Here is another video and transcript from our Sunday Service.  Remember with the transcript that if there are three dots … it means a pause.  What is in [brackets] is what the congregation says.  I have slightly edited it to make it more readable.  Hope you enjoy and are blessed.  Have a Happy Thanksgiving!  I am thankful for so many things – my husband, my children, a great pastor, and good Xanga friends.

Faith That Works Part 4.

Amen.  Hebrews, Chapter 11. 

Let’s pray.  Father, we’re teaching on Your Faith.  Not the faith of man, but the faith that You have made possible for us to share.  Faith!  Faith is like electricity in the natural, Lord.  It has great power to travel great distances and to accomplish much.  And so, Father, we want to be full of faith.  We want to have zoe, the God kind of life.  And the God kind of life is filled with faith.  And so, Father, as you have filled other men and women with great faith, we thank You, Lord, that today You’ll make us assured that we can have this great kind of faith.  And we’re not standing on shaky faith, but we’re standing on solid rock faith.  In Jesus’ name. 

Let’s read it together.  Verse 1, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.“  We have to have a faith that works especially in these last days.  In these end times, we need to have a faith that what?  [works]  A faith that works.  A faith that works gives us an attitude and an opportunity to participate and cooperate with God.  You see, your faith puts you in position to cooperate with what God is doing. 

Now, we’ve been talking about some things.  I’m going to just summarize some of these.  If you don’t have it please, just send for the tape.  If you don’t have the money, we’ll send it to you.  I just want you to get the information.  I want you to become a giant in your faith.  I want you to grow in your faith.  I want you to see signs and wonders that are evidence of your faith because the purpose of God is for you to work with Him.  And God is always working with faith, therefore you’re going to have to bring something to the table and get on with Him.  You’re going to have to, it’s a bring a dish when you come.  [laughter]  Bring something when you come.  And what you should be bringing to the table when you going to sup and meet with God, you should be bringing your faith. 

So, what did we talk about in the weeks past?  I tried to express to you that a faith that works is not just getting more faith.  We misunderstand that.  When Jesus said, “Ye of little faith,”  He wasn’t saying that to have great faith you need more of faith.  You can’t get anymore faith when faith is present…Faith either is or it isn’t, there cannot be, you know more…you don’t get big faith.  Cause when faith is present, faith is faith.  Faith is:  I know.  It’s evidence.  It is substance.  So, therefore, when it is present, it says, I know that this is so.  You’re not trying to work it up.  You’re not trying to cast a spell on it.  You’re not trying to pump it up.  Jesus said, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can move a mountain.  Well, a mustard seed is small, one of the smallest seeds known to man.  Therefore, what He’s saying is, if faith is present, [clap] I know… is what’s being spoken.  When He says, I know I’m going to feed 1000′s, He wasn’t, I hope this works.  He wasn’t, maybe this works.  He wasn’t, if I can get more faith it works.  Faith calls it done.  Faith calls it finished.  Faith calls it accomplished.  Faith is the essence.  It is the substance.  It is the manifestation of what was hoped for. 

And faith, itself, is a given reality.  When you say, “I am healed.”  Then you mean, I am healed.  You don’t mean, you are going to be healed.  You don’t mean, you’re wishing and hoping you are healed.  You’re through hoping.  You are now believing that it is a fact of existence.  It is real.  Romans 4:17 says, that God, one thing He loved about Abraham, Abraham wanted to be like God.  And therefore, what Abraham did was, he called those things which be not, as though they were.  So, he didn’t look at a little child and say, you know, you’re going to grow up to be a bum.  He looked at a child and said, you’re going to grow up to be unbelievably fantastic.  [amen]  You’re going to be really something special.

We have to recognize that your faith is words, your words are actions, your actions are based upon what you truly believe.  And, if you will express it as faith, it has to come into manifestation.  Faith is the substance of things hoped for, but it’s evidence of things not seen… Those things that are not seen, become evidence.  Now, what are the characteristics of faith?  And I tried to get this across to you in the last few weeks. 

First of all, there’s future faith.  There is faith that looks to the future.  That Abraham had to believe for 25 years.  At the age of 75, God told him he’s going to be the father of nations.  He had to have future faith to believe what was spoken in the future.  He had to hold onto that faith.  I told you, you have to have historic faith.  You have to have faith that looks back at what happened to your forefathers, happened to the parents, happened to the patriarchs of the Bible, and you have to say, it happened in history.  I believe that what was told me in the past is true.  And, therefore, I also believe what God has spoken in the past concerning me, and I will hold on to it with faith.  You must have historic faith.  You must look back and apply your faith.  You must have periphery faith.  You must have faith in the people around you.  You must believe in them.  But you must also take stock of them because everyone in your little world is not a faith person.  And therefore, you have to have sufficient faith to look in the periphery around you.  You have to know who has faith, who doesn’t, and who has fed your faith and who doesn’t.  So you have to have faith in the periphery. 

You have to know that you come to church not to get a nap, but you come to church to get a Word.  And you have to look around you and you can see that certain people, when they come to church, why are they sleeping?  Not only because sleep demons put them to sleep, but also because they don’t have faith to believe that it’s worth staying awake for, that they’re going to get something good.  So if you look around your periphery and you, yourself, are starting to fall asleep, go out and get a glass of water.  You know, go out into the lobby and talk to one of the ushers.  Come back, and do what?  Check your peripheral faith.  Is it working for you?  Are the things around you, look at your home.  If your Bible is in your bathroom, and it’s not on your coffee table or your nightstand, then you need to look in your peripheral faith and say, these peripheral things around me are not feeding my faith. 

I’m moving on a little quick, but get the tape.  I go into great depth.  You need to have examining faith.  Examining faith examines the Will of God, and it examines the Faith of God.  Once you do that, you then must examine your faith.  Just because you come to church, you look nice, you dress nice, you need to examine your faith.  What do you believe?  What do you really believe?  Do you really believe what Pastor Don is saying?  Pastor Don is a faith teacher.  So you have to ask yourself, do you believe faith at all?  Or, are you coming from a position of, I don’t believe any of it?  But you know, I like the way he dresses, or something [laughter].  I mean, you need to examine your faith.  What do you have difficulty believing?  Examine your faith.  You should know the areas in which you have faith, and don’t. 

Remember, He says, “faith the size of a mustard seed.”  In other words, faith occurs not in quantity, but faith is qualitative.  Well, how do I mean that?  You have, you have faith that exists and faith that does not exist.  What is the quality of faith?  If faith is present, faith is.  If faith is not present, it ain’t.  That’s the quality of faith.  What’s the quantity of faith?  The quantity of faith is not that you have more faith.  It’s that you have faith for more things, in more arenas.  The disciples saw Jesus feed the sick and heal the crippled, when they got on the water and the waves were going to come over them, he says, “Oh ye of little faith.”  They had faith for food.  They had faith for cripples.  But they didn’t have faith over storms.  [amen]  Anybody get what I’m saying here?  [yes] 

So you have to examine yourself.  What do you have faith for?  Do you have faith for finances?  Or do you have faith for failure of finances?  You can examine that very simply by listening to what you say.  Are you one that’s saying, “I’m not going to get the job.”?  “Things don’t work out.”  “We’ll always be in lack?”  If so, then you have faith for failed finances.  But, if you have faith for finances, then it’s like, “The job is mine!”  [laughter]  “Pfft, I’m taking over the supervisor’s job in three months.  He’s out of here, and I’m in here.”  Faith, “I’m never going to suffer lack.  I’m never going to be in debt.  I always have an abundance of what I need.  I have so much that I can give to people.”  If you’re sitting here today and you are not a tither, don’t tell me you have financial faith.  You do not.  You’re not a believer, because you won’t even trust God with 10%, to sustain your 90%.  You are a bad spiritual investment. 

Moving right along, how’s everybody doing?  Smile at your neighbor.  [laughter]  Smile at your neighbor.  You see, sometimes we need to admit, I don’t have faith for finances, I love money too much.  I cannot trust God for my finances.  I don’t believe that God’s going to send my kids to college, so I need to put all my money into my college fund…. Does anybody have any idea what’s happening with college funds now?  Moving right along. 

Then you need to have the fifth type of faith, and that is revealed faith.  Revealed faith  is faith that comes from the Holy Spirit, and I showed you in the book of John, I went through all of it.  When we read John, chapter 14, 15, 16, and 17, Jesus is giving us His will.  He is telling us the last thing He wants us to know before He leaves the earth.  And what does He tell His disciples?  He tells them He wants them to love the people and love themselves, the way the Father has loved Him… And then He says, and the way to do that is to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.  Well, what’s the Holy Spirit do?  Most of us think, well the Holy Spirit shows up and does signs and wonders, knocks people down, picks them up, heals them, grows out legs, lights lights, and fights back the devil.  And that’s not it. 

The Holy Spirit was sent as a Comforter to lead you into Truth… Will those truths make you comfortable?  No.  Some of you are still reeling under the truth of the last five minutes I’ve been talking.  [yeah, laughter]  Lord have mercy.  But the Holy Spirit leads you into truth.  And the Holy Spirit says, “Why don’t you try God?”  The Holy Spirit says, “Why don’t you discern what’s going on here?”  The Holy Spirit says, “Why would you believe that just because someone said it without testing it?  Why don’t you look into these things?”  So the Holy Spirit reveals truth.  That truth is what your faith is to be based upon.  Your faith is not to be based upon the traditions of men.  It is to be based upon the truth of God.  [hallelujah, amen]  I like the way I said that.  The truth of God.  [hallelujah]  I’ll be a preacher when I grow up.  Get the tape if you weren’t here for it. 

Then the next type of faith that we need to work on and receive is intuitive faith.  God has given us a measure of faith.  It says, to each one, has been given a measure of faith.  There’s some things that we know by faith, that we did not work for.  We didn’t develop them.  They just came with the package.  You know, Brother Chris was ministering the Word today, and he says, “He grew up in a God-fearing home.”  He grew up in a home of believers.  Therefore there were certain things that intuitively he picked up.  They’re not his, he can’t take credit for them, they’re just certain things that stirred inside him from a child, that were not able to be killed.  See, because you know, growing up in some of our homes will kill our faith.  Come on now, right?  [yes]  And people around you can kill your faith.  But there is intuitive faith, that is given to us by the grace of God.  By the favor of God.  God favors us, and therefore He gives us faith. 

I’ll give you a few examples.  Intuitive faith.  Moses is looking at the burning bush… He intuitively knew he was seeing a miracle…  He just knew that.  And that intuitive faith comes up again.  He’s standing at the Red Sea, he’s got an army coming behind him… ready to kill and crush and destroy, and he’s got this great body of water in front of him.  Do you think for one minute he worked up his faith, and began speaking into existence that when he lifted up his rod, he knew what was going to happen?  [no]  No.  He was just obedient.  He intuitively knew God, and he intuitively knew that if he obeyed God, God would take over the situation.  So he did what?  He just said, “Well, I know God.  That’s in here.  I don’t know what God’s going to do.  Or how God’s going to do it.”  But he just went…. and then he did this… is anything happening yet?  [laughter]  Well, yeah.  It says that a wind, a western wind began to blow…did he know that was what….. no, he didn’t know.   He had no information based upon it.  It wasn’t a test of his faith.  It was intuitive faith.  It came from the inside.  It was more faith than he could access with his mind.  There was no way in his mind he could see that.  He was probably thinking, “Maybe my rod is going to turn into a gatling gun…. And I’ll mow down Egypt.”  He could have been thinking all those things.  “Maybe we’re going to fly.”  Maybe, it could be all of that.  But his main thing was he intuitively knew to obey God and just lifted his hand.  Alright?  And that’s from the grace of God. 

There is a measure of faith that has been given to us.  It is called, in 1 Corinthians Chapter 12, it is called, you ready for this?  Faith miracles.  The working of miracles.  Well, how does that faith come?  You don’t have it and I don’t have it.  I remember a story in the Readers’ Digest of a little 90 pound woman, who had a Lincoln Continental and she was getting the car worked on.  And the mechanic crawled under, the jack fell, was crushing his chest.  So the 90 pound woman went over, grabbed the front end of the Lincoln Continental, one of the heaviest cars made, 90 pounds.  And lifted it up and held it, looked over and said, “Can you get out now?”  The guy crawled out and she put the car back down.  That wasn’t her faith.  That was a measure of faith that was given by God.  She just knew she could do something….  Well how did she know?  Did she know here?  No.  It was intuitive faith.  It was supernatural faith given by God.  And just came along.  Everybody alright?  [amen]  Alright. 

Now, then, we go from that the seventh, the seventh type of faith, which is taught faith… Taught faith.  Taught faith.  Faith comes by….[hearing]  and hearing [by the Word of God].  By the Word of God, so we have to learn that, wait a minute, I may not have faith to believe that right now, but I can teach myself faith.  How can you teach yourself faith?  By what you say and what you do.  You can begin to build your faith.  You can begin to change by what?  Learning faith.  Faith can be learned.  And the reason that faith can be learned is because, where does faith come from?  Faith worketh by love…Do you know that scripture?  “Faith worketh by love.”  You see, love believes all things.  Hopes all things.  Love can withstand all things.  Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.  Love is the greatest thing in the universe.  And how does love work?  Love believes…. all things.  In other words, love, since love believes all things, it operates and causes things to happen.  Love is what causes things to happen. 

Jesus is walking along, Jesus loves.  And he goes by, and a funeral is passing.  And He sees this widow woman crying.  And her only son has died.  And it says that He was moved by compassion.  Well, what’s that?  That’s love.  And He went over and said, “rise”.  He felt so much love for the woman that he raised from the dead.  Why would Jesus come, put on a man suit, and walk the earth, die and be resurrected again.  Why would he have the faith over death if it wasn’t because he was motivated by love, to save us all?  Gadzooks, if that doesn’t give you a chill, you need to get saved.  [laughter]  My goodness.  “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish but have everlasting life.“  That everlasting life, can only be accomplished by faith.  Your faith can only fulfill it by love. 

Why is marriage held up as such a great institution?  Cause marriage is a picture of God’s love.  Most people can’t stay married because they don’t understand that love is by faith.  I love my wife by faith.  Well, what does that mean?   I had to be taught to love her… Love at first sight is poppycock.  There’s no such thing.  There is attraction by first sight…. Can we tell the truth here?  You see somebody and you are attracted to them.  But you don’t love them until you what?  Are taught to love them.  You have to be taught to love.  Love is not a given, it’s not some magic that just flops out of the sky.  If it were so, 50% of the people that get married wouldn’t get divorced.  But in the process of time, they don’t teach themselves love.  And why not?  Because they have not accepted the correct model of love. 

The best teacher of love is the Lord Jesus Christ.  The best teacher of love is the Father.  And it’s the way that the Father loved the Son and the Son loved the Father, and then Jesus loved the disciples.  And He said, by the love that you have seen me teach you, go therefore and make disciples.  Teaching them what?  Everything I have commanded you.  And what was the commandment?  He says, I give you a new commandment, love one another. 

See, my generation, in the 50′s and 60′s, when we grew up, a bad thing happened.  You know, a bad thing happened.  They romanticized love.  They romanticized it to the point that they added something that is not so.  You have to be taught love.  You have to learn how to love.  You have to learn how to treat people.  You have to learn how to walk in that love.  It just isn’t going to just happen.  You know….

You know, Pastor Don, I don’t know how to love you.  I have to keep looking at the example of how Jesus loved the disciples.  And go, oh, I’ll imitate that.  Oh, I’ll do it that way.  Oh, I won’t give up on them because Jesus didn’t give up.  I can tell them, oh ye of little faith and how stupid are you, but I still have to love them and care for them.  I still have to care what happens to them.  I have to be concerned about them.  I have, I have to do just the way Jesus did.  I have to keep Him as a model.  He is my model.  He is teaching me love.  I’m learning to love the way He loved.  And that’s faith.  Because faith says, that’s going to work out if I do that. 

If I bring her flowers, enough flowers.  I might have to buy a florist shop, but eventually, I’m going to be what?  Teaching her love… I’m going to be teaching her, I love you.  See how many flowers I bought you?  I bought stock in the country of Columbia, just so I could bring you roses everyday…. Lord have mercy.  Would you like that baby?  [no]  No, ok, thank God!  [laughter]  Thank you Jesus.  Alright.  So, that’s taught love.  That’s taught faith.  Love and faith must be taught.  They must then be developed. 

Today we’re entering into the last segment of characteristics of faith.  Everybody ready?  Ok, I want you all to stand up.  I have to do a demonstration….amen.  You guys ready?  Here, put your Bibles down if you have them.  I want you to turn to a person.  Everybody find somebody to turn to.  I don’t care where you’re sitting, find somebody.  [laughter]  Ok, Mrs. Moore come up here, you can be with me.  She’s all alone.  She’s all alone.  I love her, I’ll be with her.  There’s a very simple game that is going to demonstrate what this lesson is about.  Now, on the count of three you go, one, two, then you put out either scissors, or you put out paper, or you put out rock.  Everybody got that?  [got it]  Come on, you with me?  [yes]  huh?  [yes]  You ready?  [yes]  ok, alright.  So everybody ready?  Last time, and then yell out who wins.  One, two, three.  [yelling out winners]  You put out the same thing?  [laughter & conversation]  OK, you may be seated.  Why don’t you open the windows, its getting warm in here.  [conversation] 

How’s everybody doing?  We’re talking about the characteristics of faith.  This last type of faith I want to talk to you about is demonstrated in that game.  And that there is a reality to that game that has a Biblical application.  It is true that rock will break scissors.  It is also true that scissors will cut paper.  But it is also true that paper can cover a rock.  But I want you to understand something.  It can only cover it but for a set amount of time… The rock will outlast the paper… The rock will outlast the paper. 

Solid rock faith is the culmination of all of these types of faith that we’ve been looking at.  Solid rock faith is the culmination of it.  It is our destination.  It is the type of faith that we want to arrive at.  And I want to show it to you in scripture.  I want you to turn to Matthew Chapter 7.   Faith that works.  Future faith, historic faith, peripheral faith, examining faith, revealed truth faith, intuitive faith, taught faith, or developing faith, and now we have this last one.  Solid rock faith. 

The characteristics of solid rock faith are described by Jesus in the 7th Chapter.  And these are the characteristics, the first is, you must – to have solid rock faith, you must refrain from judgment, especially harsh judgment.  “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”  “What measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”  I’m extremely lenient on judging other people.  Because I’m aware that God alone should be the judge.  And if I’m courteous and forgiving in my judging of other people, then guess what, God will be that same way with me.  I hope men will, but I don’t care about the judgment of men as much as I do the judgment of God.  And so he says, with the measure that you use, it will be measured back to you. 

“And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, “Let me remove the speck from your eye”; and look, a plank is in your own eye?  Hypocrite!  First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.“  So the first thing that we must do if we want to put ourselves in position to have rock solid faith, we must become a person of judgment.  We don’t harshly judge others, but we judge ourselves, and once we get that cleared, we’re prepared then to stand in judgment. 

You know, I can tell somebody what it’s like. I can look at a young guy who can sing and play, you know, I look at my son, and say, “See, son,” both you guys, both my sons are very talented, they sing and write, you know probably as good or better than I did at the same age.  I had a plank in my eye concerning the way the world attracts us.  Who’s better qualified to judge them than me?  And say, if you take your gifts and your talents to the world, this is what’s going to happen. I’m going to sit in judgment on them.  How many of you all agree with me?  [amen]  Then do it with your own kids.  [that's right]  Judge your own kids…

Judge them.  But judge them in the areas you have conquered.  If you’re still smoking, don’t tell your kids, “Don’t smoke.”  If you’re still coming home and running to the, you know, if you got to have a few beers to relax, you know, don’t be telling your kids they can’t drink… You hypocrite… Can I move on?  [yeah]  Jesus didn’t say don’t judge.  He says, don’t be a hypocrite.  If you’re struggling in an area, don’t judge somebody who’s also struggling in that area.  But if you have conquered that, if you have beat that, then you are in position to make a judgment on them. 

If you once were a stingy person, and you’re no longer stingy, you can identify stingy when you see it.  And you have the responsibility to go, “You a cheapskate.”  [laughter]  And they go, “Don’t judge me!”  And you say, “Yeah, I can.  I used to be cheaper than you.”…  Right?  So, that’s what Jesus is saying.  Who said it?  [Jesus]  He says, “Hypocrite!”  First.  He says, “Hypocrite!”  What should you do?  “First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”  First remove your plank.  What is it that you mess up on?  Get that together, and then you’re free to judge.  The Church is called to judge.  Somebody better step up and judge America.  And if we’ll do it first, God will not have to bring the hammer.  But right now, he’s standing the hammer.  But we need, somebody needs to make a call here.  Somebody needs to say, “What we’ve done is wrong.  We know because we, I once was lost…” [yeah]  “But now I’m found.”

******

Pastor Don continues with Rock Solid faith in the next video.  Hope this blesses you.

Heather

Pastor Don reminded us that the epistles were not written in chapter and verse, but were a continuous letter.

2 Corinthians 5:1-2 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.  For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven,

We are earnestly desiring. Right now we are alive and well on planet earth.   Heaven is our hope.  In Heaven something earnestly desires to clothe us even though we are down here on earth.  We can think about our experiences here, but it is important to remember that Heaven is a real place. 

Everything we are doing down on earth is already seen by God.  God saw us before we were born, God saw what we are doing before it happened.

2 Corinthians 5:3-4 if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.

We really want to be in our heavenly bodies, no pain, death, sickness and having the Mind of Christ.  We want our mortality to be swallowed up by life – Heavenly life.

2 Corinthians 5:5 Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

We have been given the Spirit as a guarantee, we know some stuff.

Pastor Don asked how many in the room have a dollar.  Everyone raised their hand, and he told us that having that dollar is a guarantee that we are not broke.  We can do business. 

The Spirit of God inside of us is a guarantee of Heaven, and the Spirit inside of us guides us down here.  We need to learn how to practice listening and doing what our spirit is telling us.

We need to know that we have eternal life, that earth is temporary, that there is a God, and that everything will be all right in the end.  He then asked us if we have ever met someone and instantly had a sense about whether we wanted to be around them or not.  That is our spirit helping us.  We can be more assured of things we don’t know, because of our spirit.  Before you take that job or buy that car do you ask God, did the Holy Spirit give you guidance?  If you consult your Spirit, you can save yourself a lot of grief. 

A lot of us do not trust the spirit and we rethink things.  Our minds can mess us up every time. Sometimes the Spirit gives us an answer we don’t want to hear.  Often we act before we hear from the Spirit. 

When we pray, we believe that we will get it, then time goes by and we are not receiving what we prayed for.  We begin to wonder, well maybe God did not show up, things didn’t work out the way that we thought.  Maybe God didn’t hear.  Maybe we prayed the wrong prayer.  Maybe, we reason, God doesn’t do that anymore, he doesn’t heal or do miracles.  Some may think that we need to save things for the big problems, not our little concerns.

2 Corinthians 5:5 Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.

God gives us the Spirit to confirm.  We are prepared for a spiritual body and we have a guarantee of the Spirit down here on earth, a guarantee that there is a Spirit body in Heaven.

The Jews look for signs, so for them it is often easier to be healed.  In their search for signs, Jews have lately been taken in by the new age and they spend their time looking for the right guru. Pastor Don told us about a person he knew that was studying under a guru.  This guru was soon going to die and the guru asked the person if he could upon death come and take over the person’s spirit.  The person agreed to that.  So when the guru died, a phone call was made to the person to be ready to receive the guru’s spirit.  The guru came into the person’s body and along with it also came all the sicknesses that the guru had at the point of death.  The man was knocked down to the floor and was sick from that time.  He came to our church and got freed from this, and was dancing in the aisles.  The man’s wife was into reikki and watched her husband healed.  She then started doing some of her “treatments” for him and he began to get sicker again.  His spirit became dominated by a stronger spirit and ultimately he ended up in a nursing home and died.

Years later, the woman was also sick and dying, and had cancer throughout her body. Her son called and said that his mom was calling for Pastor Don. Pastor Don and Pastor Abraham (who was visiting from India) went to see her. When they went into the room, they saw facing her bed was a picture of her guru.  She ran out of things to do and had no peace. Seven of her “healing” students who were learning from her, were ministering to her and nothing happened.  Pastor Abraham told her that this Indian guru, will not help her, that she will die, but she needs to renounce this stuff or she will not make it – there is no peace in gurus.  Pastor Abraham told her that he was from India, and that this man (guru) is nothing, his gods are imaginary, that Jesus is the answer.  That Jesus is her Messiah. 

Pastor Don asked her, why did you send for me?  She told him that when she thought about all her students, friends, and family that only Pastor Don would be the one to look after her son.   The guarantee of the Spirit helped her to realize her wrong thinking and theology, and she became aware of how it was all nonsense.  She prayed and accepted Jesus and went to live with the Lord.  Pastor Don and Cynthia took care of her son. 

Another person came to our church who had her spirit dominated by a stronger spirit who wanted to come into our church to disrupt the service.  Pastor Don prayed and the Holy Spirit knocked this person down and the person was out for the rest of the service.  She wanted to know what happened.  Pastor Don told her, “The power of God is stronger than the stuff you do.” 

One day he was teaching on Melchizedek on a TV show, and as we know from our studies there is no one on earth except Jesus, who could be a priest in the order of Melchizedek, for the criterion listed in Hebrews 7:3 without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually. The first criterion is enough to disqualify us, without father, without mother, without genealogy. That disqualifies any person – only God could meet that criterion. So anyone who is ordained according to the order of Melchizedek is not ordained correctly.  A person came to Pastor Don and offered him that for $24.95 (it is probably more now) that he could gain ordination as a Priest in the Order of Melchizedek. 

We need to realize that we do not listen to different spirits, but the Spirit of God gives us a guarantee that it is Him – a guarantee we can trust for the Spirit and the Word agree.

When a person is depressed, a spirit of depression drops in, but we can tell ourselves, “I’m not going to stay depressed.  We can be burdened with financial problems, but tell ourselves that we will get through this and that things will be alright. 

2 Corinthians 5:6  So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.

While we are stuck on the planet earth we are absent from the Lord.  We know God, but are still functioning in our carnal and fleshly body.  That’s ok, because we have a guarantee.  ALWAYS! At home in the body, not at war with our self, we have the spirit guaranteeing you.

We looked at the same passage in different translations.

NIV. Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord.

KJV Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:

AMP So then, we are always full of good and hopeful and confident courage; we know that while we are at home in the body, we are abroad from the home with the Lord [that is promised us].

Because of that understanding, we know that God sees everything.  We know that God’s promise is there for us and that what we have on earth is a momentary separation.  We have a future fact that we can trust in.  Because of our spirit, we are connected to the Holy Spirit, and thus we know that we have that guarantee.  We get so trapped with what we are going through on earth that we forget what our spirit is telling us.

Pastor Don shared that one day he was to preach and he ended up with a cramp in his leg.  He had a thought go through his mind that he was having a massive stroke and had to get help now, that when he straightened out his leg the clot would go to his brain.  Pastor Don rejected that thought and commanded his leg to do what it had to do.  Not all thoughts are our thoughts, some are dropped into our minds by the enemy and we need to discern what is a true thought from a lie from the enemy.  In this case it was a lie from the enemy.  Our mind can stress us to death with demonic thoughts.  Pastor Don’s mind was trying to tell him that his father had a stroke and he was overdue for a stroke.  He spoke the truth of divine healing to his spirit and that fear and feeling went away.

2 Corinthians 5:7 (we used NKJV, but Amp. is so awesome I am going to use it here) For we walk by faith [we regulate our lives and conduct ourselves by our conviction or belief respecting man's relationship to God and divine things, with trust and holy fervor; thus we walk] not by sight or appearance.

It is connected.  2 Corinthians 5:1-6 lets us know that we can be spirit led.  We have the guarantee that it will be OK, no matter our circumstances.  Paul told us that he has been abounded and abased, and is content no matter the physical condition.  We have the Spirit of God.  God is assuring us that we can get through this, and we have to hold onto this truth day by day by day. 

We walk by faith.

This is the first half of our discipleship class. I will share the second half tomorrow.

Hoping you are having a warmer Saturday than I am. It is soooo cold here.

Heather

Hebrews 10:26  For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

This is a foundational passage of scripture with powerful implications.

Today there is no Temple, and no way to sacrifice for our sins.  Jesus did that 2000 years ago and the veil split.  Today, at Yom Kippur, there is no way for the Jewish people to atone for their sins.  They were to do that at the House of God, on Mt. Zion, but that Temple does not exist right now.  With no Temple, and no High Priest, they cannot make that sacrifice.  In fact the last priest who could link his lineage to Aaron died, and after he died he was not resurrected, and he left no heir.  Therefore the hierarchy of that line of priests is now secretly beginning to think that Yeshua is the Messiah. 

Since the Temple was destroyed in AD 70, they cannot carry out the Levitical sacrifice. They have created substitute activities such as swinging chickens, and specific prayers to pray, but that is not the sacrifice that God required for the covering of sins.  There needed to be the sacrifice, in the Temple, of the Lamb – just like Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for the sins of the people.  Now, all they can do is look over their sins, and say that they won’t continue to do those sins, a promise that cannot be kept. They also go to those whom they have hurt and ask for forgiveness, making reparations when possible. They fast.  But these acts do not atone for the sins. 

The next Holy Day after the Day of Atonement is the Feast of Tabernacles.  For Christians, we celebrate Jesus’ sacrifice for us, and we have the same Messiah as the Jews, but we know who has paid for our sins.  We do repent our sins, our nation’s sins, and the church’s sins, and we thank God for His magnificence and kindness.  We look for the Resurrection of the flesh and the Rapture, and know that Christ is coming back at the Feast of Tabernacles and He will Tabernacle with us. 

There are to be three appearances of the Lord. 1. Jesus of Nazareth (2000 years ago), 2. Jesus coming in the clouds at the Rapture, 3. Return to earth at the Feast of Tabernacles to rule and reign 1000 years.  At the end of the Tribulation He comes to earth, Revelation 20:4 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

God cannot judge us and our time on earth unless he can show that He would be able to rule and reign perfectly.  That is what this 1000 year millennial reign will accomplish.  If we would have stayed with God’s program, things would have been different. 

Someone asked the question about why do we, as Christians celebrate the Jewish holidays.

Pastor Don mentioned how we celebrate birthdays, remembering the day of our birth and the years intervening.  With the Jewish holidays we are bringing the old into remembrance so that we can remind ourselves of what we are celebrating with the sacrifice of Jesus.  Before Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross Yom Kippur was kept.  This reminds us of how, even before Jesus, God was merciful and provided a way for the people to atone for their sins for the past year.  When Jesus came, He made a complete atonement.  Before Jesus, the atonement was partial, only for the particular year- the High Priest atoned for the sins of the people by a yearly sacrifice. 

When we, as Christians, celebrate the Passover, not only do we celebrate the deliverance of the Jews from Egypt physically, but we realize that Jesus provided a way for us to be delivered from Egypt (spiritual sin).  When we break the bread (matzo) we remember Jesus and the breaking of the bread of communion.  We know that when there are three matzo’s and one is broken and hidden – that is a symbol of what Jesus did for us.  (a symbol of hidden in the tomb for three days, and also a symbol of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  It is not surprising that the middle matzo is the one broken and hid during the Passover, for that is the one that represents Jesus.)

God gave the Israelites seven holidays, and every one of them points to Christ.  We know the mystery, but each of the holidays say something about Jesus.

Moses gave the people the Law, but Paul tells us that the Old Testament is a tutor to teach us and bring us understanding.  The sacrifice the Jews made atoned for their sins for one year, but Jesus atoned for our sins for a lifetime, for eternity. We will be celebrating the feasts for eternity.

Hebrews 10:26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,

This is talking about sins that put us in the path of judgment.

Hebrews 10:27  but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries.

Our adversary is satan and his minions and those that willfully commit sins. Often we commit sin on the spur of the moment, and then we catch ourselves at the sins.  We are not setting out to plan and plot out our sin. And we repent.  The willful sins are without remorse, repentance, or a desire to stop sinning. This passage is talking about blaspheme of the Holy Spirit sins and according to Hebrews 6:4-6 we do not qualify.

Hebrews 6:4-6  For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame.

We are not plotting and planning our sins with no intention of repenting.  We would have to walk fully in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and have advanced well in our faith – this passage does not apply to a new believer or a backslidden believer, but one who knows Christ and DELIBERATELY turns their back on Him with full knowledge of what they are doing. The Elders of Israel at Jesus’ time would qualify, and Judas qualified.  They rejected Jesus as LORD, even though they knew that He was the Messiah. 

1 John 5:16-18 If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin which does not lead to death, he will ask, and He will give him life for those who commit sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I do not say that he should pray about that. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death. We know that whoever is born of God does not sin; but he who has been born of God keeps himself, and the wicked one does not touch him.

There are different sins and one can lead to death, the other do not.  Yet, if we are violating what is God’s best for us, that can lead to our early death – for example if we totally ignore the laws of good health and our health begins to fail it is due to our not doing God’s best for us.  God could then ask us, “Why didn’t you trust Me for that?” 

There are areas of life that we need to deal with in our walk with the Lord.

1. No other Gods before God – if disobeyed can lead to blaspheme.
2. Love your neighbor as yourself – fulfills our need to learn to deal with others.

Then there is another important area.

Mark 11:25 “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses”

Unforgiveness – we need to forgive. 

When we commit a sin to another or against ourselves, we sin with the Body.  Our Body is the Temple of God.

There is also sexual sin.  Remember, whenever you have relations with another person, Jesus is in the mix.  Where I take my body, God goes.  We were bought at a price, a valuable price, and we don’t want to become slaves of men, we are slaves of Christ.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20 All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.” But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.

When we sin, we sin against God.  King David’s sexual sin resulted in dividing the Kingdom, and that persisted from that point on.  David acted as if the sexual sin was minor, but God does not look at it that way. The only relief David found was going to God, and our only relief is through the blood of Jesus.  But, as a result of King David’s sexual sin, his kingdom was at war for the rest of his life. But while our sins can be forgiven, sexual sin follows us, and can only be erased by the Blood of the Lamb.  We can be forgiven, but sometimes the fruit of our indiscretion follows us much longer.

To control people for life, satan knows that the best way to achieve that is through unforgiveness and sexual sin.  America is the leading purveyor of porn world wide. 

Immorality was going to defile the Church of Corinth in Paul’s time.  A man was sleeping with his father’s wife and no one in the church was telling him to stop.  When a person lives in blatant sin and refuses to stop doing such sins, then Paul suggested that this church:

1 Corinthians 5:5 In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

God will take his hand of protection off the person and satan will have access to him.  The flesh may be destroyed by the sexual sin, but his spirit will still be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.  Our sexual sins have repercussions that can hurt us. (Heather’s comment, think of AIDS or sexually transmitted diseases for example.)

Hebrews 10:28-29  Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?

The Church has made a mistake of reducing Communion to just the forgiveness of sins, and ignoring that it also pertains to the healing of the Body.  The Body of Christ is forgetting the full import of Communion.

1 Corinthians 11:27  Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.

Isaiah 53:5 But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

When we are saved, the sins of our flesh will not cause us to go to hell, but the sin of the Spirit of totally rejecting God can lead us to hell.

We receive grace, which implies gifts.  Strong’s Concordance describes Grace as, “the divine influence upon the heart made manifest in life.” Charis -charismatic gifts of God made manifest in people.  God empowers us, divine influence is the power of God influencing the spirit of man, made manifest through demonstrated signs and wonders, in life on the earth.  We are given the authority and ability to do something on our planet.

We have the Spirit of Grace.  Every time a believer says, “I can’t” they are insulting the Spirit of Grace.  WE CAN’T, but GOD CAN.  Daddy can.  Daddy will help. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Hebrews 10:30 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The LORD will judge His people.”

God judges us by seeing if we are covered with the blood of Jesus, which is how we are sanctified.  So often we want to judge others and get fixated on their getting their “just” rewards.  The problem is that when we do that, God cannot judge for He will not put an undue burden on a person.  We need to let God be the One to judge, for only He can judge with true judgment.  Only He knows things we don’t know. 

Hebrews 10:31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

The Church has portrayed God as a marshmallow God.  Focusing solely on God’s love, but forgetting that part of Gods love is judgment.  God is a God of judgment.  He will judge, spank us with love, and that chastisement will hurt.  But remember, God only chastises us because He loves us.

Hebrews 10:32 But recall the former days in which, after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings:

In the end times, when God pours out His wrath that is not meant for us.  But there is nothing in our salvation that tells us that we will not have suffering.

Hebrews 10:33 partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated;

Pastor Don told us that if someone is not angry at us for sharing about Jesus, we are not sharing God’s Word enough.  For there should be some people in our lives who groan when that “Jesus lover” comes around, for they know that somehow their sins are convicted by how you act.

Hebrews 10:34 for you had compassion on me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.

This was when Paul was in jail.  This is a tough one for us to consider right now, in today’s world.  Do we know that we have a better possession in Him (Jesus) than in the Stock Market?

Hebrews 10:35-36 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:

We need endurance.  Pastor Don told us that we need to make sure our physical body is getting enough sleep and to not stress.  People are trusting in possessions, but they are not reliable in this day and age.  There is unexpected evil, stealing, shooting, etc.  In the Stock Market today which is falling (Heather’s comment, even more now than when this Bible study happened), people are seeing their finances tumble.  We put our confidence in the Lord.  There is no reason to be shaken.  Pray for what we need.  The spirit endures.

WILL OF GOD, there is a reciprocal action necessary – compliance with the will of God. We need to do the will of God, then we have the promise of God. God does not have to bless disobedience.

We finished the Bible study by reading together the last few verses of Chapter 10.

Hebrews 10:37-39 “For yet a little while, and He who is coming will come and will not tarry. Now the just shall live by faith; but if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.” But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.

Praying that this study blesses you. 

Heather

We went to the Ranger School that my nephew is attending so that my son could visit with him.  Before we left, there was snow on the ground, but they went to examine the lean to on the school grounds.  My son was planning to sleep there, but ended up sleeping in the dorm.

Edward, (on the right – home from college for the break between quarters), with his cousin. 

Jim, Katherine and I stayed at a local bed and breakfast.  Notice the snow – sigh.

During the evening I spent time planning for the Beth Moore study that I am small group leader for and Katherine was reading a book for class.

It was a nice break from routine.  If you are ever near Wanakena, New York, the Packbasket Adventure Bed and Breakfast is a wonderful place to stay.  By the way, the dorms were warmer than the lean to, but I suspect we were even more comfortable.

I will try to be a bit more faithful in posting Bible studies and catching up.  I also want to get to your sites.

Heather

Here is the video of the sermon and below that is the transcript, slightly edited to make for easier reading.  Remember three dots … means a pause and what is in the [brackets] is what the congregation says.  The first minute or two is the test pattern and the song.

SAY AMEN
SHOW 108
FAITH THAT WORKS PART 3
11/02/08

Amen [amen] Alright, we want to go to Hebrews Chapter 11, we are in our study on faith that works.  Faith that what?  [works]  Say it again.  [works]  Faith that works.  And we have been looking at a number of things.  For those of you that haven’t been with us, we want to start with our keynote verse, which of course, is the most powerful definition of faith that we could find.  In Hebrews 11, verse 1, most of you should know it.  Come on [recite verse]:  “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Alright, so faith is something that we have hope for, and then it, itself is evidence.  Faith is the evidence.  Now, we want to have a faith that works. 

Last week and in subsequent weeks, I told you that you must know that you qualify.  You must know that you qualify, but you must know that faith is God’s ability.  It’s not your ability, but it’s God’s ability.  Now, today we want to look at a few things that are scary in their context, of this is the part of faith that requires your participation.  Isn’t that wonderful?  [amen]  Don’t you want to participate in faith?  [yes]  I hope you do.  Alright, so, those of you that are writing things down, you want to get this from the beginning. Here we go. 

There is future faith…Three different levels of faith.  There’s future faith.  Now, future faith is faith that looks ahead…This is the faith that prepares for battle before the battle is even engaged…Future faith is the ability to have faith, to project your faith into the circumstances and situations of life that by realities, you know, there’s such a thing as reality.  You know certain things are coming.  And therefore you have faith for them before you even get to them.  Now, the strongest type of future faith is this, it’s what I call faith that anticipates.  If a believer is truly prayed up, he should be projecting part of his faith that says, no matter what comes, I’m prepared for it.  No matter what it’s going to look like, I’m going to be ok.  No matter what ensues, I have the faith and the relationship with the Lord that’s going to get me through.  Now, that’s future faith.  That’s faith that, before you see the problem, before you see the circumstance or the situation, you are projecting your faith into the future. 

I had a lady say to me, one time I was doing a ministry.  I was hosting a TBN show, and after it, she wanted to talk to me. And we sat in her office, and she said to me, “Pastor Don, it’s just around the corner.” … Now, I knew exactly what she meant, because of what I had a sense of.  You know what I mean by a sense?  [yes]  I had a sense that something big was coming into my life, that I had been waiting for.  I didn’t know what it was, or how it was going to manifest.  But what I did was, I put myself into a position of believing before it happens.  I began to project future faith, that no matter what’s coming just around the corner, I’m good to go.  [yeah]  I will have everything I need when I get there, to do God’s will.  I’ll have everything I need.  And that is future faith.  You cannot anticipate and know everything that’s going to happen.  You can end up lost in the world of imaginings.  But what you can do, you can learn how to, through prayer, project your faith so that you are prepared for unexpected events.  [yes, amen]  Okay? 

I was joking this morning.  One of the church vans broke down, bringing people to church.  And when they brought me the information, I just jumped up and I said, “Ohhhh, nooo!, Oh, no.”  [I doubt it]  But I wasn’t, “Oh no,” on the  inside.  Why?  Because I’m aware stuff like that’s going to happen… And I had the faith to realize that even if those people had to walk, they still would have gotten here.  [right]  If they had to call or somebody had to carry them… well that’s a little extreme.  [laughter] 

But you have to have future faith.  There’s no way you can be a parent without future faith.  [amen]  Except to be a bad parent.  But any good parent has to have a consciousness that my kids are going to be alright.  I can’t see what they’re going to have to face or what they’re going to have to go through, but they’re going to be fine. 

You cannot prepare yourself as a bride for a husband, or a husband for a bride, without future faith.  And that’s why some of you, you know, you struggle because you don’t project yourself into, well what would I do when I get married?  What will I be like when I get married.  And then you project your faith, oh hallelujah, I’m going to be a great husband.  I am going to be the real deal.  [amen!]  You know, they’re fixing my white horse right now.  [yeah]  I’m going to ride into her life and rock her world.  [come on pastor!]  

But that is, you have to have that, you cannot be successfully employed without future faith.  You can’t go into the possibility of having your own business, or the possibility of being promoted or moving into a circumstance, an unknown circumstance without having the internal conversation in your mind, by faith, I’m the one they’re going to hire.  I’m going to be good at it.  I’m going to find my niche. I’m going to be, ah, it’s going to be great. 

I ministered to a guy on the phone this weekend, and I said, “Well, when did you know…”  listen to me carefully.  “I said, when did you know you would be making this kind of money?”  He makes about 200,000 dollars a year now.  He’s only like 26 years old, 27 years old.  I said, “When did you know you’d be making that kind of money?”  He said, “Pastor Don,”  he said, “when I was in high school I began to tell my mother…” cause he came from a very poor family.  You know, very poor.  Single mom, doing the whole thing.  And he was at our house more than he was at his own house, I think because we had more food.  I don’t know.  [laughter]  Or something.  But, he said, “I began telling myself then that I was going to be rich.”…[hmmmm, Praise the Lord]  “I began telling myself then, that I was going to be rich.”  You have to have future faith in order to have success. 

Let me give you another Biblical example.  You ready for this?  King David…had future faith.  His faith was mobilized when the prophet anointed him.  When the prophet anointed him to be king, and many people don’t realize this, he had already done feats of faith.   He killed a bear and a lion, and so forth.  But, when he got mobilized in faith, he then knew that as king, future king, he was going to be a protector of the nation.  So, when he stepped out on the battlefield to face Goliath, he wasn’t stepping out on the battlefield as a shepherd boy, he was stepping out as the future king.  [right]  Stepping out as the protector of the nation. 

You must have what kind of faith?  [future faith]  Future faith.  You must begin to project, you must begin to see, you must begin to envision, you must begin to speak into existence the circumstances and the situations that you’re going to face.  Part of your faith should say, as you think about it, when I get to such and such, this is what I’m going to do.  The next time the common cold rises up, this is what I’m going to do.  I’m going to walk in faith.  The next time I look at my budget and my bills, I’m going to have the self control to lick this thing.  [umh umh]  The next time the stock market crashes, I’m not going to be afraid.  [amen]  I’m going to stand.  You need to project into future faith.  Alright? 

Some people are already planning their next disaster, because they’re attaching doubt and unbelief to that which has not happened yet, rather than attaching faith to it.  [amen]  So that they can be successful.  Glory to God.  [hallelujah]  I said, Glory to God.  [glory] 

The next type of faith you need to have is historic faith… Historic faith.  Hindsight is 20/20.  But, sometimes in hindsight, we’ve been blind.  [wow]  Blind.  I mean blind.  You know that saying, they say blind as a bat?  Well, that’s pretty ridiculous, because his radar system is so effective he can find a gnat in the night.  [yeah]  So, how blind is he?  You know what I mean?  How blind is he? 

You need to have historic faith.  You need to project your faith back on two levels.  First of all, as you look back to where you’ve been, where was it you missed it?  Where did your faith not work.  You need to keep a record of where you failed in faith.  You need to have historic faith that looks back and says, “The last time I was diagnosed with this,” [go Pastor]  “I yielded to it.” …”And it took me a year to get over it.”  Historic faith.  You need to look back and say, “The last time I looked at a man as the answer to all my existence, he let me down before we even got to the altar.”  You need to have historic faith, you need to look back at all of the great people of faith, that lost it and missed it.  You need to look back at the prophets that lost it to alcohol.  Prophets that lost it to sexual sin.  You need to have historic faith that looks back and says, “What worked and what didn’t work?” 

And you also need to have historic faith that looks over your personal achievements, come on now.  Your personal achievements, of faith.  When you believed for something and it came to pass, you need to touch the feeling of that faith, and go, “That was faith.”   [yeah] … These over here was wishing and hoping and I was devastated because I was disappointed. 

I was at a concert last night and a thought came to me.  I just want to share it with you.  And I wrote it on a small piece of paper.  And it was, is God still God when you don’t get your way?  [ohhhh, yeah] ….huh?  Is He still God when you don’t get your way?… when you look back over the history of your exercising of your faith, when things did not turn out the way that you wanted them to, did you take God down off of His altar, and declare, “He doesn’t do that anymore.  He doesn’t work for me anymore.  He’s not God.  I will do what I used to do before.”  You know, when you’re praying for God for financial prosperity, and somehow you’re still late with the rent, do you buy more lotto tickets?  Cause then, if you do, you are not believing that God is still God.  [amen]  Well, glory be to God.  I’m talking to somebody here.  [laughter]  So, you need to have historic faith that looks back and says, “What did I do the last time I had a crisis?”  [amen]  You know, “What did I do the last time my marriage was in trouble?  Did I exercise faith?  Or, did I get into doubt and unbelief and fear?”  … What did I do? 

I remember so clear, you know, historic faith.  I remember my son had set the record for no homework in the fifth grade.  [laughter]  I mean, the teacher called us, cause she said, “This is a phenomenal achievement.  [laughter]  This boy has done no homework in so long.”  She says he has set a new record for no homeworks.  [laughter] … I remember, I remember well, what am I going to do?  I wanted to rip the skin off his back.  [laughter]  You know, and make a sweater out of it or something.  I didn’t know, I wasn’t sure what to do.  Me and my wife, we discussed it.  You know, and I had spanked this boy.  I had punished this boy.  I’d taken everything away.  He was living in a room with bare walls, no toys, no TV, no nothing.  I mean, you know, we tried everything.  And so, finally, it was a matter of, wait a minute.  Wait a minute.  It just hit me.  Do I believe the seed?  [amen] … The seed, do I believe the seed?  The seed that was sown in his life, do I believe it? 

And that was where I got one of the greatest, greatest lessons that I give to parents.  There comes a point in the life of your child, when you have to sit the child down, look him in the face, and say, “Son, this is your life.”  [Unh, unh] … “This is your life.”  … Look him right in the eyes, “Son, this is your life.  The decisions you are making are going to impact your life.  I’m going to do fine, I’m going to be living in my house.  I’m going to pay my mortgage, my rent.  Drive my car.  I’m ok.  But, if the decisions you are making, are based upon me or your mother, or anything else, you’re making decisions for your life.”  [unh, unh]  I said, “So, it’s up to you.  It’s up to you.  We’re willing to go the distance for you to get an education and go to school, whatever.  But the decisions you’re making right now are going to put you back in the fifth grade for another year.” … “And I’m not going to, I’m not going to raise one finger to stop it.”  [amen, tell the truth Pastor] …

Well, what was I doing?  I was putting faith in the seed.  I had faith in the seed, that in this child the right thing had been deposited in him that he could make a right decision.  But as long as he was going to continue making wrong decisions, fine with me.  I was going to faith, I’ll put my faith in the circumstance, in the situation.  He turned it around immediately.  By the time he got to junior high school, he was becoming an excellent student.  By the time he graduated high school, with great honors, he was off to college.  He graduated from college, magnum cum laude.  All of that stuff.  Went on to graduate school and in less time than it takes most people, got his master’s degree.  A great student.  But the pivotal point was, was I going to trust the seed?  [yes]  … Now, whenever I have a situation with my adult boys, whenever I have a situation with them, I look at them through historic faith…I remember the fact that yeah, he messed up back then, but that was then.  What did I do then.  What I did then was I trusted the seed.  [right]  And guess what?  I look back and I go, … cause you know, young adults can make life destroying decisions.  [amen]  So, I look back now and I say, historically I had to trust what was in him.  I had to trust what’s in these boys. 

You know, when my youngest son came to us, it was scary, at 21.  He says he wants to get married… You know, what could I say?  Cynthia was 22 when she got married.  [laughter]  … Mary, the mother of Jesus, was probably 14.  Hnhh.  [laughter]  The Holy Spirit had to do what, trust her to bring forth the greatest life that ever lived.  [amen]  So I look at these, I say, you must have historic faith and say, In difficult situations and difficult times, what did you believe?  Did you just go in doubt and unbelief?  Or the sky’s falling?  It’s over?  Or, do you have some historic faith that says, hnh, this turned out alright, when I believed for it.  [right]  And go, this didn’t turn out alright when I didn’t believe for it.  We need what kind of faith?  [historic]  Historic faith.  You gotta look back and see what went on.  You know?  Alright? 

Now, let’s look at this next one.  This one I call peripheral faith.  Peripheral what?  [faith]  Peripheral faith.  Or, you can call it outer faith.  What is that?  Peripheral faith means you must look at your surroundings.  You must examine your friends, your family, and your relations.  You know, sometimes you’re going to come into a situation where you’re going to have to believe something where everyone in your peripheral vision, everyone around you is not going to believe for you.  [amen]  … [yeah, right]… They’re not going to believe.  You’re going to be calling it one thing, they’ll call it another.  You’d better be careful when you get a symptom who you tell.  [yes, amen]  Did you hear what I said?  [yes sir]  Some things you just need to keep to yourself [yes] until the Lord reveals it to you because you need to position your faith for success, and your peripheral faith can be damaged if you’re reaching out, looking in the wrong… if you’ve got somebody in your world that’s telling you you’re never going to make it, your just stupid.  You’re never going to get it together.  You need to get them outside of your peripheral range.  You need to move to Texas.  [yeah]  Or West Hurley, that’s just as far.  [laughter]  But you need to look in your peripheral faith. 

You know, the circumstances around you cause you to have relativity… I hate to say that, but it’s really true.  You can look at your circumstances in your peripheral and go, “Oh, I know I’m not going to make it.”  Your peripheral faith, is what you see, your circumstances you see, and the people who are in it that can damage or they can lift, lift your faith.  [yes] 

Ever notice how families come to the Lord? [yeah]  Ever notice that?  It’ll start with one person who’ll get on fire for the Lord.  Then, everybody can’t stand him.  [that's right]  They can’t stand, they don’t want to hear you talking about Jesus.  They don’t want to hear you had a great church service.  They definitely don’t want to hear it was a bad church service.  You know, some of your friends and family won’t come to the Lord because every day you go home from church, you complain about the pastor and the singing and the people and they all get on our nerves.  So, why would they want to go to church with you?  Glory to God.  Ethel, I’m telling the truth here.  You need to hang up a sign in  your mind that says, “I will, I will bless the Lord and His children, and His children’s children. I’ll bless them.”  I’m going, do you know, I was teaching in the Sunday School, and all them snotty nosed kids were a drag.  That’s not the truth.  [laughter]  There had to be one little snotty nosed kid that was fun. 

But what you have to realize that’s your circumstances around you, that’s your peripheral vision.  And if your faith levels are low in that, you’re going to have to rely on yourself more.  If you’re working in a godless environment, many of you do that.  Years ago, I still had to work as a performer, an entertainer, so I worked in hotels, and bars and lounges, and concert halls.  You’ll be amazed, that’s not a faith filled place.  [laughter]  That’s not a faith filled place.  You’re not going to hear faith talked in the world. 

So, you have to do what?  You have to insulate yourself against, so that your peripheral faith can still be strong.  You can look at things from a circumstantial position, always covering it in the Blood of the Lamb.  Always covering what you see and other people in the possibilities of Jesus Christ.  Or else you’ll get hung up. 

Alright, can we move on to another one?  [yes]  In this problem, there’s a very important thing of peripheral faith, that becomes a problem.  That’s world opinion and church traditions.  World opinions and church traditions fit in your peripheral vision of faith.  You have to be aware, I mean, you have to be aware that if you’re a 24 hour TV person, you’re being conditioned to a world opinion.  If you’re a soap opera person, you’re being conditioned.  In your peripheral vision you are not what you eat.  You know, we feel like we are.  But you’re not what you eat.  But you are what you see.  Your eye is the window to the soul. 

And this week I found an article, a scientific article that proves it.  Jesus said it and I always wondered about it, but it proves it.  They found that the type of iris that you have in your eye already not determines, but reflects the type of soul that you have.  I’m not going to tell you how to do it, but I’m watching your eyes now.   [laughter]  Cause it said people with psychological problems and people that are negative, their eye becomes a certain way.  And you can look in their eyes and you can see, you can see what’s in their soul, because what you watch and what you take in with your eyes, you know, is a what, a window to the soul. 

So you have to be careful what you’re watching all the time.  You have to be careful because what you’re watching is greatly going to determine who you are.   And what you focus your eye on.  You know, you can pass your eye over things and the brain records it, but you can focus.  If you focus on it, the brain imprints it. 

Last Friday at Bible study, I was teaching the people the law of substitution.  That in terms, in terms of your peripheral, what you look at … it gets indelibly printed.  Why is it so hard to get people over sexual abuse or father neglect?  The reason is because they have pictures that are printed in their mind.  Why is it a man won’t trust women and he has a series of women that he’s imprinted in his mind and so, whenever he meets another woman, he applies that same print to it? … you know what I’m saying?  So, you’re dealing with the things that you’ve seen, and the way that you’ve imprinted them, that will determine greatly.  Most people, you know, how can I say this?  No pastor can pastor everybody.  [true]  There’s some people that are so damaged in certain areas that when they meet a pastor who has, you know, a personality or a sense of humor, if they’ve imprinted a certain type of picture of what is godly or holy in their mind, they can’t, they just can’t deal with those kind of things.  Do you follow me?  [yes] If you have a woman who’s been abused by men, especially men in authority, when she comes up trying to pick a pastor, you know, she’ll pick a female pastor.  And the reason is because it’s been so indelibly printed that she sits in my office, she is saying, this guy is going to abuse me.  He’s a nice guy, but some way, some how he’s not going to look out for me. And the real problem is she’s just never had a good father.  So, she wouldn’t know how to keep one if she had one or to react to it.  Because of the imprintation. 

So, you must be careful, if your faith is going to grow, you must be careful about what you see.  What does your eye see?  There’s some movies that are just going to imprint something in your brain. So you need to be careful about what you watch, what you see, and how you interpret what you see.  Hello.  [amen]  Every good looking guy isn’t a good guy.  [that's right]  He’s just good looking.  And he didn’t have anything to do with being good looking. [right, right]  He just woke up and got a beautiful face.  So, you can’t be giving him credit for that.  Alright? 

You know, I inherited this body.  I didn’t go to a store and pick it out.  I would have picked out somebody else’s body.  [laughter]  You know what I mean.  I’d be 6’6″ and still playing in the NBA.  [laughter]  That’s funny.  What are you laughing at?  [laughter] … I had the skills, I’m just too short.  [I know]  What are you…. come on… [that's why I'm laughing]  That’s why you’re laughing, alright.  Somebody show her another seat.  [laughter] 

Ok, let’s run through it.  You need future faith, you need to be able to look ahead.  But you need to be, to practice that now.  The Apostle Paul says, be ready in season and out of season.  How can you be in and out of season unless you have future faith?  Where you look ahead and you believe somethings.  You need historic faith.  Hindsight is 20/20.  Therefore, look back with your hindsight, and see where you’ve scored before.  Where did you succeed?  How is it you came to the process of believing that you could get your faith there?  Then peripheral faith.  You want to look around you with your faith.  Know who to attach to, who to, if you don’t believe I’m anointed, don’t come up here in the prayer line for healing.  You have to have some peripheral vision and look around and say, I believe he has faith.  I believe that when he lays hands on me, I received my healing.  [amen]  You have to have your peripheral faith.  Who can you identify with?  Who hook up with? 

What can you believe?  And the only way you can do that is by what?  Having that laaaast examining faith.  Examine yourself.  Look deep in your heart.  What can you believe for?  Don’t say, I’m believing for a mate and you haven’t examined yourself to see if you’re prepared for a mate.  You have to examine yourself, cause the minute you get a mate, you’re going to have to give up half of who you are.  [whoa]  …So, if you’re not ready to give up something, it’s got to be your way or the highway, you are not ready to be married… You’re ready to do, what’s that thing in Alaska where you get dogs, [Iditarod]  The Iditarod, you’re ready for the Iditarod, but you’re not ready for marriage.  Marriage is a sacrifice.  Examine yourself.  Are you really ready to put somebody else first?  Cause if you’re not, you are not ready to be married.  Alright?  Examine your faith.  You’re not ready for a ministry until you can examine whether or not you have the faith to believe that not only did God call you, but he’s anointed you and appointed you and He’s going to be with you in it.  [amen]  Alright.  Hallelujah.  Praise God.  So, we need to examine ourselves, in Jesus’ Name. 

Now I want you, I want you to be here next week.  I’m going to minister to you.  We’re going to talk about revealed faith, intuitive faith, and taught faith.  Cause we need to develop some faith here and attack somethings.  God is good.  [All the time]. 

Most of us have an identity crisis and have no idea who we are and why we are here.  Why do we choose wide paths leading to destruction?

Who are we?  Scripture sheds more light on this.  We can connect to the truth of the scripture and it gives us examples.  The Holy Spirit is our teacher.

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “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.”

When dealing with secular individuals we need to convey the Word of God in secular terms, not in churchy terms.  Secular people think that you can believe what you want to believe – evolution or creationism.  Do we believe that we are brought here by accident or is there a sovereign, loving God who put us here with purpose?

When people come to you with the secular theory that we are evolved from monkeys you can ask them a series of questions to get the people to question what they believe.  We can go to the scriptures.

Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said, “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.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

This passage shows us our purpose – who we are and why we are on earth.  The Creator, Himself, talks about our creation and purpose.  We are to BE FRUITFUL and MULTIPLY.  We are to fill the earth with what?  The Glory of God, God’s righteousness, God’s truth, God’s love, this speaks volumes.  This is so deep that it would take the rest of our natural lives to know and bring this into fruition.  It is so profound – yet so simple.  We are to HAVE DOMINION or dominant rulership, authority, responsible and accountable.  We are to SUBDUE.  God is our highest definition of life and love and calling.

Genesis is a dictate defining our purpose.  We do not do it alone.  We all know what happened to Adam and Eve – they fell short.  Then God created a series of dispensations to bring us back, and it culminated with Jesus and our salvation.

Genesis begins with a Word of God and God actively creating.  When we come out from under the covering of the Word of God things go awry, become disorganized, and mislead.

The New Testament is the Old Testament contained.  The Old Testament is the New Testament explained. These two letters (Old and New Testament) address every aspect of life that we might have a problem with.  The principles and statutes of the Old Testament are presented in action packed living stories.  God set these in place to reveal Himself to us.

Adam and Eve were put out of the Garden and had to scratch for a living. There are judges, prophets, kings to illustrate God’s truths.  God tested His people through their circumstances.  We are now in the 7th dispensation, and the knowledge of Christ is being dispensed at this particular time.

Romans 15:4 For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.

We can have hope through the comfort and patience of the Scriptures.  The Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation teach us and give us hope.  We live in a hopeless world.  God in His wisdom and love set the stage. The dispensations are periods of time which the knowledge, love, and mercy of God is dispensed, for example innocence, judgement, the Kingdom.  God in His love and mercy makes covenants with the people particular to the dispensation relating to the period of time. These Covenants are highlighted by Adam, Abraham, Noah, David, the Kings and the Prophets.  The dispensation of Grace because of Christ. 

Because we are in turmoil, fear, and confusion we don’t always remember we have dominion and authority.  We don’t remember who we are. God interacts with man to empower him, to make him in the image and likeness of God.  God is fair and just.  God talks about the good and the bad, and disciplines us.  The Bible speaks of God’s creation and of His love for us.

But we need to realize: 1. We are corrupt.  2. Deliverance is available.  3. If we walk in deliverance we can fulfill the dictate of Genesis 1.  God has given us the keys to the Kingdom.

Jesus is throughout the whole Word of God – New Testament and Old Testament.  Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One, the Second Adam.

1 Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word has to become flesh in us. The epitome of an example is Jesus.  What did Adam look like?  Genesis says that Adam was created in the image of God.  Adam walked in the presence of God, something we think of as incomprehensible until we have an encounter with Christ. 

We are wired for power and authority.  We are always craving to be on top.  When we fell, our destiny became lost.  The Word still has to become what we fulfill.  Jesus gave us what Adam lost, the direct presence of God.

Adam and Eve were covered with the Shekinah Glory of God, and they were not physically minded.  We are called with a Rhema or a breath of God, that inhabits our mind, and then we can comprehend the incomprehensible.  We are then open to believe and trust in the way we were created to walk.  Remember our first encounter with God?  Adam had it from the beginning. As we spend more time with God, we can taste and see the goodness of God, and pursue it. 

The human in us encounters the supernatural.  God gives us our comparison with the Scripture, the Holy Spirit and the Word.  Who was Adam?  What was his makeup?  How did He comprehend?  How intelligent was Adam?

Ephesians 1:3  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

We are blessed.  That’s what Adam had.  He used 100% of his brain capacity.  We use less than 3%.  Einstein probably used at most 10% of his brain capacity.

The Bible tells us, we have not because we ask not.  Ask God.  Callin wanted to get his information from the Bible about how intelligent Adam was, so he asked God to show him the truth in the Word of God.  God showed Callin that Adam named all the creatures.  That is a lot of creatures! Callin told us that to name a thing is to define it.  To name something you have to know its personality, comprehend and understand all about it. 

Power was given to Adam, and this power was designated for mankind.  It  is available to us today. The first Adam failed, the second Adam (Jesus) succeeded.

We need to trust and believe that what God is saying is factual, and that it will work.  As it was in the Beginning, so shall it be at the end.  Adam had full power and authority to fulfill, to be fruitful and multiply. 

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 1:12-13 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

The Word became flesh. The Word is Jesus.

We then went back to Genesis 1:1-3  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

The rest of the physical creation began. God is Spirit that created a physical creation.  He created man in His image and likeness.  When God created Adam that Word became flesh.  He molded it out of the dust and breathed life and the Word took on flesh.

John 1:14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

The Word became flesh.

1 Corinthians 15:45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

What God started in Genesis, He finished with the Last Adam (Jesus).  Jesus defeated sickness, sin, and disobedience.  We all have faced losing positions at work, doubtful minds, distractions, and have refused to put Him (God) first.  We all battle with these things in the battlefields of our minds.  We need to look at what we are doing in our lives and ask ourselves, is that a distraction?

Ephesians 6:10-12  Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

When satan is shooting fiery darts at us, we need to have our full armor of God on.  We need to know who we are in Christ.  Eve was deceived and distracted by satan. 

The Old Testament illustrates things in the flesh.  In the New Testament the New Adam (Jesus) reigns, and we have the Shekinah Glory of God.  The Spirit is within us individually.  Jesus tells us (as we see in the end of Matthew) that we are to preach the Gospel and subdue the earth. 

Callin told us that the strongest part of us is what we know the least about.  We are weakened because we spend so much in the world.  With our children we spend much time feeding, coddling, and taking care of our children’s needs.  What a miracle the nine months of gestation is, and we know so little about that.  When the baby is introduced to the world, he/she is programmed to the physical.  He gets wet, hungry, cries, and we as parents address these problems. 

God created us in his image, and we are also triune beings.  God is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  We have the physical, spirit, and soul (mind, will, and emotions).  We spend so much time developing our body and our soul, but neglect the spirit.  The psychological (soul) deals with the emotional, volitional will, and people think that who we are depends on our family structure – and that will determine if we are good or bad.

As our children grow they will develop fully by 17 or 21 they are developed with a good education, and hopefully morals.  Do they know God?  If not they are lost.  Our children need to hear a word from us.  We need to question them to make sure that they are saved.  What is missing? Many are hungry for the Spirit of God, and yet believers minister to believers.  We need to be reaching out to the unsaved.

Callin spoke about how many people that we deal with are unsaved, and know very little about the Spirit of God.  The weakest part of ourselves – our physical body – rules our lives.  If you think something, and it is based on feelings it can be wrong – we can have fear and stinking thinking.  We are born again, and before that we were floundering around in the flesh.  The Word becomes flesh in us.  We are seeking to retake our position as it was in Genesis.  Praise and worship, living in His Word will bring the Shekinah glory to cover us as it did in the time of Adam. 

Wherever you go on earth you are supposed to have an impact.  God will do that if we are working in the power of the Word of God.  We can be used spiritually either by God or by the power of darkness.  It is our choice.  Both speak to us, and we choose whom we will obey.  We are a spirit, living in a body, and we have a soul.  If our soul (mind, will, emotions) is not surrendered to God through our spirit we will not be effective for God’s kingdom. We will either subdue or get subdued.  We need leadership, and we emulate various figures in our lives.  Then along comes Jesus and says, “This is the way it is done.”  We have to unlearn what we have learned awry. 

We have been programmed to live life on our own terms.  Eventually, when we get the truth, we have to not just make it a concept, but we have to walk out the truth in our lives.  This takes a different kind of courage, and it takes going into different areas that are scary.  We have to take chances, to boldly go before the throne of God.  God is faithful whether we believe Him or not.  He is faithful.  We have to say, “Lord you said…show yourself mightily.”  God’s Word is a bond on our heart, and we will not depart from God.  God’s Word has not diminished. Let His Word wash over us as waves.

Joshua 1:8-9 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”

We are to meditate on the Word of God day and night, and then we will have good success. It will help us be strong and courageous, when we are subject to the Word of God. God puts the Word in our hearts, and because of our orientation, the Word brings changes in us, and helps us attain the fullness of God in us. 

Unfortunately, many choose to live their lives in their own understanding. Judges 21:25  In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes.

Before we got saved we dealt with life according to our senses, to what we see, through the experience of our flesh.  Once we are saved we begin a pilgrimage (sort of like Pilgrim’s Progress).  We are on a path that gives us distractions, but if we stay on the path we will begin to change.  But so often pride (Vanity Fair – in Pilgrim’s Progress), or the Pit of Despondency can pull us off course.  We need to remember that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing and are to be seated in the high places in Christ Jesus. 

All we have is THE NOW.  God lives outside of time and space – so He knows our perpetual past, present, and future.  We only have our history and now.  We go step by step.  We either know God or distance ourselves from Him.  We either obey God’s calling or disobey His calling.  The power of our destiny is in us.

We cannot stay in the spirit outside of time.  Our assignment is here on earth as the Ambassador of the Kingdom of God.  While we are here, we have to speak their language, and be IN the world but not OF the word.  Jesus is our best example of this.  He taught people and led by example.  When people were ready, Jesus told them about the Kingdom of Heaven.  Jesus met the people where they were.  If they were blind, he gave them sight; hungry, he fed them.  Jesus was a radical of his day, as we are also radical in our time – much of what we do as Christians is not considered politically correct.

We shall be like Him – that is our designated purpose.  The challenge is to grow to be more like  Him.

Luke 11:13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

If we allow the Word to become flesh, we will excel, and rule and reign with Christ.  The challenge is to stay in the Word of God, obey, be spirit filled and this will transform us.

1 Corinthians 10:1-13 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ. But with most of them God was not well pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples, to the intent that we should not lust after evil things as they also lusted. And do not become idolaters as were some of them. As it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.” Nor let us commit sexual immorality, as some of them did, and in one day twenty-three thousand fell; nor let us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted, and were destroyed by serpents;  nor complain, as some of them also complained, and were destroyed by the destroyer. Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.  No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.

We were baptized in Spirit and Water.  Christ is so prominent in the Old Testament.  which is a type and figure of what is our Heritage in Christ. God is faithful.  Every temptation we face, Christ also faced. When temptations come to keep us distracted, we need to stay in the Word of God, and grow in Christ.  If you turn a pauper into a prince you create a tyrant.  We need to walk in the power of love.

Praying your day is blessed.

Heather

Part two of Faith that works.  You can view or read Part one  Nov. 6, here. Remember this is the closed captioning (slightly edited for easier reading)  What the congregation says is in [brackets]  and three dots means a pause.  If you want, you can watch the video – it is about 30 minutes long, the first 2 minutes is the test pattern and a song.  Have a blessed day! Heather

SAY AMEN
SHOW 107
FAITH THAT WORKS PART 2
10/26/08

Because we need faith that works.  [amen]  We want to continue with this.  There are two questions, or two parts that have to be answered.  Last week I tried to focus on the fact that in the book of Mark and other scriptures concerning faith, God qualified you.  You are qualified to use faith, to walk in faith.  You are qualified to operate in faith.  The next thing that you are qualified to do is to call upon God’s ability.  Nothing is too hard for God.  [amen]  And so, as a qualified person, you can also go to God and say, “God, I can’t handle this.  I’m at the end of my rope.  I don’t know what to do about this.  I need your ability.  I need your ability…[amen]  I need your ability.” 

Now, that ability is what God gives us under the terminology of “grace”.  The world has always used this definition to error, and that is “unmerited favor.”…God’s unmerited favor.  But, when we look at scripture, and you can buy the book for $15, the actual meaning of the word, “grace,”  is the divine influence upon the heart made manifest in the life of the believer.  So the divine influence from God upon us manifests itself as our endowment, our ability to do things.  So God empowers us to accomplish things in the earth.  When it says we have God’s grace, it means that we can access the power of God.  And remember, God’s ability, we can access God’s ability which is greater than our ability, and He gives us the grace.  He gives us favor.  God favors us.  Everybody, raise your right hand and say, “God favors me.”  [God favors me.] 

When God has to choose between you and a nonbeliever, He’ll choose you every time.  [amen, hallelujah, thank You Lord]  Every time.  But why does He do that?  Because He can trust you, hallelujah, with His power.  [amen]  He cannot trust the unbeliever with His power.  He can trust you with His power and therefore, He wants to give you grace.  He wants to demonstrate His favor to you so that you can accomplish His will in the earth.  That’s what grace is.  Alright?  Everybody got that?  Now, moving a little further. 

So, what we want to focus on today, I want you to learn to oppose doubt.  Let’s go to the book of James in the 1st chapter.  You must learn to oppose doubt.  Doubt is natural, it’s a part of the natural human condition.  We’re going to doubt things, and there’ll be things that we will not believe.  There are things that will come against us in the area of the mind.  But we have to learn that faith is of the heart…I said, faith is of the heart.  [amen]  On the inner side of you is where faith resides.  Your mind is going to battle that. 

You know, if you look at your circumstances … how many of you today, if you looked at your checkbook right now, you’d say, “Man, I don’t know how I am going to make it through the month?”  [laughter]  And we’re at the end of the month.  [yeah]  [laughs] You know what I mean?  But, the reality is, that God has faith in you that is of the heart that says, “You know what….you’ve been it before, and you got pulled out.”  [amen]  You’ve been in bad spots before, and I delivered you.  [thank you Lord.]  You were in situations where you didn’t know what to do, and after you ran out of all your options, there was a divine answer that came after it. 

So doubt is the natural occupational hazard of being a human.  Doubt occurs.  Doubt, questioning.  You don’t think you’re going to make it, it’s not going to work, dah, dah, dah, dah.  And then, unfortunately, what do we do when we doubt?  We start pointing the blame…Things not working right in my house, I’m going to blame my wife, the dog, the cat, the neighbors.  I’ll blame somebody in order to fend off what?  In order to fend off depression.  It’s as if somehow, if I blame somebody else, I won’t be depressed.  That’s nonsense.  The reality of the situation is, that you are responsible for what happens between your ears.  [amen] … Getting quiet here. You are responsible for what happens between your ears.  And therefore, it isn’t your wife messed up, your dog and your cat ate the homework, or whatever.  It’s what were you thinking? … Be responsible for what you’re thinking. 

I have a wonderful teaching tape that is my goodness, thirty years old probably.   It’s “Think About What You’re Thinking About.”  [amen]  We need to do what the Bible says, take your thoughts captive.  Listen to what you’re thinking about.  There is no condition that you have to in life experience that doesn’t require your intellect examining it… You should be examining your internal conversation.  Do you ever do this?  You know, you’re walking around the house and you’re going, “Man, I just…na, na, na…and the wheels are just grinding.  And usually they’re grinding someone.  [right]  They’re grinding someone.  But we have to learn to hear that internal conversation, because sometimes we grind ourselves…Lord have mercy.  I’m talking to somebody.  Sometimes you’re just grinding you up.  You’re talking, “I’m not going to make it.  This isn’t going to work.  You know, boy that was a stupid thing I did.  Why did I say that?”  You know, and you’re just grinding yourself. 

Now, usually when you’re grinding yourself, you are usually hearing…watch this now…you’re usually hearing the negative curse that has been spoken over you.  [amen]  See, there are words that have been spoken over you since you were little…And, if you haven’t taken the time to examine what you’ve heard over the years, you will continue the conversation even after momma and daddy are gone… You will continue that same conversation.  If your dad was one of those quiet guys and never said anything, but you knew he was unhappy or dissatisfied with you, you will carry that same silent self condemnation [hmmm] you’ll carry that.  If your mother was a super critical woman who always had something to say negative, or whatever, after mom is gone, her influence is still present.  And you will continue that internal conversation.  It will manifest as doubt in your life.  You will not be able to stay on course because you will always hear your mother’s voice telling you,  “You are an idiot.  You’re stupid, you can’t get it together.”  

And so, unless you get truly born again in that area.  Now remember, people get born again spiritually, but that doesn’t mean that they’re born again in terms of their character, in terms of their thinking, in terms of their outlook on life.  So, a negative outlook on life, if you reverberate it, if you say the same thing to yourself that was spoken over you, then guess what.  The curse continues… If you still hear the voice of your father saying, “You’re never going to amount to nothing.  You were never nothing.  Your grandfather was an alcoholic, I’m an alcoholic, and you’re going to be an alcoholic.”  And if that conversation is reverberated in your head, and is not challenged, guess what… You know, you might as well go ahead and suck the bottle.  Moving right along.  Everybody ok? 

So let’s see what the scriptures say concerning this doubt.  In James Chapter 1… Are you there?  [yes]  I want to just jump down to verse 3, it says, “knowing that the testing of your faith produces…” what?  [patience]  “…patience.”  We touched on that a little bit last week.  And it says, “But let patience have its perfect work,” …. we need to be patient when we are going through our patience.  [yes] 

When you are in a situation that requires patience, you need to be patient about it.  And the only way you can do that, watch this here, the only way you can do that is by having the correct internal conversation with yourself.  [amen]  How many of you talk to yourself?  [amen]  Amen.  Amen…You need to start listening.  [laughter]  You need to listen to that conversation, honey.  You need to, if you have to tape record it and speak aloud, start speaking it aloud and record it.  Because, the enemy of your soul, the enemy of the demons who have followed you around, have followed your momma around, your daddy around, they’re still going to follow you around, saying the same thing that they said to them.  And so, you must learn to develop, to hear that conversation, so that you can what?  Stay out of the places of destruction for you. 

You know, there’s some demonic presences that have been destroying you since you were a kid.  I can remember when I was younger, I was short… [laughter]  Boy, some of you aren’t awake yet this morning, [laughter]  But I can remember being little.  And I can remember all the things that were associated, and were spoken concerning little people… I can remember, by the time, it didn’t happen until about the fourth or fifth grade, that’s where the people that were really going to grow started shooting up.  And all of us people, that were already at the right height, we began to stabilize. [laughter]  But I remember so much the conversations that would happen on the softball field, or the basketball court, or the football field.  And I remember those conversations and me having to deal with what am I going to believe concerning myself….and my ability? 

I remember my father, who also was altitude challenged, I remembered my father saying, “Son, you may have to be more determined.”  [amen, hallelujah]  He says, “But don’t let them limit your…”  listen, watch this.  “Don’t let them limit your potential because they see a limitation in your size.”  [amen]  Do you know what I mean?  And I began to believe certain things.  I began to believe that a 200 pound, 6’2″ guy, not only could he not catch me, but if he dared hit me, he’s going down.  [amen]  I began to believe things like that.  I began to believe that I’d be the last guy picked to be on the basketball team, but I’m going to control the ball and control the game.  I began to think that way.  I began to think that way to the point that when our elementary school softball team came out, I walked on the softball field, you know, and they figured, well he could play shortstop cause he’s little.  I thought that was funny.  [laughter]  But I can remember the conversation in my head, wondering if I’m even going to get on the team, and I still remember this guy’s name, Robert Matchio.  Robert Matchio says, “What we need is Don’s got to be the captain of this team.”  What he realized, even in the 5th grade, the leadership capability that had nothing to do with my size.  [amen]  Do you follow me? 

And I began to realize that my father was right.  So I started learning to say, having a different conversation in here, when it came to athletic things.  I began to speak to my mind differently.  I began to say different things, to force doubt out of my brain.  [amen]  You know, I have an advantage because I had a very positive father and I had a negative mom.  So, all I had to do was to learn not to internalize her negativity, but focus on my father’s positivity.  I had to learn to build on that.  I had to learn, so I wondered and said, “So Dad, how am I going to learn how to stay as positive as you?”  My dad never said anything bad about nobody.  I can never remember.  The most thing he would say, if he had a deacon or a elder of the church that was giving him a hard time, he would say, “Son, they’re an arrested adolescent.”  [laughter]  That’s as ugly as he would get.  You know, he just never got negative…I said, “How’d you get like that?”  He said, “Son, it has to do with two things.  He says, what you read …”  He said, “What you read, what you feed yourself.”  And he said, “The second thing is, what you will permit yourself to think about.”  [amen]  … Anybody getting a blessing today? 

So, your faith will operate if you will begin to listen to your internal conversation.  If you begin to listen to what you’re saying, then you can begin to frame your world.  Now, is that scriptural?  Let’s see what James has to say about it.  James says, in verse 5, you ready?  [yes]  “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to….” a few … [to all]  who gives to one or two….[all]  It says, “God, who gives to all liberally….” 

Liberally means without limitation.  He’s glad to give you wisdom.  “…and without reproach,” … my goodness.   And what does it say, “…and it will be given to him.”  You don’t have to keep going over the same ground, running around the same temple.   You don’t have to keep making the same mistake.  All you have to do is ask.  Lord give me wisdom concerning this, so I don’t have to keep making the same mistake.  [amen]  You don’t have to be bound by the curses in your family.  But you won’t get free of them, you know, you won’t get free of them until you do what?  Until you ask for wisdom so God can give you knowledge as to how to overcome them. 

And look at verse 6, you ready?  “But let him ask…”  how?  [in faith]  in what?  [in faith]  “…in faith, with no doubting,…”  no doubting.  In other words, when you ask God, you have to immediately get the machete out start slapping, slicing, and dicing.  Have you ever noticed you pray something and before you’re up off your knees your mind is already telling you why it ain’t going to work?  [yeah]  I’m the only one, me and Marie, we’re the only ones, huh?  Come on, you ought to tell the truth. 

Before you get up off your knees, asking God for what you want to ask Him in faith believing, doubt starts giving you reasons why not.  [amen]  …  And by the time you get to the kitchen to make coffee or something like that, you’ve already almost talked yourself out of it.  Come on now.  I said, come on now!  [yeah]  That’s a reality. 

And then, if you tell.  Listen, I live with a faith filled woman.  But sometimes, if you get up off of your knees, in a faith position, and tell anybody, they’ll begin to analyze why it won’t work.  [right]  Or how you should have prayed.  Or, you shouldn’t have prayed it that way.  You should have prayed it this way.  [laughter]  You shouldn’t have used that word, you should have used this word.  You shouldn’t have said that.  You should say this.  Listen, when you pray in faith believing, you’re going to have to protect that because even good people will try and take it from you.  [amen]  They don’t mean to. 

But you have to preface it, you have to say to them, listen I want to share with you what I’m believing in faith.  But I need you to stay in faith, when I tell you… [amen]  You say, I need you to stay in faith, I’m going to share with you because I want somebody to hold me accountable for what I’m believing for, but I need you to stay in faith with me when I tell you.  Well, what does that mean?  That means, after I tell you, please shut up.  [laughter]  Shut up!  Shut up.  And on Wednesday, when it looks like it’s not going to happen, please, stay shut up.  [yeah]  Alright? 

One of the, one of the blessings in my life, some people around me think it might be a curse, but I call it a blessing, is that you don’t dare tell Don Moore what he cannot do.  [that's right, amen]  You tell me I can’t do it, I’m going for it.  And I’m going for it really hard.  I really am.  I’m not going to permit anybody to put limitations on what I can do.  [amen]  [conversation & laughter]  Lord have mercy.  I’ve learned that whatever challenge Jesus faced, he overcame it.  [amen]  Even if it was a distraction, He took care of it and went forth.  He’s on His way to the cross and Peter comes with doubt and unbelief…And what does Jesus say?  He said, “I’ve already prayed for you.”  [amen] 

Moving right along.  Moving right along.  Moving right along.  Verse 6.  “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.”  Now I’ve never heard anybody teach this, but the reality is, we need to examine the wind.  Notice that it says, like a wave driven and tossed by the wind.  By the wind.  Well, we have to say, well, what is the wind?  What is the wind that drives a person into a position of doubt? … There are spiritual forces in this world that will work against you. 

There’s spiritual forces that when you pray, it sends a ripple in the pond.  If you haven’t gotten that tape, you need to get that one, “Ripple in the pond.”  It sends a ripple in the pond of the spiritual, and the forces begin to align against you.  Many of us give up because, not because God hasn’t answered or or God isn’t going to do it, it’s just that when the ripple goes out, and the wind gets stirred up, we panic.  We think that the wind is a determinant.  The wind is not a determinant.  [amen]  The wind is not a determinant.  The wind is usually just an obstacle and a challenge. 

And sometimes that wind is in us.  I’m going to tell the truth.  Sometimes the wind is in us… The wind is in us.   And so what happens, we end up blowing out our own candle.  It says that man’s spirit is the candle of the Lord, searching his inmost parts.  And some times we [blowing]… We blow out our own candle. 

Do you ever look for something, and you can’t find it?  [laughter] [right in front of your face] Yeah, say it again….It’s usually right in front of your face.  The other day I was working and I took this metal thing and I saw it so clearly.  There was a chest of drawers here, and I put it up on top of the chest of drawers.  This metal thing, a tool, I needed, I’m going to need later.  As the day progressed, I needed that.  And I searched my tool belt, and I searched my pant’s pockets.  I went to the car.  I searched in the car.  You know, I’m starting to go, tear up this, tear up that. 

And then all of a sudden, I believe it was my spirit, you know, I believe God lives inside me.  Can you help me.  You can help me.  I said, stop…. Just stop.  Now think about that.  Where is it and when was the last time you saw it?  Where is it and when was the last time you saw it?  And I just stopped, I just closed my eyes, and just thought for a minute…And I said, “Thank you Lord. I don’t know where it is, but I found it.”  [laughter, amen]  … “I thank you Lord, I know where it is.”  You know, I walked back right in front of the bureau, and then all of a sudden my eyes were opened.  My physical eyes were opened, because my spiritual heart was was opened.  And it was right there at eye level. 

And I thought to myself, why is it I didn’t see it before?  How come I was there and I searched, listen to me, I searched every drawer in that bureau.  I mean, I went through every drawer, but the reason was because I was looking down, instead of looking up.  And in your heart, we sometimes are looking down when we really need to be looking up.  [hallelujah]  Amen?  [amen]  Instead of saying, I’m not going to find it, I ain’t going to find it, I don’t know where it is.  What’s wrong with me?  I’m losing my mind.  I’m going crazy.  I’m old, I’m old.  Don’t leave me.  Instead – STOP THAT!  Stop all of that.  Stop all of that.  Call on the faith of the Spirit of the Lord, that is in you, and He will what?  He will revitalize your youth like an eagle.  [amen]  You know, He’ll, He’ll make you be able to…

Elijah’s an old man and he outran a chariot with horses.  [whoot whoo]  Come on, that’s speed, Jack.  [laughter]  You know what I mean.  And he’s probably laughing at the horses while he passed them.  [laughter] You know what I mean? 

So look at, look at verse 7 now.  We finished verse 6, look at verse 7.  “For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.” …I’ll just let you meditate on that.  Unstable in all his ways…. Unstable in all his ways.  Do you want to help your mind?  Order your environment…. You want to help your mind?  Put some order to your environment.  By doing that, you’re commanding your flesh to organize itself.  And once you get your flesh organized, you’ll be able to point yourself spiritually in a direction…. You know…organize it. 

You can tell people that are scattered and having trouble achieving their goals, usually their yard looks like it, their house looks like it.  They’re just disorganized.  Everything’s scattered.  Everything’s everywhere.  You need to just focus on something, and get that together, as practice for how to think.  You know.  And then you begin to think in compartments, then you begin to think for success.  Alright?  Ok, don’t get mad at me.  I haven’t been to your house.  You know.  I don’t know what you up to.  Alright? 

Now, I want to ask you this one thing…. This one thing is very, very important.  Very important.  Go to Romans, Chapter 4, verse 20.  Thank you Holy Spirit…. Romans Chapter 4, and we want to look at verse 20.  Boy I love you people.  And God is good.  I love you.  I get to see, your eyeballs are working today.  Sometimes you can be teaching and it’s just like cold steel coming back.  You know, cold steel.  But let’s do this here.  Alright?  [yes]  Verse 20.  You there?  [yes] 

It’s talking about Abraham, but He’s dealing with doubt.  It says, “He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened …” how?  [in faith] … and what did he do?  [giving glory to God] “…giving glory to God,”  “He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened…” how?  [in faith]  “…in faith…” and how?  [giving glory to God]  by “…giving glory to God.”  [amen] 

Now, let’s reverse that.  It says then, “giving glory to God, he was strengthened in faith, not unbelief, and did not waver.“  Sometimes we need to know how to do things.  Come on now.  We need to know how to do things.  And what this is saying, is, if you want to be a faith giant.  If you want to see your faith work.  Remember, I’m talking about faith that works.  If you want your faith to work, you’re going to have to do something about not wavering.  And one way to do something about not wavering, is give glory to God.  [amen]  Lord have mercy.  Give glory to God. 

You know, at the affair last night.  We had a wonderful affair here, for Pastor’s appreciation.  I shared a song that in my ministry, in my spiritual life, has really helped me.  And the whole point of the song is that, because I’m thankful to God, and I’m focusing on the fact that I’m thankful to God, I realize I won’t complain.  [amen]  Powerful Gospel song.  And it says, yeah, yeah, I’ve been through some stuff, I’ve been through some stuff, but when I get to the end of this stuff, I have to go, thank you God.  I have to put my focus on giving glory to God and I’m grateful to Him.  You know, I’m really blessed. 

As you sit here, you need to think how blessed you are.  [amen]  Look at you.  I mean, you’re well dressed, your hair is all neat, most of you.  [laughter]  And, you know, you look good.  You got cars, transportation, if you don’t have a car you borrowed one, or you got a ride with a friend, which even is a greater testimony.  You know, you’re blessed.  You’re blessed, going out and coming in.  You got some stuff.  You know, some of you today are going to go out to eat after church, and you’re going to spend money that you have, and some of you are going to spend money that you don’t have.  But it doesn’t matter.  You’re going to spend it anyway.  And you are blessed.  How many of you have got shoes on your feet?  [hallelujah]  None of those old Gospel songs work for you because you are so blessed and you need to be thanking God.  But you are blessed… You are blessed. 

So what he’s saying is, if you will give thanks to God, if you’ll be giving thanks to God, then guess what, you will strengthen your faith.  [right, amen]  And once your faith is strengthened, guess what?  You don’t have to be wavering all the time.  Wavering.  Now one of the big problems I want to focus on, concerning this wavering is this, learn to not pick up something you can’t carry….[wow]  Don’t be picking up stuff you can’t carry ….

You know, don’t be striving to be in a deliverance ministry until you’re delivered…You know, don’t be running around trying to get everybody healed and you’re sick all the time….What are you talking about?  You know what I mean?  Don’t be trying to help people to prosper and you don’t have two nickels to rub together… Be progressive in your faith.  Don’t pick up things you can’t carry.  Doubt and unbelief will just over roll you, the waves of the sea will just beat you down.  And then you’ll be talking, that stuff doesn’t work.  You’ll, you’ll be sounding like some educated fools.  You’ll be talking about why faith was only for the Apostles, it’s not for us today and stuff like that.  You’ll be ridiculous.  Use your faith, target something that is within your realm of hold onto.  [amen]  That you can put your faith to.  You can hold onto it.  And then when you succeed at that, up the ladder one more step and go for that.  And then up the ladder one more step and go for that.  And up the ladder one more step and go for that.  [amen] 

This is the closed captioning transcript for this sermon, as well as the video if you want to watch instead of read.  The video is about 30 minutes long, but skip over the first minute so you do not hear the test pattern sound.  I have edited the transcript to make it easier to read.  For example if Pastor Don says the address of the Bible verse several times so that the people can turn to it, I only include the first mention of the address or if he repeats a phrase in talking.  Anything is [brackets] is said by the congregation.  Three dots means a pause.  Enjoy.

SAY AMEN
SHOW 106
FAITH THAT WORKS
10/18/08

Come on, let me see your Bibles.  Let’s get busy for Jesus.  Lift them up high, don’t be ashamed.  Say, this is [this is] the Word of God. [the Word of God.] It’s in my hand,  [It's in my hand] in my heart, [in my heart] in my mouth. [in my mouth]  I love [I love] the Word of God. [the Word of God]  I love!!! [I love] the Word of God.  [the Word of God].  I love [I love]  the Word of God [the Word of God].  Amen. 

Ok, see if you can find a few passages that we want to look at.  I want to minister to you on a Sunday School lesson that is timeless.  We need to talk about faith that works…How to make our faith work.  I want you to go to Mark, Chapter 11.. That’s in the New Testament.  You got it there?  Did you find it?  Matthew, Mark… 

Now the reason we need to talk about operating our faith and making faith work for us, is because in these last days, the way things are shaping up, it appears you’re going to need faith, not just for healing and deliverance and for the big things.  But we’re going to have to learn how to operate our faith for even smaller things…Come on, somebody.  [amen]  We’re going to have to learn how to operate our faith when the gas price goes up or whether it goes down.  We’re going to have to pray prayers of provision and know that our faith will work.  We’re in shaky economic times. Some of us think we have very secure jobs, and we will be losing our jobs.  Others of us think that our mortgages are safe and fluctuations have already shown that your mortgage may not be so safe and you may not be so safe where you live.  You may have to move.  You may have to move from the house that you’re in or the place that you are renting.  You may need faith for all of those different things in these difficult times. 

Well, we need faith that operates.  It’s sometimes easier to have faith for a catastrophe.  You know, your back’s to the wall, and they tell you you’re going to die, and so forth and so on.  Well yeah, you’ll get serious about the things of God.  But we need to practice our faith that works for smaller things, so that when we get a terrible diagnosis, come on now, our faith will operate then.  [amen]  You know, it’s riding a bicycle and driving go carts, developing the ability to steer and all that, before you get to a car, that helps you to drive the car.  We don’t just run out and jump on a bulldozer, and think we’re going to drive the bulldozer.  We need to go through the steps and the process.  And that’s why faith doesn’t work in churches generally, and in the body of Christ, because people haven’t first of all, practiced their faith, or learned the principles of faith, so when a faith difficulty occurs, their faith doesn’t work.  And they haven’t learned how to do that. 

I want to first give you, just a few simple things in the next half hour that you can direct yourself to so that your faith will work.  Alright?  Now, one of the greatest faith passages is in Mark 11.  And it has two elements in it, one I show you all the time.  But it has another element that I want to bring to your attention.  And the first thing of faith is this, you need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt, that you qualify, you are qualified to operate in faith…You are qualified.  It has been delegated by God.  Appointed to us by Jesus Christ.  That you are qualified to operate in faith. 

Now there’s some Bible teachers that put limits on that.  And they say, “Well, you know, that was for the Apostles.”  Or, “That died when the last Apostle died, then your ability to work with gifts, and work in the supernatural ended.”  Well…I don’t think that’s accurate at all.  Because, why would God remove gifts, abilities, powers, and faith, why would He remove it during the time that the End Times come, when the battle is going to be the worst?  Why would He leave us powerless against an enemy in the Last Days before He comes when it says He is looking for a glorious Bride, a victorious Christ?  Christ is looking for a victorious Church when He comes in the Last Days. 

Our faith will operate.  We need to know, though, that we are qualified.  That He delegated it to us.  That we can do everything He said we can do.  Now in John Chapter 14 it says this, He says, “And greater works.”  [yeah]  He said that we will do the greater works.  Greater works than these, meaning everything that the Apostles saw, everything that the Disciples saw, He said, you’ll do that and even greater works…Alright?  Now, when He delegated that, He was not just speaking to the disciples, He was speaking to anyone that would believe and in John, Chapter 17 He says, “and this is unto those, who because of the testimony of the disciples, would believe.”  So the qualification for operating in faith is that you are a believer who believes that your faith will operate…Did you get that?  Is that too many beliefs for you?  You are qualified if you are a believer who believes your faith will operate.  Alright? 

Now to get this scripturally, hold your place there and go to the last chapter of Mark, the 16th.  And let’s just nail this down.  In the 17th verse, Mark 16, verse 17.  What does it say?  It says, “And these signs…”  Well what are the signs?  The signs are that you can preach the Gospel to every creature.  The signs are that you can baptize those that believe.  The signs are that you will be able to operate in the supernatural, casting out of demons, speaking in new tongues, fighting the demons and serpents in the physical as well as the spiritual.  And, not being able to be poisoned by words, or theories, or bad Gospel error.  And all of those things won’t hurt you.  And then, “…lay hands on the sick” in verse 18.  And see that the sick would recover.  [amen]  That’s what it says.  And verse 17 is the qualifier.  It says, “And these signs…” all those things I listed, “…will follow…” who? [those who believe]  “…those who believe.”  They will follow those who believe. 

Now we can debate this theologically, but we can also do one better…Go do it… Go do it and see if it works.  It says the signs will follow those who believe.  So, if you are a believer, go do it, and guess what, the signs will follow.  The reason that you will not, I’m not trying to be mean, but, the reason you will not see it happen in churches that don’t teach it, is because the qualifier is, do you believe it?  If you don’t believe it, the signs will not follow you. 

Heard a guy on the radio say, well I actually didn’t believe in speaking in tongues and so forth, and so on.  He didn’t believe it was of God, and you know, will he ever speak in tongues?  No he won’t.  Why?  That sign will not follow him.  Why?  Because he’ll never step into it.  So he’ll never see it or hear it.  He’ll never experience the wisdom and the prophetic message of God through tongues.  He’ll never know tongues and interpretation.  He’ll never know tongues and the aspect of having a feeling of God on the inside, operating in you and doing what?  The Apostle Paul says, in the 14th Chapter of Corinthians, he says that it edifies, that it builds up your spirit man.  This fellow will never know that experience.  He will never have that.  He will never have the ability or way to build up his inner man through the gift of tongues.  Will it happen to him?  No.  Why?  Because he refuses to believe.  These signs follow those who believe.  Will he go to the hospital, lay hands on a sick person, and see them recover?  No he will not.  Why?  Because these signs follow those who believe.  When he gets up to preach will he see 1000′s come to the Lord?  No.  Not unless he what?  Believes that those signs follow.  [amen] 

How are we doing?   You’re ok?  So, the first thing is to know that you are qualified.  Now, let’s go to the 11th Chapter, where I want to show you another example of the fact that you are qualified.  You ready?  I’m going to begin in verse 22.  It says, “…Have faith in…” who?  [God]  faith in who?  [God]  So the first point if we want our faith to work and operate in these last days, our faith has to be in God… Our faith has to be in God. 

Now, it brings us to an interesting question.  The sovereignty of God.  How far does the sovereignty of God expand?  [whooo]  How far does it go? …. Well no it doesn’t.  It goes right to you…. God is sovereign, but He has given you individual will…God is sovereign but in His sovereignty, He delegated ability to you.  You are a glorious creation.  God is looking to develop human beings he can hang out with. [yeah]  He is looking for supernatural people.  Jesus said, “Are ye not gods?”  He says, “Does not the Psalms declare, are ye not gods?”  In other words, God thought so much of us that He delegated God ability to us and He gave you the will to carry it out. [amen] And here’s what He said, He said, my ability will stop where your will begins.  [whoa]  … He said He put His Word above Himself.  And then He said, I delegated this authority to you where?  In the earth…Who did He give dominion to.  He gave it to Adam and Adam’s children.  He said to Adam, take dominion over everything I’ve created on the earth.  You have dominion over everything I’ve created on the earth…

Jesus died on the cross, and rose from the dead, to give us dominion over serpents, over satan.  To give us dominion over our circumstances.  To give us dominion over sickness in our bodies.  To give us dominion over our marriages, dominion over our children, dominion over…everything.  [holy!]  Dominion.  Well, our ability is not going to begin.  Our strength is not going to begin until we accept that by our will, given us by God, that God will enrich our will.  Will strengthen us, if we ask Him, come on now.  If we ask Him for wisdom, what will He do?  [give us wisdom]  He’ll give us wisdom. If we ask Him for more faith, what will He do?  [give us more faith]  If we ask Him for more grace, which is ability, what will He do?  [give us more grace]  He’ll give us more ability. 

Alright, so when we need to, if your faith is going to operate, God is looking for you to believe it first, and then He will agree with it.  [amen]  God is looking for you to believe it, then He will agree with it.  Once He agrees with it, then the scripture that says where two or more are in agreement, I’m in the midst.  And Jesus said in John 14, 15 and 16 and 17, He just kept saying it over and over, and then you can ask anything that you desire, and I will do it…So, He’s qualified you to operate His power and His ability in the earth.  He has qualified you.  He has limited His sovereignty. 

Now, when is He absolutely, totally sovereign?  When in your world, you give Him His place… You can choose to disobey God.  You can choose to disobey God…. But if you choose to obey God, and you say, “Lord, you are sovereign…I recognize that you are sovereign over my life for whatever.  You’re sovereign over me.”  Is He sovereign over everything?  Of course He’s sovereign over everything, but in your individual case, you have free will.  You can put a limit to what God can do…You can say very simply, “I don’t believe God’s going to help me with this.”  And you know what God does?  “Well, I guess I can’t help him.”  He’ll fold His arms on you in a hot minute.  And it could be something really good for you…At the end of Matthew, Chapter 28 the Lord says, He says, “All power, all authority in Heaven and in Earth is Mine“  and then what did He do?  He gave it to the disciples.  He gave it to the believers.  Lord have mercy!  He gave the whole thing to us.  The whole shooting match.  Okay?  So, you’re qualified.  You need to know that.  Whose ability is it?  It’s God’s ability working through you, if you will what?  Give Him His sovereignty, give Him His place in your world. 

You know, if we’d be honest about it, there’s some stuff we withhold from God.  There’s some stuff we keep to ourselves and we won’t let God touch it…You know, well God, I want you to fix my job.  I want you to fix those people that I don’t like.  But God, I’m not, I’m not ready, I’m not ready to give up my stuff.  And then you go through a whole list of, bad attitude, drugs, [laughter]  lying and cussing, the whole list.  And you say, “I’m not going to let you.” 

A person is like a series of rooms.  And when God comes into you, He wants to go in all the rooms.  But, let’s face it, there’s some of us won’t let Him go in the rooms.  I’ll give you one example.  Somebody hates their momma for something momma did 20 years ago and they just hate her.  Well, whenever God is invited in, they’re a worshipper, they’re praising God, they love everything, God keeps saying, “Let me in that room.” … And the person goes, “You know, Uh Unh, I’m going to hate her.”  And they say stupid things. “I’m going to hate her until I die.”  Well guess what, then that means that when you pray in faith for things, there is a ceiling… called, “I hate my momma”, that God’s sovereign will cannot remove.  You have to remove it.  Now, if you got that, raise your hand and wiggle it at me.  You got that?  Do you understand what I’m trying to say? 

Jesus said in Mark, Chapter 11, verse 25, “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you…”  [amen]  Ok, so the only limitation that will always block your faith is unforgiveness.  Resentment, unforgiveness, those things are not allowed… Alright?  Ok?  We’ve got that?  Then, are you qualified?  [yes]  Can you operate in faith?  [yes]  Alright.  Whose will is it?  [ours]  That’s it.  And then, when you give your will over to God, then all of His sovereign ability comes into operation…boom!  You got it?  [we got it]  Ok.  Now, so – we’re qualified.  We know that it’s God’s ability.  Alright? 

Now how can we put us, you at the center of this thing?  Let’s look at Mark 11, and let’s see you.  Let’s see who this was written to.  In Verse 23.  “For assuredly, I say to…” [you]  Ok, underline it.  “…whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his…” underline “his”, He’s talking to you.  “…his…heart, but believes that those things he….” underline “he”.  He’s talking to you.  “…says will be done, he….” underline “he”, He’s talking to you.  “will have whatever…” underline “he” “says.”  He’s talking to you!  [amen]  “Therefore I say to you…”  He’s talking to you.  “…whatever things you ask…” He’s still talking to you.  “…when you pray…”  He’s still talking to you.  “…believe that you…” put you under there and underline it because He’s still talking to you.  “…you receive them, and…” Underline the next one.  “…you will have them.”  Who’s He talking to?  [us] 

He’s talking to you.  Don’t wait for Jesus to pray it!  Jesus already prayed it.  He’s waiting for you to ask.  He’s waiting for you to pray.  He’s waiting for you to believe.  He’s waiting for you to receive.  [amen]  You’re in the driver’s seat.  What are you going to do with it?  He has delegated it all to you.  Daddy left the keys to the car.  He left the registration.  He left the insurance policy.  He’s left it all on the kitchen table.  Stop walking around the kitchen table and saying, “Lord, do something.  Help….”  [amen]  Pick up the keys, the registration, and the insurance thing, go get into the car and go drive it.  [amen]  Drive that bad boy.  Put it to work…[and a full tank of gas]  And a full tank of gas too.  Whoa, your God gave you gas too!   [Whew]  …

So we have to believe in God’s ability and we have to realize that it’s you.  We’re at the center of this faith thing.  In Mark 11, there are two words that are key.  And the one is, “you,”  because we have to have a sense of our responsibility to operate in faith.  Everybody got that?  And then the second word is, “say.”  “Say” occurs more times in this passage than believe does.  [amen]  I do a long teaching on that, but this is not the point.  I’ve only got about 7 more minutes.  So we have to realize that we have to do more saying than we actually have to do believing.  Because the scripture says, “Faith cometh by…” [hearing]   Hearing.  So, the more that we hear the Word of God, the more that we come to church, the more that we come to Bible study, the more that we read, the more that we hear, our faith will grow.  You faith grows in proportion to how much you hear.  If you’re not hearing anything, then it means that you’re only hearing the doubt and unbelief between your ears. 

Have you ever noticed how, whenever you’re hoping for something, there’s this other conversation that opposes it?  [yes]  You all don’t notice that?  When I decide I’m going to do something, all of a sudden, this whole long list of why it can’t be done begins to emerge in my consciousness.  All the reasons why it can’t be done, and how it’s not going to work, and all that.  That’s the conversation you must learn to hit “delete.”  [amen]… Not speak it.  And that’s where we get bound up.  So, let’s look at that. 

Let’s go to the, the book of James, first chapter.  It’s after the book of Hebrews.  It’s in front of the book of Revelation and Peter and all that jazz.  And then, you get to the book of James, chapter 1… are you there?  [yes]  Come on, somebody say, “My faith is getting stronger right now.”  [My faith is getting stronger right now.]  Alright, amen.  Yeah, it sounded like it.  Some will say, “Well I’ll say it because I have to, I’m not…” Then others of you didn’t even open your mouth.  Which attests to the reality that that’s your problem.  [amen]  That’s alright.  There’s something wrong on the inside of you and you need to yield yourself and start repenting.  Alright? 

In James Chapter 1,… Let’s go to verse 2.  “My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials…” Notice, it doesn’t say temptations.  Various trials.  Well what’s a trial?  You’re facing something that you may not want to do, but you know you have to do it.  What’s a trial?  You want to go out into the parking lot and there’s somebody you don’t want to see but you know you have to see them and take up time.  What’s a trial?  You lose your job and it’s not your fault, your company closed down and you have to go through a process.  That’s a trial.  You know, we face various trials.  Temptations are different.  Temptation is that you have a flaw in your inner man, or in your flesh, and your mind, and therefore, you are subject to be drawn to something that is not good for you…That’s a temptation.  A temptation is you are drawn to something that tempts you, that something that calls you, something that has your name on it. 

You know, one of the greatest temptations that I face in life that I’ve struggled hard to get away from is the temptation of distraction…Distraction….Distractions are temptations to get you off course.  Come on, somebody.  And one of the greatest distractions is between your ears, your thought life is a distraction.  Do you ever notice how you can get focused on something, somebody in your family did wrong. And all day you are going, man, they did that wrong.  Man I can’t, nah, nah, nah, nah nah, nah, nah nah, nah, nah.  In the mean time, all the stuff you’re supposed to be getting done is laying there, not getting done because you’re focused on what they did wrong.  You can get an obsessive/compulsive person who somebody left a dirty dish in the sink, and that will ruin their day.  And they really think the solution is, watch this, that the other person should be considerate that they are obsessive/compulsive and wash that dish.  Well, that’s not the solution.  The solution is that the obsessive/compulsive person is distracted by something in their mind and they need to deal with that.  Because the dirty dish is not important to the cycle of life…. Well, moving right along.  Got some unhappy people here.  [laughter] 

But a clean house does not make a happy person.  A clean head makes a happy person.  [amen]  But if you have a clean head, it’s easy to clean the house.  [amen]  But we just have to figure out which comes first.  [amen]  unhuh Which comes first?  Amen.  The clean head.  Once we get our mind ordered, then our environment can be ordered.  But I always say it this way, if you want to know if you are in trouble, walk in your house…  It’ll tell you right away.  See, if your house is in total disorder, you probably are too… I’d better move on.  [laughter]  moving, moving right along. 

Alright, now, in James Chapter 1, he says, you fall into various trials, “…knowing that the testing of your faith produces…” what? [patience]  “…patience.”  Everybody here that your faith has worked every time raise your hand.  Alright.  Woah, woah.  Ok, only one person is confused about the question.  So, let me ask you another way, how many of you realize the fact that sometimes your faith is not operating?  Yeah, good, now we’re on the same track.  Well what, what, you say, well what is that?  That is the ability to develop patience… Cause sometimes your faith worked and you didn’t wait for it…. Sometimes your faith worked and you didn’t wait for it.  Especially where children are concerned.  Parents will say, I’ve prayed for this child.  I’ve prayed for this child.  I’ve prayed for this child.  Well, wait a minute… It takes a lifetime to grow the child.  Some baby’s a couple of weeks old.  I can see him standing over the crib, “and you will do what I say.”  [laughter]  But that’s when you begin.  Training and training that child.  You know, building and building them up.  So it says here, patience.  Sometimes because your faith failed, is the only way that God, I’m not saying God let your faith fail, cause if you faith works it has to work.  But when it does, you have to learn patience… Patience is what operates here. 

If God answered all of your prayers when you prayed them, things would get all messed up in the real world…All you wives that are dissatisfied with your husband, if you – without patience – you would pray for your husband to be fixed, and the next morning you wake up and he’s the perfect husband, and he’s married to you… [oooh oh, laughter]  You get the point, right?  So you need some patience, cause slowly as he develops, you’re developing and you’ll catch up and he’ll catch up. 

But 4, “But let patience have it’s perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” … That’s God’s plan for you.  And, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.“  Verse 6, let’s read together.  “But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is…” what [double-minded]  “a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.“  …

You want faith that operates?  Then you can’t be double-minded… You can’t say, I prayed in faith on Monday, and then by Tuesday afternoon you don’t believe it anymore.  You still have to be holding to what it is that you prayed.  You can’t be a shape shifter.  Know what a shape shifter is?  Sunday morning at church I’m a faith person…Sunday night, ah, I hope it happens.  You can’t be shifting your shape, it’s got to be consistent.  You have to say, “I am believing, I am delivered from this.”  … And you’ve got to go, “I’m delivered from this.  I’m delivered.” Not, “Ah, I messed up.  It ain’t going to work.”  No, you can not, you can not be tossed about.  God isn’t wishy washy.  If you ask for it in faith, believing, God is firm on it…

Part Two was continued last Sunday – I have the transcript and CD of the show to share with you tomorrow.

***

Have a blessed day,

Heather

Here is the closed captioning transcript for the Say Amen show 105 on the Feast of Tabernacles.  Praying you are blessed by this teaching.  I have kept Pastor Don’s words as he spoke them, but made it in an easier to read format. Remember, what is in brackets [ ] is what the congregation says during the service.

Feasts: Tabernacles

Alright.  Praise the Lord!  Praise the Lord!  Amen!  Tell two people and then have a seat.  [Praise the Lord.]…I want to spend the next few minutes discussing with you the Jewish holidays that we’re in right now, the culmination of which is the Feast of Tabernacles. 

 Yesterday in our Bible Study, a question was asked that I thought should be repeated for the congregation.  Why should we pay attention to these Jewish holidays and what is the significance of them?  Why should we be concerned that we have Rosh Hashanah, and then Rosh Hashanah goes to Yom Kippur and then goes to the Feast of Tabernacles?  After all, most of us are Gentiles with some Jewish roots, but why should we pay attention to these holidays? 

So, first of all, let’s go through which holiday we’re looking at right now. And let me give you a little information so we’ll see it a little bit clearer.  Turn to Leviticus, Chapter 23, this is where we find the Lord telling us that He wants these holidays kept.  In the 23rd chapter, God delineates the feasts.  In Verse 3, He tells us that we are to keep the Sabbath.  That means that we are to keep a day as a holy day.  And we’ll talk about that at a later time.  And He says, so you have six days to work, you should have a day of rest.  Alright, everybody got that? 

Then in Verse 4, He begins to tell us about the Passover and the time period of Unleavened Bread.  He says that we are to commemorate, or have a holy convocation where we do no work, and we consecrate the Passover.  The Passover is the telling of the Jewish story of how God took the Children of Israel out of Egypt land. And at the last moment, in order for them to be released, He had to have a way of identifying who’s in and who’s out.  So He told all the Jews who were supposed to be in to take an unblemished lamb, to take a lamb that had no diseases, no broken legs, no nothing.  It had to be the perfect lamb. Take this perfect lamb and they were to live with it for three days.  Keep it in the house and then of course, people would fall in love with it, but you know, keep an eye on it to make sure that it is an unblemished lamb.  Then, after discovering that it is a beautiful, perfect lamb, you are to sacrifice it.  You are to take the blood of the lamb, and pour it on the trough under the door, bleed it out there.  And so, after bleeding it out, you are to take a sponge, a hyssop sponge, and dip it in the blood and put it on the doorposts and the lintel.  Did you see it?  I’ll do it again…What am I doing?  [cross]  I’m making the sign of the cross.  So this is an early picture of Christ.  We’re going to take the blood of the lamb, Jesus Christ, we’re going to take the blood of the lamb and put it over your door, the entrance to your heart and your mind.  And when the Angel of Death comes by to kill those who hate Him, in this case he’s going to destroy the firstborn.  When he sees the blood of the lamb, and the sign of a cross, he will pass over your home.  [amen, hallelujah]

Then He says, you are not to eat regular baked bread with yeast in it.  Yeast is a picture of sin.  He says, so, we’re going to make unleavened flatbread.  You’re going to pierce it, you’re going to puncture holes in it, so that it will cook quickly, and then you are to bake it very quickly in a very hot fire, which will then bruise it and you’ll have those brown spots.  And you are to take that bread and break it and eat it while you drink your series of cups of wine and say your prayers.  A picture, of course, of the Communion of Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ adding to the meal, declaring that the blood, or the wine, is for the remission or the forgiving of sins.  And that the leaven, the flatbread, without yeast in it, which is sin, sin causes, everybody knows how sin multiplies?  [yeah]  The more you do, the more you want to do.  And so, we’re going to take a piece of matzo, we’re going to take unleavened bread, we’re going to bruise it, and we’re going to pierce it, representing Christ’s Body… Lord have mercy!  Amen.  And then it’s going to be broken, and Jesus said, “This is my body, which is broken for you.”  For two purposes.  Not only the remission of sin but by my stripes, by the striping of the bread and the piercing of the bread, by that you are healed.  So He gets us to enter into the Covenant of Divine Healing, through the power of the Lord.  It’s a beautiful picture.  And so then you go from Passover into this period of Unleavened Bread, where they’re to eat this bread. 

So the Passover points to Christ, His sacrifice.  The deliverance that if we would trust in the Lord, He will cause the Angel of Death to pass over us, and provide us with eternal life.  In addition, that on the Earth where we’re living, the unleavened bread, it will be what?  A life without perpetual continual sin.  You’re supposed to get better at this thing, you all.  And so He says, then commemorate.  He says every time you do this.  So the Gentile and the Jew, whenever they are celebrating the Passover meal, is when they would be taking communion.  It’s a historical record that after the Gentiles are beginning to be joined to the Jews, the Gentiles liked the communion thing so much that they started doing it every Sunday.  So the Apostles got together and said, “Is that bad?  Should we just do it only at Passover?”  No, they decided it was ok, let’s do it, let’s do it whenever.  We can do it at every meal. 

Here at our church we eat after the service.  Many people don’t understand it yet, but that’s ok.  It’s one of the most Biblical things that you can do, to break bread with the brethren on the Lord’s Day.  I mean, I know some of you just want Chinese food every Sunday, but occasionally you should skip the Chinese food and break bread with the brethren.  And what we should be doing when we’re breaking bread with the brethren, we should be taking communion.  All these years, I’ve been waiting and hoping that spontaneously someone would just say, “Let’s have communion.  Let’s just take this bread that we have here and whatever it is, this apple juice, and let’s have communion.”  And so, you should be doing it in your home.  You can make a ritual of it, if you want.  I grew up in the Baptist Church, and every third Sunday I think was Communion Sunday.  Don’t do that.  You can if you want to.   But don’t set a ritual.  Let the Spirit of the Lord speak to you.  Husbands, when a husband and a wife are kind of dividing and you’re fighting, that’s a great time to just have communion.  And say, let us remember the Covenant that we’re in.  [amen]  Let’s remember the Covenant.  Husbands, if your wife is struggling over some issue and having a real hard time, maybe at the end of the meal, break out some matzo and some grape juice or something and say, “Let’s have Communion to remember that your situation right now is a little tough, but guess what, you’re not in it alone.  Let’s just have some communion.”  My mother’s 91 years old.  But every now and then, I just go in there and I say, “Mom, let’s have communion.”  To do what?  To remind her of her Covenant with the Lord.  That although everything’s deteriorated, you still have a Covenant with the Lord.  And He’s going to honor that Covenant. 

And so they begin then to have communion, and then over the years, they got away from it, to the point that they got so far away from it that they forgot that it was part of the Passover meal because the Gentiles stopped celebrating the Passover.  Ahhhh, you see?  And then we end up with the Jews over here and the Gentiles over here, which was never God’s intention.  It was Jew and Gentile together celebrating the Passover which points to the sacrificed Lamb.  Having communion which points to the sin and healing covenant that we have.  Free of sin and healing is available for us.  So that’s what the Passover.  Unleavened Bread, it takes us to a picture of the time of Pentecost.

We then have as part of that time of Pentecost, we have a first fruits, the harvest coming in, it’s in the spring time, it’s after Passover and there’s these first fruit harvests.  They bring the first fruit, the first wheat, the first barley.  Actually the barley came in first.  I don’t want to spend all the time here because I want to get to Tabernacles.  But the wheat and the barley, the barley represents just the general people, the wheat represents those that are disciples, or going to come closer to the Throne.  And you’d bring in those first fruits, from the harvest. 

Ok, the difference, remember Cain and Abel?  [yes]  You know, somebody says, well the tithe, somebody invented the tithe.  Listen, the tithe goes all the way back to Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel.  [amen]  If you struggle with the tithe, it’s your problem.  You just can’t believe that God can do something with your 90% that’s going to be miraculously beautiful for your means, to meet your need.  So, it’s ok, just be happy and keep worshipping the Lord.  He’ll show you the wonder of trusting in Him.  So He says, bring in this 10% from the field.  Go out in the field and bring in this harvest, bring in your first fruits. 

That is a picture of when the Spirit of God fell at Pentecost.  Peter, a common man, who represents barley, comes the wheat harvest, Peter gives a sermon, gives his first sermon, this fisherman, a common, everyday fisherman. Peter gives the sermon under the power of the Holy Spirit, and 3,000 get saved.  [amen]  So Jesus Christ dies, resurrects, goes to Heaven, and He gives His First Fruit offering, which were the disciples to the Father.  Peter gives his First Fruit offering, 3,000.  [amen]  What a multiplication thing here!  Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would come at Pentecost.  That period in Pentecost is what Unleavened Bread leads us up to. 

“Pente” means fifty.  And so, fifty days after Passover, the Holy Spirit was given in the earth to the believer.  He was always in the earth, but He wasn’t in the believer.  See, the Holy Spirit would come upon the prophet or the priest.  But now He’s going to dwell inside of all.  And so Pentecost, the “Pente”, the fiftieth.  Now what happens on this fiftieth, if we look here in scripture, here what we’re going to find is that at the fiftieth day after Passover, certain things were to be declared.  And it goes on into this period of the first, the fall feast. 

And in verse 23, He talks about “…In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.”  You shall do no ordinary or customary work during that time.  So, the Jewish New Year, the actual calendar New Year begins at Passover, but He is establishing the blowing of the trumpets in declaring a Spiritual New Year.  Your Spiritual New Year begins in the Fall Harvest at Rosh Hashanah.  It makes sense when you consider you’re pulling in your harvest for the fall.  You’re getting your fall harvest ready to face winter.  You don’t know how winter is going to be, but you want to bring in.  So you’re declaring, hey God has been good to me.  Look at my harvest fields.  Look at my fall harvest.  My fall harvest is good enough to get me through the winter.  I’m trusting God.  I want, I’m going to blow the trumpet and I’m declaring a New Year.  I’m ready to start on a new year, because I’m going to have to go. 

We need to realize that God uses these holidays to pull alongside you.  If you would just stop and take those days of rest.  So, at the Feast of Trumpets, you’re supposed to take a day of rest, and recognize, begin looking back over your year, so that you can project into what — the New Year.  So God can pull alongside you.  You should not be in the same spot this year that you were last year.  [amen]  You should be progressing past, past your difficulties, past your sorrows, past, your bad budgets and all.  So when we get to Rosh Hashanah, it’s a beginning of looking back. 

Then in ten days, after Rosh Hashanah, we come to the next harvest, or the next holiday, called Yom Kippur.  Now, at Yom Kippur, it’s a time of atoning.  It’s a time of saying, I’m looking back over the year, I don’t like some of the things that happened, I don’t like some of the things that were done.  I repent.  I choose to repent.  I want to be forgiven by God, I don’t want to be mad at God.  Don’t you know, some of us are mad at God?  So we get mad at God.  You know, things didn’t go the way we wanted them to, so we get mad at God. Or you get mad at pastor.  Or you get mad at your wife, your uncle, cousins, kids.  So it says, when you look back, you reach this time of Yom Kippur, and you say, hold on, ok, there were some good things that happened this year, there’s some bad things.  So you begin at the sundown of the ninth day and you fast.  You afflict your soul.  You don’t eat anything.  You afflict your soul from the sundown of the ninth day to sundown of the tenth day.  You afflict your soul. You fast.  And then, at the end of the tenth day, you’re supposed to have a holy convocation and a solemn assembly, and that’s when you give gifts, you make vows, you have a free will offering, you rejoice. 

So here at the church, what we did was we got together, we had prayer, we cried, we repented for America, we repented for our personal sins, we repented for, circumstances beyond our control as well as circumstances under our control.  There was some stuff that we did that we need to be sorry for and there’s some stuff that was done to us that we need to forgive for.  [amen]  Amen?  What we have is, they’re going to have an offering, it doesn’t delineate it exactly. But what’s going to happen is the generations are going to be released. 

Every fifty years, on the Jubilee, anyone that is in slavery had to be set free…[amen] You need to think about that.  Anyone who is in slavery, the family that was enslaved, at the fiftieth year had to set their slaves free.  My goodness.  See, we’re not supposed to stay slaves. American slavery was a great evil, the work of the devil.  In the Biblical days, slaves had rights.  You couldn’t take their children, separate their families.  You couldn’t do that in the Bible.  A slave was just an indentured worker, he was a person who was going to work for you for seven years.  Remember the story of Jacob?  Jacob was an indentured servant to his uncle, Laban.  And he had to work for periods of seven years to get certain things, and then he was free to go. 

In the Bible, as a slave you’re entitled to rights.  You couldn’t be beaten and treated evil, but when we get to slavery in America, you have a totally different type of slavery.  You are property.  You are the property of the slave owner for life.  They could separate families and children, they could do whatever.  He could kill you.  Very evil, totally different. That’s why America is still paying for that curse.  We’re still paying.  The root of it still runs deep.  Unfortunately it’s a very sad thing.  In order to treat people the way they wanted to treat people who were slaves in America, you had to debase the humanity of the person and make them less than human.  And that was it.  

With slavery in the Bible, you recognized that they were human.  And a slave at the end of his indenture period, or at the Jubilee, he could say, “I like working for you…You gave me a house, you took care of my children, you got an army to fight for me, you protected me, you cared for me.”  He says, “I want to stay a slave in your house forever.  Well why?   Because he was considered part of the family.  He had rights and he was a working member of the family.  So it was very, very different. But, nonetheless, if a person was in bondage during, during this time period, when Jubilee came, you still had to release him.

How about this, all debts had to be erased.  [amen, whew!!!]  Whew!  [laughter]  Yes, sir.  So, when we look at these Jewish laws, and the way God says, “Ok, you ran up your credit cards, you did stupid, but we’ll wipe out the debt and you can get started again.”  It’s under our control.  There was some stuff that we did, that we need to be sorry for.  And there was some stuff that was done to us that we need to forgive for.  [amen]  Amen?  Jesus said in Mark 11:25 “And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him…” Forgive them.  Your freedom will not come until you set others at freedom.  [amen] 

OK, one thing that we hide behind is this, let’s say I’m mad at Sister Cheri.  I’m mad at Sister Cheri.  Sister Cheri doesn’t even know it.  But I’m mad at her.  I am holding her in bondage.  Because why, God knows.  God knows that I am mad at her, so I’m holding her in bondage.  I’m also, binding up my blessing.  Because why?  I’m taking my energy and using it to hold her in a negative place.  Well,  at Yom Kippur, that’s the time when I decide, “Wait a minute, I want to get right with God for the whole year.”  That’s when I go to Cheri and say, “Could I talk to you, honey?”  She says, “Yeah. What’s it about?”  And I say, “I just want you to know that for this whole last year, I’ve been holding something against you.”  And she’ll say, “Well, what was it?  What was it?”  And then I’ll tell her and she’ll say, “Oh, I didn’t even know that.” … But what is she saying when she says, “I didn’t even know that.”?  She is now releasing me.  And she says, “Well I forgive you.”  I say, “Well I just need you to forgive me because I was holding that against you and I need you to release me.”  And then she says, “No, now that you told me, I’m mad at you.”  [laughter]  Now you have the true story, right.  [laughter] But what happens is, when she does that, she’s now bound.  Her blessings are bound, but I’m free.  Because why?  I released her from the sorrow and the pain that I was holding her, and what I’ve been holding against her.  What if she goes, “Yeah, I did that to you.  I just didn’t want to say anything.  But yeah, I did it, I did it on purpose, matter of fact.” And then I’d go, “Well, I’ve forgiven you for it.”  Whether it was on purpose or you didn’t know, is not what matters.  What matters is that I get free because at Yom Kippur, here’s what the Jews believe, that greater than any other time, the Heavens are wider open, and the mercies of God are coming down.  [amen, hallelujah] 

Now, what do we have here?   We have a picture of Christ.  For those of us that accept Christ, He becomes our New Year.  How many of you got born again?  When you got born again, you entered into a new year.  You entered into a new spiritual year.  You entered into a new life.  How did that happen?  It didn’t happen because of you.  It is because of the coming of Christ.  Christ came.  And so, at Rosh Hashana, we recognize that Christ comes as a new year.  It is the time of the announcing of the coming of the King.  It is the time when Christ was born.  

Christ wasn’t born December 25, He was conceived December 25, at Kislev.  That’s why we light the candles. We light candles at Hanukkah time. At Christmas time we light candles because He was announcing the Light of the World.  That He was coming as the Light of the World.  Alright?  I’m going fast through all this Jewish history, you all alright with this?  [yes]  I don’t want you saying, when somebody says, why at Living Word Chapel, do you celebrate the Jewish holidays?  The Jewish holidays have nothing to do with Christ.  We’re Gentiles.  We shouldn’t do that.  You’ll begin to understand that Christ said, that these seven feasts days, we will celebrate forever.  [amen] 

You don’t want to get to Heaven, and, and the Lord has announced, “We’re going to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.”  And you’re in Heaven now, “We’re going to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.”  And you go, “Lord Jesus, what is that?”  [laughter] … He’s going to be looking at you like, you don’t know? … I went through all that from eternity, from the beginning of the dawn of time, planning these seven feast days, that would announce Me, and you didn’t know nothing about ‘em.  You’re chasing the Easter Bunny around the yard and looking for Santa down the chimney, [laughter]…

There’s never supposed to be the wall between the Jew and the Gentile.  [amen]  Never.  The reason deacons were put in the church was to keep the wall between Jew and Gentile down.  That’s why they were deacons…Yeah, my goodness.  Ok, don’t get me started.  So, when we go through these ten days, we get to that tenth day, you afflict your soul, and you have a time of rest.  Well, what is that a picture of?  That when we come to Christ, who is our New Year.  He comes as the new King in our lives.  When Christ comes, then what happens to us?  We, I don’t know about you, but when I got an understanding of the glory of, the beauty of Jesus Christ, I repented.  When I saw how great and wonderful He was, I saw how crummy I was.  I fell on my knees and I cried for days.  I repented, not only of my sins.  But I repented of the fact that I didn’t come to His New Year, that He had for me.  He had a New Year for me, and I waited and rejected, so repent.  And so, that’s what the atonement is.  But you can’t atone on your own without Christ.  So the Jews had this elaborate system of how to pay for your sins.  And all of it was pointing to Jesus as the sacrifice.  Jesus is the only one who could atone for your sins.  And so, we have this elaborate picture of going through atonement, being sorry for what we’ve done.  Coming into the cleansing power of God. 

 Now, once God cleanses us, and we recognize that Jesus is our atoning sacrifice for sins, and I’ll do more about that later.  Then we step into the fifteenth day.  Remember, we have the tenth day, we step into the fifteenth day.  And the fifteenth day is the Feast of Tabernacles.  [glory]  Meaning, now that we’ve come into our New Year, now that we’ve atoned or accepted Jesus as the atoning of our sins, now that we have gone through seven days, that feast is the Atonement, we come to, watch this now, the eighth day…We go through seven days, we come to the eighth day.  What is that a picture of?  The seven years of tribulation, and then we’re coming to the eighth day…The beginning of a whole new life with the Father…  [yes, hallelujah] …  My goodness. 

So we have, we have seven years of tribulation, which I believe we’ve entered into.  We get into the seven years of tribulation, we have the Rapture all in there, and all these wonderful things, that God is going to do, for those who have atoned for their sins.   For those who recognize that Christ is the, I love this word, pro-pip-iation, I say it the way I say it, you say it the way you say it.  Pro-pip-iation of our sins. [laughter]  I love that.  And so, it means He has paid for our sins and therefore we enter, we go through this seven day period, six days of doing it the way we wanted.  We come to the seventh day of doing it the way God wants.  We come then to the eighth day where the Father has promised to Tabernacle with us. [hallelujah]…Whewww. 

Now the Feast of Tabernacles is a seven day feast where you’re supposed to rejoice in the Lord.  So, I’m announcing to you today, what does that picture look like?  It looks like for six days, you lived the way you wanted, then you realize the seventh day, and you come into rest in the Lord.  You come to trust in Him.  You come to believe and to trust in the Lord.  And you’re resting in Him in the seventh day.  And He says, as you complete that seventh day, he’s saying, “I will come and dwell with you in the eighth day.” … We don’t have to repeat the six days of sin or the six days of that.  He says, in the seventh day, you completed that in Christ.  [amen]  He says, you were complete, because you rested in Christ in the seventh day.  And that’s what the whole world is going to do. 

Six thousand years of tribulation, with the devil, and in the seventh we’re going to get a millennial reign of a thousand years, where Christ is going to show us how to do it right.  [yeah]  You know, then people say, well, why?  It makes sense.  Listen, the Lord cannot judge us, listen to me carefully, He cannot judge us and condemn those to separation from Him, until He shows us that He can do it right…  If Jesus cannot rule on the earth for a thousand years, and we have a better world than we did in six thousand years, He’s not fit to judge us, or to rule and reign over us…That’s what this whole thing’s about. So he’s going to, at the end of the sixth day, he’s going to rapture out the church, who will be the leaders during the thousand year reign….

Because, at the end of this tribulation period, God has declared His wrath is not to be poured out upon His saints…He didn’t pour His wrath out on Elijah.  He took Elijah.  He took Enoch.  Jesus went up.  We have all these examples of the rapture and people struggle with the rapture now.  But at the end of the period, He’s going to take out those, he said.  Is Revelation Chapter 13 coming true?  Well, if you happen to be awake, unless you slept through it, just in the past… 14 days, starting from Rosh Hashana, starting from the blowing of the trumpets of the New Year, the world economic markets fell and have been rebuilt by the antichrist, and he’s now in control of the world markets.  [amen]  How could you possibly see that, know that it happened, and think, we ain’t going nowhere?…He said the sky’s going to open in the twinkling of an eye, we’re out of here…..

This was the end of the TV show.

Praying you are blessed by this study of the Feasts.

Heather