting right now, Lord, just don't keep walking. Stop. So, the Lord did stop at the entrance to his tent. And then in verse nine he says to him, "Where's Sarah, your wife?" And so, he said, "Here in the tent." And he said, "I will certainly return to you according to the time of life. And behold, Sarah, your wife shall have a son." Sarah was listening in the tent door which was behind him.

Now Abraham and Sarah were old, well-advanced in age and Sarah had passed the age of childbearing. Therefore, Sarah said within herself, "After I've grown old, shall I have pleasure, my Lord, being old also?" And the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh saying, 'Shall I surely bear a child since I am old?' Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time, I will return to you according to the time of life and Sarah shall have a son." I just love this in the word of God that quite often God gives a promise and then waits till we are too weak to fulfill it. If you're young and you live long enough, you'll find that you can't fulfill the promises that God has made to you.

He waits until our strength is gone so that his strength... You see, he begins where we end. That's exactly the way it works. And I love that about God. I love that about the kingdom of God. You'll see that all the way through the scriptures when you study the scriptures, if the Lord wanted to bring a prophet into the world, he searched for a barren womb. He looked for somebody who couldn't bear children in the case, for example, of Hannah, Elizabeth as well for John the Baptist and etc., etc. The list goes on and on. He wants to deliver his people out of Egypt and what does he do?

He waits till the man who once was in a place of authority, once held a sword in his hand, once commanded respect and perhaps even soldiers is now an old man in the wilderness and has no power in himself to do any of the things that he was once promised that he would do. And I thank God for that because if we were able to do this, then our testimony would be, "Look what God and I have done, hallelujah," instead of, "Look what God has done through me. Look what God has done for his own glory through my weakness, through my lack of strength." That's why there're some people sitting here that you may have a promise that God gave you one day, and you say, "What happened to that promise? Where did it go?"

Oh, it didn't go anywhere. It just has to wait for you to get out of the way and then you watch what God's going to do with that promise. Years ago, God started speaking to me about spiritual awakening. He started speaking to me about it before I even knew what it was. And I was so excited about it. One day I came, and I said to my wife, we lived in a farmhouse at the time. I said, "Theresa," I said, "The Lord's been speaking to me about that I would live to see a spiritual awakening." I wasn't even sure what it was, but I would live to see a massive turning to God, of people turning to God from every walk of life.

And I was so sure of what God had spoken to my heart, and she was standing in the farmhouse. I'll never forget it. And she turned and she pointed at me and she said, "God will never give the mantle of revival to a man until he no longer wants it." I want you to think about that because when we are still involved in the mix, we will always take over the work of God. Always. It will start God alone, then me and God, then it will be me and God will be somewhere back there, and we will take over the work of God. But God comes to Abraham and remember the promise was you're going to be a blessing. The promise was your descendants are going to be as numerous as the stars in the sky. The promise was that through you, all the world is going to be blessed.

Now you and I know that through Abraham was going the come the patriarchs of Israel, through whom was going to come to the tribe of Judah, through whom was going to come the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, through whom was going to come the church, through whom was going to come you and I here today. So, we are actually the promise that God gave to Abraham sitting right here today. We are the stars. Remember Jesus himself said, "You are the light of the world." He's referring back again to the promise made to Abraham. You are the light of the world. You are that which is set in the heavens in a sense to give light, to give direction, to give hope, to show times, to show seasons. You are the light of the world. A city set upon a hill cannot be hidden.

But before the promise could be fulfilled, God had to wait until Abraham was too old to have a child. Now he made mistakes along the way, just like you and I do, and the mistakes that he made didn't negate the promise. So don't let the devil tell you that the mistakes you've made along the way have somehow caused God to take away plan A and give you plan B or plan C in your life. No. Plan A is still there. Plan A has not been dependent on you. It's been dependent on God and God alone. Now the men arose from there, verse 16, here's where it gets interesting, and looked towards Sodom. And Abraham went with them to send them on the way. And the Lord said, "Shall I hide from Abraham what I am doing, since Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him?

For I've known him, verse 19, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the Lord to do righteousness and justice that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he has spoken to him." In other words, I know this man that he will do right. I know this man that he will follow the words that I give to him, so I'm not going to hide from him what I am doing. Remember Jesus himself in the gospel of John said, "When he, the comforter has come, he will what, he will guide you into all truth and he will show you things to come." He will show you things to come in your own life. He will show you things to come in the world around you.

In other words, we're not people of darkness that the day we're living in should overtake us as a thief. You and I should not be a people on the outside looking in or having to go to watch Fox or CNN at night to find out what's going on in the world or what the spiritual condition of the country is. We are the people of God and if the Holy Spirit is inside of us and we are open to the working of God, he will show us things to come. He will speak to us about things that he is about to do in the nation. Now he says, "Because the outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great and because their sin is very grave..." This is verse 20 of chapter 18. "I will go down now and see whether they've done altogether according to the outcry against it that has come to me and if not, I will know."

I want to tell you something. We are very, very close in America to where Sodom and Gomorrah were. I want to tell you why. You know what the flashpoint of God's judgment was on Sodom and Gomorrah, is when the Sodomites came to the door where the two angels were and tried to force their way in and make the messengers of God partakers of their sin. And when the Sodomites tried to force their way into the house of God and say, "You will become, you will acquiesce to us. You will bend your knee to our lifestyle. You will declare our sin to be good." When that happens, that is the flashpoint in my opinion, in historically looking at of God's judgment. When that happened, when they tried to make the messengers of God partakers of their sin.

We're not that far away from this moment in America right now. We are fighting this battle. You will see it shortly. It will probably in America in the next several years become a hate crime to refuse to acknowledge gay marriage in the church of Jesus Christ as leadership. So, we are at the point where this lifestyle is trying to push its way into the door of the house of God and say, "You will partake of our sin." "If God doesn't judge us," Billy Graham said, "He's going to have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah." "I will go down and see and if not, I will know."

Verse 22 it says, then the men turned away from there and went towards Sodom, but Abraham still stood before the Lord. Now here's the type of a church that begins to pray. I just wrote a book recently called, It's Time to Pray, and I believe that with all my heart, if ever there was a time to pray, it's now. Here's a moment where there's a man standing before God who has the power to turn his heart in some measure. But what we're going to see becomes a bit, in my opinion, of a strange prayer meeting. This is a prayer meeting outside of Sodom, may I call it that? This is a man who's now standing... He knows he's standing before God, the son of God, pre-incarnated Christ at this point. He knows that who he's petitioning has the power to stop this judgment that's about to come.

And so, Abraham came near, verse 23, and said, "Would you also destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there were 50 righteous within the city, would you also destroy the place and not spare it for the 50 righteous that were in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing as this, to slay the righteous with the wicked so that the righteous should be as the wicked. Far be it from you. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" Talk about the humility of God. There's a man standing before him that basically is saying, "If you do this, you're not righteous. If you do this, you're doing wrong because it's not right that you should slay the righteous with the wicked."

So, the Lord said, "If I find in Sodom 50 righteous within the city, then I will spare the place for their sakes." Then Abraham answered and said, "Well, indeed now..." Remember we're on the theme of, It's Time to Believe. "Indeed now, I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose there were five less than the 50 righteous, would you destroy all of the city for lack of five?" So, he said, "If I find there 45, I will not destroy it." And he spoke to him yet again and said, "Suppose there should be 40 found there?" So, he said, "I will not do it for the sake of 40." Then he said, "Let not the Lord be angry and I will speak. Suppose 30 should be found there?" So, he said, "I will not do it if I find 30 there."

And he said, "Indeed now, I've taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord. Suppose 20 should be found there?" So, he said, "I will not destroy it for the sake of 20." Then he said, "Oh, let not the Lord be angry and I'll speak, but once more, suppose 10 should be found there?" And he said, "I will not destroy it for the sake of 10." So, the Lord went his way as soon as he had finished speaking with Abraham and Abraham returned to his place. Now this is an ironic kind of a prayer meeting. If you believe as I do that God is omniscient, now he knows, he knows how many righteous are in the city. He knows there's not 50, 45, 40, 30, 20, 10, so why is he playing with Abraham? Is he playing with Abraham or what? Is he looking for something that Abraham is not aware of?

Why doesn't he just say right out of the gate, "Abraham, don't waste your time. There's not even 10 righteous in the city." Is he looking for something? What is he looking for? When you look at this passage, this scripture, there's no indication that the Lord said, "Now enough, Abraham, don't ask me for anymore." Abraham chose to stop. It's an incredible thing really. He was six souls short of a victory. Six souls short of a moment of mercy on a wicked society. Six short. Now Lot was there, and Peter's epistle declares him to be righteous. That's a really iffy righteousness, but he was declared to be righteous. That means his wife was also righteous and his two daughters.

The angels brought four out of Sodom before Sodom burned. This whole society is about to go into judgment. It's all about to be judged. Abraham stops praying. Stop spraying right at the point he's six short of a victory. Why didn't he go down to five? Was the Lord toying with him or was God after something in this man? Which I believe I see in this passage. Now it's conjecture on my part. Okay? Conjecture means that I'm reading this into the text, it doesn't necessarily say that, so you are free to accept or reject my conjecture. But here's my conjecture for what it's worth. I think God was after one thing and Abraham didn't arrive there. I think he was after Abraham to say, "Lord, I will go into the city. I will go. Give me 30 days, give me 60 days to go into the city and if I find 10 righteous, will you spare it?"

You see, this is why I feel the Lord didn't say "No, stop praying right now." Because the scripture says, as soon as he'd finished speaking, the Lord went his way and Abraham went back to his place. And that's the way a lot of our prayer meetings are. In a sense, even if we do pray, we come to a prayer meeting and we say, "Oh God, have mercy. God have mercy on New York City. God have mercy. Save people. God have mercy, let the children know you." And then we get up after the prayer meeting and just go home. I mean, we don't put ourselves in with our prayers and bring it to the place of saying, "Lord, send me, send me somewhere. Send me into that neighborhood. Send me to that single mum with her kids. Send me across the hall in the place where I live.

Send me, my God. Open my mouth. Use my life for your glory." And I honestly believe that's what God was looking for but didn't find it. He didn't even intercede for his own family if you read the text, the scripture, for his own nephew. Remember the Lord said, "I will show him what I'm about to do because he will command his household after him." Well, his own nephew was there or his cousin, whichever way you want to look at it, but was in Sodom with his family. That was by extension in that culture, that was his family. And God said, "I will show him what I'm about to do because he will instruct his family." Now Lot had no authority. Lot was so intermixed with the backsliddeness of that society that nobody believed him when he finally opened his mouth and said, "Judgment is coming."

His own family didn't believe him. His sons-in-law didn't believe him. They laughed. They thought he was joking. But you imagine if a man would have shown up there as Jonah once did in Nineveh and say, "I've been talking face to face with the living God. I'm telling you judgment is coming here. And if 10 righteous can be found in the city..." Now Lot and his family were four, Abraham would have made it five, which means he had to win five people over to the worship of the true God. Five in a city and it would have been spared. Five, and it might've been given another year, maybe another two years, maybe a season to repent. Five who might have turned from their wickedness and started preaching to the people.

God only knows what history would say if Abraham would have just not quit at that point. If he would have believed right through to the final until God says no, until God says, "No more. Don't ask me for anymore. You've brought this thing down far enough; it can't go anymore." But there's no evidence the Lord had gotten to that point. And I think sometimes we think that prayer in itself, it's a good thing and thank God for prayer, but at some point, we have to throw ourselves in with our prayers and say, "Lord, here am I. Here am I." But it might mean we don't get to go home when we say that. See, he went home. It might've meant he didn't get to go home. The here am I can mean we might end up somewhere we never anticipated we're going to go. We might end up doing something we never thought we would do. We might find ourselves in places we never thought we would be.

I remember one time I was invited to speak in a prison just for sex offenders and I was a police officer. And the Lord opened the door and it was a hard door to go through, a difficult door to go through. But there was great fruit born and there were 700 men there and there was great fruit born in that meeting by not hiding from the truth, but by bringing the truth to people who were locked in a prison of immorality as well as a prison of their own making. There are so many doors that God will open if we're willing to go through those doors. And he takes us into impossible places, places where we could never hope to achieve what only he can do if he only finds a willing vessel.

One of the greatest tragedies in scriptures in the book of Ezekiel. Now he begins to describe, Ezekiel describes the society, he said the politicians were corrupt and stealing from the people. The judges were accepting bribes. There was a religion that was being bankrolled by this whole corrupt system and it was in cahoots with it. Underneath that, the people were exercising oppression, cheating, robbing, stealing, oppressing the stranger underneath that. And it just gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. And then he says, "And I sought for a man that I should not have to judge my own people and I could not find one." Can you imagine? Israel at this time is the most religious nation on the face of the earth.

God says, "I sought for a man to spare the city." It became easier to believe that God was going to judge that society than to believe he could show mercy. I personally feel that he sought for a man among all of this religious crowd that believed that he was willing to be merciful and couldn't find one. Everybody had fallen in line with the common thought of the day. This place is going to be judged. It's all going to be doomed. It's damned. It's going to burn. He said, "I decided to show mercy, but I needed a human vessel to work through and I couldn't find one." Couldn't find one among his own people with all their history of mercy. I mean, think it through. This was a nation birthed in mercy, guided by mercy. They knew the failings of their history. They knew the mercy of God all the way through their history.

They knew that God was, at least should have known he was merciful, but there's points in life where it becomes easier to believe in unbelief than to believe that God can be God and God can do what God can do. Yes, we're living in a dangerous day. We're living in a decadent day. We're living in a day when evil is being called good and good is being called evil. We're living in a day of corruption at every conceivable level in society. We're living in a day when our children are being deliberately gender confused and baptized in filth even in their own schools. It's a terrible day that we're living in. But again, God's saying, "I'm looking for someone. I'm looking for someone, a man, a woman, somebody somewhere.

I'm looking for someone in your neighborhood. I'm looking for someone on your job. I'm looking for someone at your table. I'm looking for someone to show mercy through. Someone who could just speak maybe what everybody's been thinking or maybe words they've never heard before. Maybe a warning that's never been given, maybe love that they'd never felt, I don't know." The gospel is preached different ways to different people at different times. As Jude says, "Save some with love and save others with fire, but in any way reach them." I sought for a man, I sought for a man. You see, this is not just a conference and if you're just going to build the resume of what you've learned at conferences, aren't we just then a people always learning and not coming to the knowledge of the truth?

That's going to be the condition of the last days, the apostle Paul says, always learning, learning, learning as if attending like 1,500 conferences is somehow going to make us into culture changers, but that's not what it's all about. It's about taking what we do know and saying, "God, use me for your glory and take me where you want me to go and give me what you want me to speak and take me to the people that you want me to speak to." And quite often it might be a culture. It might be a situation that's completely out of your culture or your comfort zone, something you never anticipated that God was going to do.

It's been the story of my life. I've been in places speaking to people who I have absolutely no experience and all I have is the word of God. But I've watched God do what only God can do. I've seen miracles, honest to God miracles in my lifetime. I've seen God change societies, do things that only he can do. And so here we are again, thank God for yesterday's victory, but we live in today and we're moving into tomorrow. And I believe that God is searching again, searching again, searching again. I sought for a man, I sought for a woman. I sought for somebody, sought for an Esther who would go before the king, feeling unlovely, feeling unwanted, feeling like the former relationship is all gone.

That's what she felt like. But she said, "Well, I'm going to pray and I'm going to go in and if I perish, I perish." And not only did she win a victory for her people, but she became a co-regent with her husband, which was unheard of in that culture. Amazing. I wish I had time to just speak on that topic because it is one of the more profound passages of scripture, not just scripture-wise, but historically too as well. She rewrote the law of death into a law of life. Just one girl that was willing to go in and say, "God, you put me where I am, so I'm giving you my life for your glory. And if I perish, I perish. But I'm going in not for my sake, but for the sake of people that are destined for the slaughter. A society that's going to die and are defenseless to protect themselves."

And here we are again one more time. One more time called to go in. And so, I want to challenge you with all my heart. I want to challenge you with everything that's inside of me. I feel like that old song in Flanders Fields, I don't know how many know that, an old soldier song in a sense. It's a poem. It says, to you from failing hands, we throw the torch. I can't do this forever. I'm 66 but some of you are only 26 here. You're younger and you've got years ahead of you. And some of us older guys, we're not going to be around forever, but we're throwing a torch to you and saying, "Who will take the baton? Who will take the torch? Who will run with it? Who will stand when nobody else will?

Who will go up to people that nobody else wants to go to? Who will believe that God can show mercy when all the society is yelling, "Judge them, judge them, judged them, judge them." Who will believe? Who will believe that certain communities can be reached that people say they can't be reached? Who will believe? Who will go with that torch of mercy? And so that's my challenge to you. It's time to believe. It's time to believe. I don't want this just to be a slogan for a conference, and I believe that it was put on your heart, pastor Gary, pastor John, for a deeper reason than just more knowledge. That there are people here, you're going to be used of God.

Didn't Daniel say, "In the latter days, the people who know their God will be strong and they will do exploits." All hell seemingly will be breaking out in the world and knowledge will increase and people will be going to and fro and there'll be all these scary things on the horizon like artificial intelligence and facial recognition and all these things that are coming our way. But there still will be a people who are strong, and they will do things that only God can do through them. Praise be to God. Be a warrior church in a sense, glorifying God and be a demonstration that God is still alive, still on the throne and still God through a body, through a people. May we be that people. May you be that person, may we together be the people of God.

That is the challenge in my heart. I'm going to ask the worship team to come, if you will, please. I've seen you move. I've seen you move the mountains and I believe you can do it again. It's time to believe. It's time to believe that God can use you. It's time to believe. It's time to believe. There's a point of learning, but if it doesn't bring us to faith, what good is it? All you will be is a doctrinal argument somewhere, but we're not called to be a doctrinal argument. We're called to be a living expression of the reality of God, the mercy of God, that mercy that sent the son of God to a cross. That's what you and I are called to be.

And so, my challenge to you is as it was given to me. I was a young believer; I was about 28 years old and I went to a church one Sunday. I was visiting there and as the pastor was speaking, my heart was strangely warmed, and I felt a call of God to yield my body to him for his purposes. To yield my future, my life. And I'm sitting in my seat and I was in the back, and I was thinking, I got nothing, Lord. I got a bad temper. If you need that, I can give you that. I mean, I'm just trying to be a husband. I'm just learning what it means to be a father. I'm trying to break out of the basic boxes of human behavior that had become very familiar with my life. I'm just getting free myself. I've got so much in myself to deal with and suddenly I feel God calling me even in that place of weakness into something of himself.

He's asking me for everything. And I was thinking, because it was a big church and there had to be 900 people or 1,000 people there. And suddenly my heart is pounding, and the altar call is given, and nobody is moving. I was thinking in the back, what's wrong with these people? They've got the knowledge, I don't. They've got the history, I don't. They were raised in Christian families, I wasn't. They're all so nice and I'm fighting just not to punch people in the face when I disagree with them. For real. I'm still fighting. I've just got this wagon load of baggage and yet you're calling me? And to me it didn't make any sense. I didn't understand it. Why don't you call him?

And I'm looking around at her or him, they look so nice. Their hair's all nice and their suits are all nice and I'm there. I don't even have a suit. Yeah. I couldn't fight it any longer and I get out of my seat. I came down to the front and I got on my knees and there was another guy who got out, there was two of us. There's 1,000 people there who were being called to give our all to God and there was only two who came forward. And I started weeping and weeping and weeping. And here's my prayer, I said, "God, the little boy in the Bible had a bag lunch. I don't even have that. I have nothing. I have nothing." That was my prayer. I said, "God, I have nothing that I think you could use for your kingdom, but if you can use nothing, here I am. Use me for your glory."

I couldn't offer him... I had no history of faithfulness. I had no giftings. I didn't even know what you giftings of the Spirit were. I had no giftings that I would want. I had no good self-image. I had nothing, nothing, nothing. Hardly knew the Bible. I knew the parts I was reading in the New Testament and yet he was calling me to make a difference. And I cried and I cried, and I cried, and I cried, and all these counselors were coming around me and saying, asking me all kinds of questions and I kept saying, "Just go away. Just go away. Leave me alone. Leave me alone." I kept saying, "Go away." "Oh brother, can we pray for you for this?" "Go away." It's all I could think of telling him. I was alone with God.

They weren't used to that happening unfortunately. And so that's the call of God for you. Come ye weary. Come ye poor. Come, those who don't have any money to buy. Come, come and watch what God can do. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Let's stand please. If that's you, would you join me here? Would you come? Just slip out wherever you are. Lord, I don't have much. Maybe you say, "I have nothing, but I'll give you what I got." A little boy just had a couple of loaves and some fish and you fed 5,000 plus people with it. So, here's my little lunch. And if you can take it, God, please take it and multiply it and feed people through my life. Use me for your glory. You watch what God will do. You watch what God will do. You watch.

It's time to believe that God can. It's time to believe. Whatever you put in his hand, he can multiply it by a million times, and he could start feeding people all over the world with it. You just give it to him and believe him and just believe him. Just believe that he can use your life. Hallelujah. Let's sing that song and just take time to pray, just to talk to God. Or you can sing the song, do whatever you want. Just make it a meaningful moment right now. A meaningful moment.

(silence)

It was such a confidence that others looked at them and said, "Where did these people get this kind of confidence? Where did they get this kind of authority? How did they have this kind of an encounter with God?" Lord, let that be our testimony. Let that be our testimony God everywhere we go that people look at say, "Where did they get this anointing? How did they get such power? Where do you get that from?" Oh God, give us the ability, Lord, to go into the deepest presence of the human mind and the human heart, bringing life and light as Paul and Silas brought you into that inner prison. God, give us the power to reach the inner prisons, Lord, of this society, God. Prisons in people's minds and hearts, Lord.

Give us, Lord, the keys, God, into these places, Lord. God, thank you for what you're doing right now, Lord, in young men, young women, older men, older women who are gathered here at this altar, Lord. We've gathered with the little we have and some feel like we've got nothing, but God what we have we give it to you, Lord, and you are able to do miracles with it. You're able to feed thousands with it, oh God. Oh Jesus, son of God. Oh Jesus, son of God. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. Oh God. Raise up evangelists, Lord, here today. Raise up powerful, powerful testimonies for Christ. Raise up teachers that will speak in the classroom boldly to their students, Lord.

Raise up, God, people in every aspect of life and society that will be living witnesses for you, Lord. God, let it be, Lord. Let it be. Let it be oh God. Let it be oh Lord. Let it be. I'm going to ask you just to open your mouth and talk to God right now. Just pour your heart out before him unashamedly, unashamedly. Let him begin to speak to your heart about what he has for you in the future. Let's believe. Make this a sacred moment, a sacred moment where you stand before God. You kneel before God. Whatever it is, you sit before God. Make it a sacred moment. Say, Lord, hear am I. Here am I. Here am I, Lord. One more down the line of weak people. One more down the line of people that society wouldn't even look to for you, Lord God. One more Lord, and I'm asking you to take my life and use it for your glory. Hallelujah.