Jentezen Franklin: You Are Being Prepared For Acres of Diamonds (Full Teaching) | Praise on TBN

everything you're dreaming of is on the other side of not giving up and i don't want somebody else to take the plow that god put in my hands the mule that he gave me the acreage that he gave me in life somebody else could take that same plow that same land and find diamonds in it somebody else could take that same marriage that same family that same setback layoff that single mother can just say i don't have any help or she can realize god has given me these children and they're like a field of raw diamonds the message of the book is rock solid for times like these i'll start out by just telling you quickly what the book is about it's a true story that a man by the name of russell conwell went to the middle east in the 1800s he wanted to see the holy land and he decided to hire a guide it happened to be an arab guide they stayed in tents they went by a camel back and he saw all the holy sites in israel and what happened was uh one night there was a man who there the guide who started telling the story that was true and russell conwell took this story that he heard at a campfire in the holy land put it in a booklet back in the 1800s it sold seven million copies he then gave a speech about it six thousand times raised enough money out of the two to found one of the leading universities in america called temple university in philadelphia and today there are tens of thousands of students who call temple their their their college and it all came out of this one story about acres of diamonds you know the the correlation is a unique situation here you know if it if if there was an adage if the if you could you know simplify this book and what we get to do for this one hour we get to unpack it as much as we can but if there was an adage for it it's probably uh the grass always looks greener on the other side uh there is there's something about human nature uh that says we're not in the right situation right now something different needs to happen i need some i need different friends i need different acquaintances i need different contacts i need different bank account numbers i need all in other words there's all sorts of ex you know reasons that this book speaks to right here right now start unpacking it for us it's a timely word jensen yeah what i what i think people need to understand is and what changed my life through this story was it made me discover the potential of where i am right now we're always saying if i had another marriage or i had another ministry or i had another job or i had somebody else's life somebody else's opportunities then my life would be different and we fail to recognize the enormous potential of what god has given us where we are and so i think it's vital that people hear this story the best books are books that come out of life experiences for me when i heard this story many years ago it changed my life the story of acres of diamonds changed my perspective and the way that i think and so i'm going to just tell you the story real quick and i think people will be drawn in by it because it so relates to everybody's life listening and watching this show so what happened was there was a arab guide who began to tell this man russell conwell the story a true story he said there was a man who lived in south africa by the name of ali hafed and ali fed was a farmer he had acres and acres of land he worked hard by the sweat of his brow he had a plow he had an ox and he got out and he worked every day he had a meager cabin and a little family of two children and a wife and every day of his life from sun up to sun down he worked just to get by just to have enough food to feed himself and he made a good modest living and he had a pretty good life but one day a traveler came through and told him he said it's a shame you have to work so hard every day because they are discovering diamonds in india and he named where it was happening what region that it was happening in and he said if you could just go over there you could reach down into a certain stream and pick up diamonds the size of rocks and you would be amazingly wealthy and that night that man went to bed russ and ali hafed the farmer and he tossed and he turned and he made a decision i don't see much potential in what i've got i don't see how i'm ever going to be able to do well for me and my family with the tools that i've been given and the land that i've been given it's never going to produce much for me but if i could go to india and the only way i can do that is i'm going to sell the farm i'm going to sell the plow i'm going to sell the ox again this is a true story it's verified he sold it all he took the resources hugged his wife hugged his kids set them up temporarily and told them when i come back you'll be so wealthy you'll sit on thrones we'll be fabulously wealthy and you'll never want for anything he set off as a soldier a fortune he began to go to india he got there found no diamonds he ended up in europe found no diamonds and he finally in a moment of desperation out of money out of hope out of dreams in a foreign country no way to get back to his wife and family wrote a suicide note there are no diamonds anywhere and jumped into a raging stream and took his life and that's a horrible story because the man reached such desperation that he felt there was no hope and no reason to go on living now watch this the man who bought the farm took the same acreage the same cabin the same plow the same ox the same work tools and began to plow that ground and he noticed that as he was plowing that he had an issue that just kept happening he had these rocks that he kept plowing up and ever so far every few feet he would have to take the rocks and throw them over to the side of the field it was so annoying day after day after day he had stacks and stacks and stacks of these black rocks that would sparkle when the sun would hit them and they would show the colors of the rainbow one day he hit one that was particularly large and he thought that would make a nice decoration on my little mantel in front of my fireplace he took it back and put it on the mantel and one day the local priest came by to welcome he and his family to the community and while they're talking in mid-sentence the priest looks up and sees this huge rock unusual colored rock on the mantle and he's stunned and he says where did you get that from and he said oh i got it out of the field out there they're all over the place and he said you don't understand that is a diamond in the rough sure enough they took it that first diamond was that first rock was worth 25 000 in the 1800s this is in the 1800s 25 000 it was worth it was the world's largest diamond mine discovery the most famous diamond mine in the world to this day is the golando diamond mines the queen of england bought all of her diamonds in her crown from those minefields think about it the man who threw himself into that river and took his life because he felt like that life had been unfair to him and he had nothing of value never realized that he had been living in acres of diamonds it was there all the time it was right under his nose but he never saw it i think that we're in a time when people need to stop saying if i had this if i had that if life hadn't turned out for me like it has then things would be different and understand that god has placed you somewhere that is absolutely loaded with potential loaded with his blessings and by the way if you have jesus christ you have no idea you cannot phantom the unsearchable riches you have in jesus christ he is a provider he is a healer he is a deliverer and he is one who has a plan and a purpose for your life and he's already put in your field all that you need to fulfill god's plan and purpose for your life the thing about diamonds is this they are it's carbon that's at least a hundred feet under the earth and the only thing that brings those carbons together to bond those is is heat and pressure it requires antique intense heat and pressure and time and this is the problem so many people want to run that you said it matt they they want they think the grass is greener on the other side so they leave this ministry for that ministry they leave this wife for that wife they leave this husband they want another family i want another job and they don't stay where they are success is a four-letter word stay i know that there's time for change i know that there's time when we're in toxic relationships and we have to distance ourselves we all get that but most of the time when intense heat and pressure comes we see it as our enemy we see it as the worst thing i'm going through a fiery trial heat and pressure when god says the only thing that's going to bring out of your life the diamonds the blessings the purpose the destiny the calling is intense heat and pressure and you standing there long enough to not give up everything you're dreaming of is on the other side of not giving up and i don't want somebody else to take the plow that god put in my hands the mule that he gave me the acreage that he gave me in life somebody else could take that same plow that same land and find diamonds in it somebody else could take that same marriage that same family that same setback layoff that single mother can just say i don't have any help or she can realize god has given me these children and they're like a field of raw diamonds and how do you know that those children aren't going to rise up and call you blessed like proverbs 31 said they would do and buy you a house if you raise them right and love god i'm telling you your life is loaded with acres of diamonds and what i learned is early is you can't have it without the intense heat and pressure you can't get the diamonds of life nobody just gets there when i look at people like you some people look and say wow look at that ministry that they have look at what god has trusted them with and what they have no idea of is what in the world what kind of intense heat and pressure and how long you know i think even this pandemic could it be that god is saying america has forgot who she is that it's still acres of diamonds we've got problems we've got injustices we've got all kinds of issues but i want to say we're still loaded with potential we're still acres of diamonds and what has to happen is god has to open our eyes it was a verse in psalms 116 that said open my eyes that i might see wondrous things that means they can be all around you and you just can't see it god has to open your eyes to potential for me in in ministry what happened is i felt a calling to preach and i accepted it one night i'll never forget it i i heard a preacher preach and you guys know steve brock it was his brother ronnie brock ronnie was preaching and it just messed me up a teenage kid 16 years of age i went down to the altar i wept and i said i'll do whatever you want me to do i'll preach i didn't want to preach i was raised in a preacher's home i didn't want all that it wasn't i just didn't want to live that life and to make a long story short after i said yes i thought well you know tbn will discover me any day now there's no telling how god's going to raise me up it didn't happen that way it took intense heat and pressure within a few months of me saying yes to the lord in my prayer bulls began to break out all over my body i looked like a monster from the top of my head all the way down my body i had a blood issue and it caused these inflamed bulls all over my body and i remember being out of school for months and sick and there in my bedroom depressed i went from popular and running with the kind of wild crowd and you know living life like a normal 16 year old to total isolation total loneliness total depression no friends and in that moment the heat and the pressure i remember crying out one night saying god what a joke i said i would preach and now i'm so embarrassed i would notice the lighting in a room i wouldn't go out in public i would sit in the back by myself i would go to school and the kids would laugh at me and it was so humiliating and embarrassing i wouldn't go and i would learn how to do my work and i would skip class a lot because i was so embarrassed to go into the classes and i would go and i got a key a secret key to my dad's church and i would go up in the balcony and sit under the sound booth and i would listen to cassette tapes of the word of god in that season i had a walk with god but i'd never had my own bible walk with god i'd never learned how to pray i'd never learned how to really worship god and in that church by myself god began through intense heat and pressure to teach me the word of god incidentally that same summer i picked up my saxophone and started practicing it five six hours a day because i didn't have any friends i learned how to play the piano that summer in the church on the church piana god just made music connect for me and i could just play anything that i wanted to play none of those gifts would have been discovered had i been out running around every friday and saturday night with my friends none of those things would have happened most importantly to this day when i write a sermon my mind many times goes back to those feelings of isolation that i had those times when i hated myself those times when i thought maybe it would be best for my life just to end and it makes me feel for that teenager that mom that person going through a divorce who feels like their life is over my heart and emotions go back to those days in my life and i'm simply saying if god has you in a time of intense heat and pressure it is not to destroy you it is preparing you for acres of diamonds it is preparing you everything god promised me he did it he just didn't do it in the way that i thought he would do it he actually had to prepare me god's going to get you where he wants you to be the question is will you be able to stand it will you be prepared to handle it so that when you get it you're not so amazed by it that you forget about the god who's been faithful through the intense heat and pressure and some of you are crying out today how long ago lord how long is this going to last i remember saying that how long how long it's one thing when a trial lasts a week or three weeks or six months but any of you who've ever been in a a battle that goes for months and months and it's intense heat and pressure and it's nerve-wracking and you don't know what you're going to do except you learn to lean on jesus and in those moments matt that's when god opens your eyes that's the very time when he'll flash those diamonds across the field and say i know it doesn't look like it on the outside but on the inside i'm preparing you for something greater than you can comprehend it's beautiful wow jensen um let's uh you know you're you're you're speaking a word so in season yeah for so many the pandemic of covet 19 mixed with you know everything else that's going on in the world with tensions and racial tensions and loss of jobs and there there is a lot of heat there's a lot of pressure you know and what i want you to do just because you've you've preached it long enough to develop just a sense of an anointing is right here right now pray for the people whatever you feel led to do whatever you feel led to then we'll we'll unpack a few more of the truths inside of this book but i think it's time i think people are wanting to receive right right right here [Music] i so agree with that because the hard places lead to high places where you are right now is exactly where god wanted you to be because he is preparing you [Music] for acres of diamonds in that family those children that you may be on drugs maybe maybe you know during this pandemic their issue has come more to the surface maybe alcohol is being abused tremendously and it's it's breaking your heart maybe you've got sons and daughters who just don't even go to church and you raise them don't give up on them don't give up on those kids they're acres of diamonds and keep praying and keep reaching and father today we bring all of the people who are in the most difficult season they've ever been those whose careers and jobs and businesses they their whole life was poured into that restaurant their whole life was poured into that position of and now covet seems to have taken it all away i just thank you that right now you are bringing a word to them that it is not over you're bringing a word to them right now that you bring beauty out of ashes you bring joy out of sorrow that we never allow the outward circumstances to define who we are on the inside we may be going through loss and trials and discouragement and even temporary defeat but we receive today the word of the lord open our eyes open our eyes to see the potential to see by faith what others don't see to see oh god all that you have for us now in this season open our eyes to unseen opportunities unseen potential maybe somebody lost their job so they could write that book that would become a bestseller maybe somebody lost their job so they'd finally get the courage to scrounge up what they can and start that that god-given genius idea of a company that will cause acres of diamonds to be released lord you work in mysterious ways your wonders to perform and god we agree together for the people now those who are brokenhearted those who are lonely may they see lay their eyes open to who jesus is we've got you right in the middle of it all we're living in acres of diamonds jesus because of you amen jensen i want you to unpack the analogy that seems to be prevalent in this book between the diamond and the person of jesus in the story that you were telling of the man in the 1800s he was passionate about wanting to find diamonds and we have that make the correlation between the diamond and the person of jesus yeah you know uh the the title of the book can be deceptive because it sounds like it's just some kind of prosperity book and uh we need prosperity but that's not what it is right now what this book about is about is real life real life but it is in the bible let me give you an example in luke chapter 15 the prodigal son is living in the father's house and he has everything he can ever imagine but he goes to the father and he says give me my inheritance i don't want this life i'm sure he had some friends who were saying man out there they're really living out there there's a party going on out there the girls and the and the drugs and the party and the club it's all out there and he left what he had in search of acres of diamonds and when he had spent all searching he tried everything you can imagine and he left him empty and he ended up in a pig pen and he came back to the father's house only to discover that everything he was looking for was right under his nose in the father's house and you and i have seen it happen and it's happening to some of the viewers families teenagers hit that season in life where the world starts to sparkle and everything out there looks so much better than what's in the kingdom and what's in church and what's in the word of god and there comes this thing on young people that i want to live i want to party i want to be like hollywood i want to know that wild life that fun life only to go out and it uses people up sin fascinates and then it assassinates sin thrills and then it kills sin takes you further than you want to go keeps you longer than you want to stay and cost you more than you want to pay and when they come back addicted broken and hurting the testimony of millions is i was raised in church i was raised by godly parents and it took me a journey of intense heat and pressure but i'm back and i'm never leaving the father's house again see jesus is the acres of diamonds i love this story and i want you to lean in on this one there are three crosses on a place called mount calvary three jesus is in the middle and there's a thief on the right side and a thief hanging on the cross on the left side one of those thieves turns and he sees jesus the blood the crown of thorns the agony the lips that speak father forgive them and he sees nothing but trash and that thief says i curse you he cursed jesus and he died and went into eternity now watch this a man on the other side of the cross sees the exact same picture he sees the blood he sees the crown he hears the words but he sees a diamond they're both looking at the same thing one sees trash one sees treasure one of them has his eyes open one of them sees nothing and when he says when you come into your kingdom remember me jesus said this day i'm taking you into acres of diamonds this day you'll walk on streets of gold this day you'll be the first to go through the pearly gates of heaven washed under the blood of the lamb you're going with me when i go through into my kingdom it all happened because of jesus and i'm going to tell you something if you've got jesus i may not have everything that somebody else has but boy if i've got jesus i'm living in acres of diamonds not when i get a better car not when i get a better house not when everything's perfect in my life not when my business is going through the roof but if you have christ in your life listen we all go through trouble i want you to know that when you're in trouble everything is better with jesus including trouble he will never leave us he'll never forsake us especially when we're in a time of trouble and heartache jason you know you were talking earlier about how this book applies to someone that needs to stay and and you know in this intense pressure and heat season that is now being nicknamed 2020 i mean everything from pandemics to murder hornets to you know i mean it's it's like it's like if we want to 20 years from now you know all we got to do is we were 20 20. you know i mean we're we're it's it's becoming almost a meme you know just it's it's an analogy now for for pressure and heat and so we're in a season we're all in a season like this and you know there there's there's a unique angle that i thought about when you were uh preaching this just a little bit ago my dad woke up every day for nine years fighting a lawsuit in the fcc that woke him up with a gut-wrenching gnawing feeling inside of his life for nine years fighting tv and the pressure the intense pressure the heat of what that was my dad told me that many days he thought he was the responsible party that would have in essence lost tbn to a competitive application and it's a huge long story take forever to tell you what it was but it's it's it in in hindsight was really kind of a silly issue really that issue got fought into court through the fcc and went all the way to the third circuit court of appeals the next step is the supreme court of the united states which would never have heard a case like this and so this was it that judge panel three administrative law judges completely reversed ruled in tbn's favor and then added a very unique kind of lawyer term a writer was attached to the decision which vacated the issue jensen sponged yeah yeah i expunged it it it it was vacated it never happened like it never yeah okay if you go to the deep dark recesses of the annals and the paper files wherever they are kept of the fcc the matter that caused my dad nine years of gut-wrenching pain didn't even exist it did not happen he could have lived every day free for nine years free living with what he already had the outcome was set okay so in addition there could be some people living in angst and worry and depression and that that their answer is already here and they just don't know it yet kind of take that and go with it just for a minute one of the stories that we talk about and by the way i remember those days i was i was watching tbn during those days when your dad would occasionally he couldn't talk about it a lot because it was in litigation right but i remember those days i remember behind the scenes coming on the show sometimes with your parents and they would talk to me on the side about some of the things that they were going through we have no idea the kind of pressure people live are living under sometimes and yet look what god has done look at where tbn is going today in nations around the world that have never been touched with the gospel of jesus christ but it was part of that intense heat and pressure but one of the stories that i talk about in the book was a dear abby story that was pretty it's pretty amazing story dear abby was a columnist who used to write in major publications years ago she's dead now but she told this story it's a true story she said that there was a um there was a father and a son and the mother had passed away the son was very close with the with the with the mother and when she died there the business the dad was a businessman very successful businessman very wealthy and he allowed most of his time to go to the to the business so the father and son kind of drew a part through the through the years finally it came time for him to graduate from college and he began to you know yearn for a relationship with his father so he made it a greater effort to kind of bridge and he started coming back home more and more and that senior year he had never asked for anything from his extremely wealthy father but he said dad there is a certain sports car that i've noticed and he told where it was and they even went and looked at it and he said i'd love to get that for my straight a record through school and college graduating top of the class you asked me what i wanted i want that sports car well he graduates from college his father's there the day of the graduation the father asked him over to his mansion they're sitting this is a true story they're sitting in his beautiful office and the father takes a wrapped package and he pushes it across the desk he said i i got you this this gift for your graduation you know it's not what he was really wanting and he wanted him to take him out to the garage or out in the front of the with a big car with a bow on it but instead it's a it's a package and he wraps it unwraps it tears it open takes the lid off and it's a bible it's a bible with the boy's name engraved on it well now the boy just loses it and he says he says he looks at his father and he says you've never been very religious except for the last year of your life where you talk about jesus all the time takes that package with the bible in it never pulls it out of the box shoves it across the desk he gives his dad a earful and storms out never comes back to see his dad for over a year he meets a girl he goes out and does good in business uses his father's contacts and and does very well meets a beautiful girl marries her doesn't invite the dad to the wedding and finally he has his firstborn son and when he starts to realize that how precious that child is he begins to yearn to bridge uh the relationship with his father and here's the here's the point that i'm getting to he decides to surprise his father and loads his little family up with his newborn son and they go across states to get back to where the father is and tragically the father died of a heart attack during the process of the trip when he gets there his heart broken and everything that he had his father wheeled over to him all of the masses of wealth and the mansion and everything that he had he walks in to the study and he's broken and he looks up and he sees up on a shelf that very package that his son that his father gave him for his graduation he takes it down he opens up the box he grabs the bible it's it's marked on a page that says if you know how to give give good gifts to your father or your kids how much more will your father give good gifts to you he grabs it he's emotional he's holding the bible and weeping missing his father and something drops out of the back of the bible it's a key it's a car key he reaches down and he realizes it's the key to the sports car sure enough he goes out in the garage and they're under a dusty cover is the car that had been sitting there all those years his father gave him exactly what he had asked for he didn't recognize it because of the wrappings that it came in god will give you exactly what you ask for in his will but the problem is it's not going to come packaged in the way that you think it's going to come god gives strangely wrapped gifts to his children ask joseph he's thrown into a pr pit he said you're headed for a throne but it's a strange wrap gift that he ends up with by the time he's accused of false things and goes through hell then he ends up at the top god the father will give you exactly what he's promised you but it usually will show up in strangely wrapped gifts same story with job and the same story with you and i so don't be like that boy and shove back a package that's how i feel about this covid situation this hasn't caught god by surprise he's not up in heaven sucking his thumb in fetal position at the bottom of the throne saying i can't believe the world is wrecked by god says i've given you a strangely wrapped package but in it are acres of diamonds in it i'm going to advance my kingdom in it i'm going to raise you and i'm going to put you in positions of power and influence that you could never have gotten had you not gone through the intense heat and fire so i just really feel today that sometimes we feel like david felt in second samuel 3 and verse 39 he said i am this day weak but i'm still anointed and some of you need to hear that you may feel weak in the flesh weak financially weak when you look at what you're facing but you are this day anointed and what god has promised he's going to bring to pass and there are acres of diamonds coming in your life if you won't give up we're in a battle with the spirit of the antichrist that's what we're facing we are the end times are have come upon us if you can't see that you need to pray open my eyes because at the same time the bible says it'll get darker and darker and darker it says arise and shine for your light has come it means right in the middle of all the intense heat and pressure there are acres of diamonds and for us in the kingdom the acres of diamonds are souls by the multitudes multitudes multitudes in the valley of decision they have run man can't fix it politicians can't fix it even church leaders can't fix it there's only one that can fix it he is our acres of diamonds he is jesus and if ever we needed our eyes opened the wondrous things back on jesus in 2020 we need our eyes back on jesus like never before because nothing else is going to satisfy nothing else is going to fulfill earlier when we talked today you mentioned about one of the stories in the book about steve wynn he's a billionaire and steve wynn you know is responsible for building a lot of las vegas most famous hotels well he is also art collector and he had a piece of art that he wanted to get and he bought it it was called uh the dream in french the dream and that and that ironic the dream and to make a long story short he put it in the lobbies and everybody celebrated and he had a party because he sold it five years later he bought it for 50 million and sold it for 135 million i just want one of those deals in my lifetime but he sold it and made that much money and he had a it was a picasso that's exactly right and so we had a party in las vegas the last night before the new owner took possession of that painting and it meant something to him emotionally the dream and so while he had it on the stage he has an eye problem and he lost his balance and accidentally stumbled and fell and his arm went through the 135 million dollar dream painting and of course the person who wanted to buy it said i don't i withdraw my offer and it looked like the dream was tattered and torn and worthless but he took it he got it worked on for a year by an art surgeon and a year later he puts it up for sale and after it had been torn tattered and destroyed the same man who offered him 139 million dollars came back after it had been torn and gave him 155 million the point is it was worth more after the dream was torn than it was worth before it went through the storm i believe that's going to be true for your business for your family for your home for your life and for this nation and for the world that god is up to something he said i will restore the ears the cankerworm and the locusts are trying to steal from you don't lose hope don't lose heart we're living in acres of diamonds clinging to jesus we're going to get through this with great victory at tbn our mission is to use every available means to reach as many individuals and families as possible with the life-changing gospel of jesus christ thank you for helping make the gospel of grace go around the world without you we couldn't do it god bless you

Channel: Praise on TBN

Views: 38,369

Keywords: Jentezen Franklin, Jentezen Franklin Sermons 2022, Jentezen Franklin Sermons, Jentezen Franklin Church, Jentezen Franklin Fasting, Jentezen Franklin Fasting 2022, Jentezen Franklin Acres of Diamonds, Acres of Diamonds, Jentezen Franklin Boaz, Jentezen Franklin Saxophone, Jentezen Franklin 2021, Jentezen Franklin 2022, purpose, stay where you are, praise tbn, praise, tbn, tbn praise, matt crouch, laurie crouch, tbn praise the lord, P7R7A2I7S7E3, 7721473, EEJTKF123, 123TBN123, 8T2B6N

Id: bh4hQR4v3fg

Length: 40min 46sec (2446 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 20 2022