Today I want to talk to you about waiver not.
And I say that because if we look at the book of Luke chapter
18, starting in verse 8, now obviously there's some
conversation that's being asked of the Lord about the end times.
But more importantly, he's actually using an example of
this particular woman who had this issue getting a legal
protection. And so she went to a judge that
was very unrighteous, and it says that he didn't fear God or
man and he would just keep putting her off.
But she just kept coming because she knew her rights in that
nation and what protection she had.
What was do her. And so because she stayed
persistent, eventually this unrighteous judge, the Lord
calls him, says I'm going to give the lady what she wants.
Again, not because God told me or because Mass told me and I'm
concerned about them. It's just that really she's
wearing me out. She just keeps showing up and
it's basically, I'm tired of seeing her face and her saying
the same argument. So I'm just going to give it to
her. Then the Lord says, now if, if
the unrighteous judge will do this, how much more God who is
just and that he'll bring these things about quickly.
All right. But at the end of this
statement, he makes this very powerful thought that moves us
into the times we're in now. And he says this at the end of
verse 8. He says, however, when the Son
of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
That's very powerful. You know, there are some new
things coming. OK.
One thing that's going to come new is that Jesus is going to
split the sky. That'll be new in the context
that He'll call us up with Him. That's going to be pretty
amazing. The first time he came, He came
through the womb. He left in the clouds, but he
returns in the clouds. So that'll be a new thing
coming. Jesus coming back in a cloud.
That's going to be amazing. You know what else is a new
thing coming? Revelation of God's Word, you
know, because when God continues to reveal himself of what you do
not know, that's something new coming.
But once I know what he has revealed, now coming is not the
issue I have because faith is now a faith believes it's
already settled. And you know, I'm thankful that
there are things Christ has already accomplished.
That's not a coming, but is a now is a here.
It already exists. It's like when he told the
disciples at one time, he said now Terry, here, be here until
the promise of the Father comes. Well, the Holy Spirit has come.
He came on the day of Pentecost. We're not waiting for him to
come again. He's already in the earth.
And so you understand, salvation has come.
It's here. In fact, this script, this comes
from Isaiah. Someone showed me 4319.
There's a new thing coming, a new way of doing things.
Well, there is a new thing that has happened, and that is the
death, burial, resurrection of Jesus.
And everything he has brought is already accomplished.
And so salvation is something you can receive right now.
It's not coming to you. You have it once you believe
it's already in existence. You know, the baptism of the
Holy Ghost and and receiving the endowment of power from on high
is something all you have to do is receive by faith.
It's not that it's coming, it already exists.
It's just a matter of you getting in the flow of what's
already there. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
You know what healing is? Something available right now in
your life. You can have healing in your
body. God will heal you immediately.
That can take place. Glory to God, Amen.
It's not something new coming. It's something that exists if
you'll access it by faith. So again, when we say these
things, we're not saying that we're waiting for something to
come. We will access what already
exists. But there are some things to
come, some prophecies that are still to be a fulfilled and
those are coming. You know what else is the new
thing coming? A new heaven and a new earth
that's coming. That's a new thing coming.
That's going to be something, you know, before that time,
there's a new thing coming called the millennial reign of
Christ. That's when Jesus comes back to
the planet, reigns on the earth, and in that first eternal stage
of where they're still sin in the earth, but he rules the
earth from Jerusalem. Hallelujah.
And so those are, that's the new thing coming when he topples all
of man's nations and they are to pay allegiance to him.
But then eventually he'll release the enemy one more time
who will deceive nations, and then they'll bring an attack
towards Jerusalem. But that won't last very long.
And then the last new thing coming is the new heaven and the
new earth. Glory to God, Hallelujah.
These are exciting times we're in.
But Jesus says, however, when the Son of Man comes, will he
find faith on the earth? Now the word find here means
this will he find after searching, which means he's
going to search for it. He had is making the effort to
locate. So he's going to come to the
earth with the intent am I finding faith and I'm going to
have to search for it. It means to find the thing
sought, which is a little disturbing.
The word find here means to be discovered.
It means to be recognized. It means to be detected.
That's a little disturbing statement because that means
when he returns, will he find after seek?
It's not so obvious that he has to look it out.
He has to go looking for it. I said he has to go looking for
it. Now this here could be when he
puts his foot down on the Mount Olives.
This definitely can be after what we consider the tribulation
period because man after that during that event, there's a lot
going on and faith would be scarce for sure during that
time. However, the Bible does tell us
prior to the catching away of the church is that is that oh
Jesus, thank you, Lord, as he said, there will be a great
falling away that will occur as well.
If you were with us Wednesday night, I, I encourage you need
to listen to that message online.
It's really powerful concerning the catching away.
And so with that being said, we want to be found in faith.
We want to be found in faith. The thing about faith is that
faith is a misused word. Many people, let me just say it
this way, everybody actually functions by faith, even the
lost. We have actually in, in one
sense, taken this word faith, and we have made it a religious
term meaning only church folk have faith.
But the Bible definition of faith is not excluded or only
characterized to the believer. Are you hearing me?
If we look at it in its strictest form of what faith
means. And so a lot of times we can
say, Oh yeah, I have faith or I believe God.
But do you have it? According to the Bible's
definition, faith is very important because again, when
the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
Which means we need to be found in faith first.
John 54 because faith is powerful.
Look what it says here. Whatever is born of God
overcomes the world. And this is the victory that
overcomes the world, our faith. So if you want victory on planet
earth right now, faith is the answer.
I said faith is the answer. Faith is the answer.
One scholar said it this way. The grand difference between a
man divinely born and others is this, that he conquers the world
while others are conquered by it.
Amen. And if you are a believer, the
world should not conquer you. You should not be conquered by
the world. Now, when we say world, we're
not talking Earth. We're talking the systems in the
world. We're talking the the systems
that the Prince of the power of the air that the devil still
operates with and how he pulls, keeps people in darkness and
then tries to deceive those in the light to come back Into
Darkness. And there are systems that he
uses in order to keep us bound, to keep us from the things of
God and the and from God's Kingdom to manifest in our life.
However, when you function by faith, then the things of the
world do not overcome you. You overcome them in essence,
the things of the world come to you no different than the things
of the Kingdom they come by hearing in Romans chapter 10,
verse 17. We know this, but it's important
for us to see this, that when Paul's having this conversation,
he's making technically a blanket statement, and we can
see it in one sense with the comma.
So faith comes from hearing pause.
Just think about that for a moment.
That applies to everyone on the planet.
Faith comes by hearing. So whatever you're hearing is
producing faith. So that means faith is not a
religious word. Faith is not directly associated
with God. I'm going to say that again,
faith in just the definition of the word.
Faith itself is not specifically directed towards God.
Now Paul to the church in Rome, he's letting them know where
they're hearing should be after the comment says and hearing in
essence, you're hearing should be by the word of Christ.
In essence, he's saying if the faith you have should be the
result of what you've heard from the word of God.
I like this translation of the word of Christ because Christ is
the title of Jesus. Jesus is Jesus Christ, Christ is
the Messiah and and Christ is the Greek equivalent to that
Hebrew word Messiah, which is the king in essence.
You want your ear attentive to what Jesus who is King is saying
because he is supreme in authority.
His word rules forever. His word is life.
So he's saying to us, look, people's faith comes from
hearing, However you're hearing needs to come from listening to
the Lord. Can I get an Amen in the world?
Everyone is listening to something.
I mean, I would love to tell you that the majority of believers
are listening so much to the word and only the word rightly
divided. But the reality is, in the 168
days within a week, what you hear within a church and then
your own personal study tends to pale in comparison to the things
you're hearing at work, in your household, on XM radio, the
television, whatever it may be. A lot of things are trying to
affect your mind. And so you have to have a heavy
diet of being able to listen to God's Word so that you can
determine what you should keep in your in your hearing and what
you should disregard. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
So again, you know, there are some things that that I was
exposed to as a child that knowing the word today, I would
not participate in today. But the reality is because I
knew God's word, it I had a light source that helped me
overcome the things that I heard in darkness.
But they're but when people do not have a light source or
they're not around the word, then the things that are in
darkness continues to strengthen issues in there.
And the problem is, is because we in the church definitely do
not want to seem religious and seem like, you know, this
thing's about our personal works, us doing it of ourselves
so that God would look at us and say, hey, you're good enough
because none of us are good enough, right?
But there there are things that we are able to overcome because
of what we've heard in the word that other people do not
overcome. And so in the church, a lot of
times we sometimes participate or make excuse about certain
things that are out in the world that people are participating in
because we actually have something that reminds us that's
not real. However, those that are in
darkness, when they are in those activities, it just actually
feeds more darkness. It feeds more darkness.
Hallelujah. Maybe I want to be blunt, maybe
I don't thank you Jesus. Maybe I just want to say he who
has ears, let him hear. Hallelujah.
You know, if we don't watch out as a church, we will be very
dismissive of things that are in darkness, that someone who's not
exposed to light would carry them further, period, period.
Now, you have to have personal conviction.
Don't get me wrong. And again, you know, I can, I
can go in and out of places where darkness is at, but the
darkness doesn't affect me because I'm bringing the light.
However, if I was, if I were only in darkness, it would take
me into further darkness. And the things we're seeing in
our society today is because honestly, we sometimes are
downplaying dangers because we can discern the difference from
good and evil. That's good.
Whereas the loss cannot. And those that are groping in
darkness cannot. And the devil's very subtle at
how he does things. He kind of just chips away, you
know, and, and he's patient in one sense that he'll go from
generation to generation. And if you understand what you
know is in the Old Covenant generational curses, then you
know each generation is worse off than the generation before
because sin never gets better, it only gets worse.
Are you hearing what I'm saying? OK, so with that being said, you
know, I'll give you an example then I'm just going to give you
an example again. You're going to have a hard time
because you have light, but you're think of someone in
darkness. You know, when video games first
came out, I remember I was alive during its start.
And I remember Jamie, a friend of mine had the first Atari and
he had that game. Was it Pong?
You know where the little ball, you just had to put that little
line and bounce it back, right? And when I wasn't good at that
game, that I knew I was in trouble.
Especially today's games. Today's games are fully
immersive. It's a whole nother ball game.
And as much as I want to think that the immersion makes me
better, I found that that's not true because I took some staff
to a virtual game where we had to try to liberate from aliens.
OK, these, you know, fictional, non existent creatures.
And man, I felt like I was doing a pretty good job.
In fact, I didn't realize how many were killing me because all
of my staff were busy with other ones and they left my back
exposed. And so I'm in my goggles and I
don't realize that, you know, why is my screen turning red?
Well, I turned around and I got a whole bunch of them just
eating me right now. And I'm like, where's the rest
of my crew? You know, what are they doing?
And so, you know, being in the Army, you feel like, you know,
you can take them out. But the gamers gained.
They got that thing figured out all right.
Now, again, we were in a science fiction story.
So at the end of the day, there's no reality to these
particular creatures that we are dismembering.
So I start in Pong and then all of a sudden games progress to
other stuff. One of very big one was, you
know when they used to, I don't remember the name of the game,
but you would steal cars and police were always after you.
Grand Theft Auto. Grand Theft Auto.
Thank you. How many play Grand Theft Auto?
Thank you. Yep.
There you go. Now at the end of the day, what
are you saying? You're saying to yourself, it's
pretend, right? I would never in real life do
this. But why would you not do it?
Because you hear from the word of Christ that being against the
authority is unrighteous, that stealing is not the plan of God.
And honestly, you know, we assume.
That if Jesus was in the planet today, he would play the game.
Anybody believe Jesus would get in a game with you in Grand
Theft Auto? Why, It's just a game.
But now think if you are in a troubled house where nobody's
following God, come on, come on. And you've got issues with one
parent because the other one's already left and maybe is in
jail. And the spouse is talking about
how they were, you know, in justly incarcerated.
And you get your child. This game that progresses, you
know, to where now, you know, we have games where we're allowed
to, you know, shoot. And now today's games are
really, you know, lifelike. And yet for us, we're like, ah,
it doesn't mean anything. Well, someone's stuck in
darkness. It it can do something to your
mind to where all of a sudden, you know what we would say?
There's no way they're like, this is normal.
So again, we can be dismissive and the reason why we've become
dismissive is because we think faith is our word, right?
That's good. We believe faith only exists
with the church, yet faith comes from.
So if I'm hearing when I'm in my, you know, virtual world
about how we need to take out these authorities and we need to
go after them and how we need to do this at the other and we need
to steal this, and we'll level up here and we'll do this.
And we're constantly hours upon hours and we never go to a
church. We never hear the word of God.
We have our own challenges in life of, you know, parents, you
know, speaking down, you know, bullying at school.
All these things take place. And then we're like, I don't
understand why. I understand why because faith
comes by hearing, by hearing. See, when you're a child of the
light, you can look at someone who has been mistreated,
bullied, you know, abused, and you begin to give them a
different thought process that's so foreign to them because
they've not heard. All their life, they've only
heard. I've even been around believers
that grew up under oppressive parents, meaning the parents
were always that you're not good enough.
No matter what they did, they never felt good enough, never
good enough, never good enough, never good enough.
And that voice lingers so much that even when they were born
again, they became a child of God.
They begin to follow God at his word.
That one voice of their father stayed in their head.
And no matter what they did, they were still trying to please
someone who had built a stronghold in their mind through
hearing that even though they are completing Christ, they
still do not truly have faith in that.
And this is what the perplexing situation is.
Because when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith in the
earth? He will find a firm persuasion
among man, but not towards him. So faith comes from hearing and
hearing by the word of Christ. Our hearing has to be, and
hearing is just how it comes. It doesn't mean you're in faith
just 'cause you heard. That's right.
How do we know this? James tells us this.
He tells us, he says don't. We cannot be deceived in our
faith because if we're a hearer only, we deceive ourselves.
We must be a doer of faith. We must be a doer of faith, not
just a here only. So hearing is is what gives us
the ability to develop a firm persuasion.
But a firm persuasion not acted on is actually not faith.
So it shows up, knocks on your mind's door, it resonates out of
your heart. Jesus reveals to you, hey, this
is my word concerning the situation you're going in.
Act on this. But if you do not begin to act
on that, then it's just hearing that can't faith came, but you
did not exercise it. And yet I get around a lot of
believers that say I'm of faith, but they're not exercising
nothing they're hearing. And it would be accurate
according to Scripture to say you are deceived in your faith
because you're not doing because I've gotten around a lot of
people in, you know, my Christian life now where the
excuse not to do is the examples of others.
So their faith is in more of ones that said they were
believing or said they would believe or are not believing.
And now we're going to change our belief in God because of
these experiences. Come on, that's good.
And give excuse because you understand, Nick, you have
personal responsibility. No one can stop you from living
by faith. No one.
If you want to believe God is word, you can believe God is
word period. And to say, well I can't do what
the Bible says because of this or that or how they did this.
Guess what you're doing? You're explaining away the word
of God's power in your life. Same in anyway now what is faith
Hebrews 11/1 now faith is the assurance of things hoped for
the convictions of things not seen.
You know what's crazy about this message today is that it is it
is such a repetitive message that we've done through the
years and it's such a repetitive message that has gone through
really every denomination because again you must have
faith in Christ. But the reality is is that faith
comes by hearing not having heard, which means it's active.
It's now, it's a now word. It's not a yesterday's word,
it's a now word. And you cultivate those things.
You understand, I love my wife not because I married her 30-4
years ago. It's because I choose today.
Today's my choice. And you know why I choose to do
that? Because I first choose to follow
God. Because when I do God His way,
then it puts me in the right position because I fear the
Lord. And as long as I'm doing that
now, it puts me in the position that every role that I play in
life, whether it's husband, father, apostle to a ministry, a
friend to somebody, it's all predicated on me obeying God at
His Word and then hearing God concerning whatever situation
I'm in based upon the relationship.
Because I'm even in faith with, with in relationships that I
don't have any more. Because I can believe that
things can be restored. People can repent because
there's a scripture that I believe love one another of
which were commanded, and that there's nothing anyone can ever
do, even if they fail, that they cannot be forgiven, treated as
if they've never done it. There's only one issue.
It's the blasphemy of the Holy Ghost.
And there may only be a couple people that I've known in my
lifetime that may be a candidate for that.
Are you hearing me? So what's it say?
Hebrews 11/1 it said. Now faith is the assurance of
things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
So faith doesn't require it to be in a physical sense, natural
sense, to be faith. Faith believes it based upon
word alone. Now word alone for us is God's
Word. Everything going on in life
today can be boiled down to this.
What was said and what's the authority of the one saying it?
Period. That's the end.
What's being said and what's the authority of the one saying it?
Because for me, I go to the source of authority and his
name's Jesus. And honestly, in all of the
rhetoric that's out there to try to disprove God, disprove his
word. And, and, and people who do
this, who get on, because I had something, something sent to me
recently where, you know, somebody wanted to send me
something where somebody was ranting about, you know, all the
issues with the Bible and with God and all this stuff.
And in my mind, I'm thinking now then this is an interesting
thought. Here's a person that doesn't
even believe in God, doesn't believe he exists, and they're
firmly persuaded that's their faith.
Their faith is in no God. Their faith is in themselves and
their own ability to navigate based upon their what they
think's right. They are the final authority in
their life them. So they're trying to convince me
that what they're saying about God has more authority than what
God is saying about himself #1 #2 If you're so firmly persuaded
that God is not in existent, then why are you trying to
convince me anyway? You understand the role reversal
there isn't necessary. I am a critical thinker.
I, I do not take the, I'm not a baby bird.
So I'm like, OK, let's play the game.
Let's play the game. The game is God doesn't exist,
OK, doesn't exist. And man can live any way he
wants to. Great.
So you don't have to say anything then, because that's
how it will be. However, if you believe there is
a God, you actually have to say something because if I don't say
something and you live by what you think alone and you can do
it alone where you're wrong. If you're right that do it any
way you want to, it doesn't matter.
We just die and cease to exist or whatever their finality
belief is. It doesn't matter if I believe
that Jesus Christ died on the cross because it will prove to
not be correct. And you don't have to tell me
I'm wrong at all. And Paul even said this.
If if the resurrection of Christ is not, we are the most pathetic
people on the face of the planet, period.
And what is it to you whether I choose to want to pretend
there's a God and pretend that I'm following him and pretend
that I'll what's it matter? And what's it matter if I
convince most of the world and then we're all wrong.
Why? Because it took takes no faith
to just die like you in the sense that you know everything
we've had missed placed belief that ultimately cannot be
supported by someone who has the final authority to substantiate
what we're doing. We are our own issue.
But if I'm right now, if I'm right, you're miserable and you
need to hear right. You need to hear because really,
why are you telling me there is no God?
Who are you trying to save? Think about this.
They're trying to convince us God doesn't to save us from
what? In essence, you're trying to be
a save. Oh, you don't want to.
They are trying to be a savior. Oh, so you want to?
You want to be Jesus now and save everybody from their
miserable belief in God and that Interesting.
Now they're so mad that we put our trust in a savior named
Christ when they really want us to put our faith in them as
Savior. Hallelujah.
You know how many believers are
swayed, though, by people who come up with these thought
processes? Yeah, honestly, I don't have
time to to go and and debunk all the stuff that people tried to
send me, you know, to try to prove me wrong, right?
I don't, I don't have to. I wasn't asked to do that.
I was asked to just present truth.
And whether you accept it or not, that's on you.
But I'm going to stay with the Lord because He is the way, the
truth and the life, and nobody gets to the Father but through
him. Hallelujah.
And the good news is I'm not wrong and I won't have to prove
that. Jesus will prove it.
Praise the Lord, Amen. You just need to say to him, why
are you so afraid of someone named Jesus now?
Faith is the assurance of things, hope for the conviction
of things not seen. Let me give you an example what
this looks like. Have you ever been around
someone that says, oh, it's flu season, I'm going to get the flu
this year, I better go get a vaccine to help myself out.
Now. What are they?
That's a firm persuasion. They're firmly persuaded.
I'm not against vaccines. I'm not.
I'm just saying this how people think I need to do this because
today, I mean, how many years has it been past COVID yet I
still go to the airport and people have become firmly
persuaded that wearing a mask in public is safer.
Is is safer for them. I don't have a problem if you
worry about I don't care. I'm just saying that shows firm
persuasion. Firm persuasion.
You act on that. They it is such in their mind
that there are things out here that I could contract that I'm
going to cover my mouth to make sure I don't get that.
And how do we know they believe that?
Because the mask is the evidence of that belief.
It is the step they're going to. And if they want to go that
stuff, I don't care. Doesn't matter to me.
I'm not saying it's wrong at all.
I'm saying it's just an evidence of a belief.
That's what I'm saying. And so we see in the world all
the time, people have evidences of their belief by what they say
and how they act, how they actually live carry out their
life. So this is when he says again,
they're not even sick yet because they are concerned they
could be because they've heard it could come this way.
This is the precaution that they live in, which means now they're
acting on what they are firmly persuaded by a word because
we're we're currently not in a pandemic in the in the planet
now are more coming? Yes, because the Bible tells us
in the last days there will be rumors of wars, wars and rumors
of wars. There will be famines and
pestilence where pestilence has to do with pandemics if you
break down that particular word. So more coming where they're
going to say all this is happening and disease is going
to be moving. The enemy's doing everything he
can to isolate, quarantine us off, no personal touch because
he don't want the gospel of the Kingdom to spread.
He wants things to be hindered. Now, no matter what he does,
we're still going to get their composite task because greater
is he that's in us than he that's in the world.
We just need to waver. Not all right now.
Romans chapter 4, verse 20 and 21 says this with respect to the
promise of God. Abraham did not waver in
unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God.
Verse 21 and being fully assured are firmly persuaded.
One translation says that what God had promised he was able to
perform. Will God do what he says?
Does God perform his word? God said I have sent forth my
word, it will not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish
that which it was sent to do. Now people try to rebuttal that
said well God said this but it doesn't happen.
God always does what he says. God will say things concerning
you that if you'll be in faith you'll have it, but if you don't
if you choose not to do it, it's not a God promise a you problem.
So when people try to say God won't do again, when you put God
in this category, that God is controlling everything, even the
evil, well, first of all, your paradigm of God is wrong and not
even scriptural. That's right, 'cause God is not
controlling evil, God is not committing evil acts.
God is not participating in rape, murder, adultery,
fornication, all the things that he's not participating.
Man's doing that of his own free will.
God is giving them an answer of how to come out, how to be
delivered, how to have victory over all these things that
attach and try to attack your flesh and get you to live by the
flesh. And if you'll by faith believe
His word that you can do it the other way, then you'll have
victory over the world. You'll have victory over your
flesh, you'll overcome it. You'll cause your flesh to be
crucified. That is not God controlling
that. That is God giving us an
opportunity, and Abraham by faith believe God.
Now here's the thing about Abraham.
Abraham's belief, this particular passage, is that he
has to believe that what God says concerning a descendant is
true. That is a child born not only of
him, but of his wife Sarah. We treat faith in the church as
if God's doing it independent of us.
Yet the person that is the father of faith, the father of
us all, gives us the example that it is a doing of a word
that is true faith. Which means then Abraham at a
time it says he did not contemplate his own body being
dead. Meaning I shouldn't be able to
have kids. Now my wife has never had
children and when the test came of who was having the problem,
it became real clear it was my wife and not me because when she
told me to sleep with her maidservant and I did, she got
pregnant. So I knew I was fine at that
time. But now he's older and he's
thinking, man as old as I am, could I even offspring a child
now? He had kids even after Sarah,
but the coveted child was to come through Sarah, of which God
spoke that. And he spoke this before he even
mentions kids. He says your name's Abraham.
You're the father of many nations with no descendants.
And Abraham's asking the question, well, we, me and Sarah
have no kids. So that doesn't mean that my
servant here, he's going to be the one that gets the blessing.
And God's like, no, he's coming from you and your wife.
So when she's 90 and he's 100, he does not contemplate the
natural evidence, but by faith he believes we're going to have
a child. Now, did he have a child through
Immaculate Conception? No.
That means Abraham had to be a doer of the word.
And that means I'm going to have to have intercourse with my wife
at this age. And when when Sarah looked back
at every word God had ever said to her husband concerning other
things, Hebrew says, she looked back on the faithfulness of God
and it gave her the ability to conceive.
See, Sarah knew her womb was dead.
The one who had the biggest mind struggle was Sarah, because once
Hagar got in play and she became pregnant.
Do you understand I'm the problem now?
Every time he sleeps with her saying we're going to have a
child, she's like, no, no, we're not.
I'm the one broken. It's me.
I mean, it's clear now. But she looked back at what God
said about this with Abraham and what God said about this with
Abraham and what God said about this with Abraham.
And she said, you know, I've noticed that everything God has
told you he's done. And now that I have seen all of
these times that your stance in his word brought the victory he
has. To be fair, I believe I can have
a child, although there's never been evidence that I could.
And it was in that moment. She was she, she conceived the
promised child. And his name is Isaac.
Hallelujah. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
So this firm persuasion is someone when you act on that
when you're a doer. Faith is not coming to church
unless you're coming to church is because you're here because
of this Scripture. Do not forsake the assembling of
ourselves together. Can I sit here for a minute and
ponder just for a few moments. Go.
We're new water baptism here in a second.
Are you in faith when you come to church?
Now? I say that because it says he
wavered, not at unbelief. There are times that you're
doing something that coming to church, You're not going to make
that. I get it.
But those should be rarities. It should.
If you're a person of faith and you come to church actually by
faith, that means you are coming because you believe that God
called us to assemble, that you are part of the body and we're
jointed and fitted. And how could I not be connected
with someone that God has assigned me to?
How can Sunday morning become optional to situations in my
life? Because when you live by faith,
I'm firmly persuaded I am not to forsake the assembling of myself
together and that God has a word for me and I'm coming.
Now again, I'm not using this as a religion.
I'm just saying this is by faith.
And this is the problem because most of us, when we live by
faith, we live by faith without intentionality.
We're really living by faith, just by you know well what what
will be will, because God's in control and I just believe him.
And I may not know what's going on, but I believe it.
Well, how are you believing something that you don't know
what's going on? Because faith is comes by
hearing the word, not from not hearing something.
And you believe nowhere does the Scripture say that we are in
faith just because we generally believe that he exists.
You know, the Bible says that the demons believe God and
tremble because they know His Word, but yet it won't change
their life, doesn't change their life.
And there's a lot of human beings that, well, I believe in
God. Well, you may believe there is a
God, but you're not living by faith, at least not according to
the word of Christ. You are living by faith
according to the words of men. Well, I don't have to go to
church. I don't have to read my Bible, I
don't have to pray. And that interesting Jesus said
when you pray and then through this Apostle Paul, he's like
pray without ceasing, always be connected in prayer.
Seek first the Kingdom of God, not 5th, not after you've had
your career and retirement. Now you have nothing else to do.
So go to church, right? The life of faith is literally
recognizing that God's word is supreme and authority in my life
first and why is it because he's life is this is not a religious
exercise, It's relationship. I mean you understand when when
you fulfill the word of God in your life and the relationship
you have. OK, how can I say let me say it
in Ephesians chapter 5, he said husbands love your wife as
Christ loved the church. OK, not as Christ loved the
world. OK, I'm going to say that again.
Does Christ love the church? Does God love the world?
Yes. Does he love?
Does he want everyone to repent? Absolutely.
But Christ loved the church, that he wanted this
relationship, that it would become so intimate it could be
compared to a husband and wife. Now, if you actually have a
great marriage, then this is going to be a pretty easy
conversation, which is no one begs me to go home.
Hey, you going to go home? Yeah.
I don't know. I don't know, man.
Just thinking about laying out tonight.
You know, I was. I don't want to go, you know.
Yeah, but, you know, you have a what?
Yeah, I got. She'll be there, you know,
she'll be there when I get there.
Whenever I want to be there. I mean, you understand, we treat
God like this a lot of times, you know, it's all.
But he's with me everywhere I go.
Some places people are going. He's not there.
Now, I'm not saying he's not in you and the places you take him.
Sometimes he's saying, hey, what are you doing here?
We're not of this world. We're not doing this anymore.
This is not our participation. It's not what we're doing.
I did not send you an evangelistic outing.
Are you hearing me? I mean, it's pretty easy for me
to want to be with my wife and vice versa.
Now, do we always get along? No.
Do we always have opportunities for, you know, conversation?
Yeah, there are opportunities. We are two willful people coming
together and there's challenges. And you just.
And how do you win the end of those challenges?
We both yield to what God says, not what we say.
And when we do that, then where's good?
No problem. However, God doesn't sin.
God is always the perfect side of the relationship.
So why am I not running to Him? Why?
Surely we would run to Him. Surely we would want to read His
Word. Surely we would want to be in
prayer, Surely we would. It's our flesh that keeps us,
which is the part of us that hinders the relationship.
And you know, I don't like being in a disagreement with my wife
where the relationship now is being hindered.
Unfortunately, sometimes in my life, you know, when situations
I'll even get on the clock and I'll think, my gosh, man, if I
don't resolve this, this is like wasted minutes, a wasted hour.
I don't want the arguments in my life and the disagreements to
account to decades. If I was married to her for 50
years, 10 of them were in conflict.
Nor do I want to walk through the planet and say, you know
what, I was on the planet in Christ.
But I really only spent about five years with Him.
And I only say this because He is the one who tied it to the
marriage relationship. But again, marriages never are
at the level of what we are with God anyway because
unfortunately, we are always dealing with the flesh.
And by knowing that, I recognize that I don't make my wife
perfect, Christ makes her complete.
So I don't put her in a box of perfection, but I do expect that
she would yield to the word of the Lord, of which she is a
woman of God and does just that. And she expects the same from
me, that I'm going to yield to the word of God, that I'm not
going to do what I think I should do.
And there's many times my wife is right about situation.
Like, honey, you're right about that situation.
And again, I'm going to do what you say not because she's the
one in authority, but he's the one in authority.
So we work together. Well, you only can do that when
you actually have a relationship, and faith comes
because you're fully persuaded in the relationship that the one
you're talking to has the power to produce the word in them.
My wife may not do what she said she would do, and I may not do
what I said I was going to do with my wife, and a lot of
forgiveness has to happen. But God has never failed to do
what He said He would do first. Peter 125 says this, but the
word of the Lord endures. How long?
Come on, how long? How long is it endure?
So the final authority is the Word of the Lord.
Our faith should come from hearing Him.
And this is the Word which was preached to you.
This is what we endeavor to preach to you.
The reason why you know a church body who desires to rightly
divide the Word of truth becomes associated with a cult is
because our thinking is so contrary to the Word and the
world's way of navigating life. We do not make an excuse to live
fleshly. We always go, what does the Word
say? And again, when you want to live
by the flesh, you want to accommodate the flesh.
But when you want to live by the Word of God according to
righteousness, then you don't accommodate the flesh, you
crucify the flesh. God never said to accommodate
the flesh. He says to crucify you.
And so when you crucify the flesh, then the next thing you
know you get around people and they come to you.
You know, Eric, they'll come to me and say, well, pass her away.
Well, you know, I have no opinion in the matter, but my
king says So what you should do? Well, they don't like that.
So what they do then they go to Rafael.
Rafael, this here and they want to get a different opinion.
But next thing you know, he's listening to the voice of the
King too, which sounds the same as what I said.
And then they're like, OK, so then they go try to find someone
else. Let me go over here to Nick.
Nick. And that's like, well, what does
the Bible say? Well, you are just a bunch of
talking heads. You all say the same thing.
This is like a cult. Well, I'm only supposed to say
what God's saying because your faith's supposed to come from
the Word, not from my opinion. That doesn't mean I can't
sympathize with your problem, but Jesus can sympathize with
your problem. Jesus has compassion for you,
but more importantly, He's already paid the price for you
to overcome. You want me to give you the most
powerful faith statement? There's nothing you're in right
now that hasn't already been dealt with and that you, through
forgiveness and the application of your part towards that
situation, can't have the power to of God.
It will renew your mind and you can walk around as if nothing
ever happened wrong. Period.
They'll never come a point. There's nothing Brian you could
ever do to your wife in one sense, or really nothing.
There's there's a opportunity because of a scenario, but the
reality is through true forgiveness, God can restore
anything that ever happens and you can live as if nothing ever
messed up ever. That's the power of the blood
and forgiveness. And if we don't remember that,
then the reality is we'll look for reasons to do something
different. This is what people do with
church and they still say they have faith.
This is what they do in their marriages and they still say
they still have faith. This is what they do, you know,
at work. And they still say they have
faith when the reality is they're just not firmly
persuaded by what they heard from Christ.
They're firmly persuaded what they heard from somebody else in
a similar situation. And let me just close with this
thought. OK, again, first Peter 125 said,
But the word of the Lord endures forever.
Today you're in trouble. You're in trouble today because
everybody wants you to take your phone out and hold it up.
Yeah, get your phone because you got it anyway.
Most of you, some of you been on anyway, checking other stuff.
Hold up real high. Be proud.
You got it. Thank you.
All right, now turn your flashlight on.
All right, now. So let me see them.
We're in a concert somewhere, so for fun.
This is cool. Wow.
This is cool. I kind of wish the cameras were
here right now. OK.
Yeah. Let you like shine.
People let you like shine. OK, here's the problem.
Because of AI and the fact that your phone is listening to you,
guess what it is doing? It's accommodating the opinions
of what you hear. If you keep saying that the
catch in the way of the church ain't real, then Instagram's
going to send you reels of people who support what you say.
If you say that the Republican Party are Nazis, then your
social media is going to support that thought with plenty of
reals, or vice versa. Whatever you are saying.
Somebody and and AI is listening to every sermon.
But AI doesn't have the ability to discern which is false and
which is real. That's your responsibility.
So if you're picking up a thought process that isn't
supported from Scripture, but it does support your feelings, then
next thing you know, like look what so and so said, look what
so and so said, And then somebody wants to send me some
minister. I don't care what minister it
is, and I don't care what their name is.
Their name isn't Jesus. And if we'll go through the word
and go there, that's what we want to go with.
Because I guarantee you, you'll find things that support what
I'm saying and I can get send you up 15 pastors that believe
what I'm saying because it's listening.
I'm talking to my children about going somewhere for Christmas
and now I'm getting all these. That place is showing up.
Why is it listening to me? Because technology, the enemy
can utilize it just and there he's being more successful
because of the illiteracy of the body of Christ that doesn't want
to study the word, but just wants to have a you know
someone, a talking head, tell them that they're awesome.
You're amazing and you are amazing, but you're amazing
because you apply. You're amazing because he
created you this way to be, not to just know that you are and do
nothing but look like you're not.
That has to constantly affirm that you are something you're
not acting like. So you're going to get plenty of
algorithms that are going to help support your narrative.
You talk bad about your boss, you're going to find plenty of
reals to support what you think about your boss and its
attitude, and then you'll turn around and start showing it to
your employees. Look, I told you they were this.
Look at this. See these attributes?
That's just like them. See there?
This is dangerous ground. What are you doing?
You're forming your belief on what you're hearing from a
source you do not even know. It's credible, but it sure makes
you feel vindicated, justified and right in your mind.
But when we go to Scripture, that's where the tell tale shows
up because the scripture is not mere words, it's spirit.
And those words will begin to say, yeah, but you need to look
at this. Yeah, but what you're thinking
right now, I'm not going to agree with.
Wait a minute, now I Well, what a Yeah, that's not right.
Because if you actually seek, he'll navigate you to truth.
And at that point you've got to make a decision.
Choose Jesus or choose Barabbas. Matthew 2435.
It says heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not
pass away. In these last days we have to
waver, not because we are going to be bombarded.
We're going to be bombarded with other thoughts, technology.
Is now wired programmed to support your current thinking
pattern. I do not go to my phone to
reinforce the truth that I am seeking.
I stay in the word because I know it's dangerous.
Now I know it's dangerous. I'm very cautious because when I
know a truth and then it shows up from someone else, I have to
be very cautious not to get excited and say, well, at least
I'm not the only one who thinks this because that's a false
reality. There's a lot of people having
that kind of reinforcement in their mind.
I'm not the only one who sees it this way.
Well, the enemy has got a lot of smoke and ladders.
At the end of the day, I want to know based upon not you and you
and you as the witness, but the Scriptures, the context.
That's the witness. I need no other witness than
that. You're hearing what I'm saying.
I don't need man's witness. I need God's Word as the witness
to what truth is. And if we just happen to believe
that what He says is the truth, praise God.
But I'm not more firmly persuaded with His because you
believe it too. It's because I believe it
according to His Word.