Relive ANWALIVE | Dr. Matthew Stevenson | It's The Closet That Counts

uh matthew the sixth chapter verse one um if you see exodus leviticus anything of that sort you're on the absolute wrong end of the book just kind of speed draft to where the words are read and the people of the lord said amen in matthew chapter six verse one this is jesus talking take heed that you do not do your alms before men to be seen of them otherwise you have no reward of your father which is in heaven i could preach that whole thing right there therefore when thou doest thine arms don't sound a trumpet poster status take a picture before the as the hypocrites do in the synagogue and in the streets it's interesting you know you're in dangerous times when you can't tell the difference between the character of those in the streets and those in the synagogues that they may have glory of men verily i say unto you don't get quiet yet they have their reward but when thou doest alms let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth that thine always may be in secret and thy father which see it in secret himself shall reward thee openly here's my meat and when thou prayest thou shall not be as the hypocrites are for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets that they may be seen of men for verily i say unto you they have their reward nothing to look forward to they have their reward but thou when you pray enter into thy closet and when thou has shut thy door pray to the father which is in secret and the father which seeth in secret god be praised shall reward thee openly but when you pray don't use vain repetition as the heathen do for they think they will be heard for their much speaking be ye not therefore like unto them for your father knows what you have need of before you ask after this manner therefore pray ye our father i'm getting happy i don't even start it which art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our dead oils but lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever amen for if you forgive men their trespasses your heavenly father will also forgive you but if you forgive not men their trespasses neither will your father forgive your trespasses almost there moreover when you fast i just need a hundred of you the rest of you can go home but when you fast be not as the hypocrites are of a sad countenance for they disfigure their faces that they may appear unto men to fast verily i say unto you they have their reward but thou in thoughtfast anoint thy head and wash your face that thou appear not unto men to fast but unto thy father which is in secret and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly father help me to preach this in jesus name amen the idea that we're working from tonight is called it counts in the closet it counts in the closet look at somebody say it's the closet that counts come on tell them that tell somebody else it's the closet that counts it's the closet that counts let's do some work jesus christ is perfect theology jesus christ is perfect theology there is no errands in anything he approaches it is impossible to own the title christian and not rectify the fact that everything we are everything we believe everything we think everything we say should be held accountable to the standard of jesus christ i prefer my gospel christocentric now that seems simple but i think many of you would be shocked to learn how many churches are non-christian non-christo-centric how many gospels are non-christo-centric how many people have theological beliefs that are outside of the ramifications of the behavior the conversation the character and the language of what we have in jesus christ but my theological premise is if he said it i'll say it if he didn't say it i'm not gonna say it if he emphasized it so will i if he overlooked it so will i but i'm not going to create a position an opinion an idea a tradition a view a bias a prejudice that i can't find in the man why the man is the plan come on i i want you to realize that god don't have no plan outside of the man and everything that we know to be the plan of god is made manifest in jesus christ i would that we would study him a little more and i would that we would start to use him as the premise of our correction and as the premise of our rebuke if we use what jesus did as the line for our correction that there would be a lot more people that are confident in the body of christ and not crushed by religion it's got to be the man everybody somebody says god to be the man it's god to be the man oh yeah i love preaching jesus i love studying jesus i love living like jesus looking like jesus and i love studying what jesus taught for example we are given several examples of jesus's message among different audiences pay attention now he didn't teach the 12 what he taught the masses there was an adaptation when he was in front of the masses he would say something like blessed are the pure in heart for their they shall see god blessed are the sad for they shall be comforted blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled but then he would get to the environment like the twelve and he would begin to make his teaching a bit more stringent just stay with me now he would tell them stuff like if any man puts his hand to the plow that was not to a congregation that was to a disciple he said if any man y'all put your hand to the plow and then you decide you don't want to do it you're not worthy of me when the environment got a little smaller because everybody's going to have the masses then you're going to have the 12 then you're going to have the three y'all's problem is you share everything like the three is the masters and then you end up hurt because you didn't deserve the right audience for the right transparency the reason why people are gossiping about you is cause what belongs to the three don't belong to the twelve and what belongs to the twelve is too big for the masses you got to discern your environments right that was free the rest will cost you anyway when they got in front of the three he took them to a mount called transfiguration god be praised and when he got up to that mountain the bible said that he started to change before them in other words he allowed the three to see through him he wasn't going to do that to the twelve because judas and doubting thomas was still there and he was not in a space to waste his time proving to judas and proving to thomas that he was who he was so he took three to the top to let the top see through him who's at the top of your stuff anyway he took the three he could trust the most and he allowed them to see him in a different way all of these shows that jesus christ customizes he develops and he produces information based upon the maturity of the environment he does not force feed people to comprehend what they were not built to comprehend he discerns the audience and then he shifts into the anointing that's appropriate for the audience he is not preaching in one place hoping it will get to another place he knows what's before him and he knows us in the room in so doing every opportunity jesus got to teach about prayer he was talking to those that were already connected to him here comes and the reason this is important is because when we read text jesus is teaching about prayer we assume that he's teaching them new information now it was new in the sense that they had not heard it this way but these were traditional rabbinical jews who had been praying all of their lives you could not ever have become a nationalized jew without knowing some ritual or some approach to prayer but what we see is that when jesus came and he called 12 unto him he had to unteach them that the way to prayer as y'all do it ain't the way to pray that it needs to be done for example when you learn the torah and the mishnah and you learn the law and the prophets there are prayers there jesus came as the messiah but he also embodied pay attention the template of how to talk to the father because he was now our intermediary it was his approach to prayer that was the most effective and i know i'm messing with you because you think all prayer has the same value in the realm of the spirit but i'ma prove to you it's the stuff in the closet that's heard the loudest and it's the stuff in the streets that gets turned down [Applause] for example one time we see jesus's prayer life and we see jesus often going to a place that many of you are afraid to go and it's called solitude when he was getting ready to pray he would go where he could not be seen i'm getting there he would go where he didn't want to a man or you better pray girl or you better preach girl or you better sing boy or you better praise him he didn't go where he would attract the accolades of the audience he made sure that he was away from public view so that his prayers could not be impeded in other words the lesson there is if you pray for attention from men that's the ultimate reward of your prayer life prayer ain't powerful until it's private first and the bible said that jesus would depart even from the twelve that he would pray the next chapter chad the bible said after this first example of watching jesus pray that there was a great storm pay attention now there was a bad storm come on and listen there was a bad storm and this storm had something demonic in it it wasn't just a regular storm with regular rain the bible said there were grievous winds now it could have been that the reason that there was something demonic in this storm is because on the other side there was a bunch of swine over there remember that and the bible said that jesus confronted a demon and the demon said okay put us in the pigs could it be that the reason those pigs were demonized and the reason that man was demonized is because whatever was operating on them waters had an entitlement to that land now here is a deeper theological lesson come on the lesson is this sometimes when your prayer life is right are you ready it's going to schedule your next song i'm going to say that again when your prayer life is right it's going to schedule your next stop now you're upset right now and you didn't stop dancing cause you think all your storms have to come from the devil no there's some winds that come around you that god allows to prove what you're really made of anybody can prophesy and tell you you are what you are but it's not until you watch your storm behavior i feel this it's not until you see your rain behavior your thunder behavior that you know what's really in you anyway he prays and this is what his prayer life did to him you track it with me master the chimpanzees raging the winds and the ways they open thy will that's what she said peace be sure peace be still but here's the lyric the twelve literally told them caress thou not watch me that we perish in other words the twelve were literally thinking this is going to be the end of this little training period and we're about to die right here and so what does the bible say to bible say that the one who was praying in the chapter before was sleeping in the storm i want to make the connection right here because of what he prayed the night before everybody around them was panicking and their nerves were bad and they had ulcers and they were getting diagnosed with all kind of conditions but the only person that can sleep through a storm is the one who likes to go to the closet you gonna go with me imma go by myself when you behave right in the closet you don't learn from storms you go to sleep through example number one [Applause] here is example number two please behave example number two is another time and a turning point in the ministry of jesus glory to the son of god the bible says again that this man disappeared so he could pray and when he went up to the mountain they were disciples pay attention the bible says he named them disciples but then it's something about when he left away from the people he was called to he came down with some fresh strategy on how to deal with the negroes the bible said that when he went to pray when he came down he was now using new language god be praised who he used to call disciples he was now calling apostles this is why many of our leaders pay attention are struggling to see the gifts in us that you busy preaching to us and not leaving us to pray and so that they can come back and do a gift assessment on the depth that is within us you don't need to put another ad in the paper what you need to do mr bishop is go to a mountain and find yourself in prayer now you pastor it's right there the women's pastor is right there but you can't see them right because your closet ain't right but when you go and learn people by the spirit it takes for god to tell you what's in them and other than that you've got to recruit what you should be raising up [Applause] boy i'm working in here he went down and he changed their name i've been calling you one thing but because of what god told me about who you were i can't lead you and not know what's in you glory to the son of god i've been in prayer about you and when i came down i came down with some insight about who you are that you did not know so what happened was when that man prayed it revealed what was active in the people around him if you want to know where the snake is if you want to know where the liar is don't try to figure out about playing a detective go and find your closet and it's gonna all be clear [Applause] case number three please sit down case number three case number three case number three the name of the garden was gethsemane and because jesus is perfect theology he has to experience every emotion i feel like preaching now every fear he can't be called the king of kings if there is an emotion we can feel that he did not feel so he had to feel the full gambit of the human experience in 33 years that's a lot of pressure on one mind and on one body and on one belief system he had to experience depression to be your god he had to experience fear to be your god this is why he stayed on calvary so long he had to allow himself the right to feel anything a man could feel if he didn't stay up there that long he could not be called the lamb of god he had to stay up there to experience that but right before he crossed over into the reason he was born he had a moment where he was confronting his manhood here we go and now again we see the strategy is not just counseling and the strategy is not just a book and the strategy is not a seminar jesus now is looking at the reason he was born pay attention he was resolved about this he knew he came to die he knew he was telling his mom at 12. i'm going to give up my life i'm the son of god but here we go when he's close to the moment because ain't that how it works we can know that something is coming and we can know that we're called to do something but right when the moment starts leaning into us we feel things we didn't feel emotions we didn't have you know insecurities you didn't have before jealousies you didn't have those are not signs that something is wrong those are signs that the season is right it's going to reach in your soul and pull up everything in you that's nervous about the now if you ain't nervous it's cause it ain't now but if it's now you want to be nervous god's getting ready to regulate your nervous system oh yeah to get you ready for what's now come on say hallelujah anyway he's in gethsemane now and the man is on his face satan is in his ear saying nobody can bear the full weight of sin this is too much for one man to bear and he's like you know what you're right dog and he goes into rationalization pay attention because i want you to see what happens when this man is praying he's got his rational self right here i'm just one man i'm just 33. it's millions of people maybe i don't have to do this that's rationality but something happens when you access the will of god something happens when you prefer god's will over your own here's what he said he said father i don't like this i don't like them i don't like that i can't stand this nevertheless i want you to elbow somebody and tell them nevertheless nevertheless come on zion obey me tell them nevertheless never been less now here is why i love the butt in the bible i love the real until and i love the bear four and i like the flow as much when those terms are interjected in the text what it does is it cancels out whatever is written before it he acknowledges what he feels he's honest with his humanity but then he says nevertheless what that means is uh i'm just complaining and i'm just venting and i'm just being honest but at the end of the day i'm going to do your will at the end of the day i may as well find my misery and give it to your hands because i'm going to do exactly what you said do it here's what he said not my will but thy will be done here's what happened when he was praying there was an exchange of the wheel there was a crush of the wheel his wheel died and the will of the father came alive through him and then the next thing we hear about it is in the book of hebrews where now we have insight glory to god about what he really felt in gethsemane after he said nevertheless not my will but thy will be done the right of hebrews goes back and writes this jesus who fought the joy that was set before him now when we saw him in gethsemane we didn't see no joy but i'm telling you he prayed his way into emotional stability and the person next to you has been having a war in their emotions some of you are going through in your mind right now i can see every personality you battle with and if you don't find a closet the devil's gonna drive you crazy and pull you out of yourself into some stability somebody say yeah [Applause] please be seated case number four we're just doing case study then i'm gonna really preach case number four case number four he loved peter john was the beloved disciple he was affectionate with john but john wasn't a successor you know when you're dealing with leadership there are people you love and still can't trust anyway he loved john to be loved he let john lay on him and let john experience him but just because he loved john didn't make him the best person for the job be very careful oh of appointing people because they're faithful you can be faithfully incompetent some of my greatest problems have perfect attendance you've got to put the skill and deceit come on and find a way to get that democratic spirit out your church please be seated so he loved john he loved john he loved john i said he loved john but he didn't trust john with the responsibility of carrying the movement the one he was grooming was peter i ain't at my text the one he was raising was peter the one he was sharpening was peter and you never see where jesus kissed peter let peter lay on him it was all john john john was laid upon him but peter was always getting in trouble i'ma get to my text the bible said that every time jesus issued a rebuke it was to peter when when they came to take jesus peter got gangster pulled out his taser and he even got rebuked for doing what was natural to do because when you're next are you ready for this you can't always do what feels natural because you're next you're gonna have to do some stuff that seems unfair and seems abnormal and she's unhuman peter do you love me peter do you love me peter yes lord i'mma ride or die i'm loyal i'm witch i ain't going nowhere to west of them some wussies they're gonna run off and they're gonna leave and jesus say uh yes okay okay yeah i appreciate what you said i know you paid the pastoral tithe and i know you were part of paid and full and i know you carry my water and i i realize that you're always here but before the chicken crows you don't want to have church tonight before the month turns all of that i'm with you to the end all of that i never leave you all of it i got your back up all that i found my tribe is gonna go right on out the door you're going to deny me and it's going to be the devil that makes you do it watch me i'll show you a mystery peter and judas were both demons the bible said that jesus told peter he had the devil in them and god so and jesus told judas he had the devil enema but jesus was the devil from the beginning and peter was the devil for a moment when peter tried to stop jesus from going to the cross jesus looked at him and said satan the lord rebuked you say he called his loved one the devil because of what he saw before him when jesus confronted peter about his inconsistencies now his double tongueness his inability to regulate his emotions he told him i know what you're going to do to me pay attention but it does not matter what you're going to do because the other day when i was in the closet satan came up to me and asked me for you glory to the son of god he came up to me and said can i have peter the same way he adds job he's come up and said can i have peter and jesus only said this but he can't have you and not because you don't want him but the reason he can't have you is because i prayed for you i feel like preaching now he said you don't have the sense to pray for yourself but when i was in my closet the other day your name came up in my belly and i prayed for you so that your faith would not fail and when you're converted he told him when you get changed because i prayed go and strengthen them because it converted peter have a seat [Applause] peter was not changed by personal decision peter was not changed just by therapy and medicine peter was changed because he had a leader with a closet i wonder how many of you ain't changing cause your leader got a conference ain't got no closet the leader got a record deal and ain't got a closet everybody's selling fish dinners and having breakfast and they're doing more eating than they are praying but god's about to call some of you to the ministry of intercession right the ministry of interruption the ministry of intervention the ministry of interception scream yes so i've established that jesus loved talking about prayer he loved teaching prayer and they know this because they were traditional jews i got 20 minutes they noticed that the way you prayed wasn't like how jeremiah prayed yes lord the way you prayed wasn't like david prayed something about the way you pray it's just a little bit different and so they came to jesus the only time the only time the only time in the gospels where the disciples came and asked him to teach them anything all of their other lessons were involuntary but the one time in all synoptic gospels when the 12 came to jesus and said teach us this it was teach us to pray which means that it is possible to be bound by a spirit of ignorance and still be in prayer they realize that the way you pray is different from how we pray so teach us to do it the way that you do it give us access into how you pray teach us to pray to teach us to pray teach us to pray teach us to pray confront what i don't know about prayer reverse how i saw it done and show me how to get to god the way you apparently does and so now we land upon my texts where jesus opens up this dialogue hey this is conversation and this this this classroom called closet 101 and he comes out the bag and he's telling them i tell you what let's start with your cause and behavior with verse one the reason you don't understand the way i pray is because of one word i wanna in the book of ecclesiastes the meaning of the name ecclesiastes is the preacher in other words when you do a study of the book of ecclesiastes you find things that had to be preached to a culture that was under duress and in the middle of the book of ecclesiastes the writer says vanity vanity i'm about to preach this vanity all is vanity now you think vanity is red bottoms and you think vanity is genes and you think vanity is dressing like the war whatever the devil that is but vanity is doing stuff for amen vanity is trying to market prayer and make a business of intercession that's more vain than genes in any kind of day i'm looking in here what we've been calling vanity is cosmetics but what the bible calls vanity is the motive of a man or a woman or a movement or a place that's only perfected theatrics for y'all but they have no clause in life if i can preach to you and give you a child's sermon but then you asked me to pray for a whole hour i'm stuttering like elmer flood i believe we've got to switch the way we train preachers don't nobody care about no child sermon if you're not an intercessor if you ain't praying for me don't preach for me i don't care about how many riddles are and how many rhymes and how many things you've got to say you've got to know how to pray or you can't handle the book thank you people say pray pray pray pray pray oh yes we're in a crisis he opens this up not just with dealing with prayer he says before i get to prayer i got to deal with your vanity the only reason you give is so folk can see you you tithe in manipulation you want to be able to control a culture you want to be able to let the measly ten percent decide how much favor you gonna have with the leader it's a glorified bribe you want to get preferred seating you want to have your own security and that's why you're doing what you're doing but he says because you are a vain people and you are a vain culture you have your reward and your reward is the praise of men because you did it for them you'll be promoted by them you'll be recognized by them i will be raised up by them but when you do it for me i've got to raise you when you do it for me i've got to promote you when you do it for me i've got to keep you where i called you and men can't take it away how many of us grew up in vain cultures tongue talking fruit basket wearing vanity vanity vanity where the altar was a runway vanity it's not about people that are broken it's about people that are broken and won't say they are i want to dress up in makeup so that y'all don't judge them so what happens is you control the way i dress so that you can like me before i'm even convinced that your god is real and you pre-qualify me watch me for something you got for free so now i've got to change out here so y'all can leave me alone but on the inside i'm still dying i'm still full of wickedness i'm still unregenerated now when you make me mad i'm going to go back to who i really was because i only changed costumes and i didn't get crucified the spirit of vanity is coming out the church in jesus name shall hallelujah we need deliverance from vanity we need deliverance from from a culture that fights for status ideas and wants to play relational chess to get next to you for your opportunity to get seed and to get up there when god raises you up ain't a devil in hell that can take you down stop selling yourself out and prostituting your purpose because a men wanted to manipulate you guaranteed [Applause] this is lesson number one when you give you do it because you want them to think you're good that's why you do that so i want you to fix that they like oh wow he said i want you to learn how to give and give me plenty levels without having to be entitled to anything because you did it because real character is seen when you have to do something for people who cannot repay you [Applause] i feel you're kicking it i don't mind i said real character is seen when you have to do stuff for people that don't have the power to return the flavor [Music] they're looking and they'll be willed to pass their time they're like whoa the arms wow that's crazy and then he goes into closet character because the real truth is god is concerned about our closet character he's so concerned about how many of us have mastered public ministry and we're dying in private devotion and the real truth is because so few christians go there they can't really tell when you ain't been there how many worship leaders are struggling every sunday to try to lead people to a place that they don't go to how you gonna give me directions to a throne that you ain't been to all week that's why you're struggling it ain't the environment it's your cause and if you get your closet right i'm working it here if you get your closing together then we can use you as the map to get to the glory [Applause] says we got 16 minutes this is what i love jaylen i love when jesus says stuff like this i love when he says be ye therefore not like unto them i love the fact that he told them this is what y'all do but don't be like that now when i start talking like that you get nervous because we all desire unity and we all desire oneness but jesus said be an example of what not to be and here's how they got it wrong he said the way that they pray is with a strategy called number one vain repetition they have to use fillers because they don't know what to talk about have you ever been on a date with somebody and it was just so awkward and you talked about everything that wasn't important to you you know oh nice shoes oh nice biscuits okay when is this over that's how many of our churches treat our prayer life watch me we want to listen to a negro with a microphone for an hour and a half and approach the throne of grace for eight minutes match we open up the service like prayer is the snack but the real meal is the meat listener if you can't pray to him how are you going to speak for it or not that's why you ain't got your scripture right you ain't talking to the author we need some men who don't pray and then we did this we got smart we said maybe if i hide in my office and drink a little key and watch a little cnn and let the mother of the church lead prayer then maybe that'll help us i'm going to delegate intercession but god didn't delegate this vision right you are the chief prayer warrior i feel you're kicking out and you ain't got no business in your office talking to your golf buddies while the rest of us are wrestling on the horn of the altar i want to hear a man that's an intercessor and i'm not going to let my church play harder than me i'm gonna show you the way through the closet and then we gonna get this future he told him he told them they told them they think they'll be heard for their much speaking they just like to talk they use language and stuff that they don't even know how to define for a season everybody was declining and declaring and didn't know what the heck they was talking about what they were doing was doing what they saw but when you don't know the man it's easy to be you and i'm still struggling to find me so what i'm gonna do is do what you do the way you do it not realizing that that ain't what we do in the closet in the closet when we go before god we vote down our language we throw down our degrees i am not dr matthew stevenson when i go before the lord i ain't nothing and i get great joy out of telling him when i go on his presence father i am not enough i feel am i i am not enough and i don't ever want to come to you with my expertise hey and my experience i'ma go to you like a dummy and because i'm going to you casting my crown you're going to give me all the ones that you appointed for me we cannot go in intercession trying to impress god it's pride and when anybody goes before god threatens it he's got to crush them in the closet [Applause] they think they'd be heard for their much speaking then he says be not like the hypocrites which means that there's a lot of hypocrites praying hypocrites pray he says don't be like the hypocrites when they pray they think they'll be heard but they're not speaking but you see a lot of your problem is you try to make the instructions god gave you applicable to them and a lot of you have problems with individualized instruction i'm working in here and there are some things that god told you watch me that he ain't tell them if god deals with you about it it's not your job to deal with them about it the reason why this is hitting you in your jaw is because you still ain't resolved watch me but you've not been called to live a fair life you've not been called to the fair life been gold order you ask the now of the people around you to see if they'll do it with you or some places you've got to go back i'm working in here no i'm working in here but you when you pray don't look for a microphone glory and don't look for a book deal hallelujah don't look for a spot on tv don't look for a facebook live when you pray i want you to find you a closet and i want you to close the door behind you what i want to talk to you about is not public knowledge god is not in the business of gossiping so he don't want to share stuff with you for you to share with them he wants some one-on-one conversation and prayer is a two-way dialogue the reason why many of you are confused trying to figure out if this man is your husband and if this woman is your wife and if this church is your church you are only confused because you ain't been to the closet you see when you are in the closet the clarity and the density and the punctuality and the tenant and the tone and the makeup and the global venacity that he moves in he captivates the heart through the ear and when he talks to you you don't mistake him for nobody else [Applause] because it defuses confusion he the holy spirit is the one in the closet when i was little it used to be the boogeyman but when i got filled the holy ghost i met the holy spirit in the closet he would say come back here i've got something to tell you come back here i got something to show you but then i was confused because he would summon me back there and i would go to corporate prayer and there would be thousands of people at the midnight musicals and at the memorial day celebration and the cd release when everybody got on sequins and furs and tambourines and washboards and shades and and red bottoms and nobody was at prayer i know you're mad i don't care i i just don't understand how i went to the singles meeting and i was like okay wait a minute they were packed and got little gift bags registration packages and discounts but nope nobody was at prayer then we had the quartet era we was banjoing and slapping our thighs and singing all night but jesus to show you what a crisis this is for over two centuries jesus has been struggling to get us to pray for one hour i'm talking to you he rebuked the disciples the very last time because he went to pray and they went to sleep assembling spirit now you're on facebook longer than an hour i feel you're kicking you watch tv longer than an hour game of thrones is an hour 30 yeah if you watch scandal that's longer than that if you can binge watch the devil why can't you seek hard after god you're going crazy in your soul cause you've not learned to seek him but somebody is not being called to the pulpit most of us are called to the [Applause] [Music] clock closet your prayer life needs deliverance you need to repent if you spend more time talking to them and not him your thumbs have a devil you wake up and something says scroll scroll scroll when you ought to say seek seek seek david said when you said seek my face you don't want to talk to me before i talk to him prayer is better than coffee it's better than riddling up it's better than tyler and all i've got to get my attitude right but i'ma snap somebody i got to roll out the bed and cry out god daniel daniel knew daniel knew a closet behavior he knew closet behavior and and it locked the mouths of lions elijah knew clause's behavior and he had the power to shut the heavens and open them he didn't tell ahab it's going to rain when god say he said before the lord who i stand because intercessors are never just standing in front of you if you are a real intercessor you are always walking in three worlds what you say heaven hears what you see the earth is but you better believe hell is listening to every real intercessor i don't know why you're so busy to want to be a pastor you might want to put on the mantle of intercessor i don't know why you so hurry up to be an apostle you might want to hurry up and grab the horns of the altar and learn how to pray it's prayer it's prayer it's prayer god has grieved he looks at our musicals and conferences and he's like can i please get involved somehow [Music] we have prayer breakfasts with more biscuits than binding and loosing it and they're coming to bring you the sausage and nobody's seeking you to seek him they're not teaching you how to find a vein in prayer how to know the languages of prayer how to go into cycles of prayer how to get the spirit of prayer many of our churches are dying in new york and chicago because the leaders have no burden for prayer this is more than a logo it's a closet it's more than a marketing strategy it's a closet it's more than an executive strategist what we do is we go in the closet and dump our mind for his dump our approach and he begins to tell us everything we need to know and that gives us the cutting edge you can't have the cutting edge with a closed closet [Applause] the devil the devil about two decades ago said i know what i'll do i will castrate the intercessor i would like women after the order of hannah and rachel continued to cry but if a man is called to pray i'll make them preach i will make them force collars around their neck and i will make sure they have no fathers i will allow the old women in the church no disrespect to father young men who are called to pray and not that it's bad or wrong but now we've got a generation of men without identity who have been called to pray but their only example is old women so they act like them i feel you're kicking it i don't care what we need are some abrahams what we need are some elijahs little say come here son and get next to me this is how you find a wife this is how you find a career this is how you get the anointing this is where your manuscript started this is where your copyright starter this is how you birth your children this is how you secure the bag you can do more on your knees than you can in that office shall hallelujah i don't know nobody who can say my daddy taught me to pray i don't know nobody who says my father would wake me up and seek god all they say is i had a prayer and grandmama but where was her granddaddy why was he somewhere drunk and high and hoeing around it was because he didn't have a closet if men have clauses their sexual character is regulated you can't sleep with who you want to when you've got a real sick i'm working in here you can't be sleeping with your brother allowing the devil to run his life there if you got a real closet there is accountability behind that [Applause] jesus told him i want you to find your way back here and i want you to pray like this our father i feel the smoke coming in heaven i want you to reassituate that he gives him a template to pray and then he deals with them about fasting he deals with them about fasting he deals with them about fasting and that is a cuss word in the church we're not fasting no more there's something for senior citizens apparently we don't fast anymore we fundraise we don't fast anymore we go and lie and cheat and steal but when a man finds his way to fasting he is moved into a realm of meekness he has moved into a realm of complete dependency and you got to be careful with a lot of our self-help coaches and and joy experts they're teaching us to rely on ourselves but it's not until you fast that you realize even on my best day i don't have the strength of this assignment even when i'm feeling my absolute best this strength is not going to be my own i've got to empty myself grab somebody say it's time to empty yourself come on say it like you mean to say it's time to empty yourself maybe the reason you depress is that you're full of yourself maybe the reason you got anxiety is because you spent all day thinking about you but when you turn that plate over and you tell your belly you are not my god isaiah said is this not the past that i've chosen to break the bands of wickedness and to undo the heavy burden this kind is not coming out by a conference and a tape this time is not coming out by some oil on your head this kind goes out only to the glory of god to the glory of god my wife and i have seen thousands of people set free from crack cocaine and meth and ecstasy and peels and marijuana homosexuality and lesbianism perversion strip and prostitute we have seen real deliverances but it's not because we hated them and bullied them and judged them and told them they weren't welcome here it was because we taught them to fast if you got a lust issue you got a fasting issue you can look in the mirror all you want like the little engine that could i think i can i think i can all you need is the right pecs and the right thighs and you're going to be on your back again it's not until you train your body that you don't run me i run you and you can say in romans 12 yes my mind is telling me no and my body is telling me yes but my spirit is surrendered my mind is made up and i'm going to be tempted and not trapped i'ma look it and not go after it because my devotion is much bigger than the burning in my nimbus i got a fasting life a fasting life [Applause] it's fasting and prayer that puts weight behind the word my job is to preach jesus and then jesus changes you i don't have the right to be impatient with you not changing folks to be looking different shut up i can tell you haven't been in the closet because your character is not like christ who stands over prostitutes in the midst of the i can say don't man one of you touch her that's that's the character of a man in the closet the problem with america is that everybody wants to be great and nobody wants to get low everybody's grinding and nobody's seeking men are teaching us what color shirts to wear and how to kiss rings and all of that stuff and nobody's saying i'ma show you how to seek god i want you to come i'm literally mean come by me my wife one of the reasons that make her so wonderful to me is that she was raised by a woman who didn't mentor her from the pulpit because we think we raise sons with microphones dysfunctional approach to ministry if i preach to you that makes you my kid no i have no investment in your life we don't go to dinner i met my wife had a real a real woman that would literally say meet me every morning at eight i want you to do this for a year and even if you don't know what to do you're gonna watch me do it and she would seek god for hours if i met my wife the reason she could be celibate in the way she was is because she would lose time in prayer she would forget what time it is she would go in and empty her desires to god and empty her wants to god and many of us are afraid to do that because the truth is we're not as surrendered as what we think we're still kind of flirting with him and we're scared that if we commit to the closet he's going to ask for the rest because you're not going to be able to go in the closet and talk around his last instructions to you you're not going to be able to go to the closet and talk about what they did to you before you repent about how you reacted to it so many christians are bowing unforgiveness because they abandon the closet jesus said if you got something between you and your brother don't talk to me first talk to him get out of me because i only answer that that looks like me when you come to me in unforgiveness you look like him so i can't hear you the one time jesus tore up a church y'all would have put him out said he had a demon you to call the men in black to arrest him because he walked in the temple and turned the pews over get this book out of here get this conference out of here throw these dumb shirts away it is written my house my house that's the problem the church like the church because it ain't his house no more this is not the place for your brand this is a house of prayer my house my house my house will be called the house of prayer it's prayer it's prayer it's prayer god god is calling so many people into ministry but it's not the one you think he's looking for prophetic intercessors and apostolic intercessors those of you that are counselors or psychologists be encouraged you are an intercessor you've been called to the in between life i believe there are people whose whole destiny is to cry out to god on the behalf of the guilty that's the whole justice behind intercession and intercessor does not work to prove your guilt they are aware of it but that justifies why you need an intermediary somebody to stand in front of the judgment of god in you somebody to cry out on the behalf of your ignorance and say spare them we need intercessors we need intercessors i'll close with this thought there is only one thing that the bible says jesus is still doing he's not preaching no more he assigned the spirit of god to earth so he ain't got to teach no more the holy ghost does that whoo he never moves when people say there was a move of god what you really mean is his word moved because he's seated and he does not move his word is mobile but he's only he's seated but he's not twiddling his thumbs according to hebrews the bible says he is forever listen was a stopping point our christianity has made the cross the goal this is the end but it was what he did after the cross that enabled me and you to get there see we can't get to the cross because he went there we can get to the cross because of what he did after he left the cross what he did after he shed his flesh was he sat down and hebrew says he is forever seated to make intercession he is our eternal intercessor we want pretty ministry we don't want private ministry when you see the favor of god on the life of a man or a woman of god if they didn't sleep their way to it they prayed their way into it because the bible says the one who sees in secret he rewards the way the public reward his private prayer and when you first start praying you're not gonna want to it's like any regimen but you've got to let your body know you're in control if you can control your body and prayer there is not any temptation that will take you ever prayer is training for the human anatomy when you start to do in prayer what you want to do when you're in your flesh you're practicing for temptation temptation is not the heritage of the wicked temptation is a sign to the righteous you are tempted not because of what you do wrong the devil does not tempt the people he has if you are trying to come out of anything and something walks up on you to see if it's still in there that's a sign that you are not who you used to be if temptation is for the wicked then jesus wouldn't have been tempted for 40 days you are tempted because you're already out you just got to pray to stay up i've seen men of god die prematurely not because they weren't called but because they didn't have intercessors they spent more time investing in deacons to count money and not teaching young men and women to pray i've seen churches split because the musicians were pedophiles or the directors were raping the women or whatever and the reason they couldn't see it is because they were not seekers so they used men to build platform and they didn't pry because when you establish prayer in a place it becomes the surveillance of the spirit of god i'm a man there's nothing special about me but i've got a powerful prayer life and from that prayer life the secret of the lord is with them that fear him so because i move my heart and my mind before the lord he starts to talk she does this he's doing that and i'm not caught off guard because prayer prepares even if he don't show you what's coming he will make you ready for it there is a fresh rebuke coming out in america because a lot of people realize that prayer don't get you a lot of applause so they abandoned the ministry of intercession for something a bit more attractive god is looking by the holy ghost around the world to a bunch of empty closets it's sad the scripture says i god all seeing all-knowing god this is what he said to the prophet have you ever really thought about this i sought for a man first of all what does that communicate that a god who sees everything had to look for somebody i was looking my elohim was looking for a man to stand in the gap and make up the heads and i found none everybody was too busy to pray they had too many demands to pray they pride themselves on making it to heaven by their grandmother's prayers but i don't know them you can't inherit interest to heaven it's not vicarious you've got to have an individual prayer life and then those of you that are called to intercession god has burned your lips you are an intercessor you are an interrupter an intervener a watchman a see you're a dreamer you i i put my emergencies on you when i have a case that i don't trust many people with i look for the ears of an intercessor pastor todd there are some artists that don't realize the reason they can't write new music is because they abandoned their real mantle i believe in singing intercessors david was a man that would sing his supplication to god and god would answer them there was prayer and saw mystery and mixed together to be the offering of god the incense of god there are some beautiful auditoriums around america that stink in heaven because there's a scent of everything but prayer points to prove debates to be had holding the ear no prayer i wonder i wonder what we could do in new york in chicago in america thousands of us even if for an hour just met for a month to pray no agenda no title just a smoke and a siege just people that come in and say i'm not enough [Music] i'm not enough but i'm here before you i mean priests who don't like to brag to people about praying for them [Music] but prayer when you become that type of a person things change in your life your discernment sharpens you don't live your life in paranoia in fear you have a rock a fortress and you pray you pray that's what god wants he wants to do something literally in your personal prayer life you know what you need is a personal pentecost the fire of god to hit you and sam i would ask the lord to baptize me in prayer and i would be in barbecue restaurants gas stations that something would start happening to me and i would weed the church told me that was softened with sissies and men don't cry toughen up but i couldn't stop i would i'll be at the register like god can i have more here please just more i developed an appetite that became the source of the anointing and now that same feeling comes on me but now when it comes on me it's for whoever is in front of me you see the holy spirit within me is for me but when it comes on me it's for you and when you begin to move in that place of prayer there is a sensitivity you develop to the crisis around you you can be on the street and something will cry out from the water saying there's a child there or there's suicide there and you don't have to be a prophet or a seer all you got to do is be an instigator of the will of god a perpetrator of the plan of god many of you have talked to your friends and your family [Music] i don't know about you but i've discerned a very high level of anxiety in america satan sent a spirit of insanity to america this last year and men everywhere are losing literally like they're nervous they can't sleep and much of the anxiety is over the future it's about what i'm going to do with my plan my 401k but the bible says very simple huh the bible says be anxious for nothing but that's not a personal decision you don't just wake up and say i'm not anxious anymore that nervous system of yours knows that you've been meditating on terror meditating on fear the next verse says but everything by prayer which means that the only thing more powerful than anxiety is prayer you need an intercessor you need an intercessor some of you are in the midst of making personal decisions that you don't feel strong enough to make and what an intercessor does is allows you the room for a weakness some of you can't afford to fall because you have no intercessors many visionaries you've done everything you planned but you planned more than you prayed you can't plan more than you pray you have to pray more than you plan and the plans are on the backdrop of prayer and if any one of you shall agree as in touching and anything you ask me in my name it will be done we were reading so fast that we missed this jesus said and you will have what you say that's what happens that is a heritage of those that don't go awol from the closet i can have what i say because i pray it's a scary scripture the lord will give you the desires of your heart and i used to brag about that i didn't realize that the verse before that says if you delight in him because the desires of my heart and your heart is not always good i wanted some stuff and many of you do don't lie i wanted some stuff that wanted to kill me i wanted stuff that wasn't good for me i just wanted it and i would say god you said you would give me the desires of my heart he was are you sure but in the closet you take on his heart and then he can trust you with your desire because your desire is him he literally told abram i'm going to give them this is what i'm talking about i'm going to give the nations a portion judah will get this leave i will get this but i am your exceeding reward see when god says to you i am your reward that it means you got access to everything he is and everything is possible to the man the woman the boy the girl the church whose portion is the lord's intercessors are under attack right now and there is no space for them to grow or develop we bring them into environments and say come on moan and then they go in the flesh and make a bunch of noises that they don't know what it means and they're not doing anything in the spirit we got to use birth analogies because we know nothing else about the way to pray and then we're praying our desire and not the scriptures you should be able to open up the scriptures and pray back the promises of god because in warfare your words don't count these does place scriptures over your life place scriptures on your children play scriptures and he has to do it because he said it [Music] woman your husband not changing he's not growing he's still bound by the devil what has your nagging ever done what have you ever achieved by continuing to speak to what's wrong with him if the believing wife i said if the believing wife this is the bible cries out on the behalf of the unbelieving husband the bible said the husband is sanctified by the prayer of a believing wife i can prove that you don't pray because you nag [Music] nagging is the response of a woman unheard but if you were an intercessor you would have rented already to god lord you sent him to me but deal with him before i kill him somewhere in there you got to have a purpose you got to have a plan and then you deal with the devil until this man's heart responds to god you need to be rebuked for honoring your bishop and dishonoring your husband you need to be called to the counter about showing up on time to church because red said so and you lay in the bad chambers in your house you're out of order you're an intercessor you don't use sex to manipulate your husband it's witchcraft [Music] but the problem is prayer a few years ago when i was getting used to betrayal i experienced a season of back to back betrayals got mad i was hurt first then got mad i immediately wanted to mike tyson everybody's ear clean off just move off you don't need this anymore started to turn into bitterness one day i went to pray and i said lord thank you for the favor the kairos fresh wind coming on this and he said hey for you it's almost like the holy spirit said hold please for the next 21 days true story you won't talk to me about you your church your wife your money i want to hear it my flesh was like i gotta pray but i know what you need before you ask that's what jesus said your assignment for 21 days you will become the personal intercessor for these boys that have hurt you you know what i said with my prophetic samuel like self i said satan the lord rebuked you the blood of jesus is against you i covered the blood over my mind you will not uh double-minded man hot tub unstable i bind you [Music] donai didn't go nowhere he said for 21 days you will you will by name become the personal intercessor but god had heard i understand what you're saying you will pray for them day one i went into prayer i thank you mercies are new every morning thank you for last night's going down and waking up oh yeah them boys lord just you know i i want the best for them cover them amen day five i wisened up like okay this is not so day five i said i thought maybe i should start with tongues maybe that's a little bad the bible said we know not how the prayers we all so i'mma pray in the spirit for you i said okay i'll call your full name blank like he said i'm not praying for them you are [Applause] come out of tongues because you listen you weren't angry in tongues you run bitter in tongues you gonna say this in english father i pray for their peace their sanity their safety do something new for him and you it's 909 it took 20 days for me to journey out of myself and my hypocrisy because when you're dealing with unforgiveness you think that just because you're the victim in this case that you weren't the victimizer in another and you forget that all flesh is like grass before him and without the grace of god you would be just like the people that wounded you [Applause] i'll never forget by day 20 i was in full tears for hours and i begin to cry out about their destiny and cry out about their fear i begin to bind repercussions i begin to come against sickness and disease i found myself laboring for their grandchildren and praying that no evil would ever come nigh them i found myself like moses in the middle of a people and their god saying god if you judge them it'll bring a dishonor to your name don't let them have a consequence because you've still got a purpose and instantly the yoke of unforgiveness i didn't know that god was getting me delivered by using intercession as the instrument of my deliverance you cannot pray for people and be mad at them you dealing with unforgiveness you've got to become an intercessor and it's going to be a while but once you come from out of that trauma and you begin to really allow the spirit of prayer to arrest you god is using that moment to reset you psychologically and then you'll realize everything looks different from up here in the grand scheme of things it was just a rumor i knew it felt heavy but because i've ascended in the place of prayer i don't feel what you did i feel bad for you for doing what you did because it's beneath even you but i'm an intercessor so i carry the nature of jesus father i'm praying for every awol intercessor i'm praying for every psalmist that loves to sing and not seek i'm praying for every preacher that loves to preach and not pray that likes to study and not fast lord will you do something among these people right now where you will immerse them in a powerful spirit of prayer a new agony to come upon them and not from pain but from the pressures of prayer begin to raise up intercessors in new york city those that will begin to be posted on every side of this city to cry out concerning the purpose of god for her begin to break the spirit of prayerlessness off of every church raised up in this area and convict them spirit of god concerning prayer lord let there be a new stamina a new energy a new density a brand new language in our mouths as we seek you in prayer and lord every intercessor under the sound of my voice that's been in a crisis because they've not wanted to say yes to the call to prayer begin to revitalize them begin to get a hold of them grab them by their lost like you did ezekiel and show them the lanes of the temple and why they must pray lord those that need courage and those that need bravery to begin to wrestle in prayer again visit them spirit of god and help them to see that it's only by prayer that they're going to begin to see the future lord those that feel like they're so condemned and so far behind you're no longer listening to them break the power of condemnation break the power of guilt and shame break the yoke of embarrassment and help them to know that they don't have to come before the throne of grace and embarrass but that they can come before the throne of grace to obtain help in the time of need lord i'm praying for the intercessors i'm crying out for the intercessors lord we need them right now america needs them the world needs them the loss needs them the laborers out there let that same anointing that was on the midwives of israel come upon those of us that have been called to wait upon you and help us to pray like elijah to pray like daniel to pray like paul when nobody's looking we'll go to the closet when nobody's seating we'll go to the closet and we will seek you [Music] you promise that if we seek you we would find you just lift your hands for a minute we're done let the minstrels lift that up i i don't have to i don't have to touch anybody in the room i think something's coming on you to pray i think something's coming on you to pray [Music] seeking knocking asking some of you have been called to ask it's 9 15 i'll give you to 9 17 to cry out to god about your prayer life lift up this sound over the room and begin to ask the lord to do something i want you to get desperate real quick come on lift it up all over this building father visit me in the place of prayer come on make a fresh commitment everything on the altar that doesn't belong there i read come up a new altar a brand new altar a great new altar i pray i'll seek you i spent quality time before you jesus let the rivers return like the scripture has said out of your palate out of your prayers families that place of elijah [Music] you

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Length: 79min 47sec (4787 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 24 2021