JGLM | Dominion Life Plano Live Broadcast

[Music] [Music] [Music] rise up in jesus name open eyes and heal the land rise up declare his truth [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] it's time to rise yes [Music] [Music] is [Music] you humble yourself unto death you came to serve the least of us but you've risen from the dead to heaven [Music] is [Music] is [Music] singing [Music] there it is [Music] oh [Music] so there [Music] and so we worship we worship you tonight cause there is another you heal my diseases you forgive all my sins you stand as a symbol [Music] is [Music] is just lift your voice is [Music] is [Music] is all right i need you guys to help me out on this one i need you to sing what i'm singing okay so after i sing you sing it back to me okay is that cool [Music] all right well good morning good morning good to see everybody here all right well it's good to be back it's been a little while since i've been in the pulpit but it's good to be back home again and uh we're going to get some things done today and so we're going to get right into things let's go right into it so first off we're going to look at several scriptures today and uh you can go ahead and go to some of them and we'll get there shortly the first one's going to be in acts chapter 5 and then the second one will probably be acts 22. uh that may change but we will see so first off i want to talk a little bit this morning about law and grace and uh this might be a little different angle from which what most people uh think of it but we want to look at it because the point of being in this you might say my point of view in this we have to realize that god doesn't just deal with the church he deals with all mankind if he didn't deal with all mankind nobody would get saved and so he starts dealing with mankind before man even knows he's dealing with them sometimes and then many times god speaks directly to people that are not church people we have it all through scripture we have it especially in the old testament at first but we also see in the new for instance god spoke to abimelech a heathen king and now his message to abimelech wasn't that good it basically said you're a dead man not necessarily the word you want to hear from god but that's what he told him and then bimelech repented and god told him said you're gonna have to get abraham to pray for you and if you don't then you're gonna die and so but now notice abimelech knew he was talking to god and he knew that god was talking to him and and yet he wasn't saved he wasn't a christian he wasn't godly right secondly god spoke to nebuchadnezzar definitely an ungodly king and warned him and talked to him over a period of time and nebuchadnezzar did not necessarily uh repent the way that we would like to have seen him do god spoke to pharaoh he spoke to him directly and he spoke to him several different well several different pharaohs of different times he spoke to him indirectly through moses he spoke to him indirectly also through joseph different pharaohs but uh god was speaking to these people we know that god also well let's just bring in kind of the modern days god also talked to a heathen who happened who happened to own a racetrack and told him to give oral roberts a million dollars and he did and that was part of what oral roberts used to build oru and some of the other ministry things that he had going on there so god can speak to ungodly people amen now one of the misconceptions that people seem to have is that and i really think this is because of the culture that we have in the in the world today and especially here in the united states but we also often hear the term separation of church and state which is not in the constitution we hear it it's actually you know it was in a letter from thomas jefferson and actually it's not to and the way it's taken today is to keep the church from meddling in government affairs but in the constitution when it talks about it it was to protect the church from the government so there was a difference now here's one of the things we want about we want because we want to move into these things and i just want to get you to looking at these things in your own life and how you interact you might say now we know that god is as we would say god is not the god of the dead but of the living because i'll live unto him the scripture says and so god is god over all the people in that sense but he is not everybody's god does that make sense he is god he's the god of the earth he's a god was put this way he's the god of heaven and earth he created the heaven and earth he created all this so he is god but he's not everybody's god that's on the earth that makes sense right now but if you look at scripture especially through the old testament coming into the new you will see a relationship between even government and god and that god's will he has always stated his will even the old testament if you look at the ten commandments you look at the law the law was god's will it is it was god's will that thou shalt not steal guess what that's still god's will whenever the law was done away the will of god was not done away and so the will of god concerning stealing has never changed and people look at the law like oh that's horrible that's no the law of scripture is number one it's spirit law we could not use to get to god because no man could keep it so jesus had to come and fulfill that for us and then we get to god in christ because he fulfilled the law perfectly amen but we also have to remember all through the old testament god was dealing with unborn again people and they were natural carnal people we would even say and so he was dealing with these people and now as we as time has moved forward he has always dealt with people he has always dealt with governments he says that he reserves the right to turn the head of the king in other words he can actually cause the king to go certain directions we would say king in america we say president some places you know it's different uh terminology but the idea means the top person in that governmental structure now i want us to think about a certain thing because there's been a lot of controversy over this and i want to clear up some things and be very specific because a lot of people i've talked to once we talk they're like i i never thought of that or i didn't see that before or i didn't see it that way put it that way well first off let's look at things as they are number one what i hear most the time in the church is especially about let's say the chinese underground church when you talk to the underground church in china every christian oh they're amazing they are amazing and they are i honor the the underground church in china absolutely but it's funny because we honor them mainly probably because they're not here and it's easy to honor somebody in another country and you can look at that and go oh look at that look how they suffer look what they're doing they're having to hide to come together they're the underground church they're coming together and they have to some sometimes sing silently just so they can't won't be caught doing because it's against the law for them to be christian in china everybody know that to be a fact is that right and we all talk about them we brag on them we and we want to pray for them paul said remember those are in bonds look at all right do you want this one there's that here i'll just take this you got it yeah okay thank you sir thank you all right now things jesus never had to deal with so it must be a greater work [Laughter] but we talk about these the chinese christians and we talk about them and oh they're amazing and look at and the amazing thing is the chinese underground church is growing exponentially even with all the persecution even with all the things that are going on the more the devil tries to step on the church the greater it spreads that's just the way it works if the people in the church are christian that's the key because many are not and they're the ones that would rather bow to governmental mandates things like that now and but it's funny because we talk about these things and we brag on these people when we talk about oh they're amazing and look at this but we have to remember what they are doing is illegal they are violating the laws of their nation and we brag on them but yet if we talk about violating the mandates or laws or whatever it may be all of a sudden now we are non-christian isn't that something see it's easy to brag about somebody else's sacrifice as long as you don't have to sacrifice yourself and there may be a time whenever these things come to a head right and i want to talk a little bit about that today because we have to remember in the beginning with god walking in the garden of man and wanting relationship with man at the end of the book we see god walking again there's a mention of a garden and we see god walking with man and we see now at one point it says that jesus is going to hand over the kingdom to god and basically it says that at this point in time he is waiting until all of his enemies be made his footstools and so there's a process in this now i'm going to read some things to you and so here's my question to you looking at the chinese church looking at and they're not the only ones there churches all over the world that have to meet in secret have to hide i've talked with our friends and co-workers up in portland oregon vito kimmich and some of the others that he talks about whenever he was a child he remembered how when they would go to a church meeting they didn't meet in a church building they met in homes because it was illegal to meet as a christian and they would have to park a long ways off or they would walk a long distance and it would go down this way and turn this way and this way and they would do that to make sure they weren't being followed by the secret police and so he was telling me and then they would go into a house and out the back door and across the alley and into another house and then come out of that house and go and it's just amazing and what the amazing thing is nowadays a lot of people don't show up at church you know if there's even the idea that it may not be good weather and here they were avoiding you know the kgb or whatever they were called at that time i believe it was the kgb is who they were dealing with so it just shows the level of determination a level of commitment to christians now i want to look at this because here's the question okay what will you do if or when the government says that you must abort a second or more pregnancy because that's the law in china what are you gonna do you're gonna you're gonna well we we've gotta submit to the authorities that are above us or are you gonna deny that and go no i have a greater law you're going to have to make that decision and i can tell you right now we've already seen as of last year the decision most christians will make or let me put it this way most church-going people will make number two what will you do if or when the government says to report your neighbor for not wearing a mask for not doing exactly what they said for not maintaining the social distance what are you going to do if or when they say you can't meet in your home for thanksgiving or christmas or any other time you want to meet for prayer meeting what are you going to do are you going to decide to go along with it or you're going to decide to be a christian because that's your two choices what are you going to do whenever they make it illegal for you to meet in a home as a christian what are you going to do when they decide to make it against the law to pray for people he said well that will never happen already has it's already happened in the uk you can't just walk up and talk to someone and minister to them or offer to pray for them it's a law you can't even offer to pray for a person well let me let's say it this way it's not about you offering to pray in canada right now if someone comes to you as a christian or as a minister and says i have been confused about my sexual orientation but i understand now that i am biologically this and i want to return to that mentality of being what i am biologically and i want you to pray for me do you know that if as a christian or a minister if you agree and pray for them five years in prison is what you get rewarded with that's what happens so you have to decide because believe me what you see generally is what happens in the past what has happened in the uk comes to canada it comes to australia and then it comes here so at some point you're gonna have to decide uh ain't coming here see there's a whole lot of talk right now especially about the the israelites or the israelis and the palestinians and what's going on but you have to remember the mentality of the israeli the mentality of the israeli is very simple summed up in two words never again that's what it gets wrapped up in and the only reason we don't have that mentality is because we've never had a never first time and it would be sad if we had to wait to that point before we make that kind of decision i've been to auschwitz i've been to birkenau i've been to these places i've been there several times now and every time i go there it hits me exactly the same way there is a feeling there that is unlike any other place i've ever been there's a sadness in the place there's a honestly it's a spirit there's no doubt about it and it's a spirit of and you hear it you can see it you can things that have gone on then you have you know just i don't know of any other word than idiot would stand up and say the holocaust never happened but we have to realize that the reason it happened was because number one the people it was happening to wouldn't stand up and say no they wouldn't resist and then secondly other people would not believe that there could be that kind of evil and so they ignored it and said we're hearing reports of these gassings and these executions but we can't believe anybody would be that cruel and so they ignored it and more people died and so we have to realize that's probably one of the biggest things in secular society is that they no longer believe in evil they believe well it must be a mental condition no it's a spiritual condition called evil and it is a reality and any person can be taken down to that depth quickly when they're being constantly indoctrinated and brainwashed by a media that has no moral conscience and we've allowed that to happen as christians because there's an old saying that as the pulpit goes so goes the people and it's because we've got too many preachers that are so worried about keeping their machine going that they won't preach truth and they won't stand up so we're gonna have to decide at what point do we say no more now i'll i was going to announce this during the 10 a.m during the announcements but uh we we received word actually this week i think was yesterday before that it was official that our governor abbott here in texas made it a basically a law or it's a mandate as it is right now but he's already issued the edict that says that no one can issue a mask mandate except the governor so that precludes judge clay jenkins of dallas county from holding people hostage due to party politics amen god bless texas amen texas is completely open and that's not going to happen again right now i'm going to get back into this because we can talk about these things because it could very easily become illegal for us to meet in homes we've already seen evidence of that where people were turning in people if you had too many people at your home over a holiday or anytime during the mask you know during this code pandemic that if you gathered together then that somebody could call the police and the police would come shut you down and find you and all kinds of stuff that's only one step away from it being done because you're christian and so yeah that's true it is being done and in many places even here in america these things are happening strangely though uh when the church is shut down the mosque didn't and so there's just something about that too that needs to be looked at a little bit so the question is what would daniel do if praying was made illegal well the good thing is we don't have to guess you can actually look at what he did he opened his window and then prayed near the window loud enough so everybody could hear so what would moses's parents do when they were killing all the babies and there was a command to kill the babies or have them killed well we know what they would do why we have the record of the bible they put him in a basket and god being as smart as he is hides him in plain sight in pharaoh's own house you just got to hand it to god sometimes he's just that's just so cool you know what would the three hebrew children do when they were told to bow to a false idol well what did they say well i remember the old oral roberts sermon if they don't bow they won't burn and so they were gathered up and put into the fiery furnace as the scripture says and then they even made it hotter and the people standing outside making it harder dropped dead but the three hebrew were protected with that king lino i see a fourth man in there like as the son of god why because whenever you stand against the son of god stands with you because he is against him he hates oppression in every form whether it's done by satan or by one of his emissaries called humans and so we're gonna have to decide what we are willing to do but but the scripture is clear all of these people that i just named to you every one of them disobeyed the legal authorities at the time so we're gonna have to decide what are you gonna do whenever the government says that it's illegal to pray for the sick as we've already mentioned what are you gonna do see we have to realize that it was a preacher named martin luther king jr that did what was illegal and helped head up the civil rights movement and they fought and they got beat up and they got dogs loosed on them and they had all kinds of other things happen what they were doing was illegal at the time but now notice illegal by state laws and even by federal law but not by the constitution by the constitution they were legally doing what they could do but it went against local state and federal law so which should also tell us there is a law in this land that is above the local law it's even above federal law it's called the united states constitution we have to realize that the united states constitution now understand that is our legal authority and anyone that upholds that is upholding the legal authority anyone that defies that or violates that is not a legal representative representative of our legal authority it is that simple now i'm going to show you some things i'll show you from from scripture exactly i'm talking about backing up what i say but i think it's really amazing that the civil rights movement was led by a name by a man named martin luther king jr because the protestant reformation was led by men the original martin luther which again whenever he led the protestant reformation it was against the law because it went against the church at that time which was the legal authority in most places and the church wanted to have him killed and he was protected by another legal authority which is amazing in itself now the thing about one of the things about this is understanding what we call this movement that martin luther started it was called the protestant reformation and the word protestant is from the word protester it was he was it was the protestant reformation now in acts chapter five see i told you we'd get there took me a bit acts chapter 5 verse 27 and when they had brought them they set them before the council and the high priest asked him saying did not we straightly command you that you should not teach in this name and behold you have filled jerusalem with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood upon us then peter and the other apostles answered and said we ought to obey god rather than men scriptural precedent obey god rather than men the god of our fathers raised up jesus whom you slew and hanged on a tree him hath god exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a savior for to give repentance to israel and forgiveness of sins and we are his witnesses of these things and so is also the holy ghost whom god has given to them that obey him when they heard that they were cut to the heart and took counsel to slay them then stood there up one in the council a pharisee named gamaliel a doctor of the law had in reputation among the people and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space in other words said them over there let's have a counsel here and not let them hear and he said unto them you men of israel take heed to yourselves what you intend to do as touching or concerning these men for before these days rose up theodus boasting himself to be somebody to whom a number of men about 400 joined themselves who was slain and all as many as obeyed him were scattered and brought to nothing after this man rose up judas of galilee in the days of the taxing and drew away much people after him so he's just given an account of several different situations and then he goes on he says now if this for if this council or this work be of men it will come to nothing but if it be of god you cannot overthrow it lest happily you be found even to fight against god and they agreed and they called the apostles and beaten them they bring them back oh they were going to beat you and they beat them they commanded that they should not speak in the name of jesus and let them go now that's exactly what they told them before that's why they were there then is because they were violating what they had just told them not to preach in the name of jesus and they departed from the presence of the council rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name and daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach jesus christ so they went right back out and did not obey them one bit the hardest thing you know the the saddest thing about what we've seen recently is how the government has been able to obviously the government cannot have people everywhere they can't have policemen everywhere but they don't need to because now they've turned civilians into policemen you've got civilians that watch and civilians that'll say something to you if you don't go along with their mask if you don't act the way they want to you know that they want you to so now they have actually caused the people to start policing other people now i'm going to uh well yeah we'll just go ahead and look at this in acts chapter 22 verse 22. now i've got well over 30 books on the life of paul and each one is on his life his ministry goes into great depth and i know i have way more than that because most of my books are still in tubs and boxes because we moved them because where i'm standing now used to be my office and now i have another office and everything's still in boxes and tubs but just on the few things that i do have up just this morning i went through and counted right at 30 books on the life of paul all different viewpoints to be honest with you too and there are a lot of misconceptions about the life of paul a lot i i've actually always wanted to preach a sermon called will the real paul stand up so sooner or later i'm going to do that something about the real paul something about the real jesus because most people have an idea jesus is this new age guru walking around with a little lamb in his arms you know and he's so thin from fasting that he can hardly stand up and has to lean on his shepherd's crook just to stand up and that's not who jesus was but in there's been a lot of misconceptions and hopefully we'll clear some of those up today about paul specifically acts chapter 22 verse 22 and they gave him audience unto his word and then lifted up their voices so they let paul speak and they said away with such a fellow from the earth now get this they heard him preach and then they all start yelling and you can imagine how they were sounding and i'm not going to imitate it i wasn't there but i can imagine how they did but they were saying away with such a fellow from the earth in other words we need to kill him that's what they're saying we need to kill him they said for it is not fit that he should live and as they cried out and cast off their clothes and threw dust into the air a little melodramatic but then religious people usually are the chief captain commanded him to be brought into the castle and obeyed that he should be examined by scourging hear that examined by scourging in other words they were going to waterboard him until he confessed essentially what's going on that he might know wherefore they cried so against him and as they bound him with straps paul said unto the centurion that stood by now get this he's being tied up and he says is it lawful for you to scourge a man that's a roman and and uncondemned hadn't even had trial yet paul just he's standing there getting tied up he just throws that out there is it lawful for you to do this to a roman what was he saying i'm a roman then watch he says when the centurion heard that he went and told the chief captain saying take heed what you do for this man is a roman why because roman citizenship had certain uh benefits then the chief captain came and said unto him tell me are thou roman he said yes and the chief captain answered with a great sum obtained i this freedom and paul said but i was born free. in other words i'm even better than you first off now paul has already invoked his roman citizenship twice right here he said is it legal for you to do this to a roman that's the first time then he comes and asks and the centurion comes and asks him are you a roman yes or two so see paul didn't just say it once straightway they departed from him which should have examined him and the chief captain also was afraid after he knew that he was a roman and because he had bound him on the morrow because he would have known the certainty wherefore he was accused of the jews he loosed him from his bands and commanded the chief priests and all their counsel to appear and brought paul down and set him before them and paul earnestly beholding the council said men and brethren i have lived in all good conscience before god unto this day now watches paul was brilliant he was brilliant and he had the holy spirit and the high priest ananias commanded them that stood by him to smite him on the mouth so now the high priest says somebody hit him and they did now watch then said paul unto him god shall smite you that's pretty bold he said you whited wall what was he saying same thing jesus had said you white-washed sepulchers he was saying the same thing for a siddist thou to judge me after the law and you command me to be smitten contrary to the law in other words you're supposed to be representing the law and you're not even living by the own law that you're supposed to be upholding sounds like politicians good morning and they that stood by said revilest thou god's high priest and then said paul i did not know brethren that he was the high priest for it's written you shall not speak evil of the ruler of your people but when paul perceived that the one part was sadducees now notice paul perceived that part of them were sadducees and the other were pharisees he cried out in the counsel men and brethren i'm a pharisee the son of a pharisee of the hope and resurrection of the dead i'm called in question what was he doing he was causing division why because now he knew that the jury would be out soon and he had to make sure that the jury would be a hung jury that's what he did so he just cried out and said hey i'm one of you today it'd be kind of like saying hey listen you're republicans i'm one of you you need to stand with me on this that's why i don't have a lot of faith in republicans anymore i don't have faith in politicians anyway right but that's that's what paul was doing that's the equivalent of what paul was doing at the time and he caused a division between the two and he called on himself and said this is what i am well but i don't see anything in the new testament where we're supposed to call ourselves part of a sect or a party but here paul did and he still considered himself a pharisee even though he was a christian and it didn't seem to contradict what he believed so it says in verse 7 and when he had so said there arose a dissension between the pharisees and sadducees his his ploy worked and the multitude was divided for the sadducees say there is no resurrection neither angels nor spirit man as one preacher said and that's why they were sadducee because they didn't believe in a resurrection or angels or okay but the pharisees confess both right and there arose a great cry and the scribes that were of the pharisees part arose and strove saying we find no evil in this man but if a spirit or an angel is spoken to him let us not fight against god no now see now they're standing oh he's he's one of us and now notice they're pushing their theological aspect of if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him they're like see we were right you were wrong then he says and when there arose a great dissension the chief captain fearing les paul should be put have been pulled in pieces of them that sounds pretty serious commanded the soldiers to go down and to take him by force from among them and to bring him into the castle and the night following the lord stood by him isn't that something the lord stood by him even after he claimed to be a roman and said be of good cheer paul for thou has testified to me in jerusalem so must thou bear witness also at rome and when it was day certain the jews banded together and bound themselves under a curse saying that they would neither eat nor drink until they had killed paul and there were more than 40 which had made this conspiracy and they came to the chief priests and elders and said we have bound ourselves under a great curse that we will not eat nothing until we have slain paul now therefore you with this council with the council signify to the as though you would inquire something more perfectly concerning him and we or ever he come near are ready to kill him so now they're coordinating with the religious leaders on how to kill paul and when paul's sister's son paul's nephew heard of their lying in weight he went and entered into the castle and told paul then paul called one of the centurions unto him and said bring this young man under the chief captain for he hath a certain thing to tell him notice paul is using every means he has to spare his own life do you give that he didn't just say well the will of the lord be done i'm just going to pray and see what god will do no paul had rights and he used them to his advantage that's been one of the biggest lies the enemy has sold the church stay out of politics and what everybody says don't talk about politics or religion well we ain't obeying them about religion might as well talk politics too now notice so he took him brought him the chief captain said paul the prisoner called me unto him prayed me to bring this young man unto you and he has something to say unto you then the chief captain took him by the hand went with him aside privately and asked him what is it you you have to tell me and he said the jews have agreed to desire that you would bring down paul tomorrow into the council as though they would inquire something of him more perfectly but do not thou yield unto them don't do it for their line wait for him of them more than forty men which have bound themselves with the note that they will neither eat nor drink until they've killed him and now are they ready looking for a promise from you in other words all their waiting is for you to show up with paul and they're going to jump in and they're going to kill him so the chief captain then let the young man depart and charge him see thou tell no man that you have showed these things to me and he called on him two centurions notices two centurions saying make ready 200 soldiers to go to caesarea and horsemen three score and 10 that's 70. so that's already 270 and spearman 200. now notice so they've got 200 soldiers 200 spearmen 70 horsemen all to guard paul against 40 people not to mention the two centurions also 472 people guarding paul why because he was a great preacher and they liked him because he was a roman citizen and at the he said do all this at the third hour of the night which is what 9 pm 472 men leading one man to guard 40 at 9 00 pm taking them into caesarea and provide them beast that they may set paul on and bring him safe unto felix the governor legal matters and he wrote a letter after this matter claudius lisia sent to the most excellent governor felix sindeth greeting this man was taken to the jews and should have been killed of them then came out with an army and rescued having understood that he was a roman notice how many times this has gone on now here's one thing that a lot of people don't realize every time according to roman law every time paul stood in front of a new roman official he had to reinvoke his citizenship as a roman every time every time that's the first thing he said well that's not in scripture no because it was so common there's a lot of things it doesn't say paul got put on his shoes do you think he might have yeah possibly one it's so common you don't have to mention it and we have to realize the book of acts is not just a history it was actually written by luke as we know but it was written because luke had already written about the life of jesus and now and so he was so detailed and accurate that now they called him because he started traveling with paul and they told him now i want you to write out everything about this situation because the book of acts was a legal document we would call it a legal brief that was presented to every governor as they went along up to this point that's why in the beginning it's all about peter and all that and then switches to paul why because the roman or i'm sorry the jewish religion was protected under jewish under roman law it was protected and so paul was showing what i'm doing is the jewish religion so i should have protection and that was in better the book of acts was actually presented to official phyllis it's a greek or a um we would say a gentile name right and so it was presented as that as a legal brief stating paul's case that's why it ends without saying what happened to paul why because he had not gone to court and it was written and presented to the roman officials before the the actual verdict was given out that's why it doesn't end the way we would like it to where it tells us these details now very quickly very quickly acts 25 verse 8 while he answered for himself neither against the law of the jews neither against the temple nor yet against caesar have i offended anything at all notice he's throwing in there i've not offended anything about caesar and it's in acts 25. why because he's trying to win the court over and saying i hadn't done anything wrong against caesar what i'm doing is religion and it's protected but festus willing to do the jews a pleasure answered paul and said wilt thou go up to jerusalem and there be judge of these things before me then said paul i stand at caesar's judgment seat where i ought to be judged to the jews have i done no wrong as you very well know for if i be an offender or have committed anything worthy of death i refuse not to die but if there be none of these things whereof they accuse me no man may deliver me unto them in other words don't hand me over the jews you don't have the right to do that i'm a roman citizen i have to be judged by rome then he says the statement that changed everything i appeal unto caesar which only a roman citizen could do then festus when he had conferred with the council answered hast thou appealed unto caesar unto caesar shalt thou go that stopped everything why because now is no longer just a religious matter now it was legal paul invoked his citizen status over and over and over in the book of acts so the idea that he just did it one time is just false it's not true and so now one of the things that we have to realize is that in this and i have to hurry here okay i am 62 years old i've owned guns plural since i was eight my dad was a police officer and he bought my first 22 liver action rifle and we went out and shot it and then he also had many other guns one of which was fully automatic submachine gun and at nine years old i used to shoot that thing and we'd go out to the junkyard and shoot up old cars and he would have to hold it around me because when i pulled the trigger the thing would just climb and so i've been around guns all my life now in saying that guess what i've never shot anybody isn't that something now i have pulled a gun on someone twice and that kept me from having to hurt them because if i had been unarmed it would have been a fist fight and i'd have probably killed him and because of my stature they would have thought i wasn't a threat they would have underestimated me and they would have attacked me and in defense they would have been killed or seriously hurt that's what would have happened but because i had a gun they stopped just because you own a gun and to be honest with you i don't know of anybody personally civilians especially that have ever used a gun in a manner that was in any form illegal or violent or anything like that and so i'm saying that for several reasons now it's funny though how when people talk about guns automatically they go to killing somebody automatic you want a gun killing people guns kill people no people kill people right and guess what 62 million babies have been killed without a gun so don't tell me it takes something like that there's all kinds of ways to kill somebody if you want to do it and the problem is evil not a gun now i get a lot of questions usually have to do with healing my good friend and brother marty you know i know him from canada once told me that if i was teaching a class on out would have to be on healing and that's probably true because number one i would never teach a class on algebra but strangely enough over the last year there's been a topic that has been higher than questions on healing the majority have to either are ex-military or military or people that understand authority they get a hold of this and there's a couple of things that come up and one of the things is this okay the people that get this they also know that law enforcement is a calling it's not listed in ephesians but it's still calling and they know that military service especially lifelong service is a calling even the motto to protect and to serve that well that should be every christian's motto also now all of this is in keeping with 13 which is what a lot of people try to bring up and say oh see here's how we should do it all right so very quickly romans 13 verse 3 for rulers are not a terror to good works how many of you know that's the bible standard but any of you know that's not always true in reality in our day some rulers are terrorists two good works because the bible even settled evil good and good evil guess what that's now they're not a terror to good works but to the evil wilt thou then not be afraid of the power or the authority to do that which is good and thou shalt have praise of the same for he is a minister of god so they should do their job for good but if thou do that which is evil be afraid for he bears not the sword in vain so here is paul the spirit of god speaking through paul saying that there are people that bear the sword and they're not to bear this in vain sword was their armament of the day so we could put today if we were going to write this today if paul were living today and writing this today he would say they don't bear the sidearm they don't bear the rifle they don't bear the pistol in vain be the same thing for he is a minister of god a revenger to execute wrath upon him that does evil notice this is new testament after the resurrection of jesus and it says that there are people who are commissioned to carry weapons to enforce law and to execute and bring revenge or wrath upon evil doers do you get that and see this is where most people get messed up they try to apply individual christian standards to a nation you can't do that see the nation still has law christians we have grace but a nation cannot exist if it functioned through grace it wouldn't last a day some people don't realize i don't have time to go into all this but there was a time when john the baptist was talking to some some soldiers roman soldiers and here's what he told them the soldiers likewise demanded of him saying what shall we do and he said unto them don't be a soldier no he didn't say that he said do no violence to no man neither accuse any falsely and be content with your wages that's what he told him he didn't say quit being a soldier he didn't say well if you're going to follow god you can't bear he didn't say that he just said don't do violence what that mean that word violence literally means don't intimidate people their job entailed them at times to do violence there are times when violence is the answer in national politics or national um endeavors because they are given to protect people now if people wouldn't do wrong things there would be no need for violence but when people do violence many times there has to be violence in response from as we would say legal authorities now most people go back to the ten commandments it's right there thou shall not kill wrong that's not what it says now in the king james it says thou shall not kill but in the hebrew and later in the greek it says thou shalt not commit murder is a big difference now i'll show this to you 19 the man repeats back and says shout not murder read it's in the king james thou shall not murder kill that's accurate so to finish up because i'm gonna have to i'm sure i will do a part two of this at some point but to finish up today i'm going to finish it with this how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time okay how do you boil a frog slowly increasing the heat so that the frog doesn't know to jump out nikita khrushchev said at the united nations talking to america we will bury you we will overthrow you from the inside without ever firing a shot we're in that process now it is what's going on i get questions on how christians should act in these times and here's the key and i'm going to have to go with this quickly and i'll give you the scriptures romans chapter 5 uh therefore being justified by faith we have peace with god through our lord jesus christ by whom also we have access now notice by whom we also have access by faith into this grace how do you get into grace by faith faith in who jesus christ is that right is that what the bible says we have access to grace by faith no faith no grace do you get that everybody in the world is not under grace everybody in the world is under law until you have faith in jesus christ then you enter into grace under grace you have the ability as an individual to show mercy and to decide to turn the other cheek that's what you have the right to do under law it's very simple eye for an eye tooth for tooth that's why laws are still in effect that's why there's prison systems that's why there's even executions why and they're not murdering people they are executing law now we have to realize everybody in the world is not under grace and you could not run a nation on grace not at this time there will be a time in the future after jesus hands the kingdom over to god and then but now notice even then it says and he will rule with a rod of iron even then there's going to be law even then there's going to be rules there's going to be regulations there can be ways to do things it's not all going to be tiptoeing through the tulips and having pinwheels and flowers and putting flowers in the ends of guns and all that kind of stuff it won't be that way there will be action taken and jesus will rule with a rod of iron now so we have access into grace by faith in jesus christ so there are people now if how you approach me or how you treat me i i decide how i'm going to respond hopefully i respond with grace but if you are under law and you are violating law then technically there is the right and responsibility to stop your violation if this is not so we can't have police officers no police officer could be a christian no christian could be a police officer because he would have to somehow abdicate or neglect his duty of enforcing law so we have to realize that there is a process in this now there's a lot more uh i don't have time to go into it today because we'll go over but i will give you this real quick one paragraph i'll give you a quick history lesson on law enforcement a group of people form a community a village or a town they need protection from evil doers either from the outside or from the inside they choose someone to be their sheriff or their marshal that person has a responsibility to protect the people he also has the authority to enlist the aid of others called deputies or in some cases a posse that person the force the evil doer forces them to use to stop the evil doer the spectrum is from threat deterrent to death based on the actions of the evil doer now eventually cities grew bigger and bureaucracy grew bigger more politicians and more police eventually someone decided that the law enforcement needed academies to train them additional protective services did not remove the right of the people to defend themselves society has evolved to a point where we have removed all personal responsibility you can't be your own doctor even though your doctor is going to look up your symptoms on the same internet that you can access you can't be your children's teachers because you don't have the qualifications which is to read a book and repeat it to children unless there's a fake health crisis and teachers want to use it to advance their social agenda then it's okay to learn by video at a distance or unless of course it's because they want to get raises and enforce their agenda the authorities the powers of romans 13 is referring to both secular and religious authorities the secular authority united states is the united states constitution and any duly elected official that upholds that constitution is an authority every official swears an oath to uphold the us constitution i also swore an oath to defend the u.s constitution against all enemies both foreign and domestic when i went in the military no one has ever released me from that oath any elected or appointed official or a person that violates the constitution or issues an order that would cause me to violate the constitution is not an official authority and has no official authority mandates are not laws they did not pass through the legally prescribed process of laws the law of the land the u.s constitution gives citizens the right to speak freely it gives the u.s citizens the right to keep and bear arms which has worked as a deterrent from ever having to use them the the second amendment had nothing to do with hunting it was primarily as protection against a tyrannical government and secondly as protection of self loved ones and others and personal property it gives citizens the right to vote without the second you won't have the first or the fourteenth the right to vote very long it is possibly the only constitution in the world that gives the people the right to abolish a tyrannical government and start over that's the law of the land that's the authority that we are to obey according to romans 13. not individual people who have personal agendas or even political agendas to try to cause us not to have the freedoms that our forefathers died to give us everyone is under law until they come to christ by faith then they're under grace so we can see how this works out one last thing this is it the i know one more one more thing the reason what do you expect my first time back in the pulpit in three or four weeks i got a little bit to say okay now the reason the japanese did not invade america by way of california during world war ii by their own admission was because in their words every home in california had a gun and they said we might be able to beat the u.s military but we will not win a war against american civilians that act as insurgents against us and the fact that guns were present in california at that time couldn't say that today but the fact that guns were present at that time is what kept the west coast of the united states from being invaded it was a deterrent no californian there's nothing i know of ever had to shoot at a japanese invader at any time during world war ii why because of the deterrent of personally owned firearms that are granted to us as a right by the second amendment of our authority the united states constitution end of story you don't like it don't buy a gun matter of fact please don't that'll leave more from me anyway i don't think they would say the same thing anymore we have to realize what is going on in america and the shift because freedoms once given up are never given back except at the loss of blood it's the way it works now would ever have to take up arms in any way but i will tell you this if it ever came to that i know the god of heaven and earth will do right and i will gladly stand before him and say whatever i did i did to protect myself my loved ones or other people so if you don't know somebody that you can stand behind if things get rough i'm telling you you can count on me stand behind me i will defend you regardless and i will stand before god and answer accordingly in jesus name amen god bless you be back shortly [Music] is [Music] is [Music] to teach me what it is [Music] is [Music] won't is you go [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] you are the breath of life you speak and darkness turns to lights [Music] fire on my lips [Music] will begin as my [Music] [Music] all right make sure we're on there there we go all right all right well let's take our seats i know that was a really short break really short break but we got i got some quick announcements and we got some other announcements coming up so we want to mention these very quickly coming today i appreciate uh it's good to be back in the wild since i've been the public and be back in the pulpit and be able to share the word of god with you and we're going to cover some things today but first we've got a couple of things i want to announce number one life teams the following life teams have been through the three-month probationary period and now are approved and official life teams number one robbie and debbie van der k from fredericksburg texas amen right here in texas good deal lyndon aye from greer south carolina rudy kadena from woodland park colorado hmm okay see they talked about having the remember in the book of acts they said you know we've got people in caesar's household just saying here's some people from woodland park colorado anyway all right antoine brazeau from lavalle quebec canada i'm sure i butchered that name but god bless you we love you anyway so headwind williams from swansea wales amen notice this is all over the world not just local uh devonnie conrad of edmonton alberta canada jessica moniak from montreal canada well it looks like martin and then we're doing some stuff up there right uh christian de rosa of elsbury england emmanuel and genuine of london england amen amen and we have had 60 new certified divine healing technicians for the month of april amen amen all right amen going quite a bit this is from a life team in velour south india my journey with john lake ministry started in 2018 when my newborn baby daughter was diagnosed with down syndrome being a medical doctor by profession i knew there was no treatment or hope for my child that is when i started looking for healing for her and god earnestly on her behalf i'd never heard of this ministry before a lady from hungary get that from hungary he's talking to a person in india gives me or gave me the dht and i started listening to it day and night without food or sleep initially i could not believe it since it was too good to be true sounds like jesus i started searching the scriptures and found that everything was biblical i dove right into it and started laying hands on the sick saw several amazing miracles most of them instant and knew that this was the truth the same december of 2018 i attended a dht by the sister mekula in chennai by then i had listened to dht online at least 10 times after i finished the training i was encouraged to start a study group at my parents house everyone who came to the study group were older than me but they were receptive to the to the message which is big in india every one of them have seen miracles taking place under their own hands within six months of starting it i had to move to a different city velour when i was there i still continued to travel up and down every weekend in order to conduct the study group with both my children in january of 2020 i became a certified dhd and started a life team in velour as well i was also blessed with a third daughter the same year god gave me the strength to conduct both the study group and the life team even up to the day before my delivery and i could continue with the ministry within two weeks of delivering my child all praise to god for all the miracles and signs and wonders that we have seen both individually and as a team in his service rashni in life team velour south india amen amen shows the impact of this message on people now before we uh before i hand it over to the other announcements ah we are privileged also i have found out recently that there is a lady in australia that watches the programs regularly and uh said that she understands what i'm saying all right which is good because i speak texan not australian right but not generally anyway but this lady whose name is jeanette elgis for those of you that understand the name elgis you know that that's george my best friend co-worker that is his last name and the lady i'm talking about is his mother and so let's all give a shout out because she if she's not watching right now she will just give a shout out to jeanette thanks for watching jeanette god bless you amen amen amen and we bless you thank you for having george because i could not do what i do if george was not involved in helping us he has been a great help and since he has taken over the life teams they have expanded around the world exponentially it has been phenomenal he was the right man the man chosen by god to do that job and he worked hard in getting it done and i'm telling you he just he's just a workhorse he goes cuddly i thought i worked hard until i saw george and i realized how hard he works and so we really appreciate him and we appreciate his mother and appreciate actually his entire family and his father his family everyone there we really appreciate them and appreciate them loaning george to us to travel with me around the world and to help me do what god has called me to do so again god bless you jeanette we really love you and we bless you now also and i didn't know this until today well actually last night we have our east coast representatives here with us johnny and marie gonzfor right over there they're here and there's murray back there in the back amen amen and we we appreciate them coming in for this week it's gonna be a great time and had i known sooner than i would have had them speak the nine o'clock and y'all would have got out of here on time maybe maybe maybe okay but uh we are so glad they are here we love them and again you talk about some hard-working people their east coast area is just booming i mean uh they go all up and down the east coast and all through i mean it's just amazing what they've done not only that they're also working in the speaking community of getting all of our materials translated into spanish and the manual everything so i mean they're they're multifaceted and multitasking and so keep them in your prayers and we really appreciate all the work that they do for the kingdom amen amen all right well and then the last thing or well i guess uh yeah i guess that's it for me yeah uh who's coming with announcements who's got answers oh you're gonna do worship okay i'm not reading the deal well then before i do that before i do that uh just so everybody knows uh tomorrow is jenny's birthday amen amen i'm not going to tell you how old she is i had to find out for myself you can find out for yourself if she wants to tell you but i will tell you this she's a baby she's still a baby when you're 62 anybody under 40 is a baby i'm telling you so anyway but uh we really appreciate jenny and we wish her a happy birthday tomorrow and so we look uh forward to her coming up shortly also but now we're going to turn over to the worship team as i'm being instructed to do because obviously don't know what i'm doing so i told you that so i got to go back dinner and see if i remember how to do this it's been a while apparently i don't so anyways but god bless you guys we appreciate y'all being here today and we will be right back shortly god bless amen good morning good morning you guys just stand up if you don't know the person next to you just greet them and introduce yourself this morning if you do know them and then speak life over them in jesus name speak hope and healing over them in jesus name by the blood of jesus christ [Music] shoes [Music] anybody this morning want to testify that god is good [Music] come on would you just lift your hands in the air just give him praise and glory this morning he is faithful come on lift your voices lift your voices psalm 150 everything that has breath praise the lord lord we praise you in advance because we know that you are the king the victorious one we honor and bless you lord you are here with us you are for us who can be against us our king reigns hallelujah our king reigns oh we worship you lord we worship you jesus [Music] praise you lord praise you lord [Music] praise you lord we thank you jesus [Music] hallelujah all right [Music] y'all ready to worship all right let's worship jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the only solid ground nations rise and fall [Music] kingdoms once strong now shaken we trust forever in your name in the name of jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] we trust the name of only jesus forever you are the only king forevermore you are king victorious you are the only king forevermore [Music] [Music] we bring our expectations in the name of jesus forevermore you are victorian forever you are victorious jesus today [Music] your kingdom has [Applause] the name of jesus in the name of jesus in the name of jesus we lift you higher foreign [Music] foreign holy holy lord cause you are the only king forever almighty god will lift you higher you are the only king forever forevermore you are victorious you are the only king forever almighty god we lift you higher come on let's sing we lift our banner lift your voices we lift our banner high we lift the name of jesus from amazing ways you reign your kingdom sing we left our voices high we lift our voices high we lift the name of jesus from maze to age you reign your kingdom singing again we live we lift our voices high we lift the name every day [Music] [Music] your kingdom has known [Music] [Music] jesus praise you praise you faithful god faithful god [Music] this is the voice of god is every breath salvation of the world unholy [Music] [Applause] see the sun jesus [Music] this is [Music] ever since empty [Music] of jesus [Music] oh this is his home here in our chest oh it is [Music] [Music] is [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] jesus we love you jesus [Music] oh oh jesus we love the name of jesus [Music] [Music] we love the name of jesus we love the name of jesus [Music] [Music] there's [Music] jesus there's no one with more power than jesus [Music] yes [Music] yes [Music] yes [Music] yes [Music] yes [Music] [Music] um [Music] you are seated on your throne [Music] you'll see i'm yours you are mine i am yours [Music] you call me a son you call me your child i call you fathers i call you father [Music] call your father um cause you're more real than the ground i'm standing on [Music] you're more real you're more real than the crown i'm standing on you're more real than the wind in my life your thoughts define me your insanity [Music] your mind [Music] everything i need [Music] [Music] yes [Music] [Music] is [Music] is you're closer than [Music] you're closer than a song [Music] your thoughts define me [Music] my soul's sufficiency i belong to you you're a good father oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] oh everything i ever needed [Music] i worship you [Music] everything i [Music] [Music] i [Music] oh [Music] [Music] i [Music] lord i worship you [Music] oh [Music] you deserve the glory [Music] you're worthy you were worthy you were worthy [Music] you deserve the glory yes we give it all [Applause] oh we honor you you deserve the glory [Music] oh you're saints we worship you you were [Music] worthy all our song for from you are all things and to you are all things you deserve glory hallelujah [Music] yes [Music] song god is a lion [Music] [Music] he's roaring in power and fighting our battles heavenly about [Music] our god our god is the lamb yes for the sin of the world his blood breaks the chains every knee will bow before the lion and [Music] hallelujah [Applause] [Music] [Music] he's kings and kingdoms will bow down and everything will break [Music] for the sins of the world his blood breaks the chains and every knee will bow before the light and the land [Music] make way before [Music] [Applause] the jesus [Music] [Music] for the sins of the world his blood breaks the chains and every knee will bow before [Music] [Applause] [Music] jesus [Music] there is no one who can stop [Music] [Applause] [Music] who can stop the lord [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] is [Music] yes [Music] [Music] is [Music] me [Music] and fighting on battles [Music] [Applause] his blood breaks the chains and every knee will bow before the line in the land every knee will bow before [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Applause] father you are worthy of our praise lord we worship you this morning we adore you lord we lift up your name father thank you for the freedom that you've given us lord through your son yes we thank you lord that chains are broken father we thank you father that we have the authority that we expect to see results when we lay hands on the sake they will recover in jesus name we thank you for that lord thank you for loving us so much we worship you lord we bless you and give you all honor in jesus name we pray amen amen amen amen god is good you can go please pick them up before they hear after the service so good morning everyone do we have any first time guests with us this morning yes awesome praise god we are so happy that you guys joined us and for anyone joining us live thank you for joining us we're happy to have you so we have a few announcements this morning for those that are here locally we have the bike outreach today that you've heard of and that's for anyone anyone can come with experience repairing bikes and if you don't have any experience and want to help out as well that's happening today from 12 to 4 in dallas all that information you can find on our website on our church website or you can see brother aaron in the back and he can help you with that if you're interested in coming today yesterday was the jesus march how many of you guys attended the jesus march yes oh thank you it's a pleasure having you here with us this morning so yesterday was the jesus march and we had a really great time it was hot and sweaty but jesus was glorified and more importantly we were able to bless people and i know some people witness to others downtown so it was a really good time so if you guys missed it this year be on the lookout for next year's jesus's mark exalt jesus march so we're excited about that as well this week we have our dht2 so if you are registered and certified and are coming here and you're watching live we're really excited to have you doors will open on thursday at 8 30 a.m so it's going to be here at the sanctuary and if you did not register and are not certified for this year please get certified it's really easy to be a certified divine healing technician you can go to startlifeteams.com and learn how but we want you to attend the next one so be certified for the next one as well we have divine invasion coming up this is a collaboration between tom's gorilla ministries and curry blake and this is going to be june 10th through 12th in edina minnesota i hope i said that right but all the information is on our website at jjlm.org so that's going to be a great time registration is actually not required but all that information is on there so you can attend the conference if you're interested in coming to minnesota as well we have the faith conference coming up july 15 through the 17th yes it's going to be a great one that's going to be here um at headquarters and brother crave like is going to be leading that conference as well and then i know it's it's a long time from now but the annual conference this year is october 20th through the 23rd so mark your calendars it's actually going to be in louisville texas so not here at headquarters but we want you to come so make plans to come it's going to be a really great time all of our leaders come from all over and um it's it's just going to be a great time so make sure you register for that because seating is limited limited so it's free but make sure you register and every week we have two calls we have a getting started call that's on tuesdays at 8 30 pm dallas time this is a call on zoom that if you're interested in how to start a life team what is a live team anything like that study group this is for you so this call you can find all the information at startlifeteams.com locate at the very bottom there will be a zoom link so get plugged in if you're interested in being a part of our ministry in this way and then on thursdays we have the q a call also same time 8 30 pm this call is very important because we want your doctrinal questions answered so if you have questions on healing or anything like that this call is for you and uh each week we will actually be announcing now which question we will be going over in detail so be on the lookout and join this call it's very important that you join this call so those are it for my announcements this morning but we're getting ready to receive this morning's offering so if you would like to give you can make checks payable to john g lake ministries or dominion life church or you can give online jjlm.org click on give or you can go through our jglm app at the jglm app so father we just thank you that this offering is already blessed and will do so much to advance your kingdom in the name of jesus amen and while that is being received i will read a testimony that was submitted from salem oregon it says my family and i were raised up in community churches always praying if it be thy will prayers the first time we heard the j j la message in may of 2002 it changed our lives and ministries forever we had never heard the word of god preached with such authority and through through the dht seeing how the authority works in us as believers three days after our dht in salem in march of 2003 we were called to minister to women with hiv pancreatic cancer and diabetes we went to lay hands on the woman whom we had hurt two weeks later was completely healed and set free and we have not stopped since we're so thankful for this life-changing message praise god praise god god is good so if you are watching live or if you've come here and you've never heard of the dht the divine healing technician training program it is available to you we have it for free at dhtraining.com watch so please watch it it's 19 videos long but i promise you it's very life-changing and you won't be able to stop after the first one so please watch it and we're excited for all the testimonies coming in but without further ado here is brother curry [Applause] amen all right well all right it is good to have everybody here today is i'm glad to be back it's good to be back and we've been busy trying to get some things done but it's been it's been good now this morning we're going to cover some ground let me find my water here get everything set now you can turn with me since i can find the scripture real quick that i wanted us to go to yep we are going to go to proverbs chapter 29 and then the first chronicles chapter 12. that'll give you two to start with now this morning i'm going to be talking to you about something that it's kind of funny because if you've been through the dht especially years ago we didn't we don't have to talk about it much anymore because it's not as prevalent at least i say that and then i'll go somewhere and it'll be the whole thing so but i don't hear about it as much as used to and that is what i'm calling today changing atmospheres now when i say the word changing atmospheres that phrase you can actually hear you can take it two different ways you can talk about how atmospheres can change or you can talk about how you can change an atmosphere and that you would both you'd have to understand you would have to define which one you're talking about so today i want to talk about how atmospheres have changed sometimes why they change but mostly i want to talk to you about how you can change them and so we're going to look at both sides of it now in the past we've talked about atmospheres and when we first started even that atmosphere has changed because we first started that was the big thing it's all about well we got to create the atmosphere we got to create an atmosphere for miracles we have to create an atmosphere for this well we have to go into this city and the atmosphere of that city is this and so we're going to have to figure out how to either enforce it if it's good or change it if it's wrong and there was all of these books out on atmospheres and it mostly had to do with what people would call spiritual warfare which honestly was anything but spiritual in anything but warfare and so we had we kind of came against some of that stuff and was very very blunt all right uh surprised that we were very blunt in how we looked at some of these things because the when i grew up when i started coming into some of this and started hearing these i go to conferences and everybody be talking about it and while the minister was preaching there'd be some group over there in the background do an intercession to try to open the heavens so that the preacher's words would get through which i don't know why they need to get through to heaven he was talking to people but that was the whole thing is there was all this stuff about well it's the atmosphere and this is not a good atmosphere and this okay well i agree the world is not a good atmosphere uh change it don't settle for it now you know here we talk about uh well and most people would call the church the normal name which is dominion life church in reality the church's name is dominion life international apostolic church that's the full name that's why it's d-l-i-a-c i know it's a long name but regardless of how long it is um and and as we were back to back just a minute ago before we started i felt like the lord was emphasizing to me we need to start saying that we need to start emphasizing that we're not just dominion life church we are dominion life international apostolic church now each one of those words means something international means we have international influence and we are impacting the world and that's a fact and it is important that we call things what they are and so we go from that to apostolic what does apostolic mean well it in some cases it means a particular doctrine concerning what people would call the godhead or the trinity or whatever term you want to use but the term apostolic does not mean that it does not mean the way you baptize what if you look up some of the different discussions about it you'll see some people think apostolic means a particular baptismal formula that is not what it means the word apostolic means of the apostolic teaching and it means having an apostolic mindset or having an apostolic mandate from god and that apostolic means literally to go as an ambassador literally into all the world but it means to go with the authority of the one sending that's what that means so we are an international apostolic church we impact the world and we go with an authority of the one who sent us we don't go in our own authority we don't go in a partial authority he has all authority and therefore we go in all authority amen so it's important that we start emphasizing that now and saying that we're going to look at some of the different ways now again when we first started this everybody was talking about this atmosphere that atmosphere and so i want to go right from the beginning and tell you i'm not emphasizing the atmosphere i'm emphasizing who you are because you may not um let's say you go into a new city you go into a new area you go into a new job you go into a new industry whatever it is if you've never been there before then there is an atmosphere there's an atmosphere over all these things individually you can have an atmosphere over a church you can have an atmosphere over a family particular families can have atmospheres within them churches can have atmospheres uh businesses can have an atmosphere i mean if you and and some people another way some people say would be like a culture the culture of that business the culture of that church certain ways it's the mindset it's the personality you might say of that organization now if you're just getting there then you may not have had anything to do with the atmosphere or culture of that entity however the minute you walk in you can change that atmosphere why because with the minute you walk in i don't care who's there you as a christian are the highest spiritual authority in the room i don't care what devils are there i don't care what principalities are there i don't care what government officials are there i don't care who's there if you are a christian representing jesus christ then legally spiritually you are the highest authority in the room now the problem is most people don't know that some people never find that out some that do find it out never really walk in it because of the group they hang out with many cases doesn't teach that they haven't been taught how to walk in that authority and so they think that the idea of a christian is you know just right doormat on your forehead and that's how it's supposed to be that is not what jesus did jesus was not a doormat people say well yeah but you know look he let them crucify me yeah that's because that was his mission now the next time he comes back guess what no doormat he's coming in to rule and to reign and he's not coming in now get this he is not coming in to change things he's coming in to walk into what the church has already changed awaiting his re his his arrival do you get that he is seated until his footstool until his enemies be made his footstool in other words he's watching us and saying what are you doing about these situations and so because that when he walks in if you remember whenever he sent out the 12 and then later he sent out the 70 in groups of two and it said go into every city and play and the bible says he sent them to every city and place where he himself would go so he sent them ahead of himself now he was the king he said i want you to go into all these places and i want you when you go in i want you to find who is worthy there and stay there and stay at that house don't go around from house to house and i kind of stuff and let people try to impress you by how they take care of you better than the last family did go in find a person of peace stay there and from there launch ministry in that city and his his idea of launching ministry was very simple heal all the sick therein that was the first thing then tell them the kingdom of god has come near you so the idea was to go in make a splash change things and then tell them the king this is what the kingdom is like and when you're in the kingdom this is how you will live then he said he was coming after that he would come into that city after they had healed the sick he had no intentions of having to heal the sick he had sent his disciples to heal the sick all the sick that were therein so when he walked in he didn't expect to have to do anything to help establish the kingdom the kingdom would have been established by his followers do you understand that now based on that now see that his mission hadn't changed matter of fact the well let me put it this way the only change to his commission to us was it got larger it didn't get smaller it didn't get less he didn't say now i want you to go and just preach don't heal he didn't say that he's a matter of fact before he said right now i want you to go into every city and place here in israel and he said don't go under the way of the gentiles that kind of thing but now at the end he said as a matter of fact i want you to go into all the world don't just limit it to israel go into all the world and so and he didn't change any of his commission other than that he enlarged it so now the commission is we are to go into cities and heal all the sick that are therein tell them what the kingdom is like and let him know he's coming and when he gets here he shouldn't have to fix things see most people are waiting for him to get here so he can clean this mess up and he left us here so we can clean this mess up and we can move toward that now people say well that's impossible never happen not for you it might not happen for you why because you've already decided that can't happen according to you as you believe so will be done unto you right so first off let's go for the whole thing and then see how far we get amen but most people are just looking at jesus as an escape clause in the covenant you know he's going to come get us out of that well now he may have to do some of that but our focus is not on just waiting to get out of here our focus is to do the commission heal the sick raise the dead cast out devils preach the gospel and show the world what it's like to have god present that's our job amen isn't that simple now if you don't know that you have the authority of jesus you will never walk in that authority so first you have to know you can't have faith beyond your knowledge of the will of god so you have to know that and then there's a renewal of the mind process that takes place before you can honestly totally believe it with your head your spirit agrees because it's born again but your head has to come in an agreement and to the degree that your head comes into agreement hence also known as mind renewal to that to the degree that your mind is renewed to that degree you walk in the blessings and promises that jesus gave us it's just that simple so if you're not walking in a promise or a blessing it is because your mind has not been renewed to that thing to any large degree you may know about it you may have heard about it you may have even read about it you may have sent through sermons about it but until you start actually doing it spirit soul and body your spirit's already got it your head's learning it and then your body has to align up with how you're supposed to be living when you get those three things in order now your mind is renewed and everything starts working and then that's when you really see the blessings take place in your life not so that you can just sit back and be blessed but now you have the tools and the resources to do what god expects you to do amen now so let's look at some of this now um as the highest spiritual authority on earth a christian we dictate the atmosphere around us now when i say we dictate it what it means is this okay very simple we determine the atmosphere by what we allow or what we put up with that's it you the atmosphere you are in in any place in your home in your business in your church wherever you're at where and i don't care if you're only there for 10 minutes you allow the atmosphere you will experience is the atmosphere you allow it's by what you put up with and the enemy is always seeing at what point will you cower at what point will you back off at what point will you not speak up and so you have to learn to be able to speak up and to stand and walk the way god intended you to walk which is looking like jesus now but you're gonna have to read the bible according to the way jesus was actually portrayed and not according to the way most churches have have portrayed him and that means that you're going to realize that everywhere he went he was in charge he didn't go in and put up with stuff now he would look at certain situations and he would get into situations but he always took control of the situation when he was there he didn't let somebody else do it he goes to somebody's house somebody in there is dead and they started laughing at him and he throws them all out of the house that he doesn't even own imagine that now you know some of those people were friends of the owners you know some of them were probably relatives of the owners but they left when jesus said get out now think about that imagine going to somebody's house and saying yes i will pray for your loved one uh but you'll have to leave they're going to look at you like it's my house one of us is leaving you or me what do you want you want me to pray or you want to leave you choose well can i stay no why because you ain't got no faith and i don't want you talking to my ear telling me how it's not going to work so you leave and whenever they're alive again i'll come get you well i want to see them come alive let's start believing why well when you start believing you'll start seeing some things amen so now let's keep going so obviously what i i'm not talking about doing spiritual mapping nothing wrong with that as long as that isn't all you do some people do it and they do it for 15 years by the time they've got it all mapped the city's already changed and so they never really get a true spiritual mapping of the city and so you can do that but and then you got people doing what they call spiritual warfare and renting airplane helicopters and flying over the city so that they can command blessings from the high places nonsense that's all nonsense it's not bible it's not spiritual warfare and it doesn't work all it does is give christian busybodies something to do to keep them busy you know kind of like in the old days whenever they would have the midwife come to the home to deliver the baby and the first thing she tells the man is okay we need some boiled water go boil some water they didn't need boil water they needed the man out of the room and so they sent him on a job that's what they would do that for and so that's kind of the way that this is is that it gives people something to do so they feel busy but they're not accomplishing anything listen god wants you busy jesus wants you busy but he don't want you just busy he wants you busy accomplishing things jesus doesn't just give you busy work just to keep you busy he gives you things to do because he wants change to occur amen so whenever you go into a place there will be an atmosphere there now it can't now when you first start you're probably going to have to enforce the change you're probably going to go in there and focus on changing the atmosphere but as you develop you will start to carry the atmosphere with you not have to conjure it up once you get there and when you get there the atmosphere will start to change now here's the amazing thing and remember this what you see in this in the natural realm is often uh representative of what's going on in the spiritual room and so many times because there is a direct ripple effect uh when something goes on in the spiritual realm that there is a ripple effect into the natural so whenever in the natural you know we have these guys well not just guys people men and women we call them meteorologists which never really made a lot of sense to me because they don't generally study meteors they're weather people they should be weatherologists or something i don't care what it is but it just doesn't make sense but anyway i'm not here to change the english language i do enough of that without trying but but there is this thing that these people have studied to the point where they can see low pressure systems high pressure systems and for the layman you know we just say oh there's a cold front coming in or there's a warm front coming in or something along those lines and the amazing thing is whatever weather it is where you are if the opposite weather is coming which is why they would announce it because if it's just the same not much to announce but if they got let's say it's warm where you are let's or let's say it's yeah let's say it's warm where you are or vice versa and let's say it's cold we are yeah we just settled on that we'll say it's cold it's cold where you are and you see this warm front coming in now how many of you know what's going to happen rain when that cold front hits when the warm front hits the cold front there's going to be rain and that right some form of moisture is going to happen is that right now we know this because we've seen it we've watched it on television different things uh we didn't even have to go to school to study it somebody told us about it and now we know that so when they start saying now we have this front moving in here and it's gonna be and so for these media it's moving at this rate and by it'll be here this many days and then it'll pass on through so we started looking okay well you know you try to plan or whatever you're going to do until you learn you can change that and then because of your spiritual authority and then but if you in the natural if you look at that you say okay this is going to be here in two days and it's going to be a rainstorm you know it's going to be a thunderstorm it's going to be rain and then it'll last a day or two and then it'll go on now how and it's funny because we have a saying here in texas which i apparently have heard in other states too if you don't like the weather stay around five minutes it'll change that's really true in a lot of cases people used to wonder why that was why does the weather change so quickly why it's because christians started finding out they could change it and some people like rain and some people don't so now some of those people live in the same house and they'll start speaking back and forth against no rain no dry no rain and the weather's just what do i do what do i do it doesn't even know what to do right all i know is i got to obey somebody right so we know that now we know this from a natural point of view we know it because we say okay when they when these two fronts collide there is going to be a disturbance in the atmosphere do you get it see the thing is this whenever you have a certain atmosphere you carry with you which is called the atmosphere of heaven and you carry that everywhere you go and you start getting a little more bold a little more outgoing about it and you start declaring you start saying these and this way it's going to be then and it starts to not just stay with you and in you but it starts to come out of you and affect things around you now if you're let's say let's use the same terminology let's say you're hot and on fire for god and you walk into a cold atmosphere now you got a cold what does that mean lukewarm cold backslidden you know not godly okay you walk into that atmosphere you got two choices give in go along or resist and change it that's your choices most christians just go and go oh did you feel that yeah i felt that too i felt it's just you know it's just like it was cold it wasn't physically cold it was just it was like the atmosphere was just cold it was just very dead it was very cold yeah that was terrible wasn't it yeah i'm glad we got out of there don't get out of there change it amen you go in there to change it you don't go in there clear and to report on it you go in to change it and so whenever you go in now don't ever think and i don't know why we would think this because we know in the natural realm it's not true whenever one atmosphere hits another atmospheric condition there is not a subtle change there is a violent disruption which we have given a religious term called revival that's what that violent disruption is is when these two atmospheres collide and the atmosphere of hell gives in to the atmosphere of heaven why because the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church why because the church carries the atmosphere of heaven amen are you with me now that's not going to happen automatically unless you've been walking in that for some time even then it it it doesn't happen just automatically it happens because you have decided to enforce heaven on that area see every time you walk up to a person on the street and you say what's what's the problem with it with your leg what's that why you have this oh is this happening all right well can i show you something yeah in jesus name be healed now right take it now walk do that and they start walking you know what that was a violent disruption why because the atmosphere of heaven just invaded into the atmosphere of hell do you get that now when that happens a storm occurs right and usually that storm and you can see it in lightning and all kinds of things and jesus said i saw satan as lightning fall isn't that right now the reason that's going on is because the air the atmosphere changes the only reason lightning happens is because the atmosphere changes no change no no light lightning you've got to have an atmospheric change amen the ions have to be charged and all that kind of stuff and i'm not going to get into all the details of it i don't understand it well enough to say it and if i say it wrong i will get letters because people think i'm a meteorologist so anyway and i'm not okay but you as a christian you are to bring the storm of heaven because you bring the atmosphere of heaven and when the atmosphere of heaven hits the atmosphere of hell a storm results so when you show up you're the storm amen now you may not look like a storm actually probably what you'll look like is a hurricane why because a hurricane causes all kinds of commotion but in the center there's peace in the center it's calm amen you get that and that's how you're supposed to walk through this see a person who's walking in faith the person who's walking in the atmosphere of heaven heaven doesn't walk around oh what are we gonna do oh no what are we going to do man i just can't handle this anymore no that's not that's not the atmosphere of heaven the atmosphere of heaven is i'll tell you what we're going to do we're going to win we're going to move forward we're going to change this and we're not going to let the devil win that's what we're going to do that's how the atmosphere of heaven works so you have peace inside in the middle of the storm amen now don't always get upset at the storm why because you brought it you brought it into the situation why because you ever see people man our personalities just clash yeah so does god and so do the devils their personalities just clash right and there are some people you should clash with there are people that you get along with that you shouldn't get along with now you can live in peace with the bible says to try to live in peace as much as you can in other words as much as it depends on you live in peace but how many of you know peace doesn't always depend on you you can have other you can be living in peace and have people come after you for the things you say the things you believe or what you're doing or whatever you can have these people come after you and yet they're not in peace but you are and then they'll talk and everybody go oh did you hear about that big fight between brother curry and yeah i heard about that big fight well guess what ain't no big fight why nobody wants to fight me they want to talk about them when they're not around me but they don't want to fight why because i win that that's the way it works why because i'm on god's side i say what he said and so if you're going to be against me you're going to get against what he has said because all i try to do is repeat what he said it's really pretty simple and a house divided can't stand isn't they're right so god's house is not divided so if people are against you they're not god's house if you're god's house amen people say i can't believe he said that let me say it again okay so there's no mistake right the reason i'm saying this is because you have to realize that there's going to come a point that if you're going to walk in faith you're going to walk in authority if you don't walk in authority you're not walking in faith it's that simple faith knows from the beginning what the end's going to be now if you if you know from the beginning what the end is and you don't like the end then you're not in faith because your faith should be in the end that god has desired and that's what you're speaking amen now i need to get back over to the atmosphere thing because we need to hit on so many things now um a cold front meets a warm front a storm usually occurs in the spirit realm that storm is called a revival like i said while we react while we acknowledge let me say it not i don't recognize while we acknowledge that we can and should determine the spiritual atmosphere we also recognize that usually an atmosphere doesn't change just because we're there but because we demand a change right there has to be something an effort apart but what i want to so i want to talk about atmospheres for for just a minute on this and we can talk about how atmospheres have changed when i first started publicly preaching i mean i i really started publicly preaching when i was 17 and but whenever we became more uh public uh when when people started hearing about us and that kind of thing was roughly around the beginning of 2000 uh end of 1997 98 and that in that time period and so i generally count 20 in the year 2000 as really kind of starting this phase of the ministry there was a phase before that where we were preparing and then the phase of 2000 to about 2020 uh when we were going and delivering and and and bringing these things out so 2021 really starts uh and not a new decade although it is a new decade but it also starts a new score of years in other words our first 20 years was one thing our next 20 is going to be something different now it's going to be very similar all the principles are going to stay the same our effectiveness is going to stay the same all the things but there is a shift of what takes place and where and part of that has to do with the change of atmospheres because when we started man in 2000 the atmosphere was totally different i'm talking about of the church the church world now i'm not talking about an individual church but you can have an individual church but then that has an atmosphere and then you have the church world that has an atmosphere of its own and the atmosphere in the church world in 2000 was extreme well let me i'll just wrote some of these things down i want to get to it when i first started preaching the biggest problem we faced was threefold okay number one legalism that was huge legalism was huge true legalism not what people call legalism today you know nowadays if you want to cause problems for people all you have to do is call them a racist you call them a racist they're they're branded or a racist whether it's true or not they're branded racist now they have problems because people start looking at them and they automatically assume that's true now it was the same thing with legalism back in the early late 1990s early 2000s everything was legalism and the funny thing was it was so legalistic that now most people call legalism they don't even know what legalism is you had to live in the late 90s to really know legalism because it was there right and it's there's still elements of it here and there but for the most part now watch this at first it was legalism and okay now number two so i'll come back to legalism but first was legalism the second thing was you couldn't do something unless your pastor said you could do it why well that's part of legalism because you were under his covering remember that term covering right you know there's groups you still hear it but you know i'm not among those groups so it's been so long that i don't even know if it's hardly still after anymore i know it is because zombies don't die so anyway so but you're under his covering and his authority or his anointing or something you you were under his thumb so to speak number three the third thing you had to have a word a prophecy and a confirmation before you can do anything especially pray for the sick or anything you had to have all these things see that was the culture that was the atmosphere of the church back then very legalistic had to be told what you could do and what you couldn't do and you had to have all these things lining up that said yeah see god is behind this well how many of you know that has totally changed now totally changed matter of fact the church i asked god one time i said give me an idea of how you see the church don't do that don't ask him he'll give you a strange picture okay what i saw was a highway with several lanes with the concrete barriers on each side and the car going down the highway bouncing off the barriers why with no steering wheel the person just sitting in the car and the car is just bouncing off this way and they would go the other side why it was trying to get in the ditch on each side and it just bounced from because it had no steering wheel why and that steering wheel usually is order and authority but whenever order and authority is turned into legalism and manipulation and control then it's no longer order and authority and so the church just bounced from side to side and was getting all banged up and all messed up and it wasn't going very fast or very far at the time can can you see that's how the church has been the church always tends to go from one ditch to the other well that's what they were doing in 1990 early 2000 it went from the ditch of legalism from the ditch of having to be told what to do to now we're at the other side of the ditch the other ditch on the other side of the road and that is called lawlessness and that means there's no rule see that's called hyper grace nothing matters anything goes everything's okay since been taken care of so we can live any way we want and it and it has gone into another grace which god talked more in the bible about lawlessness than he did legalism just something to think about so now you're awful quiet y'all thinking hope you're thinking make sure you're not looking on the ground for rocks there's no rocks in here we got rid of all the rocks okay so so the atmosphere of the church of the church world has changed now instead of legalism like i said part of the biggest problem we face is more lawlessness and lack of respect for true authority see that's the thing now because the emphasis has been that anybody can heal the sick people think that god doesn't have authority even the sick is just because you can heal the sick doesn't mean there is not authority in people of authority in the church god put people in places of authority in the church and generally it's called the fivefold ministry that's what people refer to that those are positions of authority however for it to be true authority it has to be ministered in the spirit of christ so if it goes to legalism it goes to not true authority and the minute a person moves out of servanthood being a a son who serves the minute you move from servanthood to mastery over a person you move out of spiritual authority and whatever authority you did have you no longer have amen do you see that so this has to be balanced out now all right so the church went from one dish to another now let me tell you this the devil never cares about which ditch you're in just so long as you're in a ditch and not on the road he doesn't care if you're legalistic he doesn't care if you're lawless he doesn't care as long as you're not on the road doing what you're supposed to do he just wants you in a ditch and he tries to make that ditch so appealing and it usually has to do with satisfying the flesh that has something to do with your pride either the pride of legalism i'm a spiritual authority and you will listen to me and obey me or lawlessness no one's gonna tell me what to do because i'm my own law you see the two ditches are actually the same it comes back to pride and that's what we have to avoid amen now are you y'all getting this yes okay now matter of fact write that down what i just what i just said about that about the devil doesn't care what ditch you're in write that down right he just wants you in a ditch now the atmosphere of the nation and the world has also changed since the year 2000 right drastically drastic probably the most drastic change since the 1960s if not even more drastic in many cases right usually how we say it is somebody will say well you know i don't know what it is but something's changed and i remember right after the first of the year literally right after new year's day there was a difference you know and it's like something changed the atmosphere of the nation changed right after it's kind of like you know and and yeah you can guess what it is you can say what it is and yeah you'd probably be accurate many people would have an accurate idea of what it is but sometimes it's almost like we're saying i don't know exactly what it is but you can you can feel it you can feel the change and many times you can you can see it or you can feel it when you're around people but other times you can see it or feel it because of what they say how they say different things i mean literally and this is just one aspect of it but since the first of this year now i've been in 40 some odd countries around the world many of them people would call quote unquote third world countries right i don't necessarily go along with those terminologies but people understand what you mean journey when you say it as of the first of this year america has shifted to the same atmosphere i sense when i go into third world countries it's the same atmosphere and it you can and it's in the how the people respond how they talk how they live what they expect all these kind of things now that's not my point today maybe at some point i'll be able to get onto that but not today so usually we just say something's different something's changed usually the state of a nation can be directly tied to the state of the church what we're seeing here in america is a spirit of lawlessness that is being embraced and the reason for that is because in the church over the last 10 to 15 years the spirit of lawlessness has taken hold of the church why and everybody's their own boss and nobody works together and you know there's no spiritual authority and you know there's there's no one and nowadays nobody answers to anybody put it that way right now but there's also a spiritual atmosphere for a city in proverbs 29 see i told you we get there i mention it right don't act surprised i told you we're going there and proverbs chapter 29 verse 2 when the righteous are in authority the people rejoice but when the wicked beareth rule the people mourn now i'm going to make two statements here uh one does anybody here think it's difficult to determine whether america is rejoicing or mourning i think it's pretty okay now here's the other thing and this is well i'm not going to say it so well i'm going to say what i was going to say i'm just not going to say where that's going to what you thought i was going to say what is amazing is that the cities where you see the most mourning the same people are in authority just let that sit there a minute now i fully now i know two things i know this is going out over the airwaves it'll be on television because we're gonna put it on the television broadcast we do uh it's gonna go out over there but most importantly it's going into the spirit realm which means that i know that because of this message i will become a spiritual target more so than we have been and that spiritual target usually ripples down into a physical target at the same time and people say oh don't say that the devil might hear you that's exactly who i want to hear me amen why the worst thing you can do is have a police action korea vietnam without ever declaring it to be a war why because you can't win a police action you can only come to a truce and that's what happened or in many cases even a retreat which is what we saw happen why because they were never declared a war so when you declare war make it clear make it plain if you're going to declare war on the devil make it clear let him know i'm coming after you right and because what you have to realize is if you're going after him he'll be too busy running to come after you and people on the defense never win you have to become offensive to win amen amen now notice here i'll say it again when the righteous are in authority the people rejoice but when the wicked beareth rule the people mourn now that's a general statement and it holds true for a nation a city a church even a home and there's an old saying that i quoted earlier as goes the pulpits so goes the people there's been a lot of teaching on things like what's generally called a kairos moment there's a certain moment now i want to shift just a little bit here and i want you to see this because people talk about a chiropractor a certain time when certain things can be done now i'll emphasize this this way usually when people talk about that it leads to a lot of spiritual sounding talk and very little kingdom advancement action christians love to talk they don't like to do and the only thing usually they like to do more than talk is here but they still don't like to do which the bible gives us warning about now first chronicles chapter 12. in verse 32 it says and of the children of issachar which were men that had understanding of the times notice men that had understanding of the times to know what israel ought to do the heads of them were 200 and all their brethren were at their commandment of zebulon such as went forth to battle expert in war with all instruments of war 50 000 which could keep rank that's a big one right there then it doesn't really matter how good you are how strong you are how much weapons you have if you can't keep rank keeping rank first and foremost means keeping strong morale when the morale is broken the rank is broken when the rank is broken people scatter and their easy prey for somebody else that has kept rank and they were not of double heart weren't double-minded fully focused fully committed and of naftali a thousand captains and with them with shield and spear thirty and seven thousand and of the day nights danites expert in war 20 and 8 600 and of asher such as went forth to battle expert in war 40 000 and on the other side of jordan of the reubenites and the gaddites and of the half tribe of manasseh with all manner of instruments of war for the battle and 120 000 all these men of war that could keep rank came with a perfect heart to hebron to make david king over all israel and all the rest also of israel were of one heart to make david king now notice all this notice how this started sons of issachar men who had an understanding of the times they were the captains they were the commandments they were the ones giving the command and after that all it listed is the people and the number of warriors and how expert they were at war isn't that something so if you're going to have warriors that are expert at war you've got to have somebody that understands the times to know what they ought to do so that they can direct them but if everybody's their own island if everybody's their own thing which is what the enemy counts on is see that's the worst thing about quote-unquote protestant christianity now i don't agree with roman catholicism but i'll tell you they got one thing going for them they have a chief they have a captain they have somebody have the pope they have a center person that can issue edicts and commands and that kind of thing that pretty much every catholic if they're a real catholic goes by protestants don't have that see what because we're so divided that we can never work together and the only way we can work together generally is if the name over the door says the exact same thing as a name over our door why because most christianity has become territorial merchandising and they've got to the point where all they try to do is keep their territory and it's all about nickels numbers and noses how many numbers you got and and that's you go to to pastors meetings how many you got in your sunday school that's always the measure how many is in sunday school and then they want to know how many people are in there how much what is your church budget right who there is important that's what they ask you who in your you know does the mayor come to your church does this person come in they have all these gauges and it's all merchandising and it's all territorialism rather than saying you know what why don't we get banned together and fight the devil and forget the name over the the you know i've gone all over i've gone to all kinds of churches every kind of the only about the only two i haven't preached in really is a jehovah's witness kingdom hall and a uh christian science um there's you know there's a couple of mormons i haven't preached in a mormon temple yet if they invite me i'll go i know they need it they i know they need what i got so i'll go i have no problem going there but i've gone some of the best healing services i had one was in a place called gulfport mississippi at the baptist church it was amazing a baptist church and on the marquee it said uh healing service 7 pm curry blade i had to stop and take a picture because it was right under the sign and said baptist church and it was an amazing healing service right why because they didn't care about the name and when i got up there another i will tell you the pastor there he's a great guy but he was nervous about charismatics you know taking over his church and so he said i would appreciate it if you would just minister healing and not get into the theology of you know charismatics i said okay so i got up and i taught for a couple days and then the last night as we ministered healing people saw people get healed and i said all right how many of you want everything god's got for you anybody say yeah i said well come down front and whatever you're lacking god will give you and they all lined up down front and i said all right just pray tell god i want whatever you got for me that i don't have i want it and lo and behold people started speaking in tongues [Applause] and i found out later the pastor was one of them [Applause] it's kind of hard for him to put it down when he's doing it right so god bless him amen but i didn't go in there and go oh you got to be a pentecostal oh you got to be charismatic no just want all god's got for you right and then let god do it what's he going to do he can't jump on me about it he'd have to jump on god about it right so now but now i notice there were people that had to know the times had an understanding of the times esther chapter 1 verse 13. i'm only going to read one verse so you can turn there but you might not get there by time i read it so esther chapter 1 verse 13. then the king said to the wise men which knew the times for so was the king's manner toward all that knew law and judgment you hear that he said to the wise men which knew the times knowing the times has always been important in daniel chapter 2 verse 20 daniel answered and said blessed be the name of god forever and ever for wisdom and might are his and he changes the times and the seasons he removes kings and sets up kings he gives wisdom under the wise and knowledge to them that no understanding notice it doesn't say he gives knowledge to those that don't have understanding he gives knowledge to those that have understanding that's why in all you're getting get understanding amen now notice it says he reveals the deep and secret things he knows what is in the darkness and the light dwelleth with him right but now notice he changes the times and the seasons now so there are atmospheres and like we said the atmosphere in the church has changed over the last 20 years in most cases not really for the better just from one ditch to another but god can change seasons and times right and there are certain seasons for certain things now in ecclesiastes chapter 3 right yeah chapter 3 verse 1 to everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under the heaven the time to be born time to die time to plant time to pluck up that which is planted a time to kill a time to heal a time to break down and a time to build up a time to weep but time to laugh a time to mourn and a time to dance a time to cast away stones a time to gather stones together a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing a time to get and a time to lose the time to keep time to cast away a time to rend and a time to sew a time to keep silence and a time to speak a time to love and a time to hate a time of war and a time of peace that's bible there are times there are certain times and we've noticed and that's one of the things i've been noticing that there is a shifting there's a change of season there's a change of of the atmosphere in the church not always for the better so if we're going to change it now god usually changes things through people it's not just a wind that blows through yesterday i was interviewed on a radio television out of california and we went into revival we went into church history some we went into vaccines we went into pandemics and all these different kinds of things we talked about a bunch of all kinds of stuff and it was funny because in noticing now there is a shift but god works through people and i was talking about how in revivals how god used charles finney to change things but he had to go in and find what the people had faith in in other words what were they trusting in put it that way and he had to destroy that thing and he said his job was to simply go in find the rocks people are hiding behind destroy those rocks and leave the people standing naked before god where they simply had to repent or reject god and so that's what finney did so god used finney revival didn't just blow in finney said revival is when people when christians return to obedience to god and we mistake revival generally we restake evangelism for revival evangelism is not revival revival or for those that were once alive and now dead evangelism are for those that are dead and have never been alive so there is a difference usually what we call revival is simply evangelism or usually what should happen is when people get revived then they start to evangelize that's the way it's supposed to work now technically you should never need revival you should come alive stay alive amen now so matthew chapter 16 verse 1 the pharisees also with the sadducees came and tempting desired him that he would show them a sign from heaven he answered and said unto them when it's evening you say it will be fair weather for the sky is red and in the morning it will be foul weather today for the sky is red and luring oh ye hypocrites wow strong words just because you couldn't tell what the weather's going to be tomorrow or in their case you could right but notice he wasn't talking to meteorologists he was talking to theologians and he said you can discern the face of the sky but you can but can you not discern the signs of the times so the church has become a subdivision uh you know its own little group and it has not been sought into society well but we're called to be separate whether we're we're in the world but not of the world that's true but we're also to change the world and make them like us if we're right and so the first thing is make sure we're right and then we are to go and make them right do you get that and so there has to be that but we can't be that when this is what we do and this is all we do and we keep our faith to ourself and we don't talk we don't speak up because let me tell you 62 million babies being killed is not a legal problem it's a spiritual problem and i'm not going to keep my mouth shut about it just because people think i shouldn't get involved in something that somebody has made a law about no we'll change the law god bless texas amen you say why you say that because recently we just passed the bill no abortions after six weeks they call it the heartbeat law god bless texas amen so you know like i say lead follower or get out of the way one of the two but you know and i'm not saying i agree with everything that governor abbott's done uh matter of fact i wrote him a long letter a while back and told him that i would do my best to do all i could do to make sure he is replaced in the next election unless things change things have changed okay we're good amen so now but all it takes for evil to reign is for good men to do nothing especially doing nothing and think they're being christian the bible says we are to speak up amen so now notice steve hill how many you know how many of you remember steve hill pensacola revival amazing man of god we knew him we met him and made him the new him it was amazing person uh and we went to the pensacola revival and we were sitting there and he was preaching and i remember telling my wife uh the next verse he's going to is this and then he'd go to that verse and she looked at me and i said the next verse he's going to go to is this and he went to that next verse she goes how did you know that and i said he's preaching finney's sermons i've read finney all he did was change them into modern day and give you modern day examples but they were finney sermons and everywhere finney's sermons and his principles have been listened because they're bible principles revival happens it's the simplest thing in the world every bible we could have revival in this place this week if we wanted to easily all i'd have to do is preach some finney sermons why because they are bible and they are biblical principle that's it but i'm not called to just have revival i'm called to train equip and send out amen we've had thousands of people come through this these doors some stayed for a while some not as long as others but everybody that leaves they leave with more information than before not everybody wants to be special forces well everybody wants to be special forces but not everybody goes through the whole process sometimes they get as they call dropped or washed out somewhere along the process when they get washed out they go somewhere else they go back to their original unit but they go back with more knowledge than they had before and now a lot of times that's what happens here now we'll talk about some more of that even this week we're going to be talking about some of that but i will tell you jg lemmers people say and you are just elitist y'all just think yes we are we are elite we are not that everybody can't be elite but we have chosen to do what god told us to do and that makes you elite amen okay let me just tell you this real quick um there was uh what is it right now in the world they say there is something like 1.4 billion christians people who claim to be christian um no no i'm sorry there are 2.8 billion people that claim to be christian there are 1.4 billion that claim to be muslim that's the numbers right the people that claim those things now the amazing thing about that is that you have all of these chris people that claim to be christian but some are christian only in word in other words yes i was baptized in a church when i was 10 or whatever was and that's it and so they're not active right but now out of 2.8 let me get it right get the numbers right yeah 2.8 billion christians we have taught somewhere around roughly 200 000 maybe give or take in in the dht right so out of let's say 1 billion out of a billion christians 200 000 have heard the dht guess what that makes those 200 000 elite why because they know something the others don't right i'm not saying anybody's better see if you hear elite and you think that means better i'm not saying that i'm saying that all that means is there are people who are trained and they know something that the others don't know now our job is to make sure everybody knows it amen and that's why dhds are like special forces that our job is to go places and train up local uh locals put it that way in the ways of spiritual warfare and divine healing amen real simple and that's what special forces do special forces were never meant to be a fighting force they were meant to be advisors and trainers for local people in other countries to help them train up and become fighters that's what we do amen now okay so steve hill used to say the opportunity of a lifetime must be embraced during the lifetime of the opportunity do you know and i wasn't going to say this from i am apparently um a while back i decided that i was going to open up dbi the bible school we were going to do it here on site and we were going to open it up and we weren't going to charge anything for it it was totally free completely free we had less than a people less than a dozen people apply so i said no pull it people ain't interested okay we won't do it guess what people did not embrace the opportunity during the lifetime of the opportunity right and yet i got people right now can i come to dallas and be your shadow can will you disciple me will you no dbi first why because i don't want to spend my time talking baby stuff i want you to get the basics and then when we do talk we will be able to get somewhere and do something amen and go further right so many people do not embrace the opportunity when it's offered now so some opportunities only last a little while sometimes the decision to act must be made quickly smith wigglesworth said fear looks faith leaps it's a good way to live i have now listen carefully i have reasoned myself out of faith more than i have reasoned myself into faith when you spend too much time analyzing thinking about it given the pros and cons usually you will do nothing why because faith generally speaking is not reasonable if you're looking at the circumstances faith is only reasonable whenever you look at god and what he said amen now i will tell you this i have never regretted what i have done i have only regretted what i haven't done that make sense all right just so you know so how do we actually change an atmosphere we're going to go through this real quick number one there are negative ways that atmospheres are made have you ever been standing talking to friends or co-workers laughing having a good time and in walks debbie downer yeah you know what i'm talking about or donald downer whoever male or female right and they come in and you're excited and you're talking you're having a good time you're standing there talking and then they come in and everything's terrible everything's horrible oh it's so bad and pretty soon you're just depressed just like them and a minute ago you were all happy and even the coffee doesn't keep you up you know you just kind of yeah it's pretty bad i don't know what we're going to do see one person can infect a group right ten spies come back and say it's terrible we can't do it right and then you've got these other two yeah we can we can do it and guess what the people believed the other people and they're right but guess who went to the promised land the two right and 40 years later you hear one of them going i'm only 80. and you promised and i won it give me my mountain i want that mountain right there i want that one amen why because that's a spirit of faith now so you can have an instantly when that person comes in instantly the atmosphere is changed instantly why okay have you ever heard that somebody say well they just have a dark cloud over them why because they're always depressed always down you never notice they don't have many friends and if they do the people they do talk to they're just like them they got clouds too why because misery loves company and they will gravitate together it's amazing you put people in the church you watch the groups that gather together you got the group over here it's full of faith you got the group over there nothing's going to work we ain't going to do nothing it's going to be like it always has been and you know you walk up you start listening to oh no i don't want that group i'm gonna go over here right so now you have to decide now as i've said before when a low pressure system encounters a high pressure system usually there's a storm have you ever been in a good mood you get around somebody with a bad mood all of a sudden you're in a bad mood why it's because you allowed it you allowed them to dictate your atmosphere amen you have to decide now if you're around them very long without purposely engaging with them and trying to cheer them up you'll get sour too that's what'll happen right so you have to decide so you have to decide you know what i am how i'm supposed to be i'm up i'm excited about life i'm moving forward and if now and you can tell them look if you want to stay the way you are you're going to do it over there and you're going to have to work at it because you get around me i'm going to do my best to make sure my atmosphere impacts your atmosphere and if that means we get in a fight let there be a storm because that's what happens sometimes right why because you're supposed to be the spiritual not just a spiritual barometer because you can either be a thermostat or a thermometer a thermometer it doesn't do any good to look at a thermometer it just tells you what it is but a thermostat dictates what it is be a thermostat not a thermometer amen now i said before you need to to develop a reputation in hell jesus and paul had a reputation in hell they knew who was jesus we know paul we know who are you remember wherever you go on a daily basis you have a reputation whether you know it or not they see how you are on a daily basis if you're consistently negative hateful grumpy they know it and if you go to a restaurant you're like that you watch the servers will disappear nobody wants to serve you nobody wants to come around because you grab about everything you grab about this this isn't right and that's this is too cold that's too hot and this should be this last time we came here they did this why ain't you doing that and they're just like no then you start watching they're pushing you go you you you you're the new person you don't know them you go you know but on the other hand well let me tell you your spiritual and your emotional dna will be left with them they'll remember you you will impact them with your spiritual and emotional dna on the other hand if you're normally cheerful positive uplifting they will see you coming and they'll cheer up and they will fight over you especially if they know you're a good tipper we go to restaurants and my my wife will come he's the best tipper i know just telling you and guess what we get service like that it's amazing and then i'm like thank you this is going to be another big tip i can tell this is cause you can't say that and then not do it but i i naturally do it but why because i've been blessed and i want to bless others and that's contagious right not just with words you know the lord loves you so much he died for you and he wants he wants you to come to him and here's dollar 25 tip if you're gonna leave a dollar 25 tip don't tell anybody you're a christian just keep it to yourself but no no tell them you're a satanist yeah do that maybe they'll hate satanists i don't know because because i hate a lot of christians because christians the most judgmental argumentative grappy bunch and don't tip if you're going to grapple with somebody the whole time you're there you at least pay them to listen to you so all right now many atmospheres are what they are by default they've been that way so long we just it becomes a habit churches are like that churches have a personality you have to you have to make sure that church personality is good that it's upbeat that it's exciting that there's things going on not down depressed and all that no that's not it okay now how do you change it you change it with your spirit your soul and your body that means it takes all three doing it there are times when it'll change just because you have consistently put in positive input there's times when you have to actively force it to change you might have to fight to war to change it we are an apostolic church that means we were made for war if you were and let me tell you if you if you don't like spiritual warfare meaning fighting and taking ground for for christ and causing sick bodies to be made whole if you don't like the warfare that goes with that you won't last year long if you come in here for a sweet little kumbaya and you know and that's the thing you know when jesus passes me by and all that kind of stuff if if that's what you want go somewhere else that ain't us we're a warfare church we're a fighting church we stand our ground amen that's what an apostolic church is that's where we're going to be and i'll be honest with you i've let some things fly lately and i've let things go a little bit because i'm trying to let the people kind of figure out where they are and what they're wanting to do that didn't work uh things are going to change right you're going to learn to fight or you're going to learn to flee meaning you're going to stay here and fight or you're going to flee somewhere else why because we ain't got time to constantly be doctoring you up right you have to grow up and take your place in the battlefield and you have to not break rank you have to know how to fight amen why because if you come here very long i can tell you when you walk through that door there's a devil outside waiting at the front door he don't want to come in sometimes they sneak in here anyway but he's there's a devil outside and he's just waiting there and when he sees you walk in he writes your name down you instantly become a target and he's going to follow you around and make sure you don't put any of this into action because the minute you start doing that oh no alarm bells are going to go off in hell so you have to decide what you want but learn to live as a target amen and invite it come on take your best shot why because my god's bigger all right we'll we'll you know we'll we'll trade hits yeah go ahead you hit yeah it's not going to break through my shield but then it's my turn amen and when you wake up then we'll tell you what happened to you amen because we don't hit like paul we don't buff at the air we hit with a purpose amen so finally if you want things to change you have to have an influence in what you want to change you have to info you have to be have input into it you have to speak as though the change has already occurred you have to speak with the strength of god and i'm going to pray here because i'm just about done ephesians chapter 3 verse 14 says this paul prayed and he said for this so this is the will of god this prayer is the will of god for you because the book of ephesians was written to those at ephesus and to those who are in christ jesus that's you the faithful in christ jesus i should also add for this cause i bow my knees unto the father of our lord jesus christ of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man that's god's will for you that you be strengthened with might in the inner man by his spirit right why so that christ may dwell in your hearts by faith so if you're not that he's not dwelling in your hearts by faith that you being rooted and grounded in love rooted and grounded not pushed around now notice rooted and grounded now there is a a a an aspect of martial arts where they that they call rooting it's part of eastern philosophy also and there's some churches on the west coast that are practicing this and and it's of the devil all right you have to understand that and what they do and i've seen people do this and it's called rooting and you root to the ground to the point where nobody can move you seriously people twice the size will push on you do different things and they cannot move you it's spiritual right and so uh to give you the story one day in hong kong uh bruce lee was on the television show and there was some these they call them qigong masters and these qigong masters would root and they would settle down and people and they invited people to come up and push them and try to push them and nobody could move them nobody could move them so finally bruce one of the guests on the show comes over and they said would you like to try to move this person he said yes i would love to so he walks over stands there and punches the guy in the face the guy falls down and they said wait wait wait wait he said i moved him i don't push i punch today i echo that sentiment we don't push we punch we punch in the spirit realm right so don't think we're going to do things the way it's always been done we're not going to come up and go along with you set the rules of how it's going to do no we're going to set the rules according to the bible and record the word of god and we're going to fight according the word of god and we're going to win according to the word of god it's that simple we're a warring church we're a loud church we're not a quiet church morgues are quiet nursery sinners are loud amen and that's how we're going to be we're going to be we're going to speak we're going to stand up well first we've got to show up you've got to show up you've got to stand up you've got to speak up amen and if that's not you then you know you can hide so so finally now he says in mark 11 24 now get this here now this is your part okay we're finishing right here this is your part there jesus said mark 11 24. therefore i say unto you whatsoever things you desire do you desire that prayer what paul just prayed that you be strengthened in your inner man by the spirit of god you do you desire that then he tells you this is what you're supposed to pray for right he says what things whatever you desire when you pray believe that you receive them not believe you receive them when you see them believe you receive them when you pray right so when you pray it's settled that you have received them if you're praying according to the will of god because john said we know that if he hears us we have the petitions that we gave to him that we spoke to him right so if we speak his will we know he hears us if we know he hears us we know we have what we ask if we know we have what we ask then we can believe that we have received can you say amen all right now he says believe when you pray believe that you receive them and you shall have them now so everybody stand up now if this if what i just read if that prayer is your desire and if it's not don't lie church is a terrible place to lie right so don't laugh if it's not you go out you know that's just not who i want to be i want to be coddled and petted and you know told i'm okay uh well there's a street there's a church near here that'll tell you all of that right here we'll tell you that you are capable that you have the potential to f and win because you have the potential of jesus christ in you right that's what we're doing now you may not be okay right now but you can be okay right and it can happen that quick and then we'll train you up right so now say this with me say it like you mean it right let the devil hear it he is the father of the spirit of deafness you might have to speak loud right so say his way father i believe that you have granted to me to be strengthened with might by your spirit in my inner man according to your riches in glory that christ dwells in my heart by faith and that because i am rooted and grounded [Applause] in love i am able to comprehend the breadth length depth and height and to know experientially the love of christ which goes beyond knowledge [Applause] so that i can be filled with all the fullness of god and i give god glory because he is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that i can even ask or think [Applause] so go ahead god surprise me i will no longer limit you to what i can articulate in a prayer or to what i can even imagine i expect you to use me like you did jesus and that you will do even greater things through me than you did him because he said so and i receive it now in jesus name give them a shout hallelujah hallelujah amen amen now the bible says you can stay standing for just a minute this last minute the bible says that the devil goes about as a roaring lion as a roaring lion doesn't say he was says he goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour that means he can't just devour anybody he wants any time he wants he's looking for the one the the one antelope that peels off from the herd because that's the ones that are easy to get the bible says that that's what he does now the bible also says that jesus is the lion of the tribe of judah am i right the bible says that as he is so are we so the devil is imitating a lion jesus is a lion and so are we why because the righteous are as bold as a lion is that right now so we need to do some roaring ourselves so here's how you need to roar you can you can roar with me with this if you want to so we'll start by roaring this no devil you won't devour me or mine no devil no you will not come after me without any with any effectiveness my god has already rebuked the devourer for my sake no sickness you can't live in this body [Applause] disease you cannot stay here any longer now i'm going to teach you some texan repeat this with me now get yeah there you go g-i-t not g-e-t g-i-t get you got that devil sickness disease get yes leave and never return in jesus name [Music] job situation turn around mortgage get paid car you run right in jesus name children you will mind you will do right finances bank account you better fill up and i don't mean maybe bank account you're like the float in the back of the toilet [Applause] when you get down to a certain point [Applause] you just automatically fill back up [Applause] how'd you like that one and then and the last one is what everybody needs crazy drivers stay in your own lane that's what everybody needs right now you are the highest spiritual authority in any place you are act like it stand up straight speak with authority amen walk with a purpose develop some command presence if you're the head and not the tail don't be dragging around with your head down and your tail tucked between your legs like a beat dog that ain't who you are amen you need to step up if you're going to be like a dog be like a pit bull right and then you look at that devil and say come on devil come in my yard come on over here i got something for you and be that pit bull amen you grab hold and you don't let go do you get this this is who you are in the spirit but you're going to have to enforce it when you start enforcing who you are the atmospheres around you will change you mark my words you watch in a very short time even as good an atmosphere as we have had here it's going to change be better be stronger and to be very honest with you we're going to dictate the atmosphere of this city this county any county that touches us we're going to dictate that why because we're right and god is with us amen amen y'all get anything out of this this morning all right well we'll be glad to minister to you physically in any area if you need prayer my team will put that together i'm going to put my things away and then i will be right back those of you that don't need any prayer or anything you're free to go and god bless you we appreciate you and just go and do the word of god amen and that god bless you and we'll see you again soon [Applause] amen praise god you

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Rating: 4.9209876 out of 5

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Id: KQ7ly9ILXjA

Length: 205min 48sec (12348 seconds)

Published: Sun May 23 2021