Speaker 1: Lift your Bibles up and wave them around while you're seated.
Speaker 1: If you want to stand, you can, but let's just say this together Say, heavenly Father, I give thanks for this Word.
Speaker 1: I treasure the Word of God.
Speaker 1: I've ordered my life around its truth and I thank God for the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1: It's the Word and the Spirit working together that's positioning me in these last days to be effective for you in Jesus name.
Speaker 1: All right, now Acts, chapter two, please.
Speaker 1: And this is the day of Pentecost.
Speaker 1: And the spirit of God had come in that upper room and all the 120 came out of that upper room at 9 o'clock in the morning and they were drunk in the Holy Ghost, speaking in other tongues.
Speaker 1: People from every nation under heaven were gathered and they heard them speak in their native tongues.
Speaker 1: So there was two things under heaven were gathered and they heard them speak in their native tongues.
Speaker 1: So there was two things they were speaking in tongues.
Speaker 1: But then also there was a miracle of hearing in the people that were there that heard them speak in their own native language, and so they were wondering what in the world?
Speaker 1: This is what meaneth this Verse 14,.
Speaker 1: But Peter standing up, see, so he was on the ground, drunk on the ground.
Speaker 1: Can you picture it?
Speaker 1: See, picture.
Speaker 1: Oh, I like to picture what I'm reading.
Speaker 1: He stood up.
Speaker 1: Well, he's already, he's seated upstairs and now he's done downstairs.
Speaker 1: Why does he have to stand up?
Speaker 1: Because he's on the ground, he's drunk.
Speaker 1: So Peter, standing up with the 11, lifted up his voice and said unto them, you, men of Judea, and all the dwell of Jerusalem, be this known unto you and hearken to my words, for these are not drunken, as you suppose, but this, seeing, it is but the third hour of the day, nine o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 1: But this is that Amplified says this is the beginning of that spoken by the prophet Joel, and it shall come to pass.
Speaker 1: And he quotes him.
Speaker 1: It shall come to pass, and he quotes him.
Speaker 1: It shall come to pass in the last day, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.
Speaker 1: And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out, in those days, of my spirit and they shall prophesy.
Speaker 1: And then, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12, we'll flip over to Paul writing to the Corinthian church.
Speaker 1: He says now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant.
Speaker 1: So the word gifts in my Bible, my King James, the word gifts is italicized, so it's not in the original language.
Speaker 1: It just literally means now concerning spirituals.
Speaker 1: Now concerning spirituals, I would not have you to be ignorant.
Speaker 1: Or we could say it this way now, concerning the things concerning the spirit, things concerning the spirit, I would not have you to be ignorant.
Speaker 1: And of course, ignorant can be total ignorance.
Speaker 1: It can be partial ignorance.
Speaker 1: You know a little bit maybe you know a little bit to be dangerous about the spirit realm.
Speaker 1: Or it can be ignorance you knew something and you forgot it, or you don't keep it in the forefront of your thinking.
Speaker 1: This is last days stuff and of course Paul here is not speaking in context of the last days.
Speaker 1: He's talking to a carnal church, a church that was carnal, a church that was body ruled, a church that had sin in it, a church that the Corinthian church were heavily involved in the occult.
Speaker 1: They were heavily involved in demonic powers when they got saved, and so a lot of that is mixed in with their church and you've got people in various stages of deliverance and various stages of separating from that life and you've got all this and yet they had gifts of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: And he's talking to them about the gifts of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to be ignorant about the gifts of the Spirit and he's talking to them about the gifts of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to be ignorant about the gifts of the Spirit, things concerning the Spirit realm.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to be ignorant.
Speaker 1: And then he starts in verse 7, starts enumerating the gifts of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit with all, for to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom, to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit.
Speaker 1: To another faith by the same Spirit.
Speaker 1: To another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit to another, the working of miracles to another, prophecy to another, discerning of spirits to another, diverse kinds of tongues to another, the interpretation of tongues, but all these work at that one in the self-same spirit, dividing to every man severally or individually, dividing to them as he will the gifts of the spirit, as the spirit wills.
Speaker 1: We don't have a gift that we operate in anytime we want.
Speaker 1: Every time a gift of the spirit is manifested in one's life.
Speaker 1: That is a gift.
Speaker 1: It's a one-time gift.
Speaker 1: It's a gift of the Spirit is manifested in one's life.
Speaker 1: That is a gift.
Speaker 1: It's a one-time gift.
Speaker 1: It's a gift in the moment that it's operated in and it's by the Spirit.
Speaker 1: It's according to the Spirit.
Speaker 1: Spirit wills as the Spirit wills, not as we will.
Speaker 1: You know, if I willed, I'd just always walk in the gifts that I've had.
Speaker 1: I'd just turn them on and turn them.
Speaker 1: You can't do that.
Speaker 1: The Holy Ghost has got to govern it.
Speaker 1: So tonight I wanted to get back to the book of Joel and I wanted to talk tonight about one of the gifts of the Spirit and I'm entitling this message the Ministry of Visions and it's one of the signs of the end times is the ministry of visions.
Speaker 1: So in the gifts of the spirit I've had a lot of teaching on the gifts.
Speaker 1: It's been a while since I've taught on the gifts, but everything, everyone that's filled with the holy ghost, baptized in the Holy Ghost, is eligible to.
Speaker 1: You're a candidate for the Spirit of God to manifest one of his gifts through you.
Speaker 1: Maybe more than one, and I like to divide the gifts.
Speaker 1: There's nine.
Speaker 1: I like to divide them in three categories the vocal gifts, the vocal gifts, I mean, you know, the gift of tongues, the gift of interpretation of tongues and the gift of prophecy.
Speaker 1: All of those are coming out your mouth, they're vocal, and then you have the power gifts, the awe gifts, the gift of working of miracles, as if somebody walks on the water.
Speaker 1: It's working of miracles.
Speaker 1: As if somebody walks on the water, it's working of miracles.
Speaker 1: Raise somebody from the dead.
Speaker 1: Working of miracles.
Speaker 1: Gifts of healing, really literally this word, gift of healing singular, it's really gifts of healings plural.
Speaker 1: Gifts of healings.
Speaker 1: Now, you know, you can get your healing by faith.
Speaker 1: You can get your healing by the laying on of hands and you recover.
Speaker 1: That's not a gift of the Spirit, but when someone, perhaps I'll say I've got a word of knowledge.
Speaker 1: A word of knowledge is the third category.
Speaker 1: Let me get to that.
Speaker 1: The revelatory gifts, the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom.
Speaker 1: The word of knowledge is a piece of God's knowledge about a person, place or thing in the present.
Speaker 1: A word of wisdom is a piece of God's knowledge about a person, place or thing in the future.
Speaker 1: And then the discerning of spirits is simply seeing into the spirit realm, which is visions.
Speaker 1: Visions is a revelatory gift.
Speaker 1: You see, and usually with seeing, like a vision, you have along with it you have a piece of information in the present or in the future.
Speaker 1: So then you've got the gift of the word of knowledge along with the gift of, you know, discerning of spirits.
Speaker 1: And so sometimes I'll just flow in the gifts and I'll call out a healing, and sometimes people are instantly healed.
Speaker 1: Well, that's the, you know, that's the gift of, of the word of knowledge and the gift of healing all wrapped up in one.
Speaker 1: And there's two I get, you know it's happy hour.
Speaker 1: I get two for one, praise God.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's three for one, praise God, sometimes it's three for one, all right.
Speaker 1: So everybody say gifts of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: So visions involve discerning of spirits and either the word of knowledge or the word of wisdom and the revelatory.
Speaker 1: And all believers are potentially eligible for the manifestation of these gifts.
Speaker 1: And just because you manifest the gift of discerning of spirits doesn't make you a prophet, doesn't make you a seer.
Speaker 1: Just because you prophesy doesn't make you a prophet, just because you have the gift of interpretation of tongues.
Speaker 1: Sometimes Somebody gives a message in tongues and you interpret it.
Speaker 1: See, there's a difference between a message in tongues and speaking in tongues in your prayer language.
Speaker 1: That's not a gift of the Spirit, that's just your prayer language.
Speaker 1: Glossolalia Everyone baptized in the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1: That's what happened on the day of Pentecost.
Speaker 1: They all spoke in their own tongue and then when they came out, where everyone heard them speaking, then God did a it really.
Speaker 1: They weren't actually speaking that language.
Speaker 1: As far as they were concerned, they're speaking in their prayer language, but these people heard their own native tongue.
Speaker 1: They couldn't possibly know that language.
Speaker 1: They don't.
Speaker 1: They're not that educated to know everybody's native tongue.
Speaker 1: You had every nation under heaven there.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's a lot of people.
Speaker 1: It's a crossroads.
Speaker 1: You know, god is so strategic.
Speaker 1: Jerusalem is a crossroads.
Speaker 1: Israel is a crossroads, a trade route.
Speaker 1: I mean everybody came through there, north and going north to south, east to west, they're coming through that place.
Speaker 1: And so he positioned his people to be a witness of his greatness to all the people of the world.
Speaker 1: Now, we didn't take their place, but we do have the same command where we're to be a witness to all the world, every, all the world, every creature.
Speaker 1: So, uh, so, just because you have a vision doesn't mean that you're a prophet.
Speaker 1: But I want to teach on this tonight because number one, I know that when we teach more on the gifts, we have more of the gifts manifesting, and I want all of you that will say yes to be filled with the Holy Ghost, stay filled with the Word of God and stay ready for the Holy Ghost to manifest His gifts in and through you, without getting puffed up and without trying to be something that you're not.
Speaker 1: I've had it happen.
Speaker 1: Some people just get the idea, just because they have a particular gift of prophecy, that somehow they're, that they're have to sound like brother hagan when they prophesy and they have to tell the future.
Speaker 1: No, that's not what the gift of prophecy is for the.
Speaker 1: The gift of prophecy is not to tell the future.
Speaker 1: The gift of prophecy is for what we're edification, exhortation and comfort of the church.
Speaker 1: That's what it's for and it's motivated by love.
Speaker 1: You know it's not motivated by look at me and look at my gift and look at my ministry.
Speaker 1: It's motivated by the love of the church, and so this church is a Holy Ghost church.
Speaker 1: We have people in here that are capable of prophesying.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they don't, and I heard a rumor here recently that I was putting the lid on prophecy.
Speaker 1: I haven't done that.
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 1: If somebody's got a word, they need to stand up and be recognized.
Speaker 1: I might say no, if I've got something, that I'm going in a direction and I don't want to deviate from what God just gave me.
Speaker 1: Sometimes that happens, but rarely.
Speaker 1: Most of the time if somebody's got a prophetic word, I'll hey stand up and I'll recognize you, amen.
Speaker 1: So just officially, I want you to know there's no lid on anything here.
Speaker 1: We took the lid off years ago.
Speaker 1: The Holy Ghost has got permission to do anything he wants to on Sunday morning.
Speaker 1: Even Even people here that don't know about the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1: Maybe they've never been in a Holy Ghost service.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's true that I've.
Speaker 1: I'm teaching in a basic.
Speaker 1: I'm not having a Bible school.
Speaker 1: I want to get information of people that have never heard the word of faith taught.
Speaker 1: If you've been here 20 years or 15 years or 10 years.
Speaker 1: Karen's been here decades.
Speaker 1: She's heard everything.
Speaker 1: I've preached over and over again.
Speaker 1: She's still here.
Speaker 1: She didn't run for the exit as well.
Speaker 1: I've heard that before I'm out of here.
Speaker 1: I've heard everything.
Speaker 1: I had a couple.
Speaker 1: One time I said how did you know it was time for you to leave and go into the ministry?
Speaker 1: Well, we've been here, we've heard everything Brother Osteen said.
Speaker 1: We just figured it was time to leave.
Speaker 1: I said, oh God, that is the dumbest thing I've ever.
Speaker 1: And I was kind of a novice at the time, you know.
Speaker 1: I was just interviewing them.
Speaker 1: I knew I had a call on my life and I wanted to find out how people were sent out to go in the ministry.
Speaker 1: They're going to go start a church in a little town in South Texas, you know, and I just wanted to know.
Speaker 1: I kind of knew of them, I didn't know them well, but I said how did you just know?
Speaker 1: How did you know it was time?
Speaker 1: How did you tell Brother Osteen it's time for us to go?
Speaker 1: And he sent them out.
Speaker 1: He laid hands on them and sent them out.
Speaker 1: I said how did you know?
Speaker 1: Oh, we've been here so long, we've done just about everything he has to do here and we've heard everything Brother Osteen preached and we just figured it was time.
Speaker 1: I thought, oh God, they lasted six months, just for the record.
Speaker 1: You know, there's just a lot of people just go off half-cocked.
Speaker 1: But anyway, getting back to the gifts, how many of you are willing for God to use you in the gifts of the Spirit, just because of the love that you have for the body of Christ, the love you have for other people?
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful thing, and he doesn't want you ignorant.
Speaker 1: So here in verse 11, these all worketh that one in the self, same spirit, dividing to every man individually as he will.
Speaker 1: So every believer has the potential.
Speaker 1: Now, not every believer flows in the gifts.
Speaker 1: Well, number one, because they're ignorant.
Speaker 1: So I want to correct that.
Speaker 1: How do you get rid of ignorance?
Speaker 1: Teaching.
Speaker 1: You know, and maybe you don't know enough and you've had certain.
Speaker 1: A lot of people have had experiences with God.
Speaker 1: They can't explain and they're kind of afraid of it and they're kind of afraid to act on it.
Speaker 1: So I want to say some things tonight and teach you along these lines, of something that's a little mysterious.
Speaker 1: I mean, how many of you have ever had a dream and you wondered if it was God?
Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of people lifting their hand.
Speaker 1: You wondered See, you weren't sure.
Speaker 1: See.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to get you to the place where you'll know if something is a bona fide See.
Speaker 1: A dream is a night vision.
Speaker 1: So it's part of discerning of spirits, in case you didn't know that.
Speaker 1: But not every dream.
Speaker 1: See, some dreams are pizza dreams, some dreams are just.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, have you ever awakened in the middle of the night?
Speaker 1: You know, you get up and then you are up for maybe 30 minutes or an hour and you go back to bed and you finally fall asleep and you have all these screwball dreams you've got.
Speaker 1: See, that's not from God, that's just your brain.
Speaker 1: It's scrambled up, it's been interrupted and it's.
Speaker 1: You know that's not from God.
Speaker 1: But when you get something from God, I want to teach you on this subject so that you can kind of know when to pray something out and respond properly to information God is bringing you.
Speaker 1: You should never ask for a vision or a dream.
Speaker 1: You should never ask for gifts of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: You should allow the Holy Spirit to be the one to bring it to you.
Speaker 1: Don't be praying, oh God, give me visions and dreams.
Speaker 1: Well, you know that's out of order, as the Spirit wills.
Speaker 1: He knows what you need.
Speaker 1: And if you start trying to get Him to do things so you can look spiritual or you can look impressive.
Speaker 1: You know you've got the wrong heart.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I call it spectacular guidance.
Speaker 1: Whenever God has a dream or a vision or you know something dramatic to guide me.
Speaker 1: I've had that, but I can't even think of an exception where there wasn't trouble right ahead, that I didn't have a whole lot of conflict right ahead of me and if I hadn't had such spectacular guidance I would have been tempted to quit or tempted not to go.
Speaker 1: Follow through with what the information that I had.
Speaker 1: So we're supposed to just walk on the witness of the spirit and then leave all the spectacular guidance, like visions, to God.
Speaker 1: Discerning of spirits, I'm going to get it right to God.
Speaker 1: Discerning of spirits, I'm going to get it right.
Speaker 1: Everybody say discerning of spirits.
Speaker 1: It just means looking into the spirit realm, discerning of spirits.
Speaker 1: So in visions, there's three main classifications of visions.
Speaker 1: There's the highest level is the open vision, where your eyes are open, your physical senses are not suspended.
Speaker 1: You still, you know, you're you, you know your surroundings, you're you, you know your surroundings, and yet your eyes are not closed.
Speaker 1: Your eyes are open, yet one still hears and sees in the spirit realm.
Speaker 1: So, for instance, when Jesus appeared to the disciples after the resurrection.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 1: I be not afraid.
Speaker 1: They're all there.
Speaker 1: But Thomas and they were just amazed.
Speaker 1: You know Well what was that?
Speaker 1: Discerning of spirits.
Speaker 1: Their eyes were open.
Speaker 1: Here's Jesus right there, like you and I are there.
Speaker 1: But it's discerning of spirits and you know they tried to tell Thomas about it.
Speaker 1: Thomas didn't believe.
Speaker 1: My, I won't believe this.
Speaker 1: I put my finger in the print of his nails and put it my hand in his side.
Speaker 1: I will not believe.
Speaker 1: Well, jesus heard him, cause he quoted it all the way back to him.
Speaker 1: He would.
Speaker 1: He wasn't where you could see him when he, when, when Thomas said it, jesus heard him say it and eight days later, jesus appears with Thomas in the room.
Speaker 1: Hey, thomas, come here, put your finger in the print of my hand, put your hand in my side and be not faithless but believing, thomas, because you have seen, you have believed.
Speaker 1: Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.
Speaker 1: Well, what did he have?
Speaker 1: Well, he had discerning of spirits, just like the other guys did.
Speaker 1: But his experience was not quite as exciting.
Speaker 1: He got chastened, but not condemned.
Speaker 1: Not condemned, god used Thomas, he evangelized India.
Speaker 1: That's why so many people in you know the Christian part of India, so many of them.
Speaker 1: People's name is Thomas because of St Thomas being there getting them saved.
Speaker 1: So everybody say open-eyed vision.
Speaker 1: Years ago, when we were in the first building, we were outgrowing the building.
Speaker 1: Mainly we were outgrowing the parking.
Speaker 1: We just didn't have enough parking.
Speaker 1: And I remember an Easter Sunday I think it was about I don't know how long it was, maybe the beginning of the second year, maybe and Easter Sunday and I could see right out in the parking lot from the pulpit.
Speaker 1: I'm up there preaching and I see car after car come through the parking lot and leave.
Speaker 1: There was no place to park.
Speaker 1: That was upsetting.
Speaker 1: I just thought, man, we'd have a bigger crowd here if we just had some place to park.
Speaker 1: So my landlord had offered to build us a facility and if we would sign a five-year lease, the Holy Ghost wouldn't allow me to do it.
Speaker 1: I just didn't have witness and I told him no.
Speaker 1: But then I thought well, we need to build a building.
Speaker 1: Maybe God wants me to build a building.
Speaker 1: Let's find some land and we'll buy the land from him.
Speaker 1: And he said oh, if you want to buy land and build it yourself, that's fine, I'll finance the land.
Speaker 1: You know I finance it two points above prime, nothing down, no payments.
Speaker 1: I'll just sell it to you with no, nothing down and no payments, no money.
Speaker 1: No money changes.
Speaker 1: And I just signed my name and we can buy a piece of property from him and pay when we can.
Speaker 1: I mean, talk about favor.
Speaker 1: I said you got five acre.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got three or four five acre tracks, one 10 acre track and I've got bigger tracks.
Speaker 1: I said, well, five acres should do us.
Speaker 1: So I was on shallow church road, right over here little narrow road, you know, can't hardly get two cars past each other, so narrow.
Speaker 1: That's where his land was that he had for sale.
Speaker 1: They had two five acre tracks on shallow church and I was standing there and I had another couple with me and my wife, and so there was four of us.
Speaker 1: I'm aware of everybody there.
Speaker 1: I've got my eyes open, I'm looking at the five acres.
Speaker 1: I'm standing on shallow church and I something caught my in the sky and I looked up and I saw this huge star, you know, with a circle around it.
Speaker 1: And when I saw it I was reminded of Matt Dillon, you know, gunsmoke Marshall, marshall Dillon.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't know why it hit me.
Speaker 1: It looked like a Marshall's badge.
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but that's what I thought.
Speaker 1: Now I'm looking up there and I'm thinking what is that I'm seeing?
Speaker 1: And it just comes right down and lands right in the middle of that five acres, in an area about as big as this center section.
Speaker 1: That's how big.
Speaker 1: The star was Lay in there in the middle of five acres.
Speaker 1: And I'm just, and there are people around me Gladys is right here and the other couple over here, members of the church, and they happened to go with me and I just out loud, I loud, I just said well, what is that?
Speaker 1: And then, all of a sudden, I zoomed out a vision.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 1: I zoomed out until the circle and star got to be real small and it looked like a capital on a map.
Speaker 1: It would look like, if you're looking at a map of Texas, what would?
Speaker 1: Austin would be?
Speaker 1: A a little star where the capital of Texas, or Washington DC is, for that matter.
Speaker 1: And so I'm looking at that now from a great distance, straight up in the air, looking down at this thing on our land, and it looks like a capital.
Speaker 1: I said Lord, what are you saying?
Speaker 1: You're going to make us a capital?
Speaker 1: I said it out loud, they heard me.
Speaker 1: What is that, lord?
Speaker 1: You're going to make us a capital.
Speaker 1: And then I heard inside of me regional center.
Speaker 1: And so from that I got to praying and asking the Lord about it and trying to get more information.
Speaker 1: It was interesting about the Capitol, because the Capitol is where.
Speaker 1: That's where the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government are located.
Speaker 1: Now, folks, this is 1996.
Speaker 1: And look at us now.
Speaker 1: We had Capitol worship in Texas last year.
Speaker 1: We had capital worship in Oklahoma City.
Speaker 1: We had capital worship in Baton Rouge.
Speaker 1: There's no telling how many other places we're going to have capital worship.
Speaker 1: But you know, all those years later, we're just now coming into what God was showing me all the.
Speaker 1: And I've been, you know, I've been talking about this all this time, but you know you talk about it.
Speaker 1: You talk, see, I needed to hang on to that vision.
Speaker 1: I've been, you know, I've been talking about this all this time, but you know you talk about it.
Speaker 1: See, I needed to hang on to that vision.
Speaker 1: I've never forgotten it.
Speaker 1: And we are going to go everywhere the door opens for us to go.
Speaker 1: The money's going to come.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because I had that vision.
Speaker 1: God gave it to me.
Speaker 1: Come on, lift your hands right now.
Speaker 1: Thank God for the Holy Ghost, he's not confused.
Speaker 1: He, holy Ghost, he's not confused, he knows exactly what he's doing.
Speaker 1: And then the other aspect of a regional center is the fact that it's not just a simple local church that serves a neighborhood, and this I think I've told you recently.
Speaker 1: But we looked up the zip codes 110 zip codes of people that give their offerings regularly into this church, 110 zip codes.
Speaker 1: When our lender saw that years ago, when we applied for the loan on this building and they just called me all in a panic Pastor, what in the world Is this accurate?
Speaker 1: We're kind of nervous about this loan.
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got all these zip codes.
Speaker 1: You're not a local church.
Speaker 1: I said no, we're a regional center.
Speaker 1: In fact, you've got all these zip codes.
Speaker 1: You're not a local church.
Speaker 1: I said no, we're a regional center.
Speaker 1: In fact, you ought to feel better about it.
Speaker 1: We're spread out all over Houston and we're all spread out over 10 counties.
Speaker 1: You ought to feel better about it.
Speaker 1: You ought to be nervous about little church right here on the corner.
Speaker 1: Anything happen, it can disappear, and they do disappear, don't they?
Speaker 1: Glory to God, open-eye vision you might not ever have one, that's fine.
Speaker 1: You don't have to ask God for it.
Speaker 1: In fact, I've told you don't ask.
Speaker 1: I've never asked God for a vision.
Speaker 1: I've never asked God.
Speaker 1: I just don't have enough information.
Speaker 1: Give me a dream, give for a vision.
Speaker 1: I've never asked god.
Speaker 1: I just don't have enough information.
Speaker 1: We give me.
Speaker 1: Give me a you know.
Speaker 1: Give me a dream, give me a vision.
Speaker 1: No, never.
Speaker 1: I'm prepared to go on the witness of the spirit.
Speaker 1: All right, the next highest level is a trance.
Speaker 1: Let's look at acts 22, a trance, verse 17,.
Speaker 1: And it came to pass that when I was coming into Jerusalem, even while I prayed in the temple, I was in a trance and I saw him saying unto me Make haste and get thee quickly out of Jerusalem, for they will not receive thy testimony concerning me.
Speaker 1: And I said, lord, they know that I imprisoned and beat in every synagogue them that believed on thee.
Speaker 1: And when the blood of thy martyr Stephen was shed, I also was standing back and sinning unto his death and kept the raiment of them that slew him.
Speaker 1: Now see, he's kind of has regrets.
Speaker 1: He's rehearsing stuff that happened when he was lost.
Speaker 1: He was not saved.
Speaker 1: When he's talking about that this is out of order.
Speaker 1: He shouldn't.
Speaker 1: He had no business even saying anything to Jesus about that, because that was under the blood.
Speaker 1: Because that was under the blood he has.
Speaker 1: No, you know, he's rehearsing his history as if Jesus needs to know what his history is.
Speaker 1: Jesus knew all about his history.
Speaker 1: It's funny, isn't it?
Speaker 1: And he said unto me depart, get out of here, for I will send thee far hence unto the Gentiles.
Speaker 1: So he's given his testimony about when he first got saved Depart.
Speaker 1: So he had to get out of Jerusalem.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't.
Speaker 1: So he had a trance.
Speaker 1: A trance is like another one.
Speaker 1: Here is in Peter Acts, chapter 10, where I'm not going to have you turn there.
Speaker 1: But Peter went up on the rooftop of the hour of prayer and he was hungry and he fell into a trance and he saw this great sheet knit at the corners and had all these unclean animals on the sheet and it went down.
Speaker 1: You know, rise Peter, kill Peter, kill and eat.
Speaker 1: Not so, lord, I've never eaten anything unclean.
Speaker 1: What God has cleansed, call now not unclean.
Speaker 1: And this happened three times in a trance.
Speaker 1: So in a trance, your senses are suspended, your eyes may or may not be open, but you become unaware of your surroundings, you become immersed in the trance, you become immersed in whatever it is you're seeing.
Speaker 1: In October of 1998, brother Osteen called a special prayer meeting.
Speaker 1: He was suffering from some health issues, his blood pressure was out of whack and he was really looking frail, very concerning, and he wanted his sons and daughters to come into a prayer meeting.
Speaker 1: We had a prayer meeting at Lakewood and he wanted some of us to come up and lay hands on him and I was one that laid hands on him for his healing.
Speaker 1: Now this is something that had never happened.
Speaker 1: He never, you know, I never saw anybody pray for Brother Osteen.
Speaker 1: He did all the praying.
Speaker 1: You know you don't pray for him.
Speaker 1: He prays for you.
Speaker 1: He lays hands on you and it was just.
Speaker 1: It was unnerving, to say the least, nerve wracking, just totally out of kilter.
Speaker 1: And when I laid my hands on him it felt like laying hands on a doorknob.
Speaker 1: He didn't receive.
Speaker 1: He tensed up and didn't receive.
Speaker 1: He's not used to it.
Speaker 1: He's not used to people praying for him.
Speaker 1: He's used to believing god on his own and calling his healing into.
Speaker 1: But whatever was blocking his healing at that time?
Speaker 1: I mean he was wanting to get that knocked off.
Speaker 1: And yet when I laid hands on him, I just know I, you know you kind of, after you've done this a thousand times or more, you'll be able to understand when, when power goes out and when it doesn't.
Speaker 1: I can't explain it any other way.
Speaker 1: You just not electricity, it's not a feeling, it's just you have a knowing that when the power of God goes out of your hands into somebody, whether they received it or not, or when it just doesn't go out and it just like laying hands on this pulpit, I mean it's just cold steel, nothing's going to happen, it's not going to respond to you, it's an inanimate object.
Speaker 1: So I knew that and that bothered me.
Speaker 1: And so then the next month, november of 98, of course by that time we'd been in the church several years, and of course by that time we'd been in the church several years.
Speaker 1: And so I got a call from a staff member that let me know that Brother Osteen was really doing poorly and his kidneys had failed and he was on dialysis.
Speaker 1: And I was just, you know, really sad for him and it was just hard to hear him.
Speaker 1: And it was just hard to hear, and I thought about that night when we prayed that he just couldn't get in a place of receiving from the anointing man.
Speaker 1: The anointing destroys the yoke.
Speaker 1: Later that day I was at my house.
Speaker 1: I did my prayer time earlier, before I'd gotten that call.
Speaker 1: I'd already had my prayer time, bible reading time, but later in the morning it was about 11 o'clock and I was coming from the kitchen.
Speaker 1: I wanted to go back into the study and I have to walk through a little short hallway between the kitchen.
Speaker 1: I wanted to go back into the study and I have to walk through a little short hallway between the kitchen and the dining room, cross the entry hall into my study.
Speaker 1: That's just how my house is designed.
Speaker 1: So I'm just taking the shortcut through that little area where that little hallway is and the utility room's on my right.
Speaker 1: As I go through that little hallway I'm headed to my office.
Speaker 1: I don't remember what I was going to do there.
Speaker 1: My computer's there, anyway, regardless, I got even with the utility room and suddenly I just was enveloped by being in a different place.
Speaker 1: I was in a different place.
Speaker 1: I was in this office, this paneled office.
Speaker 1: It had books on the wall.
Speaker 1: It was kind of darker in there, dark paneling.
Speaker 1: It had a huge conference table, big old walnut or high end, and I just knew I was in a lawyer's office.
Speaker 1: Somehow I knew it and I heard these words.
Speaker 1: I didn't see any people.
Speaker 1: I heard the voice and to John Griner I bequeath, and the lawyer is reading Brother Osteen's last will and testament.
Speaker 1: And to John Griner I bequeath.
Speaker 1: And I didn't hear what it was, but I felt the emotion of it.
Speaker 1: I felt awe and wonder.
Speaker 1: I felt the emotion of what it was.
Speaker 1: He left me, but I didn't hear the words of what it was.
Speaker 1: I didn't hear what it was.
Speaker 1: I just that part blanked out.
Speaker 1: I just heard.
Speaker 1: To John Griner I bequeath.
Speaker 1: I got this awe and wonder and I said out of my mouth in the trance, I said you mean, he left me, that I'm not even his blood.
Speaker 1: And then I came out of the trance.
Speaker 1: Now I'm back in my utility room, in my hallway and I'm blinking around and I'm thinking I rebuke this vain imagination.
Speaker 1: In Jesus' name, my pastor's going to live and not die and declare the works of the Lord.
Speaker 1: I felt guilty about having that experience because I felt like it was a lack of faith on my part.
Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm imagining my pastor dying and leaving me in some kind of will.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be left in a will.
Speaker 1: I want him to live.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm Mr Religious.
Speaker 1: I didn't recognize that it was a trance, I didn't recognize it's a word of wisdom.
Speaker 1: Word of wisdom is futuristic.
Speaker 1: A word of wisdom is a piece of God's knowledge about a person, place or thing in the future.
Speaker 1: Are you with me now, pastor?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 1: This is interesting but I can't relate.
Speaker 1: Well, you don't have to relate directly.
Speaker 1: I'm just preaching this because I want this atmosphere to get in your spirit and I want you to open your heart and your mind and your faith to being used by God.
Speaker 1: In these last days, pete, you're going to be going into the ripe harvest and when you let you take all the limits off of God, god can use you mightily.
Speaker 1: Whether you ever stand in front of one of these this is not the point of this message is one of these.
Speaker 1: It's your ministry, the believers ministry.
Speaker 1: So, uh, then, uh, just in three months later, and and last part of january 20, january 23rd of 99, was when, 2 o'clock in the morning, I got a call that Brother Osteen had collapsed at home and had taken him to the hospital, gladys got up, started praying in tongues, hollering at the devil, going up and down in the bedroom and I heard these words Moses, my servant, is dead.
Speaker 1: Now therefore arise.
Speaker 1: I had an experience, I had a vision again of being like a nose cone on a rocket hurtling through outer space.
Speaker 1: And I came through this narrow space.
Speaker 1: I can't explain it, except it just felt like a tight, narrow passageway.
Speaker 1: I didn't see anything.
Speaker 1: And then, through that passageway, it didn't last very long and it just burst into the other side.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like an hourglass.
Speaker 1: You know, you've got the sand, the sand, the sand, and it just falls through that little narrow space.
Speaker 1: You know, somebody said, well, that's the birth canal, maybe.
Speaker 1: So Baby comes out of a little narrow space and comes into the world.
Speaker 1: Sounded like a pretty good description of what.
Speaker 1: And then I remembered the trance.
Speaker 1: I remembered what God said about and I didn't know.
Speaker 1: It was God telling me and to John Griner I bequeath, and I knew, and people said, oh, you got Brother Osteen's mantle.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I wouldn't ever presume that, but I got my inheritance.
Speaker 1: I got what I sowed to the years that I sowed 15 years of loyalty, 15 years of service and the last eight years as a minister and performing as an associate pastor, doing everything I could do to help him.
Speaker 1: Especially when he started on the decline, I tried to take his place as much as I could, much as he'd let me.
Speaker 1: He wouldn't let me much, but anyway, and by that time, of course, I've already got my own church.
Speaker 1: But are you getting anything out of this?
Speaker 1: Yes, all right.
Speaker 1: Are you getting anything out of this?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 1: The third type of vision a spiritual vision, a vision in your spirit.
Speaker 1: You see something in your spirit, in your spirit.
Speaker 1: You see something in your spirit.
Speaker 1: Acts, chapter 9,.
Speaker 1: All Paul saw was a bright light and he heard Jesus' voice.
Speaker 1: And he kept hearing Jesus' voice.
Speaker 1: After he's blinded.
Speaker 1: See, that's a spiritual vision.
Speaker 1: He never did see Jesus.
Speaker 1: He saw that bright light.
Speaker 1: And in Acts 16, remember, paul and Silas were trying to go on Paul's second missionary journey.
Speaker 1: They say to go into Bithynia.
Speaker 1: The Spirit suffered them not.
Speaker 1: They had a check in their spirit.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a vision, it wasn't a dream.
Speaker 1: The Spirit suffered them not, it wouldn't allow them.
Speaker 1: They neither had a witness.
Speaker 1: They assayed, they examined, they investigated Should we go to Bithynia?
Speaker 1: That's a likely candidate.
Speaker 1: And they lost their peace about going.
Speaker 1: And then it says they were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia Minor.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the Bible says go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature.
Speaker 1: How is it that the Holy Spirit would forbid them to do that in Asia Minor?
Speaker 1: It's because we're not all, we don't all have access everywhere.
Speaker 1: Those keys don't go everywhere that I just gave you.
Speaker 1: Those keys have a limited impact yet in your age and you'll find, as you obey God and you walk in that authority, God will give you a new set of keys.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's kind of ironic because God's been talking to me about keys lately and we've got keys that we never had before.
Speaker 1: We're going into rooms, we're going into places we've never been able to go to.
Speaker 1: God spoke to me all those years ago about these things, about the regional center, and just now we're beginning to have the key necessary to unlock those places.
Speaker 1: Are y'all getting this now?
Speaker 1: So they had to walk by the witness of the spirit.
Speaker 1: It was a much more vigorous.
Speaker 1: They were forbidden.
Speaker 1: See, that tells me that wasn't a vision.
Speaker 1: He didn't appear to them and say you shall not go.
Speaker 1: No, they just had a real strong negative witness about going.
Speaker 1: Forget about it, you ain't going there.
Speaker 1: You ain't going there, not probably because they wouldn't be accepted, or maybe someone else has got that job already.
Speaker 1: We don't need to know why, we just need to know, that's all.
Speaker 1: So then they said, okay, well, we're just going to wait here until we know.
Speaker 1: They didn't ask for a vision, but then Paul had a dream and in the dream a Macedonian man said come over here and help us.
Speaker 1: And so we assuredly gathered that the spirit wanted us to go there.
Speaker 1: We started our going to Macedonia, where they were, you know, received by Lydia, the seller of purple, and gave them a place to stay.
Speaker 1: They preached down by the riverside, got people saved, and then they got got, you know, beaten with many stripes.
Speaker 1: They got arrested, thrown into the inner prison and, uh, at midnight they prayed and sang praises and all the other prisoners heard them, and an earthquake came.
Speaker 1: The devil tried to kill them and god invaded the earthquake and used the earthquake to break them out and break the whole.
Speaker 1: Not only Paul and Silas, but the whole jail got free.
Speaker 1: They had a jail break engineered by the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1: So you see, these visions, a night vision is a dream.
Speaker 1: You see a lot of these in the Bible.
Speaker 1: You take away the vision.
Speaker 1: Think about the birth of Jesus.
Speaker 1: Everybody, you know Joseph had a dream and you know you go through there and see all the supernatural things that happened and go back to Acts, chapter 2.
Speaker 1: Peter said this is the beginning of that spoken by the prophet Joel.
Speaker 1: So we're living in the culmination of that spoken by the prophet Joel.
Speaker 1: So you're eligible Every believer under the sound of my voice is eligible to walk in the gifts of the Spirit as the Spirit wills.
Speaker 1: So what's our deal?
Speaker 1: Well, we just need to be willing and we need to have faith to operate when he does that.
Speaker 1: We need to trust that.
Speaker 1: I said we need to have faith to operate when he does that.
Speaker 1: We need to trust that.
Speaker 1: I said we need to trust that.
Speaker 1: Everybody say dreams.
Speaker 1: Years ago I was ministering to a pastor and his wife.
Speaker 1: I knew them very well, in fact, I'd stayed in their home.
Speaker 1: They'd hosted us Wonderful couple, just the sweetest people you'd ever want to see.
Speaker 1: They pastored a church.
Speaker 1: It's a good church.
Speaker 1: They weren't word of faith, but they were sincere.
Speaker 1: They had the Holy Ghost, they believed baptism of the Holy Ghost.
Speaker 1: They just weren't word of faith like us.
Speaker 1: They didn't come out of the Hagan, all the Copeland and the you know our camp, but they were good people and they gave their church up to go and serve another ministry which I also knew, both of them, the husband and the wife of that ministry that they went to serve.
Speaker 1: And I felt a little responsible because that minister they went to serve was trying to do too many things that he wasn't anointed to do.
Speaker 1: And one time I got to know him well enough to rebuke him and I said look, you're not a pastor and you keep starting a church and leaving your sheep behind to go overseas every summer and leave your flock rattling around town with nobody watching over them.
Speaker 1: I said that's not God.
Speaker 1: If you're going to, if you're going to, assemble a group of people and then go off and leave them, it's wrong and plus the fact you're asking them to tithe to you and you're not a pastor, you're not a church, you're out of order.
Speaker 1: Man, you've got to stop it or you're going to have to count me out.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to have anything more to do with you because you're abusing the sheep.
Speaker 1: I got to know him well enough to just be very direct.
Speaker 1: It was private, it was a private meeting.
Speaker 1: So he talked this other couple that I knew into coming and serving him.
Speaker 1: They gave up their church to go be the pastors and about six months, you know, I hadn't heard much, and about six months, you know, I hadn't heard much.
Speaker 1: And they came and said Pastor John, would it be okay if we come and see you?
Speaker 1: And it's a weekend, you know, and I'm not usually like weekend guests, but I had seen them and I just knew, in the spirit, something was wrong.
Speaker 1: I said, sure, come on.
Speaker 1: And they came.
Speaker 1: They drove a long way, they came in and got to our house on Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 1: You know I'm getting ready for Sunday.
Speaker 1: You know, in those days I led the worship, I did the preaching, and that was Sunday morning and Sunday night.
Speaker 1: And then I've got this couple staying with me on Sunday night and they're in my house and we're talking, yakking and talking and yakking, and so we're just visiting about just anything.
Speaker 1: And then the wife just started weeping, crying on my couch.
Speaker 1: I said, oh, what's the matter?
Speaker 1: Oh, I wasn't going to say anything.
Speaker 1: I said well, I knew something was wrong.
Speaker 1: I just waited for y'all to invite me in.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to knock down your door.
Speaker 1: Why don't you just tell me what's bothering you?
Speaker 1: And they'd been horribly abused, horribly treated by this other couple, just abused and stepped on and dishonored.
Speaker 1: And you know just, they would have church and they wouldn't even show up, they'd be in town, they wouldn't even come to the service and just had no authority to be the pastor.
Speaker 1: And I just listened, I said I'm so sorry that you're.
Speaker 1: And then, plus the fact, they had given their church to a young couple that I also had met and they reneged on their agreement and they just took the church and didn't send any monthly support.
Speaker 1: So they're hurting financially and they're hurting emotionally, they're hurting in every way.
Speaker 1: I said, well, I'm so glad you're here and you just come to church.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow I'll pray over you at the altar.
Speaker 1: I just know.
Speaker 1: You know you've got a friend and I hear what you're saying.
Speaker 1: So I didn't say a whole lot.
Speaker 1: That night I had a dream and in the dream these four people were in my dream in a church service.
Speaker 1: I was conducting the church service and the four of them were there in church service and the four of them were there and the wife of the abusing ministers was dressed in all black.
Speaker 1: She had black all the way from her neck down to the floor.
Speaker 1: She had a big, long black hair put up in a bun in the back of her head and I guess her countenance was one that was very severe.
Speaker 1: She had no joy whatsoever.
Speaker 1: Her eyes were like a doll's eyes.
Speaker 1: They were black and no life in them.
Speaker 1: There were no life in her eyes.
Speaker 1: You look at her eyes and it's just like looking at a doll.
Speaker 1: And I knew it was a Jezebel spirit.
Speaker 1: Jezebel in the Bible was the wife of Ahab.
Speaker 1: The Jezebel spirit is this demon power that I've come across more times than I care to recount.
Speaker 1: You always have those in churches because the Jezebel spirit hates the pastor.
Speaker 1: The Jezebel spirit undermines the authority in the church, spreads rumors, degrades.
Speaker 1: It's like a wolf, it devours, and Jezebel in the Bible was like that.
Speaker 1: You know, ahab was Jewish but Jezebel was some heathen.
Speaker 1: You know I forgot what she was, but she worshiped, they believed in all this stuff.
Speaker 1: Hittite, wasn't she?
Speaker 1: Huh, sidonian, evil man, the Sidonians people, nasty.
Speaker 1: So that's what she was.
Speaker 1: So the Jezebel spirits is a spirit of it's an evil spirit.
Speaker 1: And so in the dream I began to, I began to berate her.
Speaker 1: I would never do that in normal but I began to say some things to her in a depreciating manner.
Speaker 1: And oh, what did you say?
Speaker 1: What did you say?
Speaker 1: And I just started intimidating her.
Speaker 1: And she stood up and her eyes got wide and she started backing up and backing up and, man, we had a screen door.
Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of a fancy place this up.
Speaker 1: And man, we had a screen door.
Speaker 1: I don't know what kind of a fancy place this was, but it had a screen door.
Speaker 1: And she busted out that screen door and ran, and her husband was right behind her.
Speaker 1: They ran out the door.
Speaker 1: I chased them out and I woke up the next day and I knew what I was dealing with.
Speaker 1: I knew I was dealing with a demonic power that had beat up this precious couple and it hurt them and it said all kind of horrible things to them.
Speaker 1: The man told my friend, my other man friend said you know, he was a truck driver in his early days and he gave all that up to be a pastor.
Speaker 1: He said you're going to be back driving a truck within two years You'll be out of the ministry.
Speaker 1: Pastor, he said you're going to be back driving a truck within two years You'll be out of the ministry.
Speaker 1: And so, anyway, right up here, I broke that off of them and cut all that off of them and gave them a measure of peace.
Speaker 1: They separated from this couple and went back, tried to put things together.
Speaker 1: But I have to say that there were some spiritual laws that got loosed in that situation that couldn't be changed.
Speaker 1: She died of cancer two years later and he went back to driving a truck.
Speaker 1: It's out of the ministry.
Speaker 1: Well, you mean, it didn't work?
Speaker 1: No, it worked.
Speaker 1: I got the devil off of them, but they didn't know, they didn't know what we know.
Speaker 1: They didn't have this kind of teaching of authority.
Speaker 1: Mean, it didn't work?
Speaker 1: No, it worked.
Speaker 1: I got the devil off of them, but they didn't know.
Speaker 1: They didn't know what we know.
Speaker 1: They didn't have this kind of teaching of authority.
Speaker 1: They didn't know how to stand against demon powers, they didn't know how to take their authority and drive the devil out, and they were just so hurt.
Speaker 1: And so, you know, they just didn't respond.
Speaker 1: And of course they're not right under me, they're not here in the church.
Speaker 1: They can't get built up, they live in another country.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, there's only so much I can do for somebody.
Speaker 1: But I did get the devil off of them.
Speaker 1: I mean the devil went out.
Speaker 1: But that came as a result of the dream.
Speaker 1: I've had three dreams about Jezebel spirits and every one of them God was able to show me.
Speaker 1: Sometimes when I see a Jezebel spirit.
Speaker 1: One time I saw an old nun and she looked like she was 300 years old.
Speaker 1: She had wrinkles upon wrinkles and her eyes were yellow.
Speaker 1: She had yellow eyes and she was standing there in my sanctuary right to the side of where I was preaching Jezebel's spirit and I knew who that was and I knew where she was manifesting and I ran them out.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you start manifesting that kind of spirit.
Speaker 1: You're going to get run out.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't just do that.
Speaker 1: I have what Information, supernatural Word of knowledge comes with the dream.
Speaker 1: Are y'all with me?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 1: You know God.
Speaker 1: If you don't ask him for all these things, you just be willing for God to do what he needs to do to help you.
Speaker 1: The Holy Ghost is your helper.
Speaker 1: Now, these are kind of ministerial kinds of things, but I'm telling you, he'll help you in your business.
Speaker 1: He'll help you in your family.
Speaker 1: He'll help you with your loved ones.
Speaker 1: He'll help you with your kids.
Speaker 1: He'll help you with your marriage.
Speaker 1: He'll help you know which way's out and which way's in.
Speaker 1: Come on, let's lift our hands.
Speaker 1: Minister of visions.
Speaker 1: Thank you, lord, for the gifts of the Spirit.
Speaker 1: Did you get anything out of this tonight?
Speaker 1: Glory to God.
Speaker 1: Thank you, lord.
Speaker 1: We give you praise and glory and honor.
Speaker 1: Hallelujah.