I'm gonna title this message "Fight With Fire."
"Fight With Fire." I believe the Lord wants to release a grace today to deliver people, but
most importantly He wants to empower people to fight back. I think too many people have
been dependent on somebody else to deliver them, and too little people have
depended on the Holy Spirit, and the weapons of our warfare which are mighty in
God, to loose themselves from chains and bondages, amen. If you have your Bible, let's go
together with me to Book of Acts, 28:1.
And we will skip all that what the
naysayers were saying, and verse 5. And if you read a little bit later, you
will see that in that region, verse 8, that Paul went into him and prayed and laid his
hands. Remember what the viper was attacking? The hands of Paul. Paul laid his hands on him and
healed him. Lord, we thank You for Your grace, for Your mercy and I am grateful Lord, for the
opportunity to stand in a group of people that love You, that have a vision and that have
a purpose for the miracles that this house represents. Bless Your word today and let it
change people's lives, in Jesus name, amen. I have three points, so I'm just gonna share.
I'm a pastor and also a little bit teacher, so I'm just going to share with you and we're
gonna have some notes in the back that you can take with you as well. Before there was fire,
I want you to notice is there was a storm, there was a shipwreck and there was a rain. Before
Paul built fire on this island that he landed, Island of Malta. The Bible says that Paul
was a prisoner and he suffered a shipwreck, and he endured a storm. And in the time
that he was building fire, it was raining. Which is not the best place or environment
for building fire. If you're taking notes, write this down. You will burn for God to
the degree that you will overcome excuses. You will be on fire for God to the degree that
you will overcome excuses, and I'm going to give you your three best excuses that the devil will
use. It will be a storm, a shipwreck and the rain. A storm. It's when you ask God to do something for
you, and He doesn't seem to answer your prayer. A storm that came into my life as I was born
in a particular way. If you noticed already if you looked at the screen, one of my eyes doesn't
look like the other one. It's a factory defect. Like they like to say, I was born this way. I struggled as a teenager because of my physical
appearance. I struggled with burning for God. I struggled with being on fire for God because how
can I burn for God that I felt like burned me, and that was my storm. Some people's passion
for God is quenched because of a disappointment, unanswered prayer. Why did God allow this
to happen? Why didn't He deliver me from this thing? But what I want to encourage
you with today is that there are some battles God delivers you from, and there
are some battles He delivers you through. Some fires He keeps you from and some fires He
walks with you through. Christian faith is not a bridge over troubled waters. Sometimes Christian
faith is the path right through them because our Savior walks on water. And what happened with
me is though God didn't heal the cosmetics of my face, He healed my heart, and I had to
learn to step over the unanswered prayer, unexplained mysteries. I don't know why this
person died. I don't know why God didn't answer that prayer. But I know one thing, if you listen
to the lie of the enemy, he will kill your fire. The devil walks around with the fire extinguisher
and one of them is an offense against God. And every person, sooner or later, every
man of God has a prayer God didn't answer. Every person who is used by God has an area in
their life they are still believing in God for. None of us have our life perfect. None of us live a life where we don't need to
live in faith. Maybe your excuse is not a storm, maybe your excuse is a shipwreck. And the reason
you're not burning for God is because the ship that's supposed to take you from point A to point
B, and it's a ship that God blessed you with, and you testified in your small group how God provided
for that ship. But now you got laid off. But now the company laid off its workers. But now that
business hit a bankruptcy. Now that which used to provide for you, manna seized. The dry brook
used to be a blessing and now it became a place of struggle and a burden. It's the thing that's
supposed to carry us, fall from under our feet. And when people experience that, they lose their
fire and they develop excuses, and they say things like, "I can't trust in God anymore. I can't
give anymore. I can't burn for God anymore." But I want to remind you, that sometimes when God
removes one thing, it's because He's preparing to bring something better. God did not remove manna
to punish Israel. He removed the manna because He never promised manna. He promised milk and
honey. Manna was just a temporary provision. Milk and honey was where they were headed. But
God couldn't take them to milk and honey until He took manna off of the menu. So don't
blame God when He removes manna. Prepare yourself for milk and honey. Prepare yourself
for God's prosperity when God's provision fails. A lot of us experience God's provision
but God's provision has to stop for God's prosperity to start, and between those
seasons is where many of us get confused. We lose our passion, we get confused, we start
getting nervous and I want to challenge you today, don't yield to those excuses. But I believe
the greatest excuse that Christians face that quenches their flame for God is the rain.
The rain if you think logically kills fire. If it's raining, you can't have fire. it will
extinguish it. The rain, what I mean is our personal private battles and our flesh issues. Our
weaknesses, things we keep falling into, repeated cycles, habits we are still trying to conquer.
Things we repent from and keep doing. Some of those things have demons behind them. Some of
those things need counseling. Some of those things need discipleship. But one thing that the devil
wants to do, is he wants to use the rain in your life right now to give you a false idea that if
you stop the rain, then you should build a fire. But what I loved Paul for, is that
Paul built fire when it was raining. The Bible says, "Walk in the Spirit, and
you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh." But did you know how I used to read that
verse? Don't fulfill the lust of the flesh, so you can walk in the Spirit. Meaning, get
yourself washed before you take a shower. How many of you take a shower before you take a
shower? How many of you wash your hands before you wash your hands? The devil lies to us and says,
break the addiction first and then start fasting, break the habit first and
then commit to a small group. The devil lies to us and he says, quit
this first and then start tithing. Meaning, get rid of the rain and then build the fire. But
you must understand is that you will never be able to get rid of the rain until you build fire.
Somebody touch your neighbor, say, "Build fire." Touch your other neighbor that was not your
first preference and say, "Even if it's rainy." Build fire, even if it's raining. Build fire,
even if you're addicted. Come to church, even if you're struggling. Come to church, even if you're
doubting. Come to church, even if you're hurting. Come to church, even if you're offended. Come to
church, even if you are grieving. Come to church, even if you are broke. Come to church,
even if you are stink. Come to church, even if you are high because once you meet the
Most High, you will be high no more. Come to church. Somebody shout, "Build fire!" I can't hear
you. Somebody shout, "Build fire!" The Bible says, "This kind does not leave except by prayer and
fasting." There are certain rains in your life, they will not stop, until you start building fire.
Oh it will be hard to fight the guilt and the condemnation when you build fire because the devil
will say, you too dirty to read the Bible, your mind is to perverted to fast, you're too screwed
up to begin to go to the altar and receive prayer. Get your life cleaned up first. But you gotta
rebuke that devil and say, "The only way, the only way I get clean is if I touch Jesus
Christ." A dirty woman touched the feet of Jesus and she was made whole. The same way goes for
you and goes for me. Can somebody say, "Amen." So number one, we can't burn for God until we
overcome excuses. The devil will find excuse that's most susceptible for you. People
who are on fire for God are not special. They're just better at overcoming
excuses than you are. That's all. You don't have to have all your
life spent on drugs to burn on fire. All you gotta do is beat excuses. Now
some of you, your excuse is the blankets. You lose the battle with the blankets every day, and those blankets have principalities sitting
on them. They're warm during the night but it becomes warfare during the morning, and
that's your excuse. But today you're gonna be an overcomer. Not only over demons but also
over excuses. Can somebody say, "Build fire." The second thing that I want to highlight and
that is this, and this is the verse that I want to reread, verse 2. "The natives showed us unusual
kindness," and I want you look at this phrase, "for they kindled." Somebody say, "kindled a
fire." But I want you to notice that verse 3 says, "But when Paul had gathered a bundle of
sticks." Somebody say, "Bundle of sticks." Write this down in your notes. Someone will always
kindle your fire. Only your bundle of sticks keeps it burning. Let me say that again.
God will use the conference to kindle it but only your choices keep it. God
will use a summer camp to kindle it but it does not keep on burning because somebody
kindled it. You have to find your own dry sticks. Every, I believe almost, unless you are not
saved yet, you're coming tonight for the first time and you will encounter God. But if you ever
experienced moments where you got on fire for God, at the camp, when you got saved, when
you got baptized in the Holy Spirit, when you got delivered at the altar. And you
experienced this thing where the natives, I call them natives. It could be pastor, apostle,
teacher, a ministry alter leader, a small group leader. Somebody that sparked it, kindled it
and man you were burning for God, for 72 hours and after 72 hours, the emotions, they fade.
After 72 hours, the glory seems to fade away, angels gonna fly away, demons come in and you're
like, man, I'm back to my old life. I'm not destined to live on fire for God. I'm not destined
to live sold out for Jesus. You know what I'm just a messed up. Where is the next conference? When
is the next summer camp? Where is the next fix? Where is that preacher going next? Why? Because
I need another fix. I need another kindling. Well I came here today to disappoint
you. You don't need another kindling. You just need to roll up your sleeves
and find yourself some dry sticks. An encounter with God will not change
your life if you don't change your way. Let me say that again. An encounter with God
will not change your life, if you don't change your friends. If you don't change what you
watch, what you read. An encounter with God sparks a change but it cannot sustain a change,
because a sustained revival requires dry sticks. But many of us, we are addicted to the ministry
at the church. We are addicted to the ministry of a man of God. We are addicted to a
conference. We are addicted to a hype. We live, not from glory to
glory but from a conference to a conference. We don't go from faith to
faith, we go from a preacher to a preacher. God called the ministers to kindle
but He has anointed you to gather. The tale of two Sauls in the Bible. One Saul
went to Rama to kill David. Has an encounter. One Saul goes to Damascus to persecute Christians.
Has an encounter. One Saul goes to Rama, ends up under the power of God so powerfully.
The heat is overwhelming, he takes his clothes off and goes naked. Pretty crazy encounter. I pray
to God this doesn't happen to any of you today. The other Saul has a more dramatic
encounter. He goes blind, falls on his face. Incredible, crazy experience. One Saul, gets
up from that experience, feels relieved. And does exactly the same thing and becomes
an apostate. The other Saul gets up. Prays, fasts, water baptism, changes his
friend, starts preaching and becomes an apostle. Both had encounters. One was an apostate, the
other became an apostle. An encounter does not change you. An encounters sparks a change but
you have to add sticks to it. Are you with me? Somebody say, "Build fire." I'm gonna present
to you three sticks. So with excuses I gave you three excuses. Storm, shipwreck and rain.
Three sticks. The first stick is prayer. Now the reason why I'm going to give you these
three sticks is because you and I have three main temptations of the flesh. lust, pride and greed.
Prayer defeats pride. I'm gonna say something, if I offend some of you. The real reason you don't
pray is not because you're busy. You're proud. Pride is the real reason, why? Because
if your child has a car accident, your business goes out the window. Business isn't the problem. The problem is
that you think you can do it without God. Prayer. Prayer is a cry, prayer is a conversation.
But a lot of times, before prayer becomes a delight, it has to be a discipline. I want to
encourage each and every one of you to establish a dry stick and that's why it's dry sometimes.
So many people love to pray when it's wet. Learn to pray when it's dry. Learn to pray
when you don't feel it because it's not about feeling. It's about God enjoying your presence in
prayer as much as you enjoying God's presence and prayer. For God so loved the world, that He gave
His only begotten Son. Has it ever occurred to you that prayer is not just about you experiencing
God. It's about God experiencing you. God loves you. You are His child. You are His pride. He
wants to see your presence in His presence. I remember pastor, one time I was struggling in
my prayer and I would come in, I tried to wake up very early to go to prayer and I just wouldn't
feel anything. In fact, I felt worse after prayer. I just hated to admit it. Until one day I told
God, I said, "Lord, it'll probably be better if I get just good sleep. I feel better,
You feel better. Everybody feel better." And I heard the Holy Spirit speak and He
said, "You come here for Me. I invite you for you." He says, "I want your presence, more
than you ever will feel the need for Mine." He says, "Do you have scars on Your hands to prove
that you died from Me, because you wanted to have Me?" He says, "I have scars to prove that I wanted
your presence, I wanted you to be with Me." Man that changed my prayer life. So instead of going
into trying to connect my frequency to find that right wave, right song. I came next day, I sat
down there and I said, "God, here I am. Enjoy me." And I just shut up and I just sat there,
three, four minutes and the love of God started to flood my heart in such a way, and
I started to recognize prayer isn't about me. That means what I feel is secondary.
What He experiences is first. Did He feel loved? He felt worshiped? That is more
important than did I feel His presence. Take eyes off of yourself in prayer because He already
gave His life. Come to honor Him. For those of you who don't live a life of prayer, I always
tell people, "If you don't pray, you stray." Jesus changed Peter's name from Simon to Peter.
Peter means rock. Simon means unstable, shaky, wobbly like a reed. Never call
him Simon, until at the garden, "Simon, Simon, Satan sifted you, wanted to sift
you," why? Because Peter was about to walk in the garden and sleep, when he's supposed to be
praying, and this is the lesson. When your prayer life goes to sleep, your past gets resurrected.
Your old you comes back from the dead. The you that you got delivered from, can I tell
you something? It's lying in the tomb waiting for your prayerlessness to wake it up. Prayerlessness
resurrects old demons. Prayerlessness resurrects old habits. So I wanna challenge you if you want
to burn for God, listen, set up the alarm, set up the coffee, go to sleep early. Whatever you need
to do. Win the battle with the blankets but get yourself up. Bring yourself to the secret place
and call on God in a secret place. Pray to Him, worship Him, read the Word. Why? Because you
cannot stay on fire if you don't have a dry stick. Way less "amens." I love it.
The second stick is fasting. Fasting. If you want to last, you gotta fast.
Fasting. Now we don't like fasting but God created you too fast. The reason why is because when you
eat your first meal in the morning it's called "break-fast." So your body's already been fasting
eight hours but it's not a choice that your body chose. It's pretty much by sleeping. You were
created to fast. What fasting does to us is this, is it conquers lust. If prayer conquers pride,
fasting conquers our appetites. Fasting is not when you are trying to do your blood work
and you don't eat for the morning. Fasting is when you choose to do it for spiritual reasons
abstaining from food. Turning off your Instagram is not fasting. I know it's cute. It's American,
it's not fasting. The reason why it's food, humanity's first temptation was with food.
Jesus first temptation was with food. Israel's temptation in the wilderness after getting out
of Egypt was food. Food is gonna be you're one of the biggest temptations, why? Because you have
another king that's growing in his throne called king's stomach. And for some of you this king
is so highly exalted, you can't see your toes. I'm not making this up. The Bible says in the
New Testament, some people's god is their belly. And I know, we don't drink, we don't sleep around,
but a lot of us have made a fridge into an idol, because we eat emotionally. That's why fasting is
scary, because you will not know what to do with toxic emotions. Instead of going to the comfort
called the Holy Spirit, we go to a taco. We all need regular times of fasting, why? Because it
disrupts our idols. It disrupts our mechanism of coping with toxic emotions and instead of
running to the fridge, we run to the Holy Spirit. Food is not your friend. You're supposed to have
real friends and those friends cannot live in the fridge. Those friends should walk on both legs and
have both arms. Those friends are not those they get eaten and swallowed in. If you want to burn on
fire for God, you have to develop a habitual life of fasting. Jesus did not say, if my people will
fast. When they fast. Early church for hundreds of years fasted two days, every week. Two days, every
week. Today some churches and some Christians will fast two days in a lifetime, and we're like, they
walked into power. Listen, your fire needs fuel. You can't burn if there is no fuel.
If you want to get your hunger back, very simple tool. Go physically hungry
for 72 hours with the purpose to see God. I promise you. If not during the fasting,
after the fast, you will come back like Jesus, with power. If Jesus fasted and He was the Son of
God, you should fast if you're a son and daughter of God. You should fast if you want to live on
fire for God. I want to challenge you to fast. This is not a sermon that you take notes, like,
"Yeah, amazing. Praise God." If you don't put it to practice, it doesn't work. I wrote a book
called "Fast Forward" and once a month I lead a team of some, I think it's up to 20 000 people
now. That fast three days every month, and I fast with them, and we have live streams and all
of that stuff. And one of the reasons is because I do believe that God wants to restore a version
of Christianity that's not carnal but crucified. American Mainland Christianity is a carnal
Christianity. It's sort of like New Age. It's all about self-discovery. Biblical
Christianity is about self-denial and it's about crucifixion. It's about carrying your
cross. It is not about you. It is about Him. And fasting is one of the best ways where you
go on the cross and Jesus goes on the throne. Fasting breaks the grip of your flesh. So many
people's like, "Man, I'm addicted to pornography." Begin too fast. Oh you will see, that stuff begins
to break in your life. Learn to live a life of fasting. Fasting doesn't increase your spiritual
worth but it increases your spiritual weight. You're loved by God whether you fast or not. But you will be treated by the devils
differently, whether you fast or not. Your spiritual weight changes. Physical weight drops,
spiritual weight increases as you begin to fast. Somebody say, "Bundle of
sticks." Somebody say, "Prayer." Somebody said, "Fasting." Now one more. This
is the painful one. Financial sacrifice. Financial sacrifice. Now I didn't say tithing because tithing doesn't hurt. For those of you
just new believers, it's extremely painful. I'm speaking right now to more of a mature believer.
So for those of you who are not believers, you can just blank me out for just the next few
minutes. I want to speak to the believers, and I learned this the hard way. Please understand,
the Bible clearly teaches us in Matthew chapter 6. The only competition for your heart is not
the devil, sin, generational curses. It's money. Meaning God is not competing with the devil for
the allegiance of your heart. He's competing with money. Where the money is, there is your
heart. Not the other way around. If you want to control your heart, you got to control where your
money goes. Something happens with the sacrifice. Sacrifice is when you give something that
goes sometimes beyond what you're comfortable, led by the Holy Spirit. It begins to break
your life. Let me give you a simple example. A pig and a chicken, straight from the kids
ministry. Were walking and saw a poor farmer, decided to make him a breakfast. So the chicken
said, "I'll make him an omelette. You pig, give him some bacon." The pig said, "Well,
if you give him an egg, that's an offering for you. If I give him bacon, that's a sacrifice." Many of you, always gave God eggs
and have never given God bacon. What is bacon? How do you
decide bacon? Very simple. It's not what you give, it's what you have left. The poor widow that gave everything. It wasn't the
amount she gave. It's the amount that was left, which was? Nothing. I remember the first time
the Lord taught me that three years ago. And I was about to get married, had a struggle, you
know kind of couldn't make a decision about marriage and all of that stuff. We were doing
a 21 day water fast and I was I think on the 18th day. I just broke up with this girl that
I met, who is now my wife. I broke up with her right before the fast. I just got a decision
problem making stuff, and so during the fast I was reading a book by Francis Chan, called
"Crazy Love." Not a good book to read when you're fasting because it's going to make you go
crazy for Jesus, and that's exactly what that book did. And next thing that happens is I feel the
Holy Spirit convicted me. I'm 24 years of age, I already have a property, I have a nice car
and I have all the money saved up in my account, for the wedding, the honeymoon, the furniture,
the ring. Everything. The only problem I have is I can't find a girl that I like and make up my
mind to be with. So I go to prayer and fasting, and I said, "Lord, please send the right person
and please make the right person." And the Holy Spirit starts dealing with my heart and He
says, "You have too much money in your account." And I said, "I'm a Dave Ramsey
disciple. I do the envelopes, I do the snowball effect. I save that money on a
pastor's salary." I was like, "I rebuke whatever voice is distracting me and is trying to rob my
finances. In the mighty name of Jesus, get out!" Because I'm like, God will never ask me
to. I'm already getting my tithe like a Pharisee. I ain't giving anything more
above that. The next day of fasting, I feel the same thing and then the Holy
Spirit says, "Why are you so defensive?" He says, "Your heart is attached to that
account." I said, "God, You don't understand. You don't understand how long it took me to
save that money. From 17 years of age to 24, I've been working on that savings account because
you know how much they pay pastors. They keep them poor so You can keep them humble."
I said, "God, ultimately it's Your fault. I can't marry a girl, plus if I marry a
Russian one, she has like expensive taste. I don't want her to drop me because I can't buy
furniture and we can't just sleep on the floor." And I'm making all these excuses but see when
you're fasting, your excuses die out quickly. And then I remember, God placed a number. When
He placed the number of what I supposed to give, this was not a tithe, this was not an offering.
It was bacon. I died million deaths giving that, and when I finally gave that, I felt
so good until I looked at my account. I felt like I had a mental disorder and I'm like,
I'm hearing voices, I'm doing stuff Dave Ramsey would never approve of. I'm losing weight like
crazy, I'm going crazy. And honestly, something broke off in the spirit realm in my mind.
This girl I broke up with, I reconnect again. God clears something in my mind, we get married.
There's enough money for everything and still some seven thousand dollars was left after the wedding,
and God changed my life through sacrifice. I want to speak to you right now, specifically
when Pastor was speaking. As a church, I wanna challenge you. I have no skin in what I'm about
to say, except this thing. I have spiritually grown more through what I'm about to say, then
through a 40-day water fast, 21 day water fast or any other stuff and that is this. It's when you
put what God puts on your heart at the altar. Now for some of you, God will never put it on your
heart because you shut Him off in that area. You went as far as tithing and after that you have
a Jericho wall built that even Holy Spirit cannot penetrate, and this is that wall. All thereafter
is my money. They're just manipulating pastors. I'm gonna tell you something. I've been on
the staff at our church for 20 years. Six months ago I stepped away and started to give my
salary away. I give my stuff for free, all of my books. Me and my wife, as of this day have given
I think around nine cars. I live what I'm selling. This, I don't do this to boast about it and I
don't do this so that people can give in to the ministry. I do this because I've experienced
something. Spiritually you cannot be on fire for God if your roots are too deep in this
natural world. I'm not saying you cannot have nice things but these nice things cannot have
you. And that can never happen if you hold all of your possesses, your stock market money, your
savings money with a closed fist. Having six or seven properties, six or seven cars and say, "God,
don't you dare to talk to me about those cars." You know how I learned it the hard way? It
started, it was with two hundred dollars. I had a rental property, a duplex. Old duplex. Somebody
came into my house and gave me two hundred to go on a Ukraine trip that I was going for. They gave
me two hundred dollars. Somebody else comes into my house that night, and I hear the Holy Spirit
say, "Give this two hundred dollars to this other person." And I already know how to hear the Holy
Spirit in these matters because I know it's not definitely my spirit, because I don't want to give
them two hundred dollars. And I know it's not the devil because devil doesn't love because he gives.
The devil doesn't do that stuff. So I knew it was the Lord, and my wife was on board with it, which
is like another confirmation. But I was like, but they gave me. Not for me to give them. If
God wanted to give them, He would just give them. And so I've debated it and I talked myself
out of it. I said, "I'm not giving that. It's two hundred dollars. That's a lot of money." Right
before I'm leaving to Ukraine, my rental place gets a clogged up toilet. So all the sewer stuff
in the basement comes up. Nothing new for me. I have a little machine. I go in there, get myself
all dirty, smelly. Machine doesn't work. Second day I hire a company and guess how much they
charge me for all of that? Four hundred dollars. And after that was done I smelled like poop, like
sewer and everything and I came to God. Right before Ukraine, stressed and all of this stuff and
I felt the Holy Spirit. This was directly to me, I'm not saying this applies to every
situation, and He said this. He says, 'Whatever you don't give, when I tell
you to. My hand of protection is lifted." And He said, "Vlad remember, the enemy will
have access to that which I put my finger on." And after that I said, "Lord, if You protect
me from sewers and poop. I will be obedient." This is not to threaten anybody or scare anybody.
But I do want to remind you, you will not take anything with you to heaven anyway. Everything
will be left on this earth. All of your portfolio, your children probably will hire lawyers and fight
over it and all of that stuff. You cannot take anything to heaven with you. When me and my wife,
about eight years ago started to practice radical generosity. It started first with emptying our
account completely. Then emptying it next year again and emptying it next year again. We did it
again six months ago for the building fund. Where we gave the largest donation our church has ever
experienced, and it came from its pastors. When we started to experience in this something
started to happen to me, pastor. I started to think about heaven more often. I was scared
at first. I was thinking, I'm gonna die soon. So I said, "Jesus, are You preparing me to
die?" And I remember the Lord responded to me, He said, "No, I'm not preparing you to die."
He says, "It's for the first time in your life, you have more there, than here. That's
why your heart is thinking about that." Sacrifice is a large log on your
fire. I wish I would tell you, "Come get filled today, get slain
and you will burn for God forever." That's a spark. It doesn't continue until you put
a bundle of sticks. What is the bundle of stick? And sacrifice as I was speaking some of you
your hearts start beating faster and some of you already said nope. And I asked the Holy Spirit
right now that he will help you because for some of you He will give you a number, He will give
you something to bring on Sunday for God's house. And some of you this will be for the first time
that you will not just bring God a bigger egg but you will bring him bacon. You will weep
tears you haven't cried before after that. The intimacy with God will be with you in the
way you've never had before, craving for the eternal. The invisible realm will be different,
why? Because the world will begin to lose its appeal, why? Because your roots are no longer as
deep in this world. I know we love to talk about it but there is really no other experience that
can help you with that, except the sacrifice. Are you with me? Are you ready for the
last thing and I'm already past my time. The last thing that I want to mention is
this. So Paul is building fire. I want you to see this is that he's overcoming
the storm, the shipwreck and the rain. Natives kindle the fire. So we mentioned
that there are conferences, ministers. God uses people to start that, impartation, you get
touched by the Holy Spirit, you watch a video, you read the book. Wherever that happens. But if
you don't have habits. Not just high but habits of prayer, and of fasting and of sacrifice that
fuels the fire. You are not going to stay on fire for God. But as you start building the fire, I
want you to notice. They didn't just get warm. Watch this. Warfare broke out. Write this down,
the third thing and we're going to be done, and that is this. Fire will provoke
vipers but it will also kill him. Fire will provoke vipers. Now, when people start getting on fire for God, I have to tell you this because sometimes we as
pastors don't say this, and people get shocked. When you get closer to God, some of
you will experience intense warfare. As you start tithing, as you start
sacrificing. That's what happened to me. When me and my wife gave our first large
sacrifice as a married couple, emptied our account. Our rental properties couldn't be
rented for six months and I thought I wasn't hearing God. I went anointed them with oil, I
broke the principalities, I bound the spirits, renounce the generational curses. I'm like, why
is this happening to me? You must understand, it's not that the fire brought the
vipers. The vipers were always there. It's just the fire made them uncomfortable.
They've always been lurking there. It's just they've been comfortable in your life but
until you started to build fire, hell started to become uncomfortable. They could no longer
just live in your life, around your life. They started to become tormented and irritated, and
hell rises because it feels threatened by you. Fire did not create the snakes. Fire exposed
the snakes. There are people who get saved and they say, "My life was bad but it wasn't that
bad, until I got saved, and when I got saved, hell broke loose. I lost my job, I lost my
friends. Everybody turned against me." My friend, what happened is when you got on fire, vipers
got nervous, vipers got exposed. But the most amazing thing that I want to encourage you
with today is not that you get them exposed. And maybe some of you say, "So what's the benefit
of burning for God?" The benefit of burning for God is this. Not only that it provokes them,
is you have a place to drop the viper into. You can't drop your viper in my fire pit. You have to have your own fire pit. You can't drop what's attacking you on
the outside into your pastor's fire. You have to have your own flame to throw it
into, and the reason why many people are going from deliverance to deliverance, is because they
have no fire in their own life, because to walk in dominion, you have to have a flame to throw the
scorpion into. To walk into dominion, you have to have a flame to throw this snake into. You have
to have a flame to throw that depression into, that nightmare into, that sexual dream into, that
addiction to pornography into. W,hen you build a fire snakes come out but you have a place to
drop those snakes into. God never created you for deliverance. God created you for dominion. God did
not create you to walk and need deliverance. The Bible says, in the beginning God said, be fruitful
and multiply and have dominion. The Bible says, through the gift of righteousness and the
abundance of grace, we reign in life. The reason we need deliverance is because we didn't
walk in dominion. Deliverance is a means to an end. The end is dominion. Deliverance is not the
goal. Deliverance is not what you should seek. Victory, dominion, discipleship. Deliverance
jump starts everything but if you don't have a fire you won't walk in dominion. If you don't
have a fire, you cannot fight back because when you get delivered those demons leave. Three
days later they come back on the outside and they start harassing you. Those nightmares will
come back on the outside like Pharaoh and say, "Come back to me. I'm still inside." They will lie
to you, and if you don't have a flame, you'll run back to the church and say, "Pastor, deliver
me." But if you have a fire you say, "Devil. You tormented me long enough. You tormented my
family long enough. I'm against you, in Jesus mighty name. I come against you by the blood
of Jesus Christ. Get out! Depression, get out! Nightmares get out!" When the devil moves
chairs in your room, comes in to intimidate and breaks different things. You tell devil,
"Put it back and get out of this house. This is not your property anymore." But if you're not
on fire, you can't fight back. You say, "Oh the devil came. I don't know what to do. I'm scared.
Oh somebody cast a spell on me. Pastor, pray for me." That's fine if you are just beginning as a
Christian but I'm speaking to soldiers right now. If you are bitten by a snake right now, if you're
tormented by an unclean spirit, if generational curses like viper stuck their teeth inside of your
soul and bleeding the living lights out of you. And you feel like you're losing, and the voices of
the enemy are whispering in one ear and the other, and you feel like you are losing right now your
spiritual life. You feel like there's an attack on your life. You're losing your spiritual
appetite. There's an attack of lack on your life. You feeling drawn away from the church.
You don't want to be in a community anymore, and you're recognizing as you're listening to me
right now, this is more spiritual than natural. I cannot explain this. This is more demonic. If
you have fire in your life, all you have to do is shake It off. All you have to do is rebuke it.
All you have to do is repent for the sin you did not repent, and then right after repentance get
up from your knees and say, "Devil, come here. Go!" That's it. You say, "Go! Get out!" And
you get angry at him and you tell him to leave, and he will run with the tail between his
legs, why? Because you have the authority and because the fire that exposed him
is the fire that will kill him, amen.
