Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message podcast
from St. Augustine, FL.
Now enjoy this message. Well, it's good to be home.
Sorry, my voice didn't want to come home with me, apparently,
so you'll just bear with my raspy.
Voice tonight. I appreciate it.
I had a little bit of. Sinus starting to.
Drain a little bit when I was in Albania and it kind of got
caught in my lung, so here I am. I feel.
Good. I just sound horrible.
So that's kind of how this is y'all doing.
All right. I just want to thank our team
who went to India. I know y'all have already seen a
video with that, but you know, we did a phenomenal thing over
there and flipped everything pretty quick and the team was
amazing. We're already making plans for
next year to be able to go back and do some leadership training
and while we're doing that, we want to be able to remodel the
children's home. So another opportunity to be
able to go over and do some construction to be available as
well. We'll figure out when those
dates will be. But now that we have an
aggravated church in India, we'll be traveling there
annually now. Hallelujah.
So the Lord's good. Well, if you have any bibles.
Turn to Deuteronomy Chapter 2. Deuteronomy Chapter 2.
Y'all doing all right. Yeah, I know.
Praise the Lord. I kind of like the Deep Boys,
but I don't like the coffin that's been with it.
That's the problem. Anyway, everybody's been trying
to give me honey and tea and all that and it's not working, so
I'm sure I'll be all good come Sunday.
If not, I'll have Pastor Marcy preach so it won't matter.
Anyway, Deuteronomy. Chapter 2 verse 24 to 25 it says
this arise. Set out and pass.
Through the valley and. Look, I've given you.
This. King of Amorites and.
His land into your hand, begin to take possession, and contend
with him in battle. This day I will begin to put the
dread and fear of you upon the peoples everywhere under
heavens, under the heavens, who, when they hear.
The report of you. Will tremble.
And be in anguish. Because of you.
Now this is really. Important because.
A lot of times. We don't want to get in a
battle. But the reality is, God needs us
to. Get in a battle.
Because God wants the fear of you in the land.
That you're supposed to influence and.
So sometimes, you know, we're going to have to go and jump
into some battles. Here.
That may seem uncomfortable, but again, it's the Lord that's with
you, right? If we went ahead and read the
rest of this particular passage, you would see that Moses
actually said, look, we just want to pass through your land.
You know, we're not going to turn to the left or to the.
Right. Just like we've done in another
part, we just stay straight on the King's Road.
If we get anything anywhere, we'll pay for it.
In essence, it was like great plan.
Super nice walking in peace, but the king was like, you're not
coming. And then he came out with a
battle to try to stop him again. A lot of times we find the path
of least resistance when we're moving forward in things of God
and we're like, man, it's just common sense why.
But sometimes the Lord is positioning things because he
needs something bigger than you just passing through in peace.
Are you hearing me? It's not that peace doesn't come
with you and go with you. The fact of the matter is, is
that God needs to do more through you or let it be known
to those in the land whose God you serve.
Are you hearing me? And so in order for us to have
influence in the land, we must face the battle.
It's just going to have to happen.
And as we continue to grow in our influence to ignite the
city, impact the nation, and influence the world, there will
be different things that we will face along the way.
You will face some things personally.
We'll face things as a church here and there.
But those things are only so that the fear of you will show
up in the community. In essence, they'll come to the
point like not sure I want to engage them.
Because God's with them. Are you hearing me?
Because you know, in these last days when there's going to be
difficult times, as tough as it's going to get, as as, as the
scripture line lays out, the reality is, no matter how much
the enemy yells, you are still in the position of power.
You're in the position of power. So we should never want to run
from a battle. Come on, stay in.
We should never want to run from one.
We will always want to be able to be always engaging.
In fact, we fight the good fight of faith, and when we fight the
good fight of faith, that means there's going to be some
challenges. We're going to see some things
that you know are seen. That's contrary to what we're
believing for. But we must continue the process
now, because they did this and they routed them, they destroyed
them. Look what it says in Deuteronomy
Chapter 11. We'll jump over to verse 22,
Deuteronomy 1122 to 25. It says, For if you are careful
to keep all this commandment which I'm commanding you to do,
to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways and hold him,
hold fast to him, then the Lord will drive out all these nations
before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and
mightier than you. Every place on which the sole of
your foot tread shall be yours, your border will be from the
wilderness to Lebanon, and from the river, the river Euphrates,
as far as the western sea. No man say no man, no man will
be able to stand before you. The Lord your God will lay the
dread of you and the fear of you on all the land on which you set
foot. As he has spoken to you, so
obviously there's a condition here, and the condition is that
you got to obey the commands of God.
At the end of the day, if you're going to obey the commands of
God, and you're going to obey him with all your heart, with
all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength,
then God will allow you to do great exploits, even though the
things that you're conquering are greater and mightier than
you. Because there are a lot of
things in our world systems you understand, that are extremely
large and powerful and you almost would would think to
yourself, well, how could the church even compete?
Well, the church is the most powerful thing on the planet,
period. I mean it is the the most
powerful thing in the earth today is still the Church of
Jesus Christ from the scene realm.
It doesn't always look like that.
But from God's perspective, it is always that way.
And what he says here, he says, because you will keep my word,
right? Because you're going to obey me,
because you're going to do as I say.
Well then, no matter what you face, I'll get rid of.
I'll help you conquer it. Now when I say I'll help, that
doesn't mean God doesn't independent of you or without
you. I mean these guys went in and
they actually had to conquer. In fact, when they went and
conquered this first king before they ever crossed the Jordan
River, they had to actually do the battle.
But God allowed their strategies to win and the strategies of the
enemy to fall apart. He puts the the enemies camping
to confusion and allows you to advance in the battle.
And you understand when even though we don't fight with
swords today, as far as natural swords, that is we ourselves,
because we have the word of God, we can really confound people in
the world because of the wisdom that we possess by the Holy
Ghost. So he says he wants to put the
dread or fear of you before the whole land.
In our city, people, when they hear Anchor Faith Church, if
they're not right with God, it should have a fear of there
should be a fear of us towards them.
What I mean by that is you don't want to cross that, you don't
want to come against that. Because anyone who's ever tried
to come against that church, there's a problem.
Are you hearing me? Because, again, it's not about
me. It's about him anyway.
But God will cause the fear of you to be seen in the land
because he's working through you.
Are you hearing me? So that when you walk into a
place of business or you walk somewhere and people know who
you're associated with, they'll say, ah, they're with that
church. And no matter what we're facing
our community, we can show up. This is why Pastor Angie's
message was so important on Sunday.
Is because God did not place us in this in this city so that we
could sing Kumbaya inside his building and then hold hands
until Jesus takes us up, you know, and then we go let people
in on it when they walk through our doors.
Now the reason he put us in this community is because he needs us
to conquer territories. And in order for you to conquer
territories, you actually got to go into the land, you got to go
in these places of business, you got to go into those
governments, you got to go into the sports arena.
You have to go into those different areas.
And in doing so, it allows you then not because of who you are,
but because of who he is and whom you're serving.
Then all of a sudden you can win major battles for the Lord.
And then the community themselves says we need Anchor
Faith Church to be on our side. Because we sure don't want to be
against them. Are you hearing me?
So we want to be people that don't want to go in and take
possession and territory and take the land to do some fairly
phenomenal things because we're able to fight the good fight of
faith. Again, God is dealing with this
nation that's already been rebellious and stiff necked.
In fact, this was the first king they conquered.
If you go to Deuteronomy 3, they conquer another one, who happens
to be a giant in the 1st place. And so the ones that complained
that we couldn't defeat the giants, God made them defeat a
giant on the other side. Now think about that.
Now you're living 40 years knowing you could have conquered
a giant. That's where God was with on
this thing. Oh, you're not going to go in?
Fine, but watch. I'll conquer a giant with you on
this side. So because of these exploits, of
what God has done with them is created a reputation.
And you want to have the reputation that you have been
with God. Amen.
And that you're always obeying him.
You're keeping his command. Joshua's message on Sunday about
honor. I mean, the highest thing he
values is his word. And if you're going to honor
God, then you have to keep His word.
If you're not keeping his word, there's no honor.
None. And so we want to keep him
because God will honor you when you honor him by keeping His
word, he said. If you'll keep my commands when
you get up in there, then I'll help you dispossess all these
individuals and the fear of you wherever you go, wherever you
go. Well, let's see what happened in
Joshua chapter two. Was it true what God said in
Joshua chapter 2, starting in verse 9 to 12, Joshua says, and
he said to the men, I know that the Lord has given you the land
and that or actually they had gone into this where they're
spying out the land and so they've gone to Rahab's house.
OK. And so this is what she's saying
to him. She says Now I, she said to the
men. I know that the Lord has given
you the land. And that the terror of you has
fallen on us. So they're in the most fortified
city. Nobody supposedly impenetrable
can't be breached yet instead of them looking like a from the
outside, they look like a strong city.
But really, what are they? They're a city full of fearful
people. And the problem is a lot of
times when we see the big obstacle.
We think it's taunting us when the reality is it's actually
afraid of us and don't want us coming around.
Because when you keep the word of God, then whatever opposes
God is actually afraid of you. Which then tells me the devil is
actually afraid of you because he opposes the word of God.
And if you do the word of God, then He's in fear of you because
he knows there's nothing He can do to stop you.
So she goes on and says the terror of you have fallen on us,
and that all the inhabitants of the land, all the inhabitants of
the land have melted away before you.
For we've heard what do they hear, how the Lord dried up the
water of the Red Sea before when you came out of Egypt.
I mean, that was 40 years ago. And what you did to the 2 Kings.
So not only did he do something 40 years when he brought you
out, but then you conquered on the other side.
And we've heard about it. I mean, people need to hear
about your wins. You need to get some faith
battles underneath your belt so that people know that's right,
that you've heard from God and you can conquer.
Are you hearing me? Now we know what this is about.
We'll talk about it here in a minute.
It says. It says the 2 kings says that
you whom you utterly destroyed when we heard it, when we heard
what of the two kings you utterly destroyed, our hearts
melted, and no courage remained in any man any longer because of
you. For the Lord your God He is gone
in heaven above and on earth beneath.
Now, therefore, please swear to me by God.
Since I've dealt kindly with you, that you also would deal
kindly with me and my father's household and give me a pledge
of truth. So here we see.
Because they were willing to face a battle, even though it
seemed like they were bigger, tougher, stronger, because they
were willing to, it actually created a reputation for them
that when they went into another battle, in fact the the law, the
most fortified one in the promised land.
That they were afraid of them. I mean, it should be that when
we come somewhere on assignment from God that it would strike
fear in them, that man, these people get what they say.
Because Church was never designed for you to just hear a
message that didn't change you, nor was it designed for you not
to go out and fight the good fight of faith.
These are not nice little stories to lull you asleep until
you die and go to heaven or till Jesus returns.
They're here to empower you to conquer.
Because God has given us dominion, and because He's given
us dominion, then we need to take dominion cause the devil
has stolen a lot of territory and God wants to dispossess
things. Because, you know, there's a
whole transfer of wealth that wants to come to the church, for
the wealth of the wicked is laid up for the for the righteous.
Well, you're not going to get into those things unless you're
willing to face the battle. Are you hearing me?
That's why it's not uncommon for us in some of our combined
battles as a church, that God has done some pretty significant
things. One of the first battles we had
was when we were over at the our 312 location and the inspector
came in and said we couldn't be there.
Well, now you got the whole county telling you you're in the
wrong spot and then they're telling you how they interpret
their zoning. But what did we do?
We went to battle. I mean, we were like, no, this
is where we're supposed to be. I didn't miss God on that.
So you're going to have to change.
And so when they read me, you know why they interpreted it
that way, I said, well, according to this, you can
interpret it a different way. And they said, well, we never
done it that way. Well, I'm in the business of
changing people's thinking. That's what we do.
Well, it didn't just, they didn't just lay down.
They continue to push an agenda. But we just kept showing up and
just kept showing up and just kept showing up.
And we continue to keep building.
We kept meeting because why if God be for us, right?
What's the psalmist say in Psalms 118 verse six?
It says the Lord is for me. I will not fear.
What can man do to me? This is why it's so important
that this key here is that when I obey God at his word and I'm
doing exactly what he's called me to do, then I have No Fear.
And what can man do to me? He can't stop me.
He can't, cannot stop me. Now very significant thing took
place during that first little battle.
Is that when we went up, you know, had to go before the Board
of county commissioners and then we had to go before the planning
and zoning agency. All ten of those said you
should, you know, get added to the list.
And then we came back to the county commissioners. 4 out of
five said we should be added to the list, although it didn't
have to be added to the list anyway.
It was all semantics, you understand.
But with that being said, the one.
That voted against us being in that location six months later,
went to jail for embezzlement. Well, he didn't realize he can.
He wasn't coming against me. He was coming against the
church. And you don't want to come
against the church. You don't want to do it.
I mean, I've seen more people fall into calamity because they
come against the church. Are you hearing me?
And so we won that battle and that from then on, every time I
engage the county, all of a sudden they knew who I was.
Now that worked in my favor because when I needed permits to
build stuff, I didn't get a big run around.
They could help the process. So I didn't.
You got to understand, sometimes the battles you're in is bigger
than you and it sets you up for something later so that what
you're going to have later, you can move through a little
easier. Because now all of a sudden, and
I'll never forget, I walked in there one time.
I had to get a little clearance sheet or something, so I went by
this one particular desk. And the lady, you know, when I
sat down to start filling out, she says you're Pastor Earl.
I said, yeah, she goes, man, I remember the first time you came
in here and that Interesting. I'm like, you got y'all see a
lot of people coming through the county.
Why you going to Remember Me? Right?
Well, because of how I handled the situation.
According to what I heard God say to do, it's in a shockwave
through the whole county system because all of a sudden
someone's not just eating the runaround.
Now you know there's two ways to go through the county fast.
The 1st way is have money. Just I'm telling you like it is.
I'm not telling you that our county's crooked.
I'm just saying money gets things moving.
That's all I'm saying, OK? I mean, if you're dropping
millions into this county, they're going to help move you
along. But then there's another way to
get through the county, and that's be on a God agenda.
Are you hearing me? Now they initially will try to
slow it down, but once you win, once the Lord gets the battle
for you, well, then you can continue to navigate and it sets
you up for future events. For me, it set me up for all
kinds of things, especially with the Fire Marshall.
Thank God for it. In hindsight, I'm like I I'm
glad it went this way because of the interaction I ended up
having with the Fire Marshall office based upon different
things. It allowed me to be at the top
of my game, man, whenever I was engaged, were engaged by them
and they knew who I was. So it gave me favor to be able
to navigate certain situations. Are you hearing me?
It says this in Isaiah 4054. Verse 17 says no weapon that is
formed against you will prosper in every tongue that accuses you
in judgment you will condemn. This is the heritage of the
servants of the Lord and their vindication is from me, declares
the Lord. Aren't you glad God is with you
Now you can always know that God's with you because you're
always doing His word. At the end of the day, that is
the key. The key is I'm a keeper of the
word because I'm a keeper of the word.
I'm talking about. I ain't talking about partial.
I'm talking about the whole thing.
Everything you know in Revelation, you keep it.
Now, there may be some things you don't know to keep yet, but
I'm talking about what you do know.
To keep your keeper of that word.
And you keep that word. And when you do, then God will,
you can go into places of battle and not be afraid of whatever is
in front of you. I mean, This is why David had no
issue with Goliath. Doesn't matter.
It looks bigger. Doesn't matter.
It's irrelevant. Again, there was another king
who went against a million man army and they routed them
because they trusted in the Lord.
Later on that king didn't trust in God like that and ended up
hiring another army. And the Lord got upset with him
and said seriously, you had nothing.
You had a million people coming against you.
You cried out to me and did I not deliver you?
And now you're going to go to natural.
Are you hearing me? The point is, is that you don't
have a battle that you win and then you get in pride thinking
you did it. Because at the end of the day,
anything, any victories we have is because God was with us and
you want God with you. You don't want to get out ahead
of him. You don't want to be trying to
do it in your own strength. You want to be in a be in
lockstep with God, because, again, when you're in lockstep
with God, he will fight with you.
Jeremiah 119 says it this way. And they will fight against you,
but they will not overcome you. For I am with you to deliver
you, declares the Lord. Now, I'm going to be honest with
you as a God in the realm of natural fighting.
I was not that God. I didn't care to get in fights
at all. Number one, I was small anyway,
OK? And then I didn't take any.
Unlike David, who, you know, Mackie, he was small, but he
beat everybody up. So it's really relevant.
Size doesn't matter. Ain't that right, David?
I get him. The point is, is I didn't train
myself to be that. So I avoided those conflicts as
much as I could. Period.
OK, Because I didn't trust myself.
And besides, it would hurt to get hit.
Let's just be honest. I mean, I don't look good.
I can't get this thing get messed up anymore.
I mean that's. I mean, I know I'm married up.
I mean, I get that, but at the end of the day, but when it
comes to battles with the Lord, I'm a terror.
Yeah, I mean, I'm like, in it. I mean, I'm, you're almost
picking. You almost want to pick a fight
because, you know, you realize I should get this, you know, God's
talking to me. So God picked some fights
because even in this account of Deuteronomy chapter two, he says
to him, Now you go in there and I've given you this guy, the
land. Now Moses went in with a peace
treaty. We're.
Just going to pass through. We ain't going to look to the
left or right, We're going to just stay on the road.
But the Lord knew that guy's heart and God picked a fight
because he knew he's not going to let you do anything.
Now typically they wouldn't even mess with Amorites because the
Moabites and Amorites came out a lot and the Lord wouldn't let
them mess with them boys anyway. But when it came to this guy
whose name was Warrior, he said you're going to take this guy
out and you're going to take his land.
So God went and picked a fight. OK, now God will use us to pick
fights with the world so that he can show us glory.
Or hear me, Because God sure picked a fight with Pharaoh,
right? Pharaoh put all of his trust in
all these other gods, definitely were oppressing his people.
And so God said, I'm going to show you who your gods are.
So he says one guy on a peace treaty, Same guy, right?
Just let my people go. But God knew he was going to say
no. And so in essence, you want you
want a piece of me, I'm going to give you some.
And boy, God can give it. I said God can give it.
Are you hearing me again? When we came to purchase the
mall, at the end of the day we're just a church, right?
But yet we heard we're supposed to possess this land.
So we have to now contend with an ownership that has 26 at the
time we bought 31 malls. I mean, in one sense, it's out
of your league, right? I mean, you start talking to
them concerning how to revitalize something.
You're like, if anybody knows how to revitalize, I'd be the
people that's running 31 malls. Are you hearing me?
But we revitalizing some stuff right now.
Hallelujah. The point is, God wanted us to
have it, and so we just had to here engage.
And no matter what took place, you don't yield to the left or
to the right. You just stay with the battle
because you know God's going to deliver you on the other side.
Always. And you know, in these last days
we got to not be. How can I say this?
We don't want to be timid, OK? Because first of all, God did
not give us the spirit of fear, but of power, love and of sound
mind. We don't have a spirit of
timidity. I mean, we know how to go and
conquer. We have to be able to have the
audacity to drain big. And if God tells us to do
something that's beyond ourselves, we're able to say,
fine, let's go to war. And for some of you, some of
your greatest victories that'll be ahead of you are after this
first one. Because at the end of the day,
not all of you've been here as long as some, and some of you
are just engaging in some battles.
And again, don't look at them as negative.
In fact, Paul said, consider it all joy when you get into these
tests, these trials, these types of conflicts.
Why? Because it's only going to make
you stronger. But then it'll show the world
you're strong and then they ain't going to want to cross
you. That's right.
Because at the end of the day, they know that God's with you.
Are you hearing me? Which brings me this last verse
I'm going to say today, which is Romans Chapter 8, verse 31.
Excuse me. What then shall we say to these
things? If God is for us, who's against
us? Who's against us?
I don't care who it is, period. Now how do I know if God's for
me? I mean, because again, there's a
if there that's not like God is For you see, this is the
challenge that I have with some of our worship songs is because
there's too much implication. The good news about preaching,
you know, Pastor Marcus and I, I said, you know this, the
congregation hears 2 messages, the one that you sing and the
one that I preach. The problem with the ones that
he sings is he's constrained in the lyrics.
I'm not constrained. I can explain.
OK, so again, there's a lot of songs out there that say God is
for us. Well, do you meet the if
condition? Because if the if condition was
not a factor, then why did the Holy Ghost put it in?
And this is a new covenant. This is Paul's writing who wrote
to, you know, over half of the New Testament, and he's writing
this under the unction of the Holy Ghost to let them.
Now, if God is for you, then who can be against you?
But you got to be the if. And the Bible is very consistent
in how you know that God is for you.
It's 'cause you keep His word. It's very easy.
I mean, it's simple. Yet it's amazing how many people
struggle with keeping His word, because keeping his word is just
something you do, period. That's your response.
It's your proof to God that you love Him.
You keep His word. Because again, Jesus says if you
love me, then what? You'll keep my word.
That's how Jesus defined you loved him.
It's not how you know. Many Christians try to define
it. Well, I love God.
I have a personal relationship with him, you know.
Well, are you keeping his word? Because that's how he defined
it. And if you're not keeping his
word, then you're not loving him.
You're definitely not honoring him because he loves his word,
and he exalted his word above even his name, right.
And so if God is forced because we're keepers of the word and
says we're keepers of the word, we know he is forced, then who?
Doesn't matter. Now who's who now?
Who could be your friend? That's right.
But you think you could take them out anyway?
Who could be your government? Who could be a major
corporation? Who could be the most powerful,
influential person on the planet?
But it doesn't matter. That's right.
So there's no nothing that should create fear in you unless
you're not keeping a word right. So what God was trying to do
here is God's saying, listen, you're going to have battles,
and we have them in the New Covenant.
We fight the good fight of faith.
We call those things that be not as though they were.
We're going to have to engage people that don't want anything
to do with what we're doing. And actually we'll try to stop
it. It happens.
It can even happen from within, and it does at times.
It happens from within. But at the end of the day, if
you're always maintaining your righteousness by keeping the
Word, then you know, you know without a shadow of a doubt
God's going to vindicate me. There it is.
I said God to vindicate me. He will vindicate me.
Because God's working with me.
He's working for me because I'm working His Word.
Yes. Amen.
And we're doing this thing together.
Hallelujah. Hallelujah.
Do you believe that? So God wants to place the fear
of you in spheres of influence that you have.
Meaning where people are knowing that you're with God and they
don't want to cross that, they don't want to cross that.
Now that don't mean they won't try to battle.
Because again, Rahab said, we all are afraid of you, But it
doesn't mean we're not going to go down without a fight.
She was just smart enough to know I ain't fighting.
You see, she had Wisdom Man take care of my household.
He said We'll get them all in this house and we'll leave them
alone because she's like, it's stupid to fight you.
So fearful people will fight. Just because someone's fighting
doesn't mean that they're brave, because fearful people will
fight because self preservation kicks in.
But again, if you're fighting with the Lord, then you're
guaranteed you're going to win. Amen.
So no matter what we face, no
matter what opportunities come our way, let's don't run from
the battle, let's run towards it.
Because God is doing something great in your life.
Some of you man with your parents.
You just need to go ahead and fight that good fight of faith,
period. Because they are not well with
how you're living for God right now.
And they don't understand that they're really getting against
God when they get against you. But you need to stay with the
Lord because they may have birthed you or brought you into
natural but God saved your life and he's your Lord.
Amen. Thank you so much for listening
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