Session Eight | M.E.A.T. Houston 2021

praise god we need to pray a little longer could we do that there's two types of fatigue that sets in in a meeting like this first is the physical fatigue because you know sessions are a little longer than what we are typically used to and then the second thing is when you're dealing with stuff that is so heavy to the human emotions uh it produces a uh a tiredness now you've heard me say this in the past um these meetings are at their most effective when you get tired because uh physically rested people want to fuss with everything you say in their minds they went well what about this what about that so when you quit arguing then we can bypass having to talk to your brain talk straight to your spirit that's not weird or whatever that's just exactly what it is so we're not praying against the the uh fatigue as we're praying to get over our coddling of it is that too strong you know i'm sure that all of us have been in situations where we were tired and yet we had things we had to do and so we just pressed past that and did it well if we can do that for natural situations we sure can do that spiritually okay we need to pray let's just specifically specifically uh let's just specifically ask god to give us by his grace a focus and an attention on what he he's wanting to do and say here tonight um some of this will be new tonight some of it will not be new at all but all of it is are things that god is wanting to say to us in this time right now and we need to be able to receive it thank you father thank you father in the name of the lord jesus christ i speak the spirit of grace upon us to empower us and enable us to receive from you tonight father that we might present our bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto you which is our reasonable service that we would not be remain who is what we are but that you would conform us into your image not just in your likeness but in your image in jesus name in the name of the lord jesus christ [Music] in the name of the lord jesus christ in the name of the lord jesus christ in the name of the lord jesus christ in the name of jesus in the name of jesus christ hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah praise god praise god praise god i have as some of you heard me say i've my mother was attending united pentecostal church when i was born i was born on a monday and was in my first church services on sunday that's the way they did it way back then it's like my youngest granddaughter who's 10 said to me the other day at the house dad what was it like in the old days the olden days you mean like 15 years ago or 50 years ago olden days i guess it is pretty old when you can remember the first car your dad had with power windows and air conditioning right and uh i remember the first i was a junior in high school when he got his first automatic transmission car maybe you're not old enough to remember those things some of you are not old enough to remember that uh not every word carried a cell phone in their pocket that's the olden days like 20 years ago the olden days i remember the first the first mobile phone that i got for a car it looked like a phone on a little stand in the middle of the console with a big box under the front seat but to be able to call my wife and let her know i'm running behind was just like a miracle you know it was just amazing to do that back in the olden days right but i can remember that people have always been people i had my first uh supernatural experience around the age of six i think it was my dad was away in the korean war and my mother was letting my brother who's two and a half years younger than me and i'd sleep in the bed with her sometime and i had a dream a very very dream that i could see this moment the church in pensacola was built so close to the road there was nothing separating the front door in the street but a sidewalk about ten feet wide one thousand north base boulevard and uh in this dream i was not a part of the dream i was an observer of the event and the entire church was on the sidewalk and the rapture took place and only about half the church went and the other half was left behind standing on the sidewalk and the dream woke me up and i described it to my mother and in the dream awake i named the people who were still on the sidewalk i'm six i don't know what that's really all about but to my knowledge not one of those people died saved but my very first supernatural experience made it very clear to me that not everybody that named the name of christ was going to go to heaven i didn't at six i didn't have any reason to have a problem with those people i knew who they were i didn't necessarily have a relationship with them but i knew i could name everybody that stayed behind and it was a shock to me when the lord began to reveal to me that going to every church service and paying your tithes faithfully and living a separated life and obeying everything the pastor said was not enough to get you to heaven that that was a lie it was a shock to me because that's what i had been led to believe all my life growing up in the church that once you're born again if you'll just come to every church service and live a separated life and pay all your tithes and obey the pastor that you'd be saved and it is a lie because we have a problem the book and the book is very clear that that's called religion even if it does just because we believe true doctrine doesn't make what we're doing not religion excuse it was that triple negative okay we have the truth but that doesn't validate all of our practices that doesn't mean everything we do is okay because we have the truth what it does is actually condemn us because it means if we receive that much truth from god if in fact we receive that from god and not just a man that doesn't validate everything we do in fact there's a brother sitting here he and i had a conversation a couple of years ago about a man who had been a very conservative holiness preacher who suddenly just changed it all and they were friends and so the brother sitting here asked me what causes a man to do that and he said i said well did you talk to you what did he say he said that he just decided he didn't believe what the elders taught anymore and i said he just told you what the problem is he did yeah he just told you that everything he preached all those years was what others had taught him it had never become his was not his revelation was not his doctrine it was not his holiness standards of separation we weren't his he preached them like they were his he enforced them like they were his but he never believed them he was only practicing what he had been taught he never bothered to make it his and yet he was very prominent most of you would know his name if i brought it up which i will not do very prominent very well known preached a lot of meetings and yet he was preaching somebody else's doctor when his doctrine someone said to you again just because you believe acts 2 38 one god doesn't mean that you're not religious and i i'm not trying to be critical i i i have a united i started to say in my wallet my pocket but i don't it's that briefcase over there i've got a united pentecostal church fellowship card and by the grace of god expect to have one the rest of my life i've been a district superintendent four year 14 years i'm going out by my choice in april not my choice but the lord's direction but it'll be on his terms and not man's terms and i'm very much at peace with that it's time for me to do something else but i'm not doing that because i'm i i love my brethren i love the district and i i appreciate every year i've been able to serve and all the cooperation and fellowship we've had god's done some wonderful things i'm not being critical but i'm telling you right now what covett has proven to you what prove covet has proven to anyone that's paying attention is that a lot of people who claim to be saved art i'm not going to talk about it tonight because the heaviest loads coming tomorrow but not in a bad way i don't think it's just there are some very specific things god has given me tomorrow and he's going to approach it tomorrow but in a different way than i think i've ever approached it before or he's ever approached it through me before but but actually tonight is standalone but at the same time it's laying a foundation for what he wants to say tomorrow because it's very very critical for where we are and where we're going i said it today and i want to say it again to you that list of works of the flesh are not that's not a list of don'ts and that list of gifts of the spirit is not a list of do's it's they're called the fruit of the spirit for a reason flesh man humanity self-effort cannot produce any of those things there not in a way or a manner that is acceptable to god they have to be produced by the spirit they're not produced by effort they're produced by yieldedness submission and the and the works of the flesh are not a bunch of things that you well don't do this this this this no if i'm doing those things that's an indicator that i have other problems those are only symptoms they're not the problem they're not the problem but we we all know we if you've been in the ministry long enough you've you've found yourself in a place of doing it where you get up and tell people all the stuff they should be doing all the stuff they shouldn't be doing is that wrong not in a literal sense it's not but when you deal with the symptom rather than the problem you're not getting anything accomplished you're not just for instance is the real issue whether or not a person a woman trims their hair or god doesn't keep his hair cut short enough or whether or not someone is wearing uh their skirt or whatever sleeves or whatever long enough or you know is that the issue is that the issue or is the real issue who owns them that's the issue who owns me and we prove very easily who owns us i like i want i will i i i i and and i i understand that true submission well let me back up here a minute it's i'm not going to avoid what the bible says in order to be culturally overly sensitive okay you and i were slaves to sin we were owned by sin the book teaches that salvation is not the lord setting me free from sin to do my own thing the good master purchased me from sin from the bad master you may not like that you may not like that concept and in america nobody likes that concept naturally culturally i agree with that but spiritually i have not been saved to now run my own life i was not bought from slavery to sin to now be free to run my own life i can do that but it makes me a thief because i'm now stealing what belongs to him the bible made it very clear i don't own me now i've got to admit to you and 75 years of hanging around the church that is not the concept of the great great great majority of people that will be in service this sunday even in apostolic services the idea that we don't own us that god owns us because he bought us with a price we are not our own the word of god says that very specifically we have been bought with a price we are not our own well i can see you're not running downs over that here's another way we prove ownership i've got bills to pay how many of you have bills to pay okay here's your problem because if i don't own me i don't have any bills they all belong to the master don't they hello i didn't trick you i proved the point because every moment jesus said it in much very fundamental principle jesus if the principle was very fundamental he said don't even pray for food don't pray for clothing your father your father knows what you have need of even before you ask it brother shelton said i think it was last night we spend so much time praying for things he's already promised to take care of when we pray those things no matter how spiritual it sounds what we're actually doing is declaring number one we own us and number two we don't have a father one or the other of those would be terrible both of them they're crippling they're crippling and can i say they're not only crippling but they're also so undermined the foundation of scriptural principle of what being a child of god a servant of god is all about didn't paul say it this way when we were children we were under tutors masters and if you've studied this much you know that adoption of the scripture is not necessarily taking an orphan and making them a child with a family but it was a a legal term that in many cases it was a legal term where a a biological child was trained in the father's business by his uh his uh stewards and while they're being trained they don't differ anything from being a servant even though they're a son but when they reach the certain place that the steward says to the father they are ready they're adopted meaning they're given full authority as if they're the father and we prove it i'll try not to sprinkle you biscuit and style this is the average pentecostal praying oh jesus my brother is sick and he needs to be healed oh jesus jesus please heal my brother oh jesus heal my brother and jesus heal my brother we're asking you we're asking you lord to heal this birth we're asking you lord plea please heal this person could you show me one time where peter or the apostles ever prayed like that ever one time not one time not one time not one time have you ever read what he said to the 12 in matthew 10 or in luke 9. well that was to the 12. then what about what he said essentially the same things to the 70 in luke 10. he told them you go heal the sick you cast out devils he didn't mean that they did it themselves he meant i've given you the authority go act like you've got it and you do it the things we do that are so culturally normal to us are evidences of our absolute lack of biblical understanding is it amazing that according to jesus it is as important to know what not to pray for as a child of god as it is no to know what to pray for because if i'm praying for things he told me i didn't need to pray for it's insulting it's just like when he said don't use vain repetition why did he say don't use vain repetition because that's the way the followers of idols prayed to the idol they had phrases and and mantras that they repeated to idols and the principle was that if you say enough words that hopefully your god would hear you and when we pray to the living god in the same manner principle wise as the as the idol worshipers did to their gods it is highly insulting to the one who not only fills all time and space but all time and space is in him yes god's in the universe but the universe is in him we're going to talk to him like he's a dumb idol hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus jesus i don't have a clue what to say i don't have any faith to pray so i've been told i need to pray so i'm just oh this is hard in it this is kind of rough in it uh i'm so i've been told i need to pray so i'm going to spill spence fill up this time just using my cultural words to just just fill it up and then i'm going to call it prayer and i get that task done and i can go on about my life and day and it's never cost me a thing just an hour to make sure i'm still saved so i can check off for today pray brother right you can't talk to the church like that some of them will leave they're not here the removal of a body where the person is missing is not them leaving the church they never came to church but what do we do let me stop here a minute i am saying this to you very carefully i want everybody to listen to me right now no phone no ipad no looking at your notes you're taking listen to me right now i'm telling you this in the holy ghost you hear me you don't have to believe me but you're going to find out this is true during covet we streamed everything live on facebook just put it out there for anybody wanted to watch it listen to it good bible says to be wise that serpent harmless doves and we're going to find out here in the near future while we might have gotten away with it up to now that that's dumb and all you have to do is go back to mac mark matthew mark luke and john and identify before you read what jesus said identify the scene and the audience that jesus was talking to and you'll find that he was very careful what he said to specific audiences and when you're streaming something that anybody in his brother can watch no matter what they think of all of this then just be prepared for whatever comes against you because you invited it i have prayed this many many times over the years and this last year with all the streaming i've done and some would say screaming i've done i've prayed this every day father i am willing to suffer anything for what you say i'm not willing to suffer anything for what i want to say now it goes a little bit farther you tell me to put this on facebook so anybody and his brother can watch it fine but if i'm not supposed to make this a general audience thing not doing it and there are other ways youtube is a more limited audience in facebook people can come across your stuff accidentally and that's good if you're preaching good news but if you're coming down on your church about a bunch of people that live that perverted lifestyle and blah blah blah blah blah blah is that not true yeah it's true tell me where jesus did that you don't think there were people living perverted lifestyle jesus day he needs we need to take a stand yeah yeah but you know what the stand is going to be it's coming very rapidly that just believing the bible makes you a person of hate now i'm not a fisherman but if you want to keep casting that bait out there taking your stand don't be upset when you catch something because we all know that that lifestyle's not the problem it's what's going on in here that's the problem and that's that is that's like somebody going to the doctor with an impacted wisdom tooth and he says okay i'll take care of that they cut your head off got rid of that and with that been pointing you won't have any more problem with that wisdom tooth you're laughing but it's absolutely how we deal with stuff yeah oh i got an infected toenail no problem let's saw that leg off right below the hip you won't have another infected toenail the rest of your life oh by the way we're going to do that without anesthesia and here's some needle and thread sew yourself back up because we're going to send you home bleeding i'll tell you what you do show me one time in the bible where jesus said to the crowd if any man would be my disciple let him and i himself take up his cross upon me he said that to the cold group some of you've heard this but i need to say it again now jesus had four distinct ministries he never confused the four he had the ministry to the crowd to the crowd he preached good news and he worked miracles to confirm who he was and that he was able to affect their lives he told stories he didn't explain he sent them home the hungry didn't go home they stayed around and asked what do the stories mean the explanation of the stories call for commitment at understanding what the price of the commitment was some of the hungry who wanted to know what the story meant were not willing to pay the price of commitment and they went home and to that third group the ones that were hungry enough to stay and hear what this the explanation of the story was who then also did not flee because of the price of the commitment to them he taught discipleship he didn't try to disciple the crowd i did that for 35 years ignorantly because i had the same affliction most most pastors i know still have we want everybody to and how many churches have stopped sunday night service because their sunday night crowd was smaller i don't mean to be offensive but i'm trying to make a point duh well we can't get everybody there on sunday night right right that's the idea it's a different ministry to the smaller group why is it all the three of our services look exactly the same why do we feel the necessity to do our same liturgy over and over again regardless of the crowd when are we going to be spiritually discerning of the groups that we're ministering to in our church's ministry and let the holy ghost tailor the ministry to the group when are we going to do that and there's some of you sitting here you've heard me talk like this here and you want to go to talk to your sunday morning crowd like this i obviously have not communicated very well don't you don't go to a sunday morning crowd and talk to people like this you don't do that you don't brow people browbeat people into commitment blessed are they that are which do hunger and thirst after righteousness hunger and thirst is a blessing it's not something i create it's something god offers to me that i receive i was in uh with some brother sitting here i was in singapore in march of 2011 and uh it was amazing amazing meeting it was one it was the first spiritual warfare thing that i'd ever really been involved in on that scale and uh so at the end of we we got home after that and it's sunday night last sunday night of march 2011 and the pastor said to me bishop you want to come up and say something well don't take what i'm about to say negatively because it's not at all he doesn't normally do that if if my wife and i are present in the service in any of the congregations we have they would say it's good to have the bishop here tonight they know that if i've got something to say i have the authority and the right to say to them i'd like to say something just the other day i contacted just two days ago i contacted two of the uh the congregational pastor said i will be here on that date for this service yes sir i got that authority you i ask them not so much but this night the pastor says to me bishop you have something to say i when i got out of my seat my intent was to do nothing but greet them and thank them for the prayer they had significant prayer they'd put in for that meeting and what god did in that meeting that was my intention when i got out of the seat but in the about 10 steps from my seat 10 or 12 steps from my seat to the pulpit about halfway there i heard this love everybody lead the hungry and it was a flash of revelatory understanding that changed my whole understanding of the whole approach as a pastor because in that moment i saw that my problem was i was trying to lead people that weren't hungry enough to follow and so therefore thinking my role was to coerce them force them pressure them in to follow when they weren't hungry enough to follow because i'm the shepherd all that time i spent on people that weren't hungry i wasn't leading the hungry you can't do both simultaneously and so by the time i got to the pulpit i went i started like this i just had a revelation i have preached unity in this church for 35 whatever it would be at that time 41 years but from night this night forward i will not be preaching we will not be preaching unity in this church we're going to have a distinct division the division is going to be between the hungry and the non-hungry from this night forward we will go we'll love everybody we are going to love everybody that walks in this building we will treat everybody equal when it comes to love but we're not going to lead those that aren't hungry anymore from this night forward we're going to focus our leadership on the hungry before i knew what happened people all over that building began to stand and worship god i was kind of taken aback by it the hungry were so starving because they were being neglected what i tried to get the recalcitra recalcitrant is that it recalculated recalcite children i don't even use that word where'd that come from holy ghost he loves to keep him up by giving by giving me words i can't pronounce trying to get the ornery children difficult to deal with children in line that they were being neglected and the good news for them was we're finally going to be fed and led well it didn't stop it just kept going and kept going and they and more began to join in and god began to move in such a way so what i said was then well folks it looks like this is what the lord's gonna do here tonight so if uh if if you need to leave you're welcome to go two or three got up and left it kept going it's a little while longer i mean they kept worshiping and they're worshiping it works but nobody's on the organ or the piano nobody's got a pulpit said come on let's clap our hands they're just worshiping god it's just gold and going and i said it's really okay it's no problem if you need to go go ahead because this is this is all we're going to do tonight you were just going to let what enter you know and a few more left and some that i knew weren't hungry just kept sitting around watching well we're the salt of the earth you hang around salt very long what's that going to do to you it's going to make you thirsty and it was amazing to watch because i began to watch people that hadn't moved in i don't know when and you couldn't get them to move with the word you couldn't go to get them to move with a good song but because their brothers and sisters who were hungry were rejoicing over the fact that they now were going to be led they began to involve themselves they began to pray people got out of their seat started coming down the front on their own worshiping and praying and what el whatever church service started at six i probably got up to greet the crowd about 6 30 6 40 somewhere in there 11 pm i thought you know they're gonna be fine i just traveled from halfway around the world so i was tired so about 11 little after 11 i went home they were still going the lord said here is not here's the punctuation mark after that revelation it's not a comma it's not a dash it's not a period it's not a question mark it's about three exclamation points the people gave the punctuation mark to the declaration of the revelation well what if i've only got a handful of hungry it's not about how many it is when you involve people in your leadership of the hungry that aren't hungry you have to adjust what you're doing to try to get them on board you know now the creator is he's pretty smart you know and he made us humans certain ways and he created us with all different ways to motivate us and the very people that i couldn't drive them to do that sat around and watched what was going on said you know if we're going to be just loved and not led i don't know if i want to be left out of this and they got themselves involved oh this is introduction i haven't got to the message yet i don't mean that sarcastically because here's the problem it was back in the uh early 80s brother urshan had a his initial effort was called quest i i i was involved with a later element of that called global conquest well i was a i was a the district quest coordinator or leader or whatever that was and then but quest was reaching or searching seeking for revival and how to have revival in the united pentecostal church that was brother urson's burden and uh they had a regional quest meeting in boston massachusetts and our superintendent and i we went up together to that meeting they wanted the superintendent and the quest coordinator up there and i was up there and this is so vivid in my mind i remember brother jt pew in the early 80s saying there are too many preachers who are trying to grow a church beyond their growth personally they're trying to grow a church beyond the maturity of their relationship to support to provide leadership to that growth when your ministry outgrows your relationship with god you are in dire straits you are in danger of going to hell because when you're ministry and work grows and demands of you beyond where you are in god you are then forced to try to rely on intellect ability and flesh and not god and now you've crossed the line i'll make a statement it's about to let you understand why the crowd small there have been a hundred and this is low low side but at least 135 preachers who have been trained at antioch in the 50 years of our existence not one of them was taught how to preach everything every one of them was taught how to minister we didn't desire to produce preachers we decide to produce ministers who could minister in all facets of biblical ministry and so consequently while i have such a hunger for the word of god and i have made the statement and it is absolutely 100 true right now on my note app under all icloud i want you to tell the 6921 that's what it is right there what is what is that all the way from a few sentences that the lord gave me in prayer to full studies on subjects i have in the note app i know it wasn't designed by apple for this that's their problem but it's really easy to use and so when i'm ready to do something more formal i will copy and paste it out of here into my word processor and so on on dropbox i have conservatively about 15 000 sets of notes study notes not preaching notes study notes in various stages of completion polish summer there's still raw stuff that i just copy paste in there or whatever i'm not saying that to impress you with me i'm trying to make the point that i love the word but i made the statement i do not study to preach i studied to know what did jesus say about the scribes that god brought ministry out of the treasure of the good treasure of their heart the scribes dealt with the word that's what their their whole that they are the ones that made copies of the word so they just repeatedly the implication of jesus was they weren't just sitting there as uh ancient uh printing machines or memory they hand copied the bible every copy that was made was made by hand you can't sit there and write that stuff from one page to the next without it getting in you you can't do that strictly intellectually this is the word of god it's the word of god you can't deal with the word of god like that without it affecting you and so jesus said that the scribes out of the scribes he brought forth out of the good treasure of their heart good things it was word that came out of him out of them so he put stuff in here and brings it out however he wants to the point i'm making you know well you repeat a lot of stuff i don't have enough life left to preach all the new stuff i've got or teach it but he didn't i didn't get this to preach i didn't i didn't study this stuff to preach i studied this to know god i've only ever studied for one reason uh well primary one primary reason ever since 1965 and that is to be able to find answers to my own questions i wanted to know what the bible says for myself my favorite subjects that i have notes for they're all written in here is oneness of god baptism of jesus name filling of the holy ghost the necessity the mode the whole thing that the my favorite thing to teach is apostolic doctrinal truths i love it but i don't get the chance to do that very much because it seems as though in the last 20 to 25 years of my life most of my ministry has been to the body and to preachers so i don't insult people even though apparently looking at what's happened in the upc there's a lot of guys that need somebody to teach them bible doctrine i i'm i'm on the i don't mean this critically okay i'm on the forward group on facebook but i can't hardly bear to read it because there are questions being asked i'm going don't you have to be a upci preacher to be on here and are you pci preachers asking this question somebody the other day i don't know who else i didn't even read i didn't read it there's no way i you know word share ruined me somebody signed me up for word share and let me tell you something right now i found out let's see what can i say without cussing um i think in my resignation letter to my friend who was one of the administrators who against my without informing me put me in the group i said i will not continue to be a part of such sophomoric activity because he when i asked him what is going on on this he said well guys are just blowing off steam it's like a college dorm i said i've been out of college 30 years if this is if this is the maturity level forget this forget it and i kept my mouth shut till one yahoo i would never have an email address yahoo.com never was not going to happen so to one yahoo if you do god bless you one yahoo begins to berate brother david shatwell about the tragedy of a wounded spirit so i my friend as far as i knew wasn't on there so i go to defending my friend and let me tell you something there was no christian debate these guys began to just rail on me i'm going are you are you kidding me i got to admit to you i didn't got in my spirit it really did i got angry and i said i'm off here it's it's you know if this was a bunch of if this was a bar group i'd expect that kind of treatment one of another and there was like 10 guys that dominated everything and if you know one of them i don't remember any of the names because i'm doing my best to forget them but carnality i wouldn't advertise my carnality like that and they were so ignorant they didn't even know they were i'm out of here i'm out so i've seen a little bit on the forward group of that in fact the brother urshan my brother brother bernard had to call that down i'm going god have mercy you know it's one thing to be carnal but you don't have to tell everybody do you and if you're so ignorant you don't know you're telling everybody how carnal you are that's bad but somebody put on there the other day his baptism in jesus upci likes a preacher is baptism in jesus name necessary for salvation and we're going oh god this is not some new convert site what was worse was some of the answers i went lord help us no wonder because you see the word church growth has now morphed into meaning biggest crowd as possible do what you've got to do to have the biggest crowd possible but to have the biggest crowd possible you got to appeal to the flesh let me tell you what i haven't had the guts to do it yet but i'm i'm old enough now it don't matter the next place i go preach that hands me a sheet of paper that tells me how long they're going to sing this song and who's going to say this and then how the next the next time that happens it i hope i'm not the main speaker because buddy i'm going to hand that sheet back to them say sorry i don't know what this is but this is not the faith i know anything about this is not the bible oh god and what's really sad is there are people that are teaching other upc preachers in churches to do that same thing and you go oh god oh god oh god this is really what we've come to somebody somebody wrote in one of our magazines says you're not you're not supposed to preach longer than 20 minutes wait a minute when the concert before the preaching is longer than 20 minutes okay i'm sorry but we put on our concert our production concert and then we're going to give a 20 little minute little message brother right you don't know what you're saying really seriously i'm not trying to be offensive to anybody so in the training of our preachers i've made this statement as long as i'm the bishop this church if i find out that you've read from a script in one of our pulpits it will be the last time you ever speak at antioch you might as well transfer because you will never be involved in the ministry of this church again if you can't walk with god enough to be sensitive to the lord to hear from him and let him speak through you you are not gonna have the opportunity and you know why we're writing all that stuff out we don't trust god a well-known evangelist somebody's actually out of our district well-known he came and preached for us he's a he's a prophet he's a gifted he goes by evangelist but he calls himself everybody calls the prophet prophet right prophet so he's there and he's known for prophesying to people and uh i was on the board we turned him down for license the first time he came so i've known him a long time right and uh he was preaching our pulpit in the first 20 minutes he read from he did his dramatic reading word for word off piece of paper and then he started prophesying so we went got something to eat and i i took him back to the hotel we're sitting in front of the hotel and i said hey ben what's up with that today he said what i said you you read the first 20-plus minutes of your sermon what's that all about he said well now brother wright i'm i'm a full-time evangelist and the places i go they expect a certain level of of of of uh preaching and uh and i i just i have i i write this out so you know i they expect this they expect this he didn't he couldn't bring himself to say it because he knew i would absolutely i would assist jesus and crucified him right there right yeah so he couldn't bring he bring himself to say a certain level of performance and eloquence so he just danced around it without saying it and i looked at him and i said man i love you but if i can't trust you to hear from god for the first 20 minutes i don't trust the thing you say god gave you to say to to the people i'm responsible for how do i know you can hear from god to prophesy to them when you can't even trust god for the first 20 minutes of your message ooh he didn't like it he didn't like it well fine he had his shot he won't be back at our church he's got plenty places to go looking for performers that's fine i'll take a guy stumbling around preaching his very first message but is humbly sought god and is trying to let god use him i'll take him and the pulpit any day over the greatest orators we have that are performing their scripts any day at least god has a chance to use them brother right you're pretty strong in that aren't you yeah i am because my fear is and i'm terrorized by this that we're teaching people how to grow ministries greater than their ability to support that with a relationship with god i am married to a grandmother she's not my grandmother but i'm married to a grandmother i didn't know there was such a caterpillar to butterfly metamorphosis when that first grandchild not saying she was a caterpillar but it's a dramatic change right she was my wife we got married she was my wife and then we had a child and i be wife became second mother wife and then then we had a grandchild and it became grandmother mother wife right that's a spoiled male talking right that's what that is i i didn't know i you know i'd heard stories but they're all true they're not stories grandmothers are a scary thing buddy and so she started buying little drive-um toys you could get in and drive them and then then and we moved into the church's parsonage and it's got a little bit of land and so now she wants a golf cart i thought she wanted a golf cart just to do her gardening and stuff like that i didn't realize she wanted a golf cart to be able to haul her grandkids around [Music] but then the next frightening thing was when she began to let the 10 year old drive it oh she was with her and now the 10 year old's 13 and she informs us the other day i'm gonna get the drive at the end of next year well they they just six months ago moved to a new neighborhood that uh it's not an exclusive neighborhood but for some reason folks have got golf carts there you know they got just and they they let you drive on the streets and now this 13 year old drives on the street and the neighbors haven't said anything about i don't i don't know what that's about but they haven't said anything i guess whatever but the problem is i think they'd still have a problem if she wanted the keys to the explorer because even though she drove this little jeep but she's now at 13 5 foot 10 and i won't tell you how much she told us the other day she weighs but she's no hundred pound weakling she's not a big guy she's well her dad is six foot almost six foot six her mother's about six one she claims she's five eleven but when i'm looking up at her and i'm six foot tall it's and that's without her high heels on right so the 13 year old is 5'10 and uh she looks like an adult she could pass for 18 easy but that doesn't mean she has the maturity level to handle certain things why is it it's so easy for us to see that why is it why is it so easy for us to see that but we don't have a clue when we're asking god for things and he's a father and we're his children and we're asking him for things that we haven't grown up mature enough to be able to handle properly not only for our salvation for his name's sake and for the benefit of the people and we've got we've we're intent on teaching teenagers how to drive a tesla that can go from 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds really really we're teaching we're teaching we're teaching people the mechanics some of you've heard this story before but back in the 80s someone convinced brother barnes to let them sell tapes of his of teaching gifts of the spirit and faith all that i bought every one of them i didn't know brother barnes i mean i knew of brother barnes but i'd never met him but i was hungry for anything anything that would enable me to be more effective in being used to god and so i i got so frustrated i dared to do something it was uncomfortable for me but i i called brother barnes on the phone this is when long distance calls cost money okay and i call brother barn sister brother barnes you don't know me as brother chester right he said oh yeah yeah i know you and i'm going okay i'm not going to debate that maybe you do but i've been listening to your tapes and uh i'm really hung for god the things of the spirit of god and and uh i just i just want i called him hoping he would share some inside information because i i wanted i wanted anything i could get he said well brother wright i have learned that the most important thing if you want to be used of god in spiritual ministry is you need a revelation of the blood and i just turned him off and i'm thinking to myself and this is the truth i'm thinking to myself i have called you it's costing me money if you don't want to give me insight or secrets just say so it's okay but you're gonna i'm i want to know the maki the mechanics and the ends of how to being used in the ministry of the spirit and you're talking about the blood i missed about the first 45 seconds to a minute of what he said because i've got to work through all of that and by the time my mind registered what my spirit was screaming to me listen you need to hear what he's saying i don't know what i missed but when i finally started listening he was telling me brother right the most critical thing in being used in the spirit is to have confidence in the blood that the blood of jesus has forgiven you of your sins so that no condemnation can come in and undermine your sensitivity and ability to let the lord move you because he said if you have condemnation you will perform you'll be trying to impress people but if you let the blood of jesus take your condemnation away then your your motive will be pure and and it'll be and he just and and i went and of course i wasn't very kind to myself when he got off we got off the phone you stupid arrogant idiot what did you miss [Music] while you weren't listening because you were sure you knew what he was talking about and come to find out i didn't really have a clue about what he was talking about do you know what he was in the context of this ministry tonight you know what he was really saying when your walk with god is not able to support what you're wanting from god and wanting god to do through you you're putting yourself and everybody else in grave danger when you're when your hunger for ministry is greater than your hunger for relationship with god you are in perilous territory i've said it for years the number one qualification should be before any district board gives someone a license is that they prove they know how to pray and simply being able to pray to get a sermon is not a prayer life at all so what does that mean i don't even want to know it's not my business it's god's but i'm afraid i would be in you would be shocked and gravely disappointed to know the number of prayerless preachers that will be in upci pulpits this sunday oh the problem is again they pray by our cultural definition of prayer but they don't know god they don't know the doctrine for themselves they've been taught how to perform they don't know how to minister and so they have to rely on personality ability intellect and oratory and manipulation and call it anointing jesus said i came not to bring peace but a sword and he made it clear who who was being divided the body of christ was being divided to churches the world's already divided from the church god doesn't have to divide the world from the church he's not here to divide the world from the church they're already divided i read this this morning early in prayer i i read it and i could probably do a half decent job of coming close to quoting it but i just read it i'm going to read it to you again it is psalms 1. listen to this listen to the contrast the poll book is about contrasts the whole book identifies two sides of the situation blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly nor standeth in the way of sinners nor seated sitteth in the seat of the scornful but his delight is in the law of the lord and in his law dot he meditate day and night i wonder how many in the body of christ are on two different sides of the fence the last 10 months those that have spent their time on social media and netflix versus those that have spent their time primarily in prayer and of the word i'm not saying it's wrong to check social media and it's between you and god if you use netflix flicks of what you watch i'm not that's between you and god okay but the time god has given all of us and god has given all of us time like we've never had before everybody that's so busy this last 10 months he made unbusy if that's a certain word and so all of a sudden we had all this time on our hands to kill and our hearts determined what we did with that time there are some that have prepared themselves in the last 10 months for what's coming and there are some that prepare themselves the last 10 months to be a part of the other side when the lord pulls the cover off all of it it shows us who we are shows everybody who we are whichever side we're on i'm talking about the body of christ because again as i've said several times this year the word of god says judgment must begin at the house of god god cannot judge the world for its iniquity till it first judges the church for its iniquity he cannot it's against his nature it's against his character so here but his delight is in the law of the lord and in his law doth he meditate day and night verse 3 and he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season his leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he'd do it shall prosper the ungodly are not so and then that verse in first peter versus the first peter that talks about judgment began at the house of god the lord made a difference there between the sinner and the ungodly it's time for judgment to begin at the house of god and it first began if it first began in us where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear see the difference the sinner is the person that's never been saved the ungodly are those who have been saved or have obeyed the plan of salvation but the easiest way to understand what godliness is and ungodliness is and this is not original with me i heard it i don't even remember where i first heard it but it's absolutely biblically true godliness is having is is your life being characterized with a god towardness ungodliness is your life being characterized with an uh that it's not a god toward it's the opposite of god toward while you're naming god as your god you're living as if he's not your priorities are not and again i am not talking about do's and don'ts here because all of those are a symptom of our relationship i just say this this way you just have to read whatever you want to read in it okay i may be 75 but i'm not i'm neither old nor dead nor blind okay but i'm married and i am very much married i am very much in love with my bride of 52-plus years i don't do what i do and not do what i don't do because of fear i do what i do because of love the things i don't do i do because of love not because she gave me a list of do's and don'ts when we got married good thing and those that try to make this book into a list of do's and don'ts just strictly some law catalog of do's and don'ts they don't even get it how do i know that because when the rich young ruler came to jesus he said good master what shall i do to inherit eternal life jesus said you know the commandments keep them and he and and you can see you could read into the scripture you could see the the great sigh of relief that he had well i've done all that since my youth up and jesus didn't contradict him but he didn't stop there and say good job okay you're okay no what did jesus do he said go and sell all you have and give it to the poor and come follow me what i've kept all the commandments i'm doing all the dues not doing the don'ts isn't that enough he was waiting for jesus's commendation and what he found was an expectation that brought condemnation because doing the dues and not doing the don'ts wasn't enough for jesus and if it wasn't enough for jesus then and he can't change it's not enough for jesus now every church is divided every church the faithful people in every church are divided between the marthas and the mary's and they don't get along those whose relationship with god is first of all characterized by their desire to be with jesus and spend time with jesus are never looked down looked at with any kind of approval by those whose relationship is all about the doing of service to jesus always and we all have people and we call them good people and what we mean by that is if we have a work day they'll all show up they'll work as long as you're working they'll get it done you can count on them years ago we had a guy that was an usher he would do anything for me anything he was he was a head usher and you know it's hard to tell about the spirituality of ushers especially those that are on duty all the time because they're so busy you don't ever see them worship so you don't know whether they worship or not i didn't know and god didn't tell me but some precious one include informed me because i didn't know that jim was smoking i had never stopped smoking i didn't know that so i i thought okay it was no big deal we'll take care of us be fine because jim is just as committed as he can be seemed to be he was committed to me he was committed to the church not but his church but the church i thought no problem so i go to gym i say jim uh hey man i somebody said you smoke he ducked his head and he said oh pastor i i've tried but i've never really been able to stop i said you mean all these years years all these years you've been a smoker yeah i said jim i love you and and i appreciate the fact you'd do anything in the world for me but i i can't have you be the head usher you're not a new convert he's probably been around 10 years at that time you didn't know i didn't know even the lord didn't tell the prophet that the shunamites woman a humanity woman's son died give me a break i didn't know and because he was always so busy ushering i never had a chance to really test his spirit in a move of god i said jim i i'm going to have to ask you to step down until we can deal with this and i'll help you if you if you'll let me we'll we'll pray together and i'll help help you it'll be okay and he's never come back since that day he was at the funeral of brother whaley the other day he was in a previous funeral i see him loves you just doesn't have a bad spirit doesn't have an attitude not offended what a martha he is a martha and a half and i i wondered why it was at times things that happened and he'd uh he'd be a little critical of folks that wouldn't be as helpful as he was i mean jim would do anything for you anything he really would there was he he didn't know how to spell or say the word no you needed done he'd do it it's a really dangerous situation when the people love the preacher more than they love god to this day jim loves me loves my wife just didn't love god enough to be delivered the ungodly are not so verse 4 but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment that means they can't remain standing they can because in the judgment if you're standing it means you're you're innocent nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous for the lord knoweth the way of the righteous but the way of the ungodly shall perish do you see the lines he draws and you read the writings of the teachings of jesus and to deny the lines he draws there is tragic because here's the problem if i'm trying to maintain my crowd i'm not confronting the people that are supposed to be a part of the church who are comfortable and want to be left alone now frankly i don't have any problem with them being a part of the crowd on sunday morning because i want i want to see sinners there anyway and we're going to preach to the crowd that's what jesus is doing going to preach to the crowd here on sunday morning this sunday when i'm going to be here and you come to that ministry truth will be exactly the same but the approach will be completely different well they need to hear the truth yeah but how's the old saying go they don't care what how much you know till they know how much you care so until you are able to love them and demonstrate your love and the lord's love for them they're not all that interested in doctrine you know that's kind of the way jesus did it and here's the problem we think if we could just have more miracles you mean like the number of miracles jesus had and on the day of his ascension how big was that crowd what about 50 000 people showed up there that day all those people that got miracles and ate of that bread fish boy they were all there that day for the ascension weren't they it could have been more than that right i mean who knows how many miracles he really did john 21 25 and there are many other things which jesus did and said the witch if they were written every one i suppose that even the world itself couldn't contain the books that should be written i mean who knows that might have been half a million people there that day he performed so many miracles oh that's right it was only above 500. so the guys that are seeking for the sensational and the miraculous is their focus rather than seeking jesus and growing in their relationship with him they don't make it some know that they're not making it and some will go to hell not knowing until it's too late that they didn't make it i don't really care if you got a bunch of light shining use the smoke if you want to but at least obey god at least let the holy ghost be in charge at least at the bottom of your program put the disclaimer this is uh this is our plan but all of this is subject to the will of god and the move and flow of the holy ghost at least put the decline disclaimer on there but you want to really find out where you are your leadership you want to find out where your church is just get up next sunday morning after all your singers and musicians have practiced all week and prepared to sing and play just get up and say i'm i'm i'm i appreciate all the effort everybody's put in this week prepare for this service but the holy ghost says we're just going to pray a while and we'll see what the lord wants to do from there and you know we may not even sing one song at all today thank you for all your effort but this is what the lord wants and then when you do that just get your radar out real quick and ping every one of them and they'll tell you who's your problem right there they'll tell you every time they can't help it they absolutely can't help it they will tell you every time which ones you're having problems with even if you don't know that yet because when it's more about performance than it is ministry when they're denied the opportunity to perform they can't restrain themselves after all this time i put in and you're not even going to let us sing well they probably won't say that out loud but they might as well scream into the housetop and if i was you i'd get them off the platform so the whole church can't see their faces then everybody will know what their attitude and spirit's like but brother right that's mean no it's not mean it has to be established that you're going to follow the holy ghost every time we get together we're not going to have default services we're not just going to go have go through the motion services we would be better off canceling the session altogether and not even gathering then get together and go through the motions what an insult that is to god i mean you could just see it right so i get my ipad out and it's uh it's uh oh who would it be whatever um i i'm on my mlb app and i'm watching the orioles game and my wife is sitting right here and i'm watching the game and i'm going alice i love you very much and yeah okay good good i really i really love you and i want you to know oh wow i want you to know i'm here for you and and anything you oh look at that boy that's really uh-huh yeah and it happens all the time you know what i'm i can be sensitive to rejection do you know why because i'm made in his image and he is [Music] sensitive to rejection i can be jealous what is your wife flirting with men no she's flirting with grandkids yeah hey i'm here i'm here well they're going home tomorrow i you'll be number one on the list for a little while and she didn't say that she didn't have to say it i got too much history with it the oldest grandchild is 24 next month after the next so yeah i know what that's like and if you don't have any grandchildren sisters don't sit there and say well i'm not going to be like that it's a lie you can't help yourself i'm made in his image i have feelings and react to certain things because my god has feelings that reacts to certain things it is sin to be angry no what does the book say be angry and sin not it didn't say if you're angry you're sinning because my god can get angry you see the problem when you don't know him you see the problem people have when they don't know him when they don't know him then the devil can come up and give you all kind of ideas that are somewhere off the wall uh this fruit looks pretty good doesn't it yeah it does well what'd the lord tell you about this fruit he said he said we can't eat of it or touch it lest we die he had her he had her right there when she said or touch it he knew either adam didn't communicate very well or she didn't listen because she didn't know what god said the lord didn't say one thing about not touching that fruit but when she proved she didn't know what god said it proved she didn't really know god even though he was coming in a fellowship with him every evening she didn't know god which made her right for deception this year it seems like i don't know how many times i've quoted this verse i say this year i mean the last 12 months 10 months 11 months without faith it is impossible to please him for he that cometh to god must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him it's pretty simple in it really straightforward there's no real way to interpret that and complicate it seek him complication is the old testament jehovah's irish overnisi oh there's only one garbage in the new testament jesus i just just jesus i just want to get to know jesus i just want to give myself to jesus and everything he has that he wants me to have is all available not by seeking for him or from him but just him i just want him and i'm saying this only by way of demonstration i'm not trying to well i'm not going to hang myself but continue to do that but i have said to him many times this past 12 months especially lord i know that uh i i know that you're going to literally sit on the throne of david in jerusalem and rule and reign over this entire earth for a thousand years and i know that you've promised that some that are faithful are going to be made rulers over 10 cities during that millennial kingdom and some are made faithful rulers over four cities during that millennial kingdom whatever and and and i'm happy for all those that you're going to give that to and one i don't care what my job or place is but if it's all the same to you i don't want to be on the other side of the earth i want to be where you are in the throne room because i'm not doing this to get cities to rule over i want you now obviously whatever your will is for me i'm gonna do that but i this is this is my choice this is what i want this is what i'm seeking i don't i don't have to be sitting on your right hand i can be the guy in the corner with the dust bin i don't care but please don't give me something that you're going to send me to the other side of the planet and then when we get to the millennial for to the eternal kingdom can i just be wherever you are you promise me you're going to prepare a place that where you are there we go i can be also so i don't the rest of that all that other stuff that's there's plenty of people to we be willing to do that and they will see that as an honor and a privilege i don't want any of that i'm not doing any of this for that where you are that's where i want to be i don't need you to pat me on the back or on tap me on the head like some good little boy i don't have to be acknowledged but just don't send me someplace else if it matters to you what i feel about this it's easy to make statements like that but he knows because he and i've talked about that so many times i have no idea how many times i mean it with every fiber of my being and i'm gonna i'm gonna kind of wind up my part of this tonight like this if you participated in paz virtually the week before thanksgiving 2020. i'm saying to you that the friday night message that was my part that closed out the meeting and closed out my part of the ministry uh maybe the most significant to me the most significant revelation i've ever received in my life literally other than knowing who god is and how to be saved that was truly a revelation of wisdom and understanding to me of his purpose in the earth and what we're doing here if you haven't heard it that's between you and god you can hear it or not here that's your choice i i can't re-preach it or reteach it now but i will say this to you back last late winter i think it was still march but the lord is so he's dealing with me and of course we're locked away and so i i i didn't watch any movies all year last year until i got to christmas and i'm kind of a hallmark movie addict well they all have the same storyline well there's enough uncertainty in life i want to know there's going to be a happy ending here there's enough sad stuff i don't know i'm not going to enter be entertained by watching these you say you yeah yeah absolutely take away my man card but i don't like action movies i like romances i do sorry it's absolutely the truth and hallmarks are relatively clean and you know they always have a happy ending and there's usually only one kiss and that's the end so if you're an hour into the movie and they're about to kiss you no not happening something's going to interrupt them because they never kiss before the end ever but all last year i i i you know i i'm seeking the lord and i and and he was really really really emphasizing the whole idea of iniquity is um is simply choosing to live by my own will instead of his will in anything and i'll never forget the day i i can see it in my mind literally i'm kind of staring out the from where my recliner is we have a wall of windows looking out over the backyard which is woods and and i'm sitting there just kind of staring off through those windows not really seeing anything and i said god people don't understand the eternal consequences of those inconsequential choices they make for their own way and not yours they don't don't understand how you see them making these choices they seem like such innocent inconsequential choices it's just their preference they just make their preference choice and they don't really consider what your will would be i said lord i i know you're a god of love you've proven to me you're a god of love but by experience and by your word and your spirit you're a god of love how how do you justify to yourself sending beings that you that didn't ask to be created that you created because of your own love so you could have people to love and they could love you in return how do you justify to yourself sending those people to an eternal hell punishment beyond imagination forever i know you've got a way to do that because you're first and foremost love your god of love you are love you don't have love you are love how do you do that and he said in order for me to be a righteous judge and that's terminology that's used in the scripture about him frequently he is a righteous judge he said in order for me to be a righteous judge i have to gather such a preponderance of evidence against mankind who do not live by my will that it is obvious to me and every created being that i am just and right righteous in sending these souls to that place forever can i tell you one of the key elements of that today he said go into all the world preach the gospel to every creature he that believeth is baptized shall be saved he that believeth not shall be damned he didn't send me to save anybody he didn't send me to grow a church he didn't send me to build a church he sent me to preach the gospel to every creature whether they believe it or don't believe it whether they accept it or reject it i am doing my job if i let him love them through me enough to with kindness and love tell them how much he loves them and that the good news is they don't have to live with this guilt and shame here or in eternity because he's made a way for all that to be taken away what they then do that is going to determine their eternity if by his will they get saved and come to the church that i'm a part of praise god if they get saved and go to some other church praise god if they don't get saved i have delivered my soul because he said in ezekiel if i tell you to warn the wicked and you warn them and they don't hear it the blood's their blood's on their heads but if i tell you to warn the wicked and you don't warn them well let me go back he said if i tell you to warn the wicked you warn them and they reject it you've at least delivered your soul and so the old-timers would use that it's not used very much anymore but but the old-timers would stand and say this when they'd finish a message many times they would say i have delivered my soul tonight and what we began to understand that to mean was i have unburdened myself to you but the biblical phraseology means i have saved myself tonight because i have been an obedient servant and conduit of the lord in speaking to you what he wanted to say have said to you to bring you to a place of having to decide whether you're going to heaven or not i don't have to save you i can't save you my only part is to preach to you the good news and what you do with it's between you and god but i've delivered my soul and he said if i tell you to warn them and you don't warn them then their blood well i require your hands so in your own head in 1981 i was asked to be the northeast regional home missions director one-fourth of all north americans live in the northeast from the potomac river north up through canada and uh i would have been 35 at the time and uh my youngest son was just uh 10 months old we had a little volkswagen camper van it would do 60 miles an hour downhill no air conditioning the top would pop up make a bed had a little stove in there whatever and we took off early one morning i said to my wife i need to go see and feel this area that i'm responsible for so we took off in early monday morning and i drove up through delaware and up through new jersey and through new york city and i long ago had to learn to not allow the lostness of those cities to overwhelm me so i wasn't very overly affected by that i've been there before already experienced all that well i spent two years of high school in rhode island so we're taking 95 across the southern part of connecticut and uh i don't know why that suddenly hit me i've been through connecticut a lot of times but there were cities of 100 000 250 000 half million with no churches at all no apostolic churches of any kind at all and i started getting angry and we went to rhode island from connecticut and i rode the family around there to show where i went to school and where my house was and all that and then it was late afternoon and we're headed to to plymouth for the night too miles standish state park to spend the night this literally this is how vivid this is to me and in this afternoon and it's drizzling rain and everybody in the van is asleep because we started early and except me thankfully i was driving i went to sleep and i'm driving on this road with nothing but trees through mile standish state park and i am praying mad how can you send all these people to hell that have no idea how lost they are and how to be saved how can you do it how can you do that how do you justify doing that and one of the most dramatic times god ever spoke to me in my life it wasn't an audible voice but it might as well have been it could have been him more practicing his audible voice he said these exact words to me i have called men to these cities and they have not come surely these souls will be lost because their sin is great but their blood will i require at the hands of every man i called to come preach to them why because when i don't preach to a soul i let him down because now he can't be a righteous judge if i was his plan to talk to that person about the good news not acts 2 38 you ready i'm going to speak blasphemy heresy acts 2 38 is not the gospel acts 2 38 is what you do after you believe the gospel acts 2 38 is how you obey the gospel the gospel is the death burial and resurrection of jesus christ but we don't preach that we go straight to acts 2 38. so what happens when that soul that god god brought you across their path and you see here's the problem when we make the ministry only the people that stand up there we tie god's hands because when he gave you the holy ghost you were called to the ministry you were called to the ministry of communicating the good news to a soul and when they cross your path and you only invite them to church so your preacher can preach to them you have failed god failed them and betrayed yourself and church service invitation evangelism as the primary focus of the church is for the purpose of building a crowd it's not for the purpose of fulfilling the call of the great commission you can believe this or not it doesn't really matter the lord knows he knows whether what i'm saying is true or not i could have been satisfied the last 52 years never darkening the door of a pulpit never standing behind a stand if i could have just spent if he would have allowed me to just spend my life with a bible a chart and an opportunity to teach souls the gospel and the plan of salvation once they believe the gospel it is the height of satisfaction to my ministry to have the privilege of doing it why because it is ministry in the purest form and everybody with the holy ghost is called to that well i'm not called to teach ah paul disagrees with you hebrews chapter 5 verse 12 when for the time you ought to be teachers look at the context he wasn't speaking to those we say are called to preach he was speaking to all believers when for the time you ought to be teachers you have one need for one to teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of god and become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat next verse for everyone that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness for he is what a babe and i think it's first corinthians chapter 3 verse 1 or 2 or 3 somewhere there paul said that there's things i wanted to tell you corinthians but i couldn't because you are still babes you're carnal it's okay to be a baby when you're first born but if you've been around five years you're still a babe because you're unskillful in the word if you're around 10 years and you're unskillful the word you can't even you don't even know enough word to explain the word of god the gospel to a soul you are a babe an immature child next verse but strong meat belongeth to them that are a full age even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil now we know that chapters and verses were not the original manuscripts so we have a tendency to stop reading at verses or stop reading at chapters but listen to what the next verse says which is chapter six verse one therefore which is a conclusive conjunction that joins the last three verses i had just read to you with the next this verse and the following verses he said you need to be teachers but you can't teach because you don't even know the first principles of the oracles of christ you're babes you're not skillful in the word therefore here is the this is the this is what mature people do leaving not abandoning but growing from progressing from the principles of the doctrine of christ let us go on unto perfection not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward god of the doctrine of baptisms the singular doctrine of baptisms plural more than one baptism but one doctrine of dual baptism or multiple baptism which we know is two and of laying on of hands and of the resurrection and of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgment and this will we do if god permits and it is his will but he cannot permit a five-year-old to drive the family car or i don't know what the culturally correct way of doing it is the 30 year old who has the mental capacity of a five-year-old you don't let them drive the family car so when he says this we will do if god permits he's talking about have we matured enough that god can trust us with the responsibility of eternal souls and that's why i'm saying to you tonight church service invitation evangelism as the only method theory of the great primary method is it wrong to invite somebody to church well according to first corinthians 14 they must have had some sinners present in their gatherings because paul gave instructions about when sinners were present to to not uh not speak in tongues when it was when it would not be edifying to sinners especially if you were supposed to be teaching them that's the only indication in the new testament that sinners were present in anybody's worship service i can't find any other reference in the entire new testament where sinners were present when the church gathered why because the church because the church came together to pray first priority of the church coming together by in the bible the first priority of the church coming together is to pray not to pray for us to have a good church service because when we gather in pre-service prayer that's the focus of our prayer oh god give us a good church service and don't we feel so spiritual doing that and well you know what's terrible about that sometimes he answers and gives us a good church service and we feel like we accomplished something or maybe he just allows us to have something we would call a good church service so if we're going to obey the word of god the focus is not okay i'll go back the purposes of our gathering biblically are to pray first and foremost he already told us what we're supposed to be praying individually and collectively there's we can pray anything in the spirit the spirit leads us to pray for his purposes for his kingdom for his will for his name etc all of that we can pray all of that but it's not now lead me down to sleep and god is read god is good let's thank him for the food or our other similar type prayers that we call prayer that we do each day our apostolic our fathers and hail mary's that's all they are first purpose of coming together for the church is to pray the second is to worship together the third is to be taught and trained boy did i get in trouble preaching a national meeting when i said you can't preach doctrine by definition doctrine is what is taught so if you're going to communicate doctrine it has to be by teaching who are you to tell me i can't preach doctrine i'm not telling you anything i'm just telling what the word means doctrine's not intended to be proclaimed it's intended to be explained because when you're proclaiming doctrine you're you're you're imposing something on people they don't even know what they're doing or why they're doing it oh that's right when i don't make doctrine mine i don't know why i'm doing it how can i explain to somebody else why they're doing it or why they should be doing it because it wasn't taught me it was proclaimed to me you preached good news oh and by the way biblically find any place in the bible in reference to the good news that the word preach fits our application because you see when it comes to the good news it simply means to proclaim or publish and that has nothing to do with being called to preach sermons and i say all this stuff and people go who is this guy who does he think he is telling us that everything we're doing is wrong i'm not telling you everything you're doing wrong we have a problem the book so i'm supposed to back up you're supposed to back up and patty cake around and tiptoe around through the tulips with people and act like the bible doesn't say what it says let me tell you something when we stand before that throne we're not going to be judged by pentecostal culture or the upci manual or the way our pastor did it or the way our most known leaders do it whoever they may be not saying they all do that but whoever they may be we're going to be judged by the book the book the whole book nothing but the book that's the only thing jesus said oh let's do that come on i i'm my flesh is trying to quit but john chapter 12 please beginning with verse 44. we got a problem the book here it is you ready john 12 44. did i lose you up there oh there you are down there oh praise god i can look in the eyeball now all right jesus cried and said he that believeth on me believeth not on me but on him that sent me next verse and he that seeth me seeth him that sent me next verse i come and come a light into the world that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness if any man hear my words and believe not i judge him not for i came not to judge the world but to save the world ready he that rejected me and receiveth not my words hath one that judgeth them the word that i have spoken the same shall judge him in the last days say there please you see the first and up there he that rejecteth me and receiveth according to the greek and i'm not a greek scholar but i can read and according to greek scholars that word falls under what the greek grammarians call sharp's rule of syntax and it means that word should be translated instead of and something like this he that rejecteth me that is to say receiveth not my words what he's actually doing there is equating not receiving his words with rejecting him and he proves that's the focus when he says hath one that judgeth him the word that i have spoken the same shall judge him in that day we have a problem there is too many places where there's a difference between what we think and what we believe and what the book says but we study to preach we don't study we study for our pretty little sermons and we hope we preach good enough we get to be invited into big the big meetings so we people can know who we are we preach stuff we don't know we haven't proven we don't understand just as long as it sounds impressive i'm not trying to be unkind i'm just telling you the truth and you know it's the truth let me tell you something right now this is there's no way to say this and they come across acceptable but there's a problem when you walk with the lord and he is the focus of your life the focus of your day and your whole focus is to fellowship with him and walk in his spirit do his will you don't need but about 15 to 30 seconds max of hearing a man speak before you know whether he is connected and there's a flow of god in his life or if he's just standing there performing his sermon because he thinks it's pretty cool that's a problem and i got a church full of people that i have taught and taught and taught and taught and taught and taught and taught to be sensitive to the spirit i've taught them how to walk with god how to be sensitive to the holy ghost so you know what that means we have to be very careful who we let in the pulpit because you know what they do when you get up there trying to impress them with your pentecostal cultural antics and your canned sermon they just sit there and look at you i can't what am i going to do get up and say come on folks let's uh let's don't let him feel come on let's make a little noise so he he won't leave here feeling bad about you or himself or whatever no no well they've got a wrong attitude they have a wrong attitude for being sensitive to whether somebody is ministering to them or just performing for them that's a wrong attitude brother sister glenn stewart how many years were you with us six years brother stewart is an expert when it comes to audio and video and whatever and he came to help us and uh it was quite a culture shock wasn't it yeah it wasn't always easy was it no but when the lord was ready for them to go because of circumstances beyond their control the problem they now had was where do you go when they were the holy ghost purged them of tradition persian with pentecostal culture they became so hungry for god hungry for god hungry for god seeking god want to be a part of that and then they they have to go some find some place they can fellowship without being judgmental not want to judge anybody not trying to be offensive to anybody but what do you do now there are places there are places unfortunately apparently in the area in which they have primarily been and that's i'm not saying whatever that is whatever is over there it just wasn't someplace that fits what do you do you know why we use smoking lights because it's really close to smoking mirrors smoking mirrors let you appear to have something that you don't if you need to lose weight there's two ways to do it you can cut back on what you're eating or you can go look in one of those mirrors that make you look skinny and you can trade out every mirror in your house for one of those that when you look at it it makes you look skinny and then you can make sure you have somebody on on call that for every picture you take of you they go to adobe and they doctor it so you look skinny and then it doesn't matter what's hanging over the belt the pictures and the mirrors all say you're skinny so what are you going to believe i can't see my shoes but i'm skinny the mirror says i'm skinny in 2019 i lost over 50 pounds i thought that uh i thought my ability to get up off the floor without having something to pull myself up on was because i was old i found out after i lost over 50 pounds i could get up without having anything to hold on to what a shock oh jesus help us the lord gives me stuff like this to say and i have to trust him because if you're just looking at what you see and hearing audibly what you're hearing well you could take all this all kind of ways you could come to all kind of conclusions but brother born the older brother born you've already heard me say this i don't know if this is the right attitude or spirit but it's the only one i got right now if you're going where i'm going you want what i want there's nothing i have i won't give if you want what i want and you're going where i'm going i'm not going to hold anything back but if you're not going where i'm going and you don't want what i want i'm going to be polite i'll be kind but you're not getting any with more than i absolutely have to give i don't have enough time and energy and life left the pet and pampered people that don't have a destination except to fulfill religiosity don't have it this isn't about me but i'm the one that's got the mic so this is the only conduit that's being used at this moment somebody else gets the mic then their situation fits that situation it's not about how well known the person is it's do they want to go where i want to go do we want to go to the same place do we want the same things in god then freely i've received i'mma freely give it you want it here it is now you'll have to decide what to do with it just like i had decided what to do with it but that's not it's it's not mine it was given to me to be given away so i i receive it i'm going to give it but if you don't want this and you don't want to go where everything in me wants to go i don't mean just heaven i mean here now in the promises of god then you want to talk about who's going to win the uh conference championship games to be in the super bowl sunday i know who's playing i know that patrick mahomes was clear today of his concussion protocol that he's going to play sunday you want to chat a few minutes not interesting talking about the lord i could tell you the orioles prospects this year they probably won't lose more than 160 games because everybody's going to win at least one or two out of the 162. i uh i know what they are lacking on their roster i know the rookies that they're planning on coming through this year i i i could talk to you about that i can tell you the leading three candidates to be the quarterback of the navy football team next year i can tell you the concern i have about a couple of guys that are in the transfer portal transport transfer portal you want to talk about that stuff i can spend a few minutes with you talking about that but once we do if you're not paying attention the vault doors go that's terrible sorry i'm terrible then jesus didn't give himself to everybody because he knew what was in man the book says he was kind to everybody that would let him be kind but there were levels and degrees to which he gave himself he didn't determine that the one who was on the receiving end determined what they were able to be given blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled and i love that greek word it means literally the extreme completely satisfied the blessing is not being completely satisfied the bloody blessing is meeting the qualification for being completely satisfied which is to hunger and thirst after righteousness and you can tell those who are hungry and thirsty because they've learned to tap into the source and the source flows just blows blows flows and every morning the first priority so we've heard this so many times the first priority every morning is to check the connection because if i'm connected to him there will be a flow if there's not a flow something's wrong with the connection i have a right as a child of god to expect to have a flow of the spirit through my life 24 7 365. if i choose to live below my level of what he is offering me that's on me not on him i remember brother hashera saying to me back in the late 70s he said brother wright i know that you're going to have a hard time accepting this he didn't explain then why he said it like that but he said there will become a day in your life that you will live 24 hours a day in the presence of god and i never had heard such a thing in my life why you either have to come to church to feel the presence of god or you you have to have this major major prayer meeting how i mean i'm in my late 20s early 30s at that point and he's telling me i'm i'm the one day that i'll be able to live in his presence all the time how's that possible some of you you can't imagine hearing something like that but it's true that was we didn't have any expectation maybe where you were raised in a church but not where i was we didn't have any expectations to be in the presence of god all the time that was the big thing about going to church was being the presence of god there wouldn't anybody that that that i ever i had seven pastors by the time i graduated high school i don't ever hear remember one of them preaching that i could experience the presence of god on my own outside of a church service heresy next thing you know you'll be splitting the church uh-huh oh my this has become one of my absolute all-time favorite verses now wilt show me the path of life in thy presence is fullness of joy and at thy right hand our pleasures forevermore and i and it's both of those are necessary to have life to live a life of life that word path there means a lifestyle so thou will show me the lifestyle of life in thy presence is fullness of joy too many pentecostals get that far but stop and they stop at thy right hand are pleasures forevermore because the focus in revel in john chapter 7 is not what's flowing into me it's what's flowing out of me and through me through me and out of me he that believeth if any man thirst let him come unto me and drink he that believeth on me as the scripture had said out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water but this spake of the spirit which they that believe on him should receive but the holy ghost was not yet given life we have too many pentecostals that have no life they have no life so of course the church becomes the focus of everything because it's pretty much the only time all week they feel the presence of god and so therefore it's all about what comes into them when they come to church it doesn't become what flows through them out of them so they don't have life so then therefore they come to church to survive but they find their delight not in god and not in the law of god but out there so worldliness is not the problem it's a symptom of the problem their delight and joy is not god they don't know him they don't fellowship with them foreign there is such a flow in this place right now enter into the flow come on get focused get surrendered enter into the flow come on [Applause] taste and see that the lord is good taste will give you hunger taste will give you thirst [Applause] hello [Music] [Music] [Music] is hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah [Music] [Music] [Music] what are we praying for we're not praying for anything we're letting him pray we're just letting him flow just let him flow hallelujah just let him flow fellowship with the joy of his presence and the pleasure of him flowing what he does through that that's his business but the life that we experience while we're in his presence and he is ministering through his flow it's life this is the lifestyle of life this is the lifestyle of life there is no other lifestyle of life fellowshipping his presence [Applause] and enjoying the pleasures of his flow [Music] what he chooses to pray for that's all on him that's all about him but there is this pleasure this deep soul satisfying pleasure of allowing him to flow through me and do whatever he wants to do and say and pray whatever he wants to say and pray but i get to enjoy the life i get to enjoy the life the flow of life [Music] this is the truest form of spiritual intimacy your experiencing intimacy with jesus as his bride together we're experiencing intimacy with jesus come on in jesus name don't go home and try to enforce this on people just go home and live it just go home and live it just go home and flow it'll make people thirsty it'll make people hungry if you'll just go home and flow you don't have to bow breathe beat them you don't have to shame them you don't have to manipulate them don't just enjoy life go just enjoy the flow of god in and through your life and it will cause others to hunger and thirst for it [Music] jesus name in jesus name in jesus name foreign uh [Music] come on come on we're not going to do anything else but this for the rest of the night however long that is another three minutes another 30 minutes another three hours that's up to you personally come on in the name of the lord jesus christ in the name of the lord jesus christ come on by drink deep drink deep let your soul be quenched of its thirst like you've never allowed the lord to quench your thirst before deep of living water drink deep of the flow come on in the name of the lord jesus christ in the name of the lord jesus christ drink deep of his presence and then let what he puts in you that you're drinking flow out in ministry in the spirit in the name of jesus in the name of jesus he wants to be the focus of your life he wants to be your love he wants to be your focus he wants to be your priority he wants to be he he didn't say if any man thirst let him come unto church and drink he said if any man thirst let him come unto me and drink come on in the name of jesus in the name of jesus in the name of jesus in the name of jesus in the name of jesus [Laughter] foreign

Channel: Apostolic Iron

Views: 1,152

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Apostolic, Apostolic Iron, Jesus, Prayer, Pray, Praying, C.M. Wright, Bishop Wright, Pentecost, Pentecostal, UPCI, Call To War, God, Lord, Preaching, Apostolic Preaching

Id: NbvijRz4qiM

Length: 165min 34sec (9934 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 10 2021