Here is the link to Part One

Romans 8:26-28 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.  Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.

All things work together for good is only true if the WHOLE verse is applied.  That Christians would only receive good is not accurate, there are bad things that happen to Christians.  When Grandma Jones gets cancer we cannot look at her and say, “All things work together for good.” That would be rather crass, for having cancer is not good from Grandma Jones’ point of view.  That would not be a helpful comment.  Yes, good could come out of her having cancer, but God would not give her cancer just so He could produce good out of it.

We need to take the whole verse in context.  The topic is prayer, and when we pray to learn God’s will.  When we do not know how to pray for a situation, the Holy Spirit helps us to pray, sometimes with groanings which cannot be uttered.  The Holy Spirit, who is God, knows the purpose and will of God, and can help us to pray, sometimes it is nonsyllabic, not intelligible to us communication.  Groans, tears, no words, of the Spirit.  It is a prayer out of our Spirit, and can cause us to travail.  We pray this way when we are brought to a place where our words are not enough, or we are praying for someone else and and we need to get in the Spirit so that we are praying what the person needs, not what we think they need.  We want to agree with the Perfect Will of God.  This kind of prayer can be quick or it can be a concentrated time of prayer.  When we intercede from the Spirit, we enter the deep place of God.  God wants us to come to Him, and while He can, He does not always choose to come up to our shallow level of things. Sometimes we want to pray just 30 seconds and figure that we got it, but sometimes God wants to spend time with us.

Verse 27 tells us that the Spirit HIMSELF intercedes in our hearts.  He knows the Word of the Spirit that we need to pray. The Holy Spirit knows what God is thinking, for the Holy Spirit knows the Mind of God.  The Holy Spirit makes intercession for us. 

Proverbs 20:27 The spirit of a man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all the inner depths of his heart.

God’s wisdom reaches into our hearts and souls and knows us.  We don’t always know God’s timing, our what we ought to pray, but the Holy Spirit knows.  He makes intercession for us.  We are weak.  The Holy Spirit intercedes between us and the Father.  He helps to reconcile the Mind of God and the Heart of the saints. 

The soul of man is the mind, will and emotions.  The heart of man, the Spirit of man, the pure you that is born again and has the ability to talk with God, but what God tells our spirit is unfortunately filtered through our soul – our mind, will and emotions. 

Does the Father, God have emotions – yes.  The father is a Spirit, and the Spirit has emotions (He can be grieved.)  What we need to do is get to the place where our Spirit is telling our emotions how to feel.  Who is the boss?  When we feel ourselves out of control do we go with our feelings or do we let our Spirit tell us to change our perception and get happy.  We want to get our mind, emotions and will to be subject to our Spirit man, not our natural man.

When God was angry at the Israelites, He told Moses that He had to work up His anger.  God was in charge of His emotions, His emotions were not in charge of Him.  And He was able to change His emotional reaction due to the intercession of Moses.

When we tell ourselves we will have a happy day, we change our perception.  If we say a negative word, something can rise up in you and remind you that we do not talk like that.  We have to learn to listen to what messages we are telling ourselves, and when they are negative, to repent, and then go on with the truth of God.

There are thoughts and feelings and ideas that we have that are not the Holy Spirit’s plan for us.  One simple example has to do with colds.  How often do we tell ourselves when someone has a cold around us that we are going to catch that cold.  We need to rebuke those kinds of thoughts, we don’t have to catch anything.  If we catch it, we can drop it.  We need to pray to the Father and believe that we can get up and be healed. 

Are you having a good day?  Pastor Don told us that he determines that He will have one.  He said that we are not to wait until we feel that the day is good before we decide we are having a good day.  That we need to claim that, in spite of circumstances.

Verse 27 tells us that all things work together for good, ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD.  Verse 26 tells us that we don’t always know how to pray, but the Spirit of God makes intercession for the saints ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD.  We are not always certain how to pray for ourselves, much less others.  Sometimes when we are praying for others, we are not praying in agreement with them.  We are praying our will, but not their will, or God’s will for them.  It is not praying in agreement if someone is praying for complete healing for a person, and all they can believe for is that the doctor’s medicine will work over time.  We need to agree in prayer. 

The Holy Spirit sometimes is looking for someone willing to be open to let Him intercede through us, and we may not even know who we are praying for, the situation or the result, we are just willing to let the Holy Spirit work through us. 

We are to have dominion on the earth according to the covenant God made with Adam (the Adamic Covenant).  We have dominion over all creatures and living things.  But sometimes we forget that we have that dominion.  We need to get above ourselves and pray in the Holy Spirit and let the Holy Spirit use us to pray God’s will on the earth.  When we are obedient that way we are sharing the Work of the Kingdom.  God sometimes gives us a Word of Wisdom about what we are praying, and sometimes when He gives permission we can share that. Other times we are not certain what it is that He is doing through us.

All things work together for good, verse 28 to those who are CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE.  We can pray specific things and situations.  Sometimes circumstances, to our fleshly mind, do not look as if they can work out to the good, but if we keep the criterion in mind – who love Him and are called according to His purpose, THEN all things work together for the good. 

When we say that situations that are caused by satan are caused by God we are not speaking the truth.  When Paul and Silas were put in jail, it was not done by Jesus, but satan wanted them in jail to stop their ministry.  Instead, what satan meant for harm, God turned to good.  It was not good that they were in jail, but the end result, the saving of the jailer, his family and the establishing of a church was good.

Romans 8:29-30 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

When we pray along God’s will, we make ourselves available to be used by Him. Jesus prayed the perfect will of God, remember He told God, “Not My will, but Thy will be done.”

God needs intercessors on earth to make things happen.  God will not go against His word, and when He gave Adam dominion over the earth, God cannot overstep that dominion without our asking Him to.  God puts His word above Himself.

Verse 28 tells us that God has a specific purpose, and He is willing to let us intercede.  If we do not pray according to God’s will, then God will seek another saint who will be willing to pray according to God’s will.  Sometimes we can have a burden to pray, perhaps cry or feel the need to pray and we know it isn’t for us, but for someone else.  The way we know that is that once the prayer is prayed, then that particular mood is lifted from us. 

A true intercessor will not get his or her flesh involved, God will use them, and then they get on with their lives. 

To illustrate how God foreknew and predestines, Pastor Don had someone stand on a chair.  That person had a view of everyone at the table, each person representing a moment of time.  God can watch a person at any point for God is outside of time, and He can see if they are staying in the perfect will of God, or if they have gotten off track.  In God’s awareness outside of our time, God can arrange for circumstances to come to help a person get back to the perfect will of God.  Since the person is going from moment to moment, at each moment they are making choices that are free will, but because God knows the end from the beginning and is not tied to our clock time, He sees the whole picture so He foreknows what we will choose, but we are still walking out the choice.

God can call us at different moments and times to fulfill different purposes.  We have a mission, and God has a perfect will for our lives.  God wants us to do what we want to do.  God gives us the desires of our heart, and He places those desires into our hearts.  When we walk in His perfect will we are doing the desires of our heart. We can get pulled off of His perfect will, and the God helps us to regain His perfect will if we choose to yield to Him.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Romans 8:31-32 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?

We get all things through prayer, and when we pray in the Holy Spirit, God will bring all things together.  The greatest good is to wait on God.

Psalm 27:14 Wait on the LORD; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart;  wait, I say, on the LORD!

This kind of waiting is an active waiting, waiting for the manifestation of God.  To do our due diligence, not just sit and wait.  We must wait in patience, expecting and hopeful.  How we wait is important.

Romans 8:33-34 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

Jesus and the Holy Spirit both intercede for us.

Romans 8:35-36 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

The reason is the love or Christ, so the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Christ will intercede for us using a saint who is praying for another saint.  Our prayers for each other are important.  Pastor Don shared that he had a praying grandmother. .  We have an army of witnesses, people who have gone before us, praying for us.  We may have had someone we don’t even know intercede for us.

Romans 8:37-39 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We then spent a long period in prayer and intercession.  The Holy Spirit moved so powerfully in our midst that night.

Praying your day is awesome.

Heather

Today you can choose your medium.  Below is the video of this sermon.  The first few seconds is a test pattern and the video is 30 minutes long.  If you would rather read, I have included the slightly edited closed captioning for the video.  I tend to get rid of a few repetitions and make it into paragraphs for easier reading.  Remember [ ] brackets are what the congregation says.  Three dots … means a pause in the dialogue. I included the video because of the passion with which this was taught.  Sometimes words on a page do not do justice to the teaching.

This blessed me so much.  I pray your weekend is awesome.

Heather

SAY AMEN

SHOW 104

IT’S ALL ABOUT HIM

9/14/08

The battle had been fierce and there were many slain and laid on the battlefield. They were carrying the wounded and the broken bodies bringing them to a place where they could medically take care of them and minister to them.  There was this lieutenant who was trained in medical things and he had gotten hurt.  But, because he was well connected back in the states, they didn’t put him in the tents with the other men.  They put him in a separate place far from the rest of the soldiers.  Because he was selfish, immature, well connected, and because he understood medical things, he was giving the nurses a hard time.  He was demanding, “I should get more attention.  You should be bringing me this, you should be taking care of that.  Can’t you see, I’ve got a wounded leg?” One of the nurses, put up with it for days.  She finally got sick of it and she gave him a crutch and she said, “Come, with me.”  She hiked him down the path to the other tent…and said, “Go inside.”  The young man hobbled inside. His leg was wounded, but he saw on the cot to the right of him the man had no arm.  The next cot, he saw the man had no legs.  To the next cot, he saw a guy who had a huge cavity blown into his chest.  He heard the moaning and groaning of the men that were in way worse shape than he.  By the time he got to the end of the tent, after seeing all of this, with a crutch in one hand…he reached over, began taking medical supplies off the table, and asking the nurses what can I do to help?…What can I do…to help?…

Today’s message will help you, but it will be difficult for some of you because you are still like the young man in the tent.  Worried about your wounds, feeling well connected…and wondering, what about me?  Is somebody going to take care of my stuff?…Is somebody going to realize how wonderful I am and how well connected I am?  And don’t you see I’m hurting and I’m in pain?…But there comes a place when we have to realize that this song, (Heather’s comment – It’s all about You is the song)  is a cry from the heart of someone. That when he wrote it,… he had finally had to come to grips with reality.   That it wasn’t all about him.  That it was about God.  It’s about Jesus Christ.  We’ve sung this song now in the Body of Christ, for over 10 years…And the other day as the men were singing it at the meeting, as the tears were welling up in my eyes, the anointing of the teacher rose up in me and said, “But have you taught that?  And is it in Scripture?”…Is it in scripture that it is all about Him?  And that it’s really not all about us? 

The Church has failed to get the message across because we’ve tried to give people the Gospel that if you come to Jesus, he will take care of all your stuff.  Which then puts us at the center focus that I’m going to come and get saved because it is all about me…And I want to belong to a church that realizes that when I walk in the door, it’s all about me.  Matter of fact, I’m looking for a pastor that, that figures it out, that it really is all about me.  I am.  I’m looking a pastor that never, never offends me, never insults me, never tries to get me to volunteer to do something I don’t want to do.  I want a pastor that never hurts my feelings, or ever says anything wrong, or realizes that when I call, he’d better be there. [laughter]  He’d, he’d better be there when I call.  And if I have to wait more than a week for an appointment, I’m going to have to get him straightened out.  [laughter]  And if he takes too many offerings, [laughter]  I have to straighten him out.  It is, you know.  And we do that.  It’s all about I’m going to come to a church where they better take care of my kids, and nobody better lay a hand on my unruly, poorly trained, disorderly child.  [laughter]  Cause why?  We do have this mentality, it is all about me.  Better not sit in my seat and you better not take my parking spot.  And you better not preach a sermon that makes me feel bad.  [laughter] 

Today’s not that day.  [laughter]  Today’s not that day.  After I’m done with you in the next 30 minutes, you’re going to feel better.  Because you’re going to realize it is all about Him.  [hallelujah]  Let’s go to the book of John…  The book of John.  Do you like that opening?  [amen, yeah]  That work for  you?  Good.  Chapter 1…What I want to show you in a few scriptures and a few passages is that it is all about Him.  It is all about God.  The most difficult thing I think for people to realize is that you are not the Creator.  That you are a created being and you are only here for a short time.  [amen]  I think we need to more often come to grips with that reality.  The reality is that, as the Bible says, we’re but flowers passing away.  And then the wind comes  and whoooow, blows the remnants of us away and there’s nothing left.  It is all about Him.  It is.  And when we can realize that it’s really about God, we can then find our proper place in the whole thing.  And then guess what’ll happen?  Then it will be about us.  We’ll be happy.  We’ll be happy, happy.  Happy, happy, happy.  You really can.  Watch this now.  What does it say here? 

It says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.”  And let’s all read it together, come on.  “All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.”  Keep going. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”..Woooo all about you, Jesus. 

Well, how does that work out?  It gives us a different name, there’s no name here of Jesus.  There’s no mention of Nazareth here.  What John is revealing to us is that in the beginning was the Logos, or the Word.  And then he says, “and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.”  And then we can think to ourselves, you know, if I don’t understand that, you should explain it to me in better detail.  Well, I have good news and bad news.  Which do you want first?  [the bad news]  Ok, the bad news is, you wouldn’t understand it if He did explain it to you.  [right, laughter]  You know what the good news is?  [what's the good news?]  You wouldn’t understand it if He explained it to you.  [laughter]… I mean you wouldn’t explain it, I mean you can’t explain it, nor can you understand it.  When are you going to realize there’s some things that are bigger, too big for you.  [amen] 

I mean, you know, there’s all of us running around with the brain being….how much does a brain weigh Dr. Ed?  [depends on whose brain you are talking about]  [laughter]  I think a brain only weighs a pound or so.  [comments]  You sure about that?  You think?  Ok, my secretary, she knows everything, so it’s 2 pounds.  But, if all of us are walking around with 2 pound brains, why do you think that you should be the exception to the rule that your brain should be able to understand the cosmos when no one’s been able to figure that out?  We’re just getting bits and pieces.  And the reason we have bits and pieces is because we cannot contain all of God in our little pea brains.  [amen]  We cannot. 

So if we can accept that fact, here’s what it does tell us.  That we can contain what He tells us.  He tells us that, “In the beginning was the Word.”  And that Word that is in the Greek is the “Logos.”  Meaning He’s talking about a divine being that is not described here, that is with God, to the point that it is described as God….To the point that this thing, called the Word, everything is created… by Him.   Everything that is created  came through Him in order to be created….Alright?  So, what do we have?  Whenever the beginning began, whatever it was that declared it was a beginning, He was already there.  [amen]  He was already at the beginning, when the beginning began, whenever the beginning began, He was already there when it began.  In other words, when it started, He was already there before the start,khew a gun went off and everyone entered into the beginning.  He was there in the beginning,  before the beginning began, He was there.  Not only was He there, but He was there with God, who has no beginning and has no end, therefore, the Word had no beginning, had no ending, because it was there before the beginning with God, when it all began, whether it began or not, and if it had chose not to begin, He was still there.  [amen]…  Well, praise God.  [whew]  It’s all about Him…  [amen]  It’s all about Him. 

And then it says, that when this beginning began, He was the one that began it.  [alright]  Lord have mercy.  Does everybody get the beginning of that?  [laughter]  The beginning of that is that when everything began, all things were made through Him, when He started the beginning, everything was made through Him.  And without Him,… nothing … was made.

They got a group of scientists together and they were debating that they were finally as great as God.  And so, God says, “Ok, well you go first. You know, prove you’re God.”  And so the scientist says, “Well,” he says, “all life sprang from some amino acids.” And so he grabbed some amino acids.  And then he says, “Those amino acids were exposed to great power and great light.”  So he grabbed some light and some power and the amino acids and he’s going to, you know… and God said, “Whoa, yo, time out.”  He says, “You can’t create life. You got to do it the way I did it.”  And the scientist said, “How’d you do it?”  He said, “From nothing.  I took nothing and did it.”  So God reached over and took back the amino acids and everything else. 

You see, what we have to realize is that Pharaoh had great magicians.  They could do great stuff.  And Pharaoh’s magicians were challenging everything that Moses said and everything that Moses did.  Until finally, all out of the mid air, God created the, the plague of gnats and flies.  Just out of the air, poof.  There’s gnats and flies and they’re on anything and everything and just gobbling it up.  The magicians dropped their stuff and went to Pharaoh and said, “We can’t do nothing.”  He says, “Why?”  He says, because, “We can create, we can make frogs jump around and we can take a stick and turn it into a snake.”  He says, “But only God,”  The Pharaoh’s magician said, “But only God can create something…from nothing.”  [yeah] 

Now we have to ask ourselves, if we want to understand Him and everything’s about Him, how did everything come through Him?  His name is, what?  [the Word]  Come on, I didn’t get that deep.  The Word!  Can you say the [Word].  The Word.  If we can figure that out, we can begin to understand how He created everything.  Go to Romans, Chapter 4….Come on, say praise the Lord when you get there.  [Praise the Lord]  Romans Chapter 4, in verse 17  God says an amazing thing.  “…(as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”)”  He’s talking to Abraham, who has no kids.  The dude is old.  I mean old.  He’s older than me.  Alright?  So, God says, “…in the presence of Him whom he believed…”  In other words, Abraham believed what God had to say.  And it says, “God…”  Let’s read it together, come on, “who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;”  One more time, “…God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;”  In other words, God has this ability…to speak something into existence that was not there before…God calls those things which be not as though they were.  In other words, He calls things into existence just by speaking, but watch this, in His speaking He adds faith to it.  [right] 

I always give this example cause it’s so true.  A father who looks at his little boy when he’s two and says, “I didn’t want you. Your momma didn’t want you.  You’re never going to grow up to be anything.  And, you just ain’t no good.”  If he persists in saying that to the 2 year old, as the 2 year old grows, he will hear the constant reverberation of his father calling into existence his worthylessness.  Is there such a word, Sister Joy?  Worthylessness? [no]  Good, praise God, I just called it into existence!  [laughter]  That word now exists.  Worthylessness.  He will call him and he’ll say that to him.  He’ll say that to him when he’s seven, flunking in school.  He’ll say it to him when he’s 12 or 13, can’t hit the ball in little league.  He’s beginning now to smoke, drink, and play the outer limits of the cultural existence, and by the time he’s 17, visiting him in jail and saying, “See, I told you.”  [right, right, right]  “You’re no good.”  The father is calling it into existence by speaking it. 

There’s only one thing that can put a stop to it, praise God.  One thing.  I’ll tell  you…Cause you might call it wrong.  The only thing that can stop it is if the words that the boy speaks concerning himself override what daddy was calling him.  [amen]  Because his words are powerful too.  So if the little boy is going, he’s five years old, and his daddy says, “You no good,”  and in his mind he’s going, “That’s not true….I’m going to do great things.”  [hallelujah]  “And you ain’t getting any of the credit.”  [laughter] 

We have the ability to call things which are not.  A sick person can call himself well and become the wellness of God.  A broken home can become healed because they spoke it.  They began to change what they say.  A husband that, that is no good and trifling, can be turned into a prince and a king, because someone spoke a different word over him.  [amen]  Lord have mercy.  God calls those things which be not, as though they were. 

Let’s go to Genesis, Chapter 1.  Can you find that?  [yeah]  Anybody find Genesis, Chapter 1?  [amen]  We’re going back to the beginning.  In Genesis Chapter 1, the secret of what I’m trying to minister to you is revealed.  It says, verse 1, “In the beginning” who? [God] created what? [the heavens and the earth.] “heavens and the earth.”  Well, the question is, God, how did you do it?  I think that’s a fair question.  I think that’s a fair question to say, how did God create the universe and everything in it?  How did He do that?  Verse 3 tells us.  “Then God… said…”  Verse 6, “Then God said…” [said]  And verse 8 “And God called....”  Verse 9  “Then God said“  Verse 10 “And God called…”  Verse 11 “Then God said…”  Verse 14 “Then God said…” … Well, let me ask you then.  Go to verse 20  “Then God said…”  Look at verse 22, watch what He does here.  “And God blessed them, saying.…”  How did He bless them?  [saying]  Saying.  Lord have mercy! 

Anybody here ever raise a daughter?  [yep] You know, I never had to do that.  My heart breaks for you.  [laughter]  I’m beginning to realize that probably the hardest thing in the world to raise besides chickens is girls.  [laughter]  Chickens are easy, right?  You just put them in the yard.  They find something to eat.  Right?  And then, then you cook them up and they taste good.  You know.  But listen to me carefully.  Listen to me carefully.  When you raise a girl a funny thing happens around 13, 14 years old…It starts talking back.  [laughter]  It starts earlier than that?  Oh, that’s right, I’m old school.  I’m old school.  It used to be 13, 14 that they start, now I guess it’s 9, 10, or 7 around like that.  You know.  And so, what you have upon your hands is this, everything that mom is trying to bless and speak into the child, the child contradicts and negates the blessing.  Lord have mercy.  Come on now.  [yeah]  Ok, moving right along.  Does anybody understand what I’m saying?  You’re speaking the blessing, and then they contradict. And so then what happens is momma gets tired of speaking the blessing and begins to speak the curse.  [oh]  Then she begins to agree with it. 

We can do the same thing with a son.  But the dynamic is a little bit different.  The son will just listen, and as he listens, and he listens, and he listens, and he listens, and then when he thinks he has enough strength, he then tells you what you taught him.  He just saves it up.  The girl, she starts giving you feedback right away.  But the boy just saves it up.  And then at 16, at 16 you get your first volley of, your mouth has caused me to lose respect in you…Because why?  The whole time I’m becoming what you say, a part of me wants to reject that…

Because why?  Words are powerful.  When God made us in His image, how did He do it?  He said, “I will give you the ability to have God-ness.”  Well, what’s God-ness?  I will give you the ability to speak as God. And how does God speak?  He calls those things which be not into existence.  You call them into existence.  The ability of God.  The Word, the Logos.  The Logos spoke it and it was so.  [hmmm]  He just spoke it.  He said, “I got a great idea cooking up in my mind, moon and stars.”  Phump  [yeah]… But in the perfectness of His mind, listen to me, in the perfectness of his mind, he had already calculated the exact distances of all the stars, because if you altered any one of them, none of you would be sitting here.  [amen]  If any of the planets, moons, and stars were one degree off, life on this earth would not be possible.  One degree.  One degree.  If the cosmos wasn’t exactly where it is, there’d be no life on this planet.  It would either be too hot or too cold.  We’re beginning to see that now with climatic change.  Just a slightest adjustment, and everything that was perfect is no longer perfect.  When God said it, not only did He say it, but He said it with perfect understanding and perfect design. 

How are you all doing?  Wave at me if you’re still awake.  It’s all about You, Jesus.  It’s all about Him.  It’s all about Him because He spoke it into existence and then He says to them, in verse 26.  “…Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”  What has He done?  He has just said that we, by our speaking, come into dominion.  And how do we have dominion?  The same way He had dominion.  What battle was lost in the Garden of Eden?  The battle of Words…  Lord have mercy.  Husbands, you don’t want to lose that…  Moving right along.  [laughter]  And so, in verse 27, it says, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”  Then it says, “…God blessed them, and God… [said]  He did what?  [said]  Verse 29.  “And God...” what?  [said]  The beautiful thing is verse 31.  “Then God saw everything that He had made…”  How did He make it?  He spoke it into existence.  He had faith for it and He spoke it…And so, God spoke it into existence.  He said so. 

The reason that it’s all about Him is because when He said so, and it came into existence, a process was set in motion that had to be fulfilled according to what He said.  Let’s go to Colossians, see if you can find Colossians…  Praise God…. I feel sorry for those of you that don’t want it to be all about Him.  You’d really rather it was all about you.  But the reality is that the guy that wrote the song, that it’s all about You, he was correct.  And it was scriptural.  And I’m going to give you some of the verses. 

In Colossians 1, verse 9, “For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with…”  what “…the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;”  And the reason is because wisdom and spiritual understanding don’t come from you.  They only come from Him.  He is the source of wisdom and spiritual understanding.  “…that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing...” who?  [Him]  “Him.” 

When you pleased yourself in life it resulted in a disaster.  It shows you to pick the wrong women.  It shows you to pick the wrong guy.  It shows you to pick the wrong job.  Pick the wrong car, pick the wrong financial plan.  When you chose to please yourself, you got drunk.  You got stupid.  You made mistakes.  Therefore, it’s all about Him and choosing what He wants, and doing it His way.  [amen] 

Can you move on a little further?  “…strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power…” I can remember when I decided I was through with drugs on all levels…And I tried to stop other times.  And I realized I needed some help.  And I just said, “Lord, Lord, if you have the power to make me aware that it’s time for me to stop, then you are going to have to give me the supernatural power to do it.”  All of a sudden, something dropped in on here, something dropped in on here.  And there was a peace and understanding, watch this now, that I could say no to anything that didn’t please Him.  [amen]…  I’ll leave that for you to think about. 

Moving right along.  Verse 12.  “…giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.”  Well, what is the inheritance of the saints?  The inheritance of the saints isn’t that you’re going to get everything that you want.  The inheritance of the saints is, you will have everything that He wants for you that’s good for you.  [amen]  Cause, see, He can give it, but He sure can take it away.  Moving right along.  And He says, verse 13, lets read it with me, come on, please.  “He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have…” come on, “redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.”  Wait a minute.  Through His blood.  It is all about Him.  And the reason it’s all about Him is you can’t save yourself.  [that's true]  You can’t save yourself.  You can’t arrive in a position where you have the peace and the security to know that you’re there.”…

Here is a transcript of a sermon by Pastor Don that is relevent for this time and economy.  Remember what is in brackets [ ] is said by the congregation.  I kept it in Pastor Don’s words, editing slightly for readability.  Three periods … means a pause during the presentation.  Pastor Don used a member’s Bible and was handed NASB version, so that is what I quoted from.

Have a blessed day,

Heather

SAY AMEN

SHOW 103

MEN OF ISSACHAR

6/29/08

This Saturday, which was yesterday, we had a meeting of the men’s group.  I wasn’t the slated speaker, I wasn’t supposed to speak or do anything.  But when I woke up, the Lord had given me this dream and I was trying to figure out the dream.  On the way to church, this message, all the parts of it, dropped in my spirit and then when I got here to the church building, Brother Les, while we were eating breakfast said, “Guess what?  You are our surprise guest speaker today.”  [laughter]  But what he didn’t know was that the Lord had given me something to say.  So, I delivered the package to the men only to find out that the greater body needs to hear it.  Men, what do you think?  [yes]  There are aspects of it that I need to share with you. 

So let’s pray, and I’m going to give you this message, then I want to introduce you to another dignitary in the house.  Let’s talk to Jesus.  Father, in Your Mighty Name we ask Your blessings upon the Word and upon all that we have seen today and heard.  And our spirits are lifted up, we’ve got smiles on our faces, and we just ask now, Lord, that you would give us the wisdom to be able to hear what I believe, Lord, is from Heaven.  Give us the wisdom to hear it, and Lord, give us the ability and the strength to carry it out, in Jesus’ Name. Amen [amen] Amen. 

I have always tried to do my best to teach and lead the church, that has a vision or at least an understanding of what’s going on.  This week I was listening to the news and I heard an interesting statistic.  I just want to share it with you.  In years previous, fuel costs, heating home fuel, gasoline for your cars…how many of you drive cars?  Alright, how many of you heat your house with oil or fuel?  Alright.  Heating home fuel and gas…historically has taken up 7% of the income of the American family.  7%.  But now that gas prices have exceeded $4.00 a gallon, and fuel costs, of course have, fuel oil is much higher than that, it will now consume 20%…of your income.  Let me just say that again for those of us that flunked algebra.  [laughter]  Heating oil, heating fuel used to consume 7% of your income…But now, it’s going to consume 20%…And over a year ago, I prophesied to you to get your financial houses in order.  And that everything spiritual and morally that you don’t have nailed down, was going to come apart.  Some of you listened, some of you didn’t.  And so I’ve done more financial counseling in the last 6 months than I’ve done in 30 years of counseling.

I’m going to share with you something else.  I want you to listen very carefully to your pastor.  20% of your income is now going to go in a direction that… is unexpected and unplanned by you…If you don’t pay attention to what I’m saying, you are about to end up in a difficult situation…There are two people, two groups that I wanted to focus on with the men.  Because we sometimes are so enamored with the great heroes of the Bible, that we all want to be like David.  We all want to go out on the battlefield, let’s kill Goliath.  We want to draw our sword and like Jonathan, chop up the Philistines.  But Scripture gives us a picture of other types of heroes that were also great.  Their greatness was different. For example, the sons of Issachar, the Bible says that they understood their times…and they knew what to do for Israel.  Let me say that again.  They understood their times and they knew what to do for Israel…These men of the tribe of Issachar were able to listen to the prophetic word and listen to the word of the women, of the church, of their people, of the tribe.  They were able to listen to all of that. And listen to what they heard about the enemies coming and so forth and so on.  They were able to understand the circumstance and the situation that they were in.  And then they were able to take the prophetic word as well as the practical word, put it together and understand what should be done in Israel. 

But the thing that made them great and outstanding to put them in Scripture, was that they would come up with a plan and they would implement it…Now the greatest historical figure that we have in the Bible besides Jesus Christ, is Joseph.  Joseph was amazing because Joseph was characterized in Scripture as a dreamer.  He was a man who dreamed but he also received visions.  And in these dreams, he received information from God, and then he would interpret dreams for other people, but as well as for himself.  And so we have a dreamer…

But what I want to say to you today is, you very well may be a dreamer.  You may have ideas and concepts.  You may have a vision of things that the Lord speaks to you in the night.  But if you get up in the morning and you’re a dreamer, and you don’t implement a plan, that is a plan for disaster.  [amen]  Let me say it again.  You may very well understand your times, but if you don’t have a plan and implement it, then you are a dreamer who has not the ability to implement a plan, and that is a plan.  That’s a plan for disaster.  So, even though you may dream, if you do nothing with the content of the dream, if you do nothing with the information and the understanding that you have, that is a plan.  But that’s a plan for disaster…

So Joseph, let’s just go through the story real quick.  Joseph was his daddy’s favorite, but his other brothers didn’t like it.  Joseph had a dream about that.  He told the dream.  Sometimes we need to keep our mouths shut and just implement the plan.  We don’t need to be telling people everything.  But, none-the-less, he had this dream about him being greater than his brothers.  His brothers didn’t like it.  And what did they do?  They took him, sold him into slavery.  Now, in slavery, he gets elevated because of dreams and his dream ability.  He gets elevated to different places of positions and power, but he finds out, because of a woman,…who implemented her plan against his dream…he finds himself now in slavery in a prison.  Alright?…

And this is what I imparted to the men.  So ladies, this is not, not against you, but just the reality of the situation.  When Adam and Eve were in the Garden, a curse came upon Eve, which was that her desire would be for her husband, that desire for her husband does not mean that she wanted her husband, it meant that she wanted his position…That she didn’t want Adam to rule over her anymore.  She wanted to pull Adam down, and she wanted to make the decisions.  And so she began making the decisions in the home, rather than consulting with Adam and letting him have his rightful place…Alright?… You ladies OK?… I’m not talking to you, I’m talking to the ladies that don’t go to church…See, they’re screaming out there because they like us. (babies in the lobby)  [laughter] 

So, we’re, we’re out of order in our society because the Biblical model that Jesus gave us is that the man is supposed to carry out his role and function, and the female is to carry out her role and function.  Now, when those come into conflict, and the woman amasses more authority and more power than has been given to her, it turns the ship upside down and everybody drowns.  Now, we may not like that because you women are sitting here.  You’re intelligent, you’re beautiful.  This church has the most intelligent, beautiful, capable, prophetic women on the planet.  But ladies, if you rise up and trample your husbands, the home will be in disarray.  It will be in confusion.  The pressure resulting upon you will be a disaster…

Follow the Biblical model, you’re going to be ok.  Your wife is to be a help meet. That means someone who comes alongside and we work this stuff out together, but when the woman gets out of her position, all hell’s going to break loose.  75% of the men in prison today, 75% of them have no unified family.  The men are gone.  The men are …gone.  Now, I’m not against single mothers.  A single mother has to be strong.  She has to do what she has to do.  She has to stand in the position and fulfill her calling in that home.  That’s necessary.  That’s very necessary.  I’m talking about the unit that is still half-way together.  That has a husband and a wife in the home.  And everyone has to carry out their role in a Biblical way. 

Wife, you may be smarter than your husband, you may be better at math than your husband.  But he’s still supposed to be involved in the process of the decision making in order that the boat be going in the same direction in a unified manner.  Ladies, can you accept that?  [yes]  Is that ok?  [yes]  If you will, a Godly man raised up in his rightful position will never make a decision without consulting you.  He’ll never make a decision and overrun you.  Because, if he is truly a man of God, then he is called to be a husband who loves his wife as Christ loved the Church.  Therefore, he would give himself up for his wife.  [amen] …But he can’t hardly give himself up for you if you are beating him.  I don’t mean physically, but there are some physical.  I had a guy in the church come and he said, “Pastor, my wife’s beating me up every week.”  I said, “What??”  He said, “Yeah, she is beating me up every week.”  He said, “I was raised never to hit a woman.”  You know, and I said, “Well, you shouldn’t.”  I said, but let’s get together and counsel on this.  Let’s find out why.  And the reason was, because she, in her frustration and the difficulty of the fact that she couldn’t get this man to be a man, she was just pounding him.  You know, just beating him.  So, I had the perfect solution.  I bought her boxing gloves.  [laughter]  No, no, no, no. I didn’t [laughter]  I don’t believe I said that.  [laughter]  Yeah…  No, no, we just resolved the situation by what?  Getting him to realize what a Biblical man looked like and he stepped up in that position, and giving her the patience, and teaching her the patience to speak the right words to him to encourage him so that he would, he would get it done.  Amen.  [amen] 

So, what does all this have to do with anything?  Joseph gets thrown into prison because a domineering woman who had her desires, had her plan.  She was just going to over run this man, and, and over run her husband as well as over run Joseph.  Joseph’s in prison.  He interprets two dreams that restore him back to being the number one man, well not back to being, but elevate him to the position of the number one man in the nation, right under pharaoh. He got under pharaoh because he was a dreamer, that when pharaoh questioned him, this dreamer had a plan.  Now, the pharaoh realizes that Joseph is a dreamer, and he needs someone who has the ability to see something from a different perspective.  And so the pharaoh acknowledges that Joseph can see something that he cannot see.  And therefore, he takes the dreamer and puts him in position, not because he’s a dreamer, but because he was a dreamer who also, as a result of interpreting the dreams, had a plan…A dream without a plan is a plan for [disaster] Say it again. [disaster]  Therefore the pharaoh in his wisdom realizes, this man of God, not only has a dream, but he has a plan as a result of the dream.  Therefore, I can entrust the nation to him for he will implement a plan of action and praise God, he’s a dreamer who can implement a plan of action…

Sons of Issachar, they understood their times and they were willing to do what Israel needed to have done…So, let’s take it on a practical plan now.  20% of your income is now going to be shifted from what was 7%.  What’s 7 take away 20? [13] 13% of your income is going to have to be diverted from somewhere…Math is simple.  There’s somewhere, 13% of your income is going to have to be taken away from over here and put into something over here.  I hate to say it ladies, but if you’re getting your nails done twice a month, you might have to go to once a month.  God forbid…But you know, women are not the problem.  Men are.  Do you know why?… [laughter]  Get thee behind me satan…  [laughter]…  Do you know why?  Because women have small, inexpensive toys but they have a lot of them.  Men have a few toys, but they’re big and they’re expensive.  And then, we pull the wool over your eyes, because we can justify our toys.  …[amen] …[laughter]  There’s one of the toys right there.  It costs $35.00 to go play a good round of golf at a decent course.  Do that four or five times a month, it’s hundreds of dollars.  My wife can go get her nails done.  How much does it cost, baby?  She can go get her nails done for $20.  And how long does that last?  2-3 weeks.  So in 2 or three weeks she spent $40.00.  If I go play golf 2 or 3 times, I’ve spent over $100 dollars.

13% of your income is going to have to be moved from somewhere.  You can be like most Americans are going to be.  Most Americans are going to do nothing about it until it’s too late.  They going to take this 13% and push it off onto their credit cards.  Come on, I’m trying to help you. [amen]  What good is church if it doesn’t have some practical application?  I will in October, November, gladly sit down with you and go over your finances and help you.  I will even gladly go into my pocket and the pocket of the church and do what we can to help you.  But our resources won’t be there because of that 13% are going to be gifts, tithes, and offerings… I’m a practical preacher man. I just dress like I’m worth millions.  But the reality is, that I know, I have a dream.  I have to put a plan into action.  I’m trying to say to the men of God, step up in your households, start making decisions.  Be able to say yes.  But also be able to say no.  Because why?  There’s a 13% problem that’s about to walk in our doorway.  I’m asking the women, women you have your way, you have your needs, you know what the budgets are.  You know what you’re spending for food.  You know what it costs to live in your home.  Then sit down with your husband and look it over.  Sit down and make some wise decisions, cause there’s some man who wants a riding mower instead of a pushing mower, who will justify his $2000 riding mower over and against your nails.  And you need to be able to say, “Honey, I really love you baby doll, but you need to push that thing this winter.”  And when spring comes, you need a walking mower…That $2000 riding mower, we cannot afford this year. 

You need to realize that that 13% is coming.  I can’t stop it.  Barack Obama can’t stop it.  John McCain can’t stop it.  No one in the Senate can stop it.  No one in the world government plans to stop it.  It is a part of a global plan, and you better get ready for it.  And don’t tell me I didn’t tell you.  My job is to be a watchman on the wall and tell you.  I told you last year.  I’m telling you again.  Look at your budget, get your financial house in order because 13% is about to come out of somewhere, and go somewhere.  If you have the ability to burn wood, you need to consider what’s it going to cost you to do it?  Who’s going to do it?  How are you going to do it?  If you don’t have  thermal pane insulated windows, you need to consider how to get them .  If you don’t have insulation in your walls, and you live in one of these old houses in Kingston, you need to figure out, get somebody, ask Brother Les or me or somebody, how to pull down the sheet rock and put some R19 in there instead of air, and then put the wall back and sheet rock.  And tell your wife to learn how to spackle and paint…

What is this?  [come on preach it]  … I am preaching the Gospel.  The Gospel is survival…Gospel is survival.  Cause I’m telling you now, come December, January, and February, it’s going to cost you thousands of dollars to heat your home.  One of my neighbors filled up his tank yesterday, 275 gallon tank.  It cost him $1200.  [whoa]  $1200.  So, if you spend a thousand dollars last year for fuel oil, you better be expecting to spend $3000 or something like it…Now, what does the Bible say? 

I want you to turn to the book of Genesis in the 50th chapter.  I don’t even have a Bible.  Somebody find me a Bible….Watch them bring up one of them little print Bibles that you need to…How big is the print in that thing?…That’s wonderful.  You all old like me.  [laughter]  Genesis, Chapter 50.  How you all doing?  You all right?  [yeah]  Wife, your husband is not your enemy.  Husband, your wife is not your enemy.  The good thing is you find out, it’s time for you to find out if your marriage is strong or not.  If you can’t talk about sex, race, religion, and politics, and finances in your house, your marriage is in trouble.  It’s going to take crisis to uncover that.  And crisis and pressure will demonstrate what you’ve really got.  But there’s some husbands who are afraid to talk to their wives about their sexual problems, afraid to talk to them about their mind what’s going on, got special pass codes so their wife can’t see into their computer.  What are we talking about?  We’re talking about confusion in Denmark… Julie knows what I’m talking about.  She’s well read in the classics.  [laughter] 

Genesis, Chapter 50.  Let’s go.  You ready?  [yep]  Alright, in verse 22.  Remember Joseph, he’s now second man to pharaoh.  Pharaoh puts him in position of power.  Why?  Because he’s a dreamer who can implement a plan.  He’s a what? [a dreamer]  who can implement a plan.  But now, if we look at the life of Joseph, what happened to Joseph?  Because he is a dreamer who can implement a plan, people hated him. Threw him into a well, and sold him into slavery.  A woman came against him and what, took the dreamer and had the dreamer thrown into jail.  On and on and on.  Everybody with me?  [yes]  Alright, now, as time goes by, the dreamer who can implement a plan, is now number two to pharaoh.  But there’s a famine in Israel.  There’s a famine.  And so the only place, watch this now, that has food, the only place that has resources is the place where the dreamer implemented a plan….Come on, you can say, amen to something else.  You can say amen to this reality.  The reality show preaching.  He implemented a plan.  There was food in Egypt, when the rest of the World was starving.  What do you think, what do you think Y2K was about?  It was practice for the Body of Christ to get ready for the real deal.  [amen]…Never mind, moving right along.  Moving right along. 

NASB “Now Joseph dwelt in Egypt, he and his father’s household.  And Joseph lived one hundred and ten years.”  Now, in all of that, we see that God blessed Joseph all the way into the end of his life.  But before he dies, his brothers come from Canaan Land.  Lord have mercy.  His brothers come from Canaan Land because there’s nothing to eat.  Only for Joseph, who now they didn’t recognize.  They didn’t recognize this guy.  Last time they saw him, he was bleeding in a pit in the ground.  So they didn’t recognize him.  And so they did evil to him.  Is there anybody here that anybody in your family has done evil to?   Come on.  Is there anybody here, your brothers and sisters lied on you and messed you up?  Is there anybody here who, your parents let you down?  Anybody here whose father was not faithful to his call as a father?  My dad was a great preacher man.  My father was a great man of God, but he didn’t have any idea what being a father was about.  His father and the father before him, they, they didn’t teach that. They didn’t hand that down.  He didn’t know he was supposed to come to football games.  He didn’t know he’s supposed to come to my track meets.  He didn’t know he was supposed to spend time with me.  He figured, hey, I, you know, my daddy didn’t spend time with me, why do I need to spend time with my kids?  Some of you have fathers that were not even present, let alone good or effective.  They were total absentee idiots.  Well, glory to God.  And some of us are still wallowing in the pain of what evil has done to us.  We’re wallowing in the pain of our divorces, of the pain of our separation, the pain of the failures of our children, the difficulty that we can’t seem to get our world straight.  And we’re still living under the influence of evil and what evil has done to us.  But today I’m here to give you a message.  I’m here to tell you that if God did it for Joseph, He can do it for you.  [amen] 

Let’s look in the Scriptures here.  Look at verse 15 .  “When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead they said, “What if Joseph bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong we did to him?  So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father charged before he died, saying, Thus you shall say to Joseph, “Please forgive, I beg you, the transgression of your brothers and their sin, for they did you wrong.”  And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.“  What are they saying?  They’re saying, we did evil to you Joseph, and we expect that you’re still like us.  You’re still going to hold a grudge and not be forgiving.  Oh, Child of God, that sits here today in this building, if you want to make it through the last of these last days, you must forgive.  [amen]  You must erase the slate of the burden of your pain and get on with your life.  It is time to forgive mother, sister, and brothers and all those that disappointed and hurt you.  For that evil that was done to you came from the evil one who inspires all evil and anything that the devil has done that is evil to you, God has something to say about it. 

Come on, let’s move along.  You ready?  [yes]  Verse 18.  “Then his brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.”  But Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid...”  [Do not be afraid]  Say it one more time.  [Do not be afraid]  Say it two times fast.  [Do not be afraid.  Do not be afraid.]  So he says, “Do not be afraid, for am I in God’s place?“  That means he does not claim the authority over them like God does.  “As for you….” Let’s read it together, come on.  “…you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive.  So therefore…” read it again….”…do not be afraid;  I will provide for you and your little ones.”  So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.”  Say it with me, do not be afraid.  [Do not be afraid.]  Did God mean it for evil?  [No]  Did God want to destroy you?  [no]  Does God plan to destroy you?  [no]  No. Who meant it for evil?  [the devil]  The devil meant it for evil…If all that has happened to you in your life has come even through your error, even through your own error.  Some of you are in circumstances that you created yourselves.  My heart is to see you survive and make it, be the People of God with a testimony, standing strong and tall, able to stand in this wicked day and be able to make a sacrifice.  But if you don’t prepare for this 13%,  I pray to God, who knows.  Maybe by August, somebody’ll figure out that, you know, none of this should be the way that it is…..