Again, I'm sharing this scripture from John chapter 16.
I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them
now. However, when He, the Spirit of
Truth has come, He will guide you into all truth.
For He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He
hears, He will speak, and He will tell you things to come.
He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is mine and declare
it to you. All things that the Father has
are mine. Therefore, I said that He will
take a mine and declare it to you.
Now, this verse is very, very important because it speaks to
us about the importance of the Holy Spirit, our God.
We all need the guiding of the Holy Spirit.
It's so important that we would understand that.
And this one aspect of this that I've been emphasizing is how
important it is for us to realize that this is Jesus as
He's getting ready to move across, telling his disciples,
well, I'm not going to be here personally, but when I leave,
I'm going to send another comforter.
You're not going to be orphans. I'm going to send the Holy
Spirit. He will come in my name.
He will speak of me. He will remind you of the things
I've spoken. He will be your guide and all
these things. So it's very important to note
that. And it's also important to note
as Christians that we have to understand that God has a
destiny for us. God has a destiny for mankind.
God has a destiny for His church.
And that's something that we have been speaking about from
the very beginning. And I love that verse where it
says that, well, you're not ready for something now, but
there come a time when you're ready.
When you're ready, I'll begin to speak some new or fresh things
to you. That's why all of us as
Christians should realize that since we have a destiny and that
God is working on our life, we have to be very careful to walk
with Him and let Him speak to us along the way, recognizing that
it was necessary that He not tell you everything at once.
So today God is saying to all of us, it's important for us to
realize it is a new day. It's time to begin to walk in
some fresh things. You weren't ready for it before,
but now you're ready. Can you say Amen to that church?
Because God wants us to understand that destiny.
And we're going to learn today how that God builds overtime.
And I wanted to share this because next Sunday is Pentecost
Sunday. And as you notice, I've been
talking about the Holy Spirit since just the week before
Easter. Now, it's important for us to
see this correlation because this reminds us how God works.
Because when we celebrate Easter, we should have realized
that before Jesus Christ was crucified in what we call the
Last Supper, they were actually celebrating something called the
Passover. And as they were celebrating the
Passover, being Jews, Jesus took the elements of the bread and
the cup. He said, now do this in
remembrance of me. Now as Jews, it meant something
to them from the past, because when the children of Israel were
slaves in Egypt, the Lord sent Moses to deliver them.
He delivered them through the voice of Moses.
But also God empowered Moses to work 10 miraculous things before
the Egyptians to make it them willing to get rid of their
slaves, which is not something they wanted to willingly do for
sure. And so that was important thing
for us to understand. He used Moses, He used the
plagues. The last plague was very
significant because Moses told the Pharaoh the death Angel is
going to pass through your land and all the first born are going
to be killed. He still refused and so God told
the children of Israel. Now this is what you need to do.
You need to take a lamb for house.
You need to sacrifice that lamb. Take the blood from the lamb,
put it on the doorpost of your house, then eat the lamb as a
part of a celebration of God's blessing upon you.
And when the death Angel sees the blood on the doorposts of
your house, he's going to Passover you.
Hence the word Passover. And so they did that.
The plague of the first born. Death came upon Egypt and even
the animals, but the Jews were preserved and so this was called
an everlasting covenant. They would always keep the
Passover meal. Jesus instituted a change in
that. But again, seeing how important
the Old Testament is, we can see how God builds something and
then he adds to it. And so we should always be open
to the ad too, if you would. And a lot of people don't
understand that. Well, after the Passover meal or
during the Passover meal, they actually had a festival called
the Festival the Passover, where they spent seven days
celebrating this very important time. 50 days after Passover,
they had what was called the Feast of Pentecost.
And most of us who are Pentecostal know that on the day
of Pentecost is the day when the Holy Spirit came upon the
church. And this is important to
understand because next Sunday will be culminating these
discussions about the Holy Spirit because next week is kind
of like 50 days. It's adjusted because of it
being a Sunday. Pentecost Sunday is next week.
And that's in lieu of, again, look at an Old Testament
celebration, which was Pentecost.
But for Christians, we understand that on the day of
Pentecost. So that's when the Holy Spirit
was given. That's very important for us at
Mount Zion. We also understand that that
means there's another festival called the Festival of
Tabernacles, which was called the Festival of Fruitfulness.
They celebrated in the fall, and that's what we believe right now
God is doing in the church today.
He's taking us to maturity. How many ready to go on to
maturity? But again, you can see the whole
Bible is about God doing something, God bringing change,
us being willing to adjust the change that's necessary, and
then moving forward to the next level as God brings us to him.
How we know as we come to the Lord, it requires change and we
have to be willing to change. And then with the help of God,
we can change because we understand, hey, I can do all
things through Christ who strengthens me.
I don't have to be the old me. I can be a new me in Christ
Jesus. I'm going to go ahead for that
today. That's so important for us to
understand. Now with that understanding, I
want to go to the Scripture in Isaiah 28.
It says, For with stammering lips and another tongue, He will
speak to this people, to whom He said, this is the rest with
which you may cause the weary to rest, and this is the
refreshing. Yet they would not hear.
But the word of the Lord was to them precept upon precept,
precept upon precept. And that word precept to us
would be principles or laws. And line upon line, line upon
line, you hear little there, little that they may go and fall
backward, be broken and snared. Now, of course, I want to
reference that first of all, because in this chapter it talks
about the way God does things. And he does the same thing in
judgment that he does in blessing.
He still does it line upon line and precept upon precept.
That's why when you say to people you got to change your
life for the judgments going to come, they can't see it because
it takes a process and it takes some time.
But of course, we're focusing on the idea that we want this
process to bring us blessing. Amen.
Now he says with a stammering lip and an unknown tongue, will
I speak unto this people? Now, how do you know that
doesn't make any sense? The Bible itself says that when
I pray in tongues, my spirits praying, my understanding is
unfruitful. How is it that that could be a
part of the process of God teaching us?
And that's why I put up your tongues for communication,
because we have to understand that God wants to communicate
with his people. And I think the best way to
describe that today is in thinking in terms of technology.
I don't know about you, but I love technology.
I've lived long enough to see how it's worked and I'm quite
amazed by what has happened. And one of the biggest examples
for me is I went on my first mission trip back, I believe in
1991 to Mexico and also went to Haiti, I believe in 90.
And when I first started traveling, I remember Mexico,
especially back then, we didn't have cell phones yet.
We used landlines. We had a maybe a phone in your
hotel or used a payphone, but this is you got to be very
careful because you don't know what a phone company you're
going to get when you use a phone and you don't know how
much they're going to charge you.
It could cost you $50, it could cost you $100 just to call home.
Of course, my kids were young and I certainly wanted to be in
communication in 10 days, but I was frugal enough to make it
just one time when I figured it would cost 100 bucks.
Now, what's amazing about that is over time when Internet came
in, you could have Internet in your hotel room.
You can communicate through your computer, and later on you could
communicate with your cell phone.
So right now I can be a Marva to Mexico, to our church.
It's two hours outside the capital.
It's out in the country. But with my cell phone, I can
call anybody I want to. They can call me and I can
FaceTime to me. That's incredible.
So I think, wow, I love technology.
I know a lot of people are afraid, especially like AI now.
And all my life they've been telling us, be careful, the
Antichrist is going to use this against you.
Well, so far it hasn't been used against me because I just love
it and I appreciate it. One of the things I think is a
good example of how this works is our GPS.
And I got recently a new Equinox and I got this new car, not
because I need a new car, but I wanted to have one of these
bigger screens. I just love a big screen, you
know, and so when you're doing your GPS, you can look up there,
you can watch a map over here to the right.
It'll give you more specific directions.
And then there's actually an audible side that tells you what
you're doing at the same time. That's amazing to me.
And so I liken that to our walk with God, you know, because
Jesus Christ is our map. I'm, you know, he went before
us, details well in the Scriptures.
And then the audible part is the Holy Spirit.
Why do you need the audible part?
Well, because sometimes you're driving and it will say up
front, turn to the left and make AU turn.
You're like, why am I making AU turn?
Well, obviously you weren't paying attention.
And thank God it cracks not the same way it is with God.
I found out sometimes I don't pay attention.
I make mistakes that home, you know, he can give you AU turn.
It's a little bit of work sometimes, and sometimes you
even get lost doing that because with me, technology is never
quite easy. Just like the audible part.
My work sometimes, sometimes it doesn't, and I always pray and
it still don't work. So it takes a miracle, I guess,
to get it to work all the time. One day I thought I was being
smart and I thought, what am I doing?
Alexa, give me the audio part. Nothing happens.
Alexa, nothing happened. All of a sudden I'm driving a
little longer down the road and I'm realizing, wait a minute,
Alexa's at home, this is Siri. So I said, hey, Siri, I said
thank you for answering. She said I'll Google that, but
don't read it until you get somewhere because I don't want
you getting a wreck. Basically, I'm like, what?
And people tell me this isn't a female, Siri is, it's a mom.
I can just see my mom saying, I'll give you directions, but
you're not reading them till you get home.
And anyway, it's kind of that way with the Holy Spirit and the
word of God and walking in the things of God.
We have to understand there's a technology, if you would, that's
involved. There's a little extra work.
And it's just like technology is your walk with God.
You know, the older you get as a Christian, the harder it is to
make changes. Sometimes my grandkids know more
about technology than I do. I thought of starting a new job
and position technology assistant to the pastor.
One of the qualifications, You're only 8 years old because
then you can figure it out and tell me how it works.
So we have this process that we have to understand about God.
It's very wonderful. It requires a little bit of
work, but in the end, you're going to be farther along than
you were before. And this is the way we should
think out of our walk with God. Because I really believe with
all my heart, God saying it's time for us to grow up and
mature and begin to accept responsibility for our walk with
Kim and #1 is communication. We know that communication can
be difficult. You learn about that in the
marriage class because one's a male and one's female.
That can be a difference. Family backgrounds that makes
you different, ethnic backgrounds that can make a
difference. I remember reading a book, it
was called Brain Sex. It was written by a
neurosurgeon, a lady. And I remember well because we
were on vacation and I was reading this book by the pool
body. And he says, put that book down.
People are going to think you're a weirdo.
Why brain sex at the pole? It was a neurosurgeon telling
the difference between male and female and how she came to the
conclusion it wasn't a Christian book as it's impossible to ever
really work this out. But how we know with God all
things are possible. Church so tongues seems to be
intimidating. It seems to be scary for a lot
of people. That's why it's good in the
Bible. We call it the Holy Spirit now
rather than the Holy Ghost. Some, you know, that does make
it a little more scary. But I love the Scripture in
Proverbs 25 because it says this.
It says it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, and it is
the glory of a king to search it out.
Now, we in the body of Christ certainly should know that we
are priests and servants of the Most High God, the Church.
It's time to move up in our authority.
It's time to be kings. It's time to walk in a stronger
area of authority in God. And that's going to require us
allowing God to work in US and to go through the God process
that's necessary for us to gain in our maturity, gain in our
understanding, and to be very valuable for the purposes of God
in the earth. And that's why it says this.
Well, whom will God teach knowledge, and whom will he make
to understand the message? Those just weaned from the mill,
those just drawn from the breast for preceptor principles must be
upon principle, precept upon precept, line upon line, line
upon line, here little and there a little.
This is so important for us to understand because it talks
about knowledge. It talks about understanding,
and I'm adding the word wisdom because it kind of fills it out.
Understanding kind of covers it, but knowledge is information.
Understanding is when you've learned it and worked with a
little bit that you can look at it and kind of discern and say,
well, this is how this works. And wisdom actually is the place
where you begin to apply these things in the body of Christ.
God's saying, I'm looking for my house to be a House of wisdom.
I'm looking for a people who know their God and have let him
teach them and bring them to a place of maturity.
So that in these latter days of time, when the mountain of the
Lord's house is exalted above all the other hills, we'll
understand why people are going to say, come and let us go to
the mountain of the Lord, to the House of the God of Jacob.
We want to learn of his ways. We want to walk in his path.
Why? Because they'll see the
demonstration of knowledge, understanding and wisdom.
Now, I wanted to take note of the fact that it says make you
understand. Because when we're growing up in
life, starting out as little children, how many know we have
to be made to learn and to understand.
And then when we go to school, we have teachers and instructors
and part of that is just, OK, this is what I want you to learn
today. But how many know they always
have to come up with strategies and ways to teach us.
And nowadays things are getting a lot better than they used to
be. I've always had a very good
skill in reading. I have ability to read very
quickly. I have a high level of
comprehension and a high level of retaining and remembering the
things that I've learned. But I always hated school.
It just didn't fit my gift, if you would.
And nowadays we have, because of technology and because of
greater understanding, more of a capacity to understand that we
don't all learn the same way. And that's why we have to
understand that we need the teacher of the Holy Spirit to
work with us along the way. Because in reading the Bible and
even taught the Bible, we have this tendency to think, well,
that's not possible for me, So and so can do that, but I can't
do that. Well, that's the pastor.
That's this person. No, they're more spiritual life.
No, the Holy Spirit has a program for every one of us,
Amen. And he has an intention.
Give the Lord a praise on that, because we got to know that the
Bible talks about working out our own salvation with fear and
trembling. Because with the power of the
Holy Spirit, God comes to us and meets us exactly where we're at.
And yes, you can have understanding.
Yes, you can walk in wisdom, and you have a teacher who
understands how to be adaptable and train you for what you have
in God. Therefore thus says the Lord,
Behold, I lay in Zion a stone for a foundation.
It is a Tri stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation.
Whoever believes will not act hastily.
I will also make justice the measuring line and
righteousness. The plummet.
The hail will sweep away the refuge of lies and the waters
will overflow the hiding place. Now again, remember in this
chapter, the connotation is there's a whole bunch of people
that he's speaking about who don't want to hear what God has
to say. So there's some harsh language
involved in it, but the principles are the same for all
of us to understand. And we have to realize that God
has given us the example of a tried, precious and sure stone,
that's Jesus Christ, Amen. So when we think about what did
we learn at Easter, well, Good Friday, we know that he died on
the cross. He lost all of his friends.
They spit at him, they punished him, they did all kinds of
things against him, but he was still faithful to the purpose
his father had given him. And that's why he was precious,
because a precious stone is something that was in the earth
and through the pressure of time like a diamond.
They say it was like coal when it starts, but the pressure of
time turns it into a precious diamond.
And sometimes it takes some pressure to bring forth the
change. And Jesus was with that.
That's why he is a what sheer foundation.
Now the Bible says because of that we should, if we believe
that, not act hastily or not be in a hurry.
And I've learned over time with God, you can't be in a hurry
because you got to wait for him. And I love it that I've served
the Lord these many years because I've learned over time
that God is faithful. It's not always in my time
frame. He's not always doing it the way
I think He should do it. And sometimes He takes me by
surprise. And that's why I have to be
willing to let the process work and realize that sometimes this
process that God has for me is going to take more time than
perhaps I want. And the reason for that is
because He wants to do it just right.
It's because He has a plan for us and that plan for us is going
to include the other people in our life as well.
So God has all these things that He's working out together in
church. We have to have this confidence
and know that as He's working out his process, it will come to
pass. But again, we got to step back
and say, OK, whatever it takes, I want this process to have it's
perfect work. Look what it says here because
this goes along with it when it talks about the trite and the
proven. I indeed baptize you with water
unto repentance, but he was coming after me as mightier than
I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry.
Now this is John the Baptist speaking about Jesus Christ, and
he says he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
And what his winnowing fan is in his hand, he will thoroughly
clean out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into a
barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.
Now, this is kind of goes back to the GPS thing where we make
mistakes and sometimes God has to turn us around.
But it's also true. He's using an analogy here
that's very important because often times when the Bible talks
about God's Word coming to us, it comes as seed.
The end result for God is not just that we would hold on to
our seed, but that we would go on and become fruitful.
Now this is the way it was with wheat, and it's described in the
book of Mark where it talks about wheat.
It says when you plant wheat, first there's a stalk that comes
up and then there's a head at the top of the wheat, and then
inside of it is a kernel of wheat that's going to grow and
it's go on to maturity. Now when it comes time for
harvest, you're going to cut the wheat down, but you have to
separate the chaff from the fruit.
So what you do is you put it on a threshing floor and you throw
it there, and they would throw it up in the air so that the
wind would separate the wheat from the chaff.
And that was called the winnowing process.
Now, we're not as familiar with the wheat here.
They were in the days when Jesus was speaking because Passover
and Pentecost had to do with grain harvest, wheat and barley.
We could think of it more like corn because we're familiar with
that here. And how does our corn grow?
It grows in a on a stalk and then it has the husk on the
outside. And when you go to make your
corn, how you know you have to pull off the outer part?
That would be our winnowing process.
If you would, then you throw that part away because you want
the fruit. That's unless you live in Mexico
or Mexican and you want to make tamales.
How many know with tamales you use the corn husk?
I remember talking to somebody once and they saying, yeah, I
tried one of those tamales, but the outer part, it was just so
coarse and hard because you're not supposed to eat the
cornhouse. That's just to cook it with.
So there is a purpose. But the winnowing is the
separation from the between the wheat and the chaff.
And the chaff is actually just a protective layer.
It's something that you have to protect the seed until it grows
and goes on to maturity. But then when that process is
complete, you have to bring a separation.
And then what do you do with the chaff?
Well, you have to throw it away. Now, we don't like to suffer
loss. We don't like to go through
processes, but this is the process God works.
I was talking about this in the first service because this is so
important for us to understand because this is how God has
worked in Christian history. So I was mentioning how the
Bible worked over time. Well, in Christian history God
has and building his church. Jesus said I will build my
church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
So what he does is he plants a seed, the seed begins to grow
and then he's ready to plant another seed.
You can see that in church history, how God has been
building the church. Now for those of us who are in a
Protestant church, we remember the time of the Reformation.
What happened during the Reformation was a Catholic
priest by the name of Martin Luther said, wait a second, we
have way too many traditions. And one of the traditions they
had that was really causing a scandal in the churches.
They had what they called indulgences.
The church was trying to raise money for a cathedral, so they
would sell the indulgences and they would say to the people, if
you buy this indulgence, you're going to get somebody right out
of purgatory. Because I believe in those days
that when you die during purgatory, after people prayed
for you, gave offerings, whatever, they get you out of
purgatory and get you to heaven. Martin Luther had a problem with
all that and hope, you know, it's nothing new to come up with
schemes to raise money among the churches.
But anyway, that goes to show you how the same problems keep
persisting. And so we had the great
Reformation and it started with the Lutheran's and then it went
on to the Calvinists and Anabaptist, whatever.
All these different denominations have really a
testimony of something God did in the past where somebody got a
seed for a truth, but they weren't ready to let go of
something and so they stuck where they were at and didn't
move on to maturity. That's by Mount Zion.
We believe in non denominational churches and we believe it's
absolutely essential that you believe in the word of God.
And if you're challenged by something in the scripture,
don't just stand down the sidelines and say I'm not going
to change or I don't believe in that.
If it's in the Bible, you should believe it.
Can I hear an Amen on that church?
Amen. And so the truth is what's
happened is in the Reformation churches, churches now, there's
as many traditions that they have as the Catholic Church had
at one time. Now, one of the ways we've cured
the problem of dealing with the past moves as Christians over
time, as we've always decided that, well, when you get a new
idea for renewing the denomination, the one that was
before them, they weren't even Christians.
They just go to hell. And so it's all about going to
heaven or going to hell. And if you didn't receive what
we were teaching, you're going to go to hell.
And that was where it was when I was a kid, really, if we saw
somebody was Catholic and talked to them, we'd feel sorry for
them because we knew they were going to go to hell.
If you said, are you a Christian?
This was the proof, they'd say, no, I'm Catholic, true, you're
going to hell. You don't believe it the way we
do. And the Lutherans were just as
bad. I remember praying for my
brother Bill, and he had been through a divorce and he wasn't
doing so well. So mom and I decided we need to
pray for him, a Christian wife. So he brings home this girl
named Cheryl Milkie. She was a Lutheran.
And we're like, oh, God, it's bad enough he's bringing a Pagan
home, but she thinks she's a Christian.
We just knew that she was. We had a confirmation because at
their wedding, they DJ called the pastor up and said, will you
bless the beer? We're like the pastor's blessing
the beer. This, this is the Antichrist.
I don't know what is. And you could go through history
and you can see how that happened.
Now, did we one day say, well, I think we need to change our
mind? Actually, the Holy Spirit, which
is our teacher did because there was this charismatic movement
and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit was moving among
Catholics. Holy Spirit was moving in
Pentecostal churches. And all of a sudden you could
see on TV a whole big building full of people that nuns were
habits back in those days. So you could see them very
easily. Priests all and they're all
speaking in other tongues and, and the spirits move in.
There was a guy in the West Coast and Harold Bredesen, he
was bringing the Lutheran's in the Holy Spirit.
And we're like, oh, wow, this is weird.
God said he would proud his spirit upon all flesh and
they're definitely fleshly. So how does this work now?
We grew up in a church that was full gospel.
My mom's brothers were Baptists, and so we didn't go to the
gospel church because we had a revelation.
We went because we had to walk to church and it was the closest
one. So anyway, that used to be very
much against the Holy Spirit. Now a lot of Baptists believe
that when you get the Holy Spirit, you were demon
possessed. Even so, my uncle's never said
we were demon possessed, but they might have thought it.
I don't know. And I don't know if they thought
we could go to heaven, whether they're demons or whatever.
But when God began to move by his Spirit, of course, people
who didn't have the Holy Spirit, they could just say, see, that's
proof it's not of God. But those of us who had the Holy
Spirit had to notice that in the Bible there's a story about
Peter preaching to a centurion who is a Roman, that Jews never
thought he could possibly be saved.
And he received the Lord, and the Spirit of the God came upon
him. And they said, well, if God has
given him the Holy Spirit, surely we should let them be
baptized and join the church. And that's what happened there.
I mean, sometimes the Holy Spirit has to overrule our
thinking. But you know, you can still
resist it if you choose to. Now, that doesn't mean it
doesn't matter what you believe because of the Bible says, I
will know the truth and the truth will make me free.
And so we still want people to line themselves up with the word
and we'll tell people that. But that's why when you come to
Mount Zion, you'll hear terms like sacrament.
And our kids are in catechism. We do things that if it's in the
Bible and it's a part of church tradition from a good reason, we
follow it because we believe the Word of God is our ultimate
guide in all things. You have a lot of evangelical
Christians who will tell you, oh, there's nothing that happens
when you're wild or baptized. It's just an outward side of an
inward work that's not in the Bible.
What's the new tradition people have had because what does the
Bible say The Bible says repent and be baptized for the
remission of your sin. When we baptize people we
usually it didn't come up today but have the scripture that as
it says in Romans chapter 6. Don't you know that when you're
baptized that you are buried with Christ and if you have been
buried with Christ and shared in his death, you shall also rise
to walk in the resurrection that he has for you.
How many know God has a powerful walk for each and every one of
us, and He should want to have the whole thing that He has for
us, him in church. And it says the Philistines also
went up and deployed themselves in the valley of refereeum.
So David inquired to the Lord, saying, Shall I go up against
the Philistines? Will you deliver them into my
hand? And the Lord said to David, Go
up, for I will doubtless deliver the Philistines into your hand.
So David went to Valparaisim, and David defeated them there
and said, the Lord has broken through my enemies before me.
Like what? A breakthrough of water.
Therefore he called the name of the place Balparazim.
Now, in talking about the principles I just shared with
you, it's important for us to recognize that in David's life
there was a pattern here that he had to learn and had to follow.
David was made the king of the children of Israel, and in that
place, as king, the Philistines decided, hey, we're not going to
accept this. We're not going to let that
happen. And so the Bible says the
Philistines came and they wanted to cause trouble for David.
Now again, David didn't just act hastily.
What did that Scripture say he did?
He inquired of the Lord, and so as he was inquiring of the Lord,
it's so important to understand that God began to speak to him,
and he said to him, now you need to understand that if you face
the Philistines in battle, I'm going to give you a
breakthrough. And so the Bible says that he
went to Mount Perizim. Now the word pairs him literally
means a breakthrough. And so David was a king.
He had an enemy that was coming against him.
But now he needed a breakthrough because the Philistines had come
to spoil everything that was going on.
How you know sometimes that the enemy comes in to destroy our
good time. Amen.
And sometimes life just happens that way.
We have a good experience, everything's going well, and all
of a sudden we're like, what's happening here?
Why am I facing this problem? Well, do what David did.
He sought the Lord. He inquired of God, and God said
something so powerful to him that he was going to give him a
breakthrough and that he should not be afraid of what was going
on. And so that's exactly what
happened. God gave him a breakthrough.
It was an amazing thing. But unfortunately, after that,
in a period of time, the Philistines went up once again
and deployed themselves in the valley.
Roof him therefore, for David inquired of the Lord, and said,
You shall not go up, circle around behind them, come upon
them in front of the Mulberry trees, and that shall be when
you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the Mulberry
trees. Then you shall advance quickly,
for then the Lord will go out before you to strike the camp of
the Philistines. And David did so as the Lord
commanded him, and he drove back the Philistines from Gabba as
far as Ghazar. I've put over this again because
sometimes when we go through something and things get better,
when it comes back, that's almost like a double whammy that
makes us want to give up. Now, in this particular time,
David not only inquired of the Lord, he had to understand that
God had a strategy for him. We have to understand that as we
walk with God, we can't use yesterday's strategies.
We can't just do what we used to do.
We have to say, Lord, what is there about this situation that
you can teach me? What is there about this
situation that I can experience and I can be an overcome in that
I haven't ever been an overcomer in before.
Amen. And so we have to understand how
these unusual strategies can come to us.
I believe church that God wants to give us an unusual strategy.
How many ready for an unusual strategy.
Now I put up here the supernatural level because this
is so empower powerful for us to understand because in this
particular story, the Lord said to him, he said, now don't do
what you did before. Don't go behind the enemy and
attack them from behind. I'm actually going to have you
attack them from the front. He said, but I want you to kneel
down in front of the Mulberry trees.
And when you hear the sound of an army over the Mulberry trees,
then you got to know that this is your time to advance.
Now, this is important to understand because this was a
supernatural experience that they would hear the rushing on
the Mulberry trees. I this is one of those things I
had to Google because I remembered a song when I was a
kid, but I couldn't remember the title.
And we used to sing a song. I hear the rustle in the
Mulberry tree and I know, I know, I know the move is on.
And what that song was about was the fact of this story.
How that when David here's the supernatural sound from heaven,
he knows now it's time we're going to have a victory.
And I believe with everything within me Church, that we're in
a time of greater victory than we've ever had before.
I believe we're in a time when we're going to see God do
unusual and awesome deeds like we've never seen before.
Can I hear any men on that? Amen.
But we got to listen and we have to recognize that sometimes
there has to be a change of strategy.
And so we can say, God, you can speak to me and I'll listen.
But Lord, give me the strategy for today that I need to
experience. He said, give here and hear my
voice. Listen and hear my speech.
Does the plowing keep plowing all day to sow?
Does he keep returning his soil and breaking in the up the
clouds when he has leveled its surface?
Does he not sow the black cumin and scatter the cumin Plant the
wheat in the Rose, the barley in a pointed place, and the smelt
of its place? For he instructs him in right
judgment his God. What teaches him this also comes
from the Lord of hosts, who is what wonderful in counsel and
excellent in guidance. And this is where we have to
understand how important it is. Sometimes just stop and say, OK,
God, I know you're wonderful in counsel.
I know your guidance is awesome. I'm facing perhaps an impossible
situation, but I know with you God, all things are possible.
Can we all please bow our heads for a moment?
Because I really believe with everything within me that God's
saying to you, as He is saying to our church, it's time for a
new level, a new level of experience.
It might be that you're facing an experience you never
experienced before, a dilemma that you never faced before.
Or maybe it's like you're going through the same thing all over
again, but it doesn't be seem to be working out the same or the
right way. Casas, I want you to know I'm
your guide. I want you to know I'm excellent
counsel. I want you to know that I can do
for you as you open up your heart to me.
I can enrich your marriage. I can give you guidance for your
children, I can help you through your business, I can be whatever
you have need of at this very important time.
You just have to open yourself up because I've prepared you for
such a time as this, says the mighty God.
How do we just commit ourselves to you in Jesus name, Amen.
This is Pastor Lauren Coverbius from Mount Zion Church.
We thank you for joining us today and invite you to connect
with our church family by visiting mountzion.org and
following us on social media. God bless you.