Thanks for checking out the Anchor Faith Message podcast
from St. Augustine, FL.
Now enjoy this message. First Timothy chapter 4, verse
one says, but the spirit explicitly says that in latter
times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to
deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons.
Ma, Ma, ma. So again, the Spirit, the Holy
Spirit says this is going to happen.
You cannot pray this away. It's going to take place and
it's going to take place. Not with the lost or those that
are outside of God's Kingdom. They're already out of God's
Kingdom. They're already falling away.
They're not connected with God. These are people that are of the
faith, and the cause of them to fall away is what they pay
attention to. And here's the thing.
If you're not paying attention to the words, you're going to
pay attention to something else. So we let me run through some
things pretty quick with Scripture so that we can get
ahead. First, John 41 says this
delightfully love. Friends do.
Don't trust every spirit, but carefully examine what they say
to determine if they are of God. Because many false prophets have
mingled into the world. Now there are us.
There is a spirit realm. God is a spirit.
But God is not the only Spirit. I say God's not the only Spirit.
You said there are more spirits. Well, just look at yourself in
the mirror. You are a spirit.
I said you are a spirit. Inside you is a spirit.
Now the spirit in you is one of two things.
It's either dead to Christ and your Father is the devil who is
the father of lies, and everything you touch will
eventually die. Turn into shambles.
No matter how much you pursue, you cannot find peace.
You cannot cure this emptiness within you, no matter how much
you fill it with things that make you feel good or you are
alive to Christ because you've made Jesus the Lord of your
life. You're born again, and now the
Spirit in you is in Christ. And you have the third person of
the Godhead called the Holy Spirit, who comes and lives on
the inside of you and bears witness that you are child of
God. Can I get an Amen?
So we ourselves, our spirit. But then there's angels.
There are fallen angels. There's a fallen, anointed
cherub that is called the devil or Satan.
So there are those out there. Again.
When people always put God as he's doing everything, God
always does his word. But the devil comes to kill,
steal and destroy. People are giving God credit for
things. That's that Satan is doing.
Period. And anytime you get over in
Satan's territory, you're authorizing him.
Now, if you're not born again, you're on his territory.
You are his family member. He is an abusive father.
I mean, he's extremely abusive. He will verbally abuse you,
physically abuse you, sexually abuse you.
I mean, he will whip you, tear you down.
He will build you up only to strip you naked.
He don't care about you. He exploits you and uses you,
that's who. That's your daddy.
But if you're born of God, then you have a different father.
He's a heavenly father. He's a good father.
He's a righteous father. He will provide for you.
Amen. So if you're over on the devil's
side, then you court him, 'cause the wages of sin is death.
So every time you're doing sin, then you're allowing you've
you've got an open door for death and destruction to show
up. And God's not bringing that,
God's not bringing that. But when you're born of God, you
can shut the door to death, you can shut the door to the law of
sin and death, and you can move over into life and life more
abundantly then God. And when the enemy attacks you,
guess what? Your Father will come and
protect you if you fail. Not in your belief.
Are you hearing me? So we have to examine every
spirit. And so we need to have an
accurate examination. Because the problem in
Christianity is that believers aren't accurately examining
because the spirit realm is something we don't see.
And don't tell me you don't believe something you can't see.
That's a lie, because none of us see the oxygen in the room right
now. We don't see it, but you're sure
breathing it. But I don't believe it's here.
Hold your breath. Then.
Go ahead and hold your. Breath.
Come on, let's do it. Everybody hold your breath.
I want you to go at least 20 seconds.
Ready. One,
they'll do good. 20 seconds. Wow, I'm impressed.
Now, if we try 6 minutes, I don't know what the world record
is, but it's long, right? They've conditioned their body
to be at a handle, you know that.
But the majority of us, if I put us to 60 seconds, some of y'all
be be shaking, right? Right. 24 minutes.
Glory to God, wow, that's a long time.
I almost passed out saying that word. 24 minutes, right?
I mean, you're like holding on. You go to, I mean, most of them
probably, probably almost nobody in this room could go 2 minutes.
I mean, you just like shaking can bold, you know, like feel
like your insides about to explode, right?
But we don't believe in oxygen because we can't see it.
No, we have the effects. Of it.
There are plenty of things that are in the atmosphere right now
and other gases that are existing in this room right now
that we don't see. But they exist, right?
I mean, how many of you see my voice right now, but you're
hearing it, And how are you hearing it?
You know, because you're educated people.
It's called sound waves. In fact, if everyone of you
pulled your phone out right now, went to your Pandora and hit
play, whatever you music you got you have on it would tune into
that and all of a sudden all kinds of different voices would
begin to manifest in this room. We wouldn't see them, don't know
how they got here, other than we tuned in to a frequency that
allowed us to access something in the air and pull it in that
now it hits one of our senses called hearing, although we do
not see it Well, the same thing is with the Spirit.
We give God credit for stuff that God's not doing.
I'm talking about good things. Well, wow.
You know what? I got a job.
Promotion. God, He so blessed me.
The devil promote you. The devil promote you.
Right out of church, right out of your call, right out of your
marriage. He'll promote you.
He'll absolutely bless you to destroy you.
No doubt about it. And all the while you're giving
God credit and he is stripping you from behind and you don't
even know it because we have to learn how to examine accurate,
accurate examination. Amen.
Prophets 14515 says it this way. A gullible person will believe
anything, but a sensible person will confirm the facts.
Amen. And even the Bible says let
everything be confirmed by two or three witnesses.
Amen. It goes on to say in Proverbs
2712, the amplified A prudent man sees evil and hides himself
and avoids it. But the naive, who are easily
misled, continue on and are punished by suffering the
consequences of sin. Another translation of Proverbs
2712 says it this way. Wise people see trouble coming
and get out of its way, but fools go straight to the trouble
and suffer for it. The writer of Hebrews chapter 5,
verse 11 says it this way. Going down to verse 14 he says
concerning him I have much to say, I have much to say, but
it's hard to explain since you have become dull of hearing.
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have
need again of someone to teach you the elementary principles of
the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid
food. For everyone who partakes only,
say only of milk is not accustomed to the word of
righteousness, for he is a what an infant.
But solid food is for the mature, say mature, who, because
of practice, say practice, say practice, have their senses
trained to discern good and evil.
Are you hearing what I'm saying? So we see here that we need to
have an accurate examination, he said.
We are to examine the spirits. We are to test them, We are to
examine them and we. And if you haven't been trained
or taught, then you are in essence naive.
And you and being naive you will listen to any spirit and any
spirit can manipulate you to think it's God.
In fact, even the Bible says it's no wonder, for even Satan
comes as an Angel of life. He will slap quote scripture If
he quoted scripture with Jesus. He'll absolutely quote scripture
with you and give you an arsenal of scripture to keep your
thoughts of how you want this thing to be.
The essence of idolatry is you creating the image of God, the
essence of idolatry. In fact, Jesus said repent, for
the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.
That means change your thinking. One translation says, side with
my party. And Jesus is saying this.
Listen, you don't think like us. You can't even respond like us.
You don't know nothing about us because you're dead.
You separated. Your daddy is a liar.
He's been live with you. He's been abusing you, he's been
exploiting you, he's been using you.
But I want to get you over, over to my Kingdom, because this was
never how the Father intended. And I can get you out of that
mess. But if you going to get out of
that mess, I got to change who you are.
But then I'm going to have to renew your mind so you'll know
exactly what my voice is so that he don't dupe you.
Because when Jesus was tempted of the devil, his first defense
against his attack was it is written.
So the devil comes back and the next one and says what the
scripture says. And if you want to keep your
flesh, your feelings, you can find scripture to help support
it and it's idolatry. But if you want to be like God,
then he will clearly. Show you the word.
You'll have to change your thinking.
You're not changing gods. And then you'll find the image
of God of which is worthy of worship.
Are you hearing me? But here in Hebrews, he said
consider him. I have much to say.
It's hard to explain since you've become dole of hearing.
In essence, they can't examine properly because they are not
listening. Now let's talk about examination
real quick. How many?
Of you, without going having any training, feel extremely
confident to perform brain surgery.
Any of us could examine a body, OK?
Any of us could perform an examination.
Put on the gloves. Got our mask on.
Well, let's see how your heart's doing.
Got the stethoscope. You know, breathe.
I mean, I've been done that enough that I could mimic this.
Hold in, breathe out. Hold in, Breathe out, hold in,
breathe out. I have gone to my chiropractor
enough. Now I know when I'm breathing
all the way out so he can pop me and when I'm holding that breath
in. So if my wife wanted me to, I
could, I could, I could say, well, let me do an examination.
I can put my hands all up and down on her, you know, spine.
And then I know when I get to this part, I remember my
Carpenter says hold in now, hold it right.
And then he goes up like an inch or two and he says, now hold,
take a deep breath. And I hold it.
He's sitting. I put it all the way out and I
go right now. That's the table making that
sound, not my spine. So I could act like, But would I
accurately examine? No.
And this is the problem. Believers think just because
they're born again, they can all of a sudden have accurate
examination. But the Bible tells us here in
Hebrews, you cannot, he said. I got more things to say, but I
can't say them. In fact, right now you ought to
be a teacher. You should have graduated and
been well versed on how to accurately, rightly divide the
word of truth, know and discern good.
But because you're not listening, you're not allowing
the word to transform you. In fact, we know, James says, be
a doer of the word and not a hearer only.
Because when you only hear, you will be deceived.
Now why does that take place? Because the minute God speaks to
you about something and then you begin to justify why you don't
have to do it that way, you immediately move into deception.
Well, now, Lord, you know I. Do that but.
You're starting to, you're starting.
You're starting down the path of deception.
You've heard it, but you're not going to apply it.
You're not going to do what he says.
You're going to do what you say. Now that believer is deceived
and this writer is saying, listen, I can't even talk to you
about spiritual stuff. Really.
I can't even do more because at this point I do not see the
fruit of someone mature. So he goes born and says listen
at this juncture I've got to give you elementary stuff,
elementary stuff. Put that scripture back up
'cause look what it says here in verse 13.
Everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the
word of righteousness. So milk is elementary teachings.
So if all you're ever hearing is elementary teachings, the next
verse, verse 14, is telling you it's not solid food teaching.
There is a distinct difference between milk and solid food.
One translation says milk and meat.
Are you hearing me? So not every church is serving
the same meal. That's what I'm saying.
Not every church is serving the same meal.
And be and listen, we don't even do this in our preschool.
I don't serve the same meal in our preschool to our infants
milk. And when they're a little bit
older, maybe some really mushy something, it's called baby
food. We all call it that.
In fact, you call your applesauce today, not adult
food. Are you eating baby food?
Because you associate mush with, which means somebody had to
grind this down so much so that it can actually get into you.
Because if you were having to do that apple on your own, you
choke and you choke and die. So there is a a, a ministering
or teachings within the body that only leaves you as an
infant. OK, I'm going to go over here.
It only leaves you as an infant. And if you don't recognize what
those teachings are and all you want to do is hear those
teachings, then you run the risk of verse 14.
Verse 14 says, but solid food is for the because you understand
being in church 30 years doesn't make you mature.
There's no such thing as a union Christian.
Well, I've been in the church, bless God for 30 years.
Well, you may be the oldest infant we have, and I'm quite
frankly tired of changing your diapers because this is awkward.
When you were one. No problem.
Two. OK, but you're 55 now and you
want me to change you. That's absolutely abnormal.
Are you hearing me? OK, so solid food is for the
mature who, because of what practice, have their senses
trained to discern good name. Do you want to know what the
elementary teachings are? Come on.
Does anybody want to know what they are?
I mean, don't what you want to know if you were stuck in
infancy. Amen.
Now, this ain't going to feel real.
Well to everyone, but that's OK. We'll get you past it in the
name of Jesus. So this is.
Hebrews chapter one, five, verse 14.
You understand translators put chapters and verses.
Paul had a letter, so the next paragraph, which happens to be
chapter 6, verse one, is continuing the thought.
So let's put up Hebrews chapter 6, verse one.
I didn't give it to you guys, but we're going to do it and
we'll probably take it all the way to verse 03.
Verse three, it says this and they've get it up ready,
therefore leaving, say, leaving. So again, should we stay there?
Now that doesn't mean we do not go back to them.
We will. In fact, this verse will even
say that. But we're not supposed to stay
there. Here here is teaching in the
church that keeps everyone a an infant.
Therefore leaving the elementary teachings about the Christ, let
us press on the maturity, not laying again a foundation of
repentance from dead works and faith towards God.
That is simply called the salvation message.
If all you ever hear every Sunday is how someone can be
born again and the message is always turned where its emphasis
is just about being born again, then that is a preschool church
verse two of instructions about washings and laying on of hands.
Washings are elementary teachings.
Being baptized, we're going to baptize people today that are
born again. Should they want to follow in
water baptism, we will baptize them then.
That is an elementary teaching. That is an outward expression of
an inward act. To be water baptized.
Another one is the washing of the water of the Word.
That's a washing. That's an elementary teaching
that you should let the Word renew your mind.
That's elementary. You know what else is the
baptism of the Holy Spirit? To be baptized in the Holy
Spirit, whatever is speaking in tongues is an elementary
principle. Paul in Acts chapter 19 got him
born again and he he said now when you got born again, did you
get filled with the Holy Ghost? Whatever is Speaking of tongue
at the same time, this is not you don't get filled with the
Holy Ghost, whatever is Speaking of tongues because you're
mature. It is baby stuff.
That's baby stuff. OK, he goes on and says this and
the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgement.
Now, oh, let's do the laying on hands.
Laying on hands is healing the sick.
Or again, you could receive the baptism of Holy Spirit through
the laying on of hands. That's elementary.
Period. These are elementary.
And if all we preached, then I would have a preschool.
And you know what that means. I'm guaranteeing that you cannot
discern between good and evil, which really means that I'm
keeping you dependent on my ability.
Now, I didn't say this, This is the Bible.
That's funny. You know, there's times that we
really love the Bible. We say that's what the Bible
says until it starts to encroach on things in our life.
They realize, wait a minute, that's me now, that's what the
Bible says. I'm not saying this.
Now the resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment.
This is anyone who's preaching that if you do not make Jesus
the Lord of your life, you will be eternally judged.
So when people say, well, if God was such a loving God, I cannot.
Believe he would throw people in hell.
He does not. He never will.
He doesn't do that. What does he do?
He gives you what you want. And for those who don't want
God, they get the lake of fire. So those that are going to hell
are, the Bible clearly calls it the second death or the lake of
fire. They are choosing to go because,
again, God will let you do. Whatever you want to do.
But he'll hold you accountable for whatever you do because he
is life and if you do not do life, then you get what you
want, death. And he will give it to you
though grieving that you rejected him because he never
wanted you to go there. So for everyone cast into the
lake of fire, he has a testimony.
I never wanted them there. I did everything I could to keep
them from there. I laid down my own life so they
wouldn't have. And yet in all that, they still
said I don't want you. I'm going to do what I want to
do. That is an elementary print
teaching. He says, and this will do if God
permits, Meaning will review the foundation.
I have no problem with coming and doing remedial training, but
if that's all we're discussing, then what we do is we are not
getting to solid food. We are not having conversations
to maturity. We are not giving you things to
practice because at the end of the day, if you're going to be a
champion, you're going to practice, OK, You know, the
Flagler girls had a game of women had a game on Saturday.
They won Hallelujah and but again they practice.
Now, I'm going to tell you right now I can play basketball, but
horribly. Right now, I'm just going to be
honest with you. Stay with me, OK?
Please do not check out with me. In our society today, I could
identify as one of them, enroll in Flagler and decide to play.
Now they don't want me on the team.
I'm just. Going to say that.
But I could do that because I can dribble the ball.
I've made lay UPS before. I've made some pretty incredible
shots. But at the end of the day, when
I get out there, I'm not I I'm not practice.
At best they're going to say please, can this person get off
the court because they are hindering us?
Right. And again, the reason why a lot
of times the world don't want to get on our.
Team oh y'all don't want to hear this.
Because Christianity's act like a bunch of Divas that don't go
to practice and they just won't show up on game day, but they
can't perform on game day because they ain't gonna.
Practice. They don't know the plays, They
don't know what the enemy's going to do.
They don't know strategy. They ain't watch the film and
you go like, Oh well, just because they put me on the team,
I mean, seriously, I do not believe that the Flagler women's
team would say, you know what, we're OK with someone coming up,
being recruited, coming to our college, being enrolled.
We've they, the school has accepted them and we've accepted
them as a player. But they never hang out with the
team. They never show up except for
game day. And they're saying, put me in,
be like, what? And then when they're they're
messing up the plays and doing everything, they'd be like,
what's wrong with you? Well, they know what's wrong
with them. You're not practicing.
You've not been trained how to handle the team.
We knew they were going to get in the post that way.
We knew that this was their start.
We knew we needed to go to to, you know, either a zone or man
to man. But they don't know why because
they've been laying up and they're saying I got my uniform,
I'm on the team, I'll just show up when I show up, and then and
then half the time we don't even show up for church.
Oh, you. Only want to hear that it's
fine. I'll pick which games I want to
be. At you're going to.
Pick which games you want to be at and you want the Lord to say,
yeah, I want to use you. He's like, you just sit right
here. Now I'm putting the mature
people in the game. I mean, we've created a society
where everybody's got to participate.
I'm telling what, God, he's not putting everybody in
participation. He's like you're on the team but
you're never getting in the game till you get somewhere where you
can actually handle the enemy. Until then, stay on the sideline
and learn from these that are well equipped.
But if I put you in, you going to give it to the team.
I mean, they would be so susceptible that they get the
ball in right and they slap. I mean like what, 25 seconds
left and here's, you know, the play, all they got to do is
inbounded to their team. But one of the other players go
give it to me and they hand it to him.
Because they're not trained, Said That sounds ludicrous.
I mean a Christianity. Some people do some ludicrous
stuff totally outside the will of God.
Just say Amen anyway. Well, the Lord, you know, I just
really believed that he was the one.
And I moved in with him, you know, And we were sleeping
around before we ever got married, you know, And you're
born again. Where did it?
Where? Would God have ever given you
that instruction? He never would have you were.
Listening to the wrong voice, honey, our gentlemen, I mean, we
we had this conversation with someone when we were eating one
day. It's the only negative thing of
being a pastor. Known that people will show up
sometimes and then just regurgitate what's going on in
your life because and I'm smiling, I'm generally
concerned. But in my mind I'm thinking,
Lord, do I tell them what they need to hear or do I just like,
they ain't going to listen, So I'm just going to listen.
And then I just like, I pray for you because I got to pray.
You get revelation because my answer is not going to work
because you ain't going to do what I want to do.
Because you sure ain't been doing what God wants to do.
Amen. And your life's a mess now
because you listened to the wrong voice, Because you've not
been in the Bible, You've not been trained.
You've not been in church? When I'm going to heaven.
When I die. This ain't about going to
heaven, It's about becoming a child of God now, all right?
I told Mr. Brown because he told me today he was going to go 45
minutes. I said no problem, I'm going
three hours anyway. However, he did not go 45
minutes, so I'm going to have to probably pull back a little bit.
So we better drive on 1st Corinthians 3.
One through 3 says this, and I, brethren, could not speak to you
as a spiritual man, but as men of flesh, as the infants in
Christ. I gave you milk to drink, not
solid food for you. You were not yet able to receive
it. Indeed, even now you're not able
to receive it, for you are still what if you're fleshly, you
can't receive it. Is that God's fault?
It's not. It's not God's fault.
It's your laziness to be trained right got to be trained got and
you got to start somewhere. Let's say you got to start
somewhere, he goes on to say. For since there is jealousy and
strife among you, are you not fleshly?
Are you not walking like mere men?
In essence saying you have the Spirit of God in you, you have
the reigning spirit in you, bearing witness with your
spirit. You're a child of God and yet
you act like the rest of the world.
So what does this tell us? Being born again alone does not
automatically mean you can know the difference between good and
evil. You can be born of God and have
the Holy Spirit in you and still listen to the wrong voices.
And it creates great confusion to the world.
Because when they want, then when they get hungry to know
God, they can't really see him because you're listening to
other stuff. Because you're not submitting
yourself to the training that the Bible clearly communicates
that you should enlist in that you're being recruited to.
So that you can be a champion. And win every time.
Amen. I mean, I love.
Those one commercials, I don't know which which one it is now
and y'all can tell me when you see it, but you know, it's like
Charles Barkley's there and he's like, it's as easy as that,
right? And he got the little kids and
the kids like I picked Charles Barkley, you.
Seen that one and he's like, yeah, right.
It's like this is easy as that. I mean, who's not going to pick,
you know, the the, the guy that's going to slam on all of
the four foot people? This is easy.
Throw it up to the guy. Well, you understand when you
get in the Kingdom of God, you want to get around people that
are the obvious ones who's mature, the one who can handle
adversity, the one who's not led by their emotion, the one who
gets trained in it. Because in that case, you're
like, I want you on my team, I want you.
So he goes on to say in Galatians chapter one starting
in verse 6. I'll read out the Amplified real
quick. It says yes.
I'm surprised, Paul said and astonished that you were.
You are so quickly turning renegade and deserting Him Who
invent, who invited and called you by the grace unmerited favor
of Christ the Messiah, and that you are transferring your
allegiance to a different, even an opposed gospel, opposition
gospel. Not that there is or could be
any other genuine gospel, but there are obviously some who are
troubling and disturbing and bewildering you with a different
kind of teaching, which which they offer as a gospel and want
to pervert and distort the gospel of Christ into something
which it is absolutely not. But even if we are an Angel,
look what Paul says. But even if we are, an Angel
from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to and
different from that which we preach to you.
Let him be accursed, doomed to destruction, devoted to
destruction, punishment, eternal punishment, as we said before.
So I say now again, if anyone preaching to you a gospel
different from or contrary. To that which you received, let
him be accursed. So he's Paul's letting him know
you're a church. We preach to you.
You made Jesus the Lord of your life, and now all of a sudden,
because later on he goes into chapter 3 and he says this to
the church, who has bewitched you or who has cast a spell?
You have the Holy Ghost, a reigning spirit, and you're
listening to totally different voices.
He wouldn't just say, well at least you're going to go to
heaven when you die. Praise God.
You know how many churches say, well, you know all that stuff
doesn't really matter. All that matters is that you've
asked Jesus into your heart. That is a lie.
In fact, that is a doctrine of demons.
How do I know that? Where in the world would God
ever say you don't need to know me beyond salvation?
Only the Devil would set up the church for that.
Oh, by the way, you actually don't need to know your father.
That's right. Preach it.
Yeah, yet the very first message Jesus publicly preaches this
repent. And repent is not a religious
word. It literally means change your
thinking and you understand there's a lot we got to change.
There's a lot of subjects, there's a lot of life issues
that we may have. We are going to have to change.
And God, through His word, will give us the answer to
everything. He'll say, look at relationships
this way now, and look at this this way and look at employment
this way and look at this. Because when you get it from the
Kingdom perspective, everything changes.
How you function in your natural family, you'll change it how you
function among marriages, You'll change how you do it with your
children. You'll change it how you work,
how you pursue life. You'll change when you get it in
the Kingdom. Perspective.
But you've got to say, what's your will, Lord, what do you
say? How do you do it?
Because your life Are you hearing me?
So first, Thessalonians 521 says.
But examine everything carefully.
Hold to that which is fast and good Again, If you're not
trained in it, you can't hold to something that you can't
discern. Now I get it.
You're trying. But trying is not going to keep
the devil from destroying you. Not when God's given a clear.
Path of how you can overcome and know the difference between good
and evil. He's telling you.
You got to get to solid food. You have to get to line upon
line, precept upon pre. You have to know the Father.
You got to. Seek him.
Jesus even said seek first the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom of God is not a one way ticket to heaven.
It can't be heaven because then Jesus would be a liar because he
makes a distinguishment between the two and we all know the
prayer our Father. Come on, say it with me.
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in well,
If the Kingdom can be on the earth like it's in heaven, then
Kingdom can't be heaven. So when we say seek first, the
Kingdom that's not seek first getting saved.
And going to heaven, Noah is seeking the Kingdom, and the
Kingdom can have involvement right now.
In fact, if you actually study the scripture, it's always been
about God being here. Even when Adam, who had no sin,
was in a perfect world with no sin, him and and Eve God came
down in the garden. There's no indication that he
ever called Adam up to heaven. He didn't need to because their
worlds were the same. Their words were the same.
Now, I'm not saying that when you die, you don't go to heaven.
You're obviously going to go to heaven when you die, because the
Bible is very clear. To be absent from the body is to
be present. Where is the Lord presently at?
But is he staying there? He is not.
If you've read the back of the book, if you've actually read
the back of the book. And I'm not talking about that
religious statement of the back. I've read the back of the book
and we win. They don't even know what they
won because they don't even know what they won now.
They don't know what they've won now, much less what they win
back then because they're going to have a hard time when Jesus
shows up, puts his foot down, rules on the on this planet for
1000 years, everybody thinks when the rapture of the churches
we'll be in heaven forever. It doesn't say that, said we
coming back then he's going to bring his new Jerusalem down out
of heaven to the earth. Glory to God.
Why? Because this is a global
takeover of the Kingdom of God. It is the greatest government
ever and we are citizens of it. We are ambassadors in it.
This thing that I'm presenting is not a get out of hell free
card. This is about becoming a child
of the king where you have access to his whole realm right
now in the earth and it will take care of all your trouble.
Wow, I'm sick of religion too. But I examine.
Jesus said this in John 1613. Help me, Lord.
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you
into all truth. He will not speak of his own
initiative, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he
will disclose you what is to come.
He will He will glorify me, for he will take of mind and
disclose to you. Notice that Jesus was only
communicating in the earth what he heard from the realm of
heaven. In essence, he was submitted to
his Father and he says, I am showing you these things.
Listen, if you're going to change your thinking, I'm going
to have to talk to you. And I'm not telling you what I
want to tell you. This is not my opinion on the
matter. I'm telling you what dad says.
I'm telling you what God says, and I'm showing you how God
wants to talk to you and how he wants you to function in the
earth. Are you hearing me?
So how is it if Jesus said, now listen, I don't speak of my own
initiative, but whatever I hear, the Holy Ghost, whatever he
hears, he speaks because the spirit of truth that's in you,
that is the reigning spirit. He only tells you what Jesus
says. Jesus himself said, I don't
speak of my own initiative. Then he said when the Holy Ghost
comes, he's only going to speak on his own initiative, right?
And as a result of that, you're going to be hearing from heaven
on how to function in the earth because this Kingdom is going to
come, and it can come spiritually.
Now, everything associated with that that's necessary for you to
fulfill your purpose is available to you as you believe
God and and listen to only the reigning spirit.
Because the reigning spirit is not saying, well, let me tell
you what I I mean, you know from heaven, they're saying, but I'm
with you, man. I I know how you feel.
The Holy Ghost is never going to side with your feelings or even
your way of handling it. He's going to say this is life
to handle. This is how we do it.
This is what Heaven says about it.
OK, so he's going to speak to you.
But there's another way that he helps train you, because he
doesn't just do it by himself, because he knows you have a
deficit. What do I mean by that?
You've lived. In the natural so long that
you've made so many decisions based upon 5 senses.
Now think about this for a moment, because again, we're
talking about believe in things we don't see.
Why is it that we can wake up one day and feel really elated,
happy, excited, but then another day wake up and feel like we
don't even want to get out of bed?
What? In what?
We don't even see it. But in our mind, we we have this
like my body's the same. I mean, we don't we're not
suffering some sickness. We're just one day.
You all of a sudden you feel depressed.
You're like, what's? What's?
Going on. And it's unseen and yet you'll
yield to it. Tell people that you're feeling
depressed or down. Sometimes you'll be angry and
you'll be really mean to people that two days before you were
laughing with, ignoring them, and these are unseen things that
you're following. You're making choices.
You're incapable of putting that down and doing the right thing.
Well, the Holy Spirit will talk to you in a realm that's not
seen and begin to talk to you and say if you do it this way,
it bring life to it, It definitely deliver you.
Are you hearing me? So because we've been in that
realm for so long, he knows that we need help in this realm.
That's why it says in Hebrews 1317 Amplified classic.
He said obey your spiritual leaders and submit to them
continually recognizing their authority over you.
For they are constantly keeping watch over your souls and
guarding your spiritual welfare as men and women who will have
to render an account of their trust.
Do your part too. Let them do this with gladness
and not with signing and groaning, for that would not be
profitable to you either. Another translation says obey
your spiritual leaders. Recognize their authority, for
they keep watch over your soul without resting, since they have
to give an account to God for their work, so it will benefit
you when you make their work at pleasure and not a heavy burden.
Now again, I can always go to athletics.
A coach is designed to bring the best out of the athlete.
But the coach is going to say stuff that the athlete at the
time are in the performing of whatever position they're in may
not see deficits, different things, techniques, OK, you
know, when it comes to fighting, someone said, man, you, you
always drop your right hand, you're always dropping it,
you're always dropping it. And they don't think they're
dropping it. They don't feel like they're
dropping it, but yet they're on the outside examining, watching
and saying wait a minute, OK, come over you.
You're dropping that. You know your golf swing.
You're you're lifting your head up.
You're picking up your shoulders.
No, I'm not picking up my. You're picking up your show.
No, I'm not. I mean, I'm telling you, no,
you're messing up then. Good.
Thank God for cameras now. And you know, you watch and we
can go back. Film and say, yeah, you you did
that. Yep, you're right.
I did that. I did that right.
And it exposes. And why does it expose?
See, when Christians all of a sudden get exposure of things
they're not doing right, we get angry.
But that's what infants do. That's what infants do.
They throw temper tantrums. They get mad because I want it.
But you're not getting it. Because I know what's best
because this right here ain't going to get you through in
life. I'm I'm preparing you so that
when you are by yourself and the enemy comes you going to be able
to overcome. And again in our society we
allow coaches to scream, yell at the AT our children and we even
enforce them and back them. But then when it comes to your
pastor, well, that lets us know whether you had infancy or not.
I mean, I've lost quite a few preschoolers in my lifetime, but
those that want to go on, I'm saying that's a whole another
ball game. Why?
Because it's like train me, come on, train me.
And then they take self responsibility because they've
learned how to be trained and how they can maintain and how.
Because again, I am disciplined enough to do things in my life
that I don't need anyone. But there are certain areas I
cannot get stronger in unless someone's there to help me.
I will always plateau in the weight room if I don't have a
spotter, and the intent of a spotter is to help me when I get
under a weight I cannot do and I'm not insecure to know it's
not going to go up. Would you spot me?
Well then why are you doing it? Why are you trying to do
something you can't do? Well, if you spot me eventually
this weight, I'll do without you.
And we'll go on to greater things.
Well, in the church, if you understand that your apostle and
your pastor and your teacher and the prophet and the evangelist
are equipping you so that you then can become the greatest
mature individual as a church. And we can do way more together
than we can ever do individually.
And as a team, we impact people's lives because they can
look at us and say, my gosh man, they always overcome.
And get the victory. Well, you understand we are with
an organization that is undefeated.
Cause the true Church of God has never lost a battle.
They're undefeated. They're only victorious.
And you know in the world you hate the person that is always
winning the championship. But if you're on the
championship team, I mean, seriously, who goes and says,
well, I really feel bad for them.
We've won this championship 10 years in a row, hadn't lost yet.
I know every, you know, I kind of feel bad.
I got ten rings. Now I'm about to put them on my
toes this year, right. I hate it.
You know, let's just lose 1. No one does that.
Not if you're on the winning team.
I mean when you're on the street.
That one coach at UConn, they won like what, 82 games or
something undefeated. I'm like, you understand the the
UConn team was saying? We don't want to be the one that
loses. They didn't want to be the team
that broke the streak. So for them, they weren't, like,
feeling sorry for the teams that came in.
They're like, let's keep this championship going.
Well, you understand, the church were undefeated people because
we have the greater one on the inside.
We have the reigning spirit. And when we train ourselves with
the word of God, then we'll overcome everything, anything in
life. And here's the thing, you can
get on this team as a freshman, you can come on this team and
maybe you ain't playing today, but just stay with the team,
'cause we gonna give you some game time.
We gonna train you. We will get you to understand
not that wasn't the voice of God.
No, that wasn't God. Don't cut if you don't get upset
when I say God. Didn't say that to you.
God didn't say that to you. That's not out of his playbook.
I know it's playbook. And again now if you resist what
I want to do my own thing, well, you're not the coach.
You're the St. now. Once you develop, start
developing some maturity, then God will say, you know what, go
ahead and tell him this and coach will realize that's a
great play. And that's happened on multiple
occasions because why we only want to get the victory.
Can I? Can I get an Amen?
So we have to examine 1st Thessalonians 521 says.
So let me close it down. But first Thessalonians 5 and
we'll stop here. I have some more stuff, but
we'll just come back later. He says this now to get context.
If you don't say, examine things carefully, hold fast to that
which is good. It's set in this context.
First Thessalonians. We'll go back to verse 12 and
I'm going to read out their passion.
It says, dear brothers and sisters, make sure that you show
your deep appreciation for those who cherish you and diligently
work as ministers among you. For they are your leaders who
care for you, teach you, and stand before the Lord on your
behalf. You understand any correction or
adjustments we're making in your life to get you to maturity is
only because the chief, the great, the head of the church,
is saying, I want my players doing this.
I need you to go talk to so and so, because we're not going to
be able to get them off the bench if they keep acting like
that. Are you hearing me?
He goes on and says this. He says they value you with
great love because of their service to you.
Let peace reign among yourselves.
We appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, to instruct those
who are not in their place of battle.
Be skilled at gently encouraging them who feel themselves
inadequate. Be faithful to stand your
ground. Help the weak to stand Again, be
quick to demonstrate patience with everyone.
Man, look at this. So again, all together we come
together. We we instruct you out of place.
You understand when you watch a team, whether it's basketball,
volleyball, football, whatever. And one of the teammate
realized. You got out of the You're in the
wrong spot. I mean, I've seen defensive
backs go back after somebody gets burned for it.
He's like, you were supposed to be here before they ever make us
to the sideline, to the coach. You blew the play.
This was the play. You missed your assignment.
You cost us. But that's all right.
Let's get focused. We can come back because here
with the church, it doesn't matter.
A righteous man may fall seven times, but what he gets up, we
rise up over your mistake. That's all right.
But we go talk about it because we want to move on to maturity.
Because if you do not do the training, you are going to
entertain doctrines of demons and seducing spirits.
It is guaranteed that if you stay in as an in an infant
state. You will be deceived and you're
going to entertain other thoughts because you can't
determine the different voices. Are you hearing me?
Verse 15 says resist revenge and make sure that no one pays back
evil and place of evil, but always pursue doing what is
beautiful to one another. And to all the unbelievers, let
joy be your continual feast. Make your life a prayer, and in
the midst of everything be always giving thanks, for this
is God's perfect plan for you in Christ.
Never restrain or put out the fire of the Holy Spirit.
And don't be one who scorns prophecies, but be faithful to
examine them by putting them to the test.
And afterwards hold tightly to what has proved to be right.
Because you can do that. Verse 22.
Avoid every appearance of evil. There it is.
Now you can recognize. Wait a minute, that ain't as
good as it looks like. It's actually evil.
Now may the God of peace and harmony set you apart, making
you completely whole, and may your entire being, spirit, soul
and body be kept completely flawless in the appearing of our
Lord Jesus, the anointing one, the one who calls you by name is
trustworthy and thoroughly complete for his work.
I don't believe anyone who has been recruited to be on a
athletic program or business, whatever wants to go to an
organization that is basically saying, well, we're going to
help you fail here. You know, we're going to hire
you so that you lose all your money, become bankrupt and and
and ultimately unemployed. In fact, our goal is to make you
homeless, right? So we're offering you this
position. Nobody does that, right?
Nobody goes to an athletic program and say, listen, we're
going to do our very best to win no games this year.
So even when we win, we're going to do stuff to lose the game.
OK, how many signed up for that? No, we're not.
How much more than in the body of Christ should we not say,
listen, I've come to win, I've come to win and live a life of
winning because he won. He's already done the work.
Then. What I mean by that is he's put
in the price that gets us in to him so that now we can bear
fruit of him. Because we train and because we
train and we're studiers of the word rightly divided, then we
know how to hear, We know how to respond because there's a lot
going on in the world. And I would agree with a lot of
stuff being said about misinformation.
There's a lot of misinformation about Jesus Christ.
That's right, a lot of misinformation about his church
and a lot of people who are. Assuming Jesus is who he.
Is or what he is because of what people are doing and acting and
behaving right? But when you get hungry, God
will show you him and he'll introduce you to a group of
people that always win in life not.
Free from challenges. Not free from challenges.
We are the greatest. Come from behind people.
On the face of the planet, it can look like we're being
whipped and then we'd come back and dominate.
And there's many games we just absolutely stomp them and they
wish they never had gone right again.
Who gets bored of that? What team would put in their
second third string and say don't do the plays, just lay
down? I mean, if their string is
scoring every time, Oh, well, what?
I mean, they ain't been playing. We're going to harness them now.
Run it up, coach. Leave no doubt.
That's how my God is. Run it up.
Leave no doubt. That's who we play for, that's
who we serve and by being trained, we're going to know the
difference. But when you're not, you're
guaranteed to be deceived. Thank you so much for listening
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