SPEAKER_00: And pick up our Bibles, please, and let's lift them up and wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's say this together.
SPEAKER_00: Say, Heavenly Father, how good it is to be present with people of like precious faith as I.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, love plus unity equals miracles.
SPEAKER_00: It's a miracle season.
SPEAKER_00: And it's always miracle season to those who believe his word and obey it.
SPEAKER_00: Father, I thank you that Jesus is Lord over my life.
SPEAKER_00: He's Lord over my mind.
SPEAKER_00: He's Lord over my body.
SPEAKER_00: He's Lord over my family.
SPEAKER_00: Lord over my church.
SPEAKER_00: Lord over my state.
SPEAKER_00: Lord over America.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right, praise God.
SPEAKER_00: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_00: Let's turn in our Bibles to our foundation scriptures, Revelation 21 and also Joshua chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: And we will go back over these foundation scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Most of you know, but in case you didn't, we have declared by the Holy Ghost that 2026 is the year of new things.
SPEAKER_00: And so our verses are chapter 21, verse 5 in Revelation.
SPEAKER_00: And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new.
SPEAKER_00: And he said unto me, Write, for these words are true and faithful.
SPEAKER_00: And then when we go back to Joshua chapter 3, verse 1, read about the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: 1 Corinthians 10 says, All these things are written for our admonition.
SPEAKER_00: What things?
SPEAKER_00: The things that are written about Israel and the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament is for our admonition.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's good to read the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: I read it, but I feed on the epistles.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, let's get into it.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 3, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua rose early in the morning, and they removed from Shetem and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel and lodged there before they passed over.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say they passed over.
SPEAKER_00: And it came to pass after three days that the officers went through the host, and they commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall remove from your place and go after it.
SPEAKER_00: Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits, about a half a mile.
SPEAKER_00: Come not near unto it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way heretofore.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is week three of teaching on the subject.
SPEAKER_00: If you haven't heard the first two messages, or if you've only listened to them maybe a little bit, you know, I know how it is sometimes if you miss church and then you try to wit listen to the podcast, going to work, and you only hit here.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, you need to sit down and you need to listen to every bit of all the messages about this year if you want the benefits of what's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I'm teaching this to put this into you where it'll move from your head into your heart.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's in your heart that you've got to receive.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: And then with your mouth, that's you know, it was written, it was spoken so it could be written.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus, Jesus, the one that sat on the throne, spoke it and said, Hey, write this down.
SPEAKER_00: These words are true and faithful.
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's good for us all the time, every time we think, and we just thank God, we're doing new things in my life.
SPEAKER_00: He's making all things new.
SPEAKER_00: And so we we discovered, you know, we started, you know, we started right with the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: Behold.
SPEAKER_00: The word behold means play close attention, perceive, and understand.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a glance.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a, and Jay uh uh reiterated that on Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00: He he backed this message up on Wednesday night and got more depth and detail of what it means, and that's good.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do some more of that type of thing tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Pastor, I don't usually come to church on Sunday night.
SPEAKER_00: Well, God's doing a new thing, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe it's a new thing for you to actually come to church on Sunday night.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Pastor, you know, I live in Timbuktu too.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care where you live, we're gonna have church.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, we're gonna have church whether it's raining or snowing or ice or hurricane or tornado.
SPEAKER_00: We will be here.
SPEAKER_00: Just so you know.
SPEAKER_00: We'll never, we never close.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't close for COVID.
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna close for the devil.
SPEAKER_00: We're not gonna close.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying that to make you feel bad.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just informing you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm giving you information so you know you don't have to have to warn.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if churches are yes, it's open on Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: I'm getting excited on it.
SPEAKER_00: I get excited about church.
SPEAKER_00: So behold, and I make.
SPEAKER_00: The word make means do, execute, fulfill, gain, give, perform.
SPEAKER_00: And then it means lighten the ship.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, he sometimes he'll he'll bring some things in there and say, okay, I'm done with that now.
SPEAKER_00: Let's move on to the next thing.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you have to release something in order to gain the next thing.
SPEAKER_00: In John 15, 1, it says, you know, my Jesus said, uh, I'm the vine, you're the branches, and my father is the husbandman or the vine dresser.
SPEAKER_00: Every vine, every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he, the father, the vine dresser, taketh away.
SPEAKER_00: But every every branch in me that beareth fruit, he, the vine dresser, God, pruneth, purgeth or pruneth.
SPEAKER_00: You prune live tissue.
SPEAKER_00: You prune things that are living.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's some things that you've been doing that's been good, it's fruitful, you're fulfilled, and you feel good about doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we need to be open to maybe God snipping that off.
SPEAKER_00: I've had that happen a lot in my life over my 40 years getting saved.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, God's pruned things, He's pruned people, He's pruned relationships.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about my wife or my husband, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But maybe you were, maybe it was pruned.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've you've had a disappointing marriage, maybe you, maybe you've divorced, maybe you've had a failed marriage.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, just be encouraged.
SPEAKER_00: God's got there's life after divorce.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, God's got new things for you.
SPEAKER_00: He's not giving up on you.
SPEAKER_00: He loves you.
SPEAKER_00: You've got a father in heaven that loves you.
SPEAKER_00: So uh, so he makes all these things new.
SPEAKER_00: All things, what's all things?
SPEAKER_00: Whole thing, everything, you know, whatsoever, whosoever.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say I'm a whosoever.
SPEAKER_00: See, he's talking about you when he's talking about all things, he's talking about you.
SPEAKER_00: He's not talking about somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody says he's talking about me.
SPEAKER_00: See, everybody in this building is included.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he is God, and he does know how to do all things to all folks and make them new.
SPEAKER_00: And what's the word new there?
SPEAKER_00: Well, chainos, it means new, fresh.
SPEAKER_00: It means unworn.
SPEAKER_00: It means unused.
SPEAKER_00: You might feel like you've been rolled hard and put up wet.
SPEAKER_00: Guess what?
SPEAKER_00: God can make you feel like you've been unused, like you've been unworn.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: He can make you, he can restore the new car smell.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: They there's nobody on earth been able to restore the new car smell, but God can do it for you.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: A new kind, an unprecedented, unheard of, unheard of.
SPEAKER_00: I want to get you, I mean, this is what this is what the language that Jesus used to tell uh the apostle John to write down.
SPEAKER_00: He said, These words are true and faithful.
SPEAKER_00: So they're worthy of us repeating about ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Just let's just lift your hand.
SPEAKER_00: God's making all things new in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Now you might not know what that means yet, but that's why we have to ask, seek, and knock.
SPEAKER_00: So we talked about that the first week.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then I wanted to share out of uh out of Joshua what that what what the captain's the officer said to the people.
SPEAKER_00: He he told the Jews, he said, You have not passed this way heretofore.
SPEAKER_00: You've not, you know, you've not been this way.
SPEAKER_00: You've not been this way before.
SPEAKER_00: And see, I I take that as two sides.
SPEAKER_00: I take that as not only the pathways new, but you are new.
SPEAKER_00: You've never been this way before.
SPEAKER_00: It speaks to who you are.
SPEAKER_00: And I think about, for instance, Saul in 1 Samuel chapter 10.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he was head and shoulders above all of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: You know, prophet Samuel warned Israel they, you know, don't be seeking after a king.
SPEAKER_00: No, but we want a king.
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's not right.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to be your king.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be seeking.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we want to be like everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: All the other countries have kings.
SPEAKER_00: We want a king.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, I'm telling you, you're wrong to be wanting it, but I'll I'll I've got one for you.
SPEAKER_00: And he he selected Saul.
SPEAKER_00: God selected Saul.
SPEAKER_00: Saul was just like somebody they'd elect.
SPEAKER_00: They would have elected Saul if they'd have had an election.
SPEAKER_00: Because he stood hudding shoulders above them.
SPEAKER_00: He was a beautiful-looking guy, very humble, very soft-spoken, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you couldn't say get him to say boo.
SPEAKER_00: And they would be just perfect because we can tell the king everything we want him to do for us.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know what?
SPEAKER_00: He got anointed as king, and as soon as he turned away from Saul to leave, God gave him another heart.
SPEAKER_00: And he went among the prophets, and he was likened unto another man.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God can make you so.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Jesus, after the resurrection, they didn't, they didn't even recognize him.
SPEAKER_00: They'd spent three years, three and a half years with him, and they didn't recognize him after the resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: He he looked brand new.
SPEAKER_00: He still had the holes in his hands, he still had the big gash in his side, he had the prints of the nail, you know, the scars in his head from the from the crown of thorns, but he looked different.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, God can make you look a whole lot better than you look right now.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad he's still working on me.
SPEAKER_00: So, and so we're asking and we're seeking in and we're knocking.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's more than a casual.
SPEAKER_00: And you're not going to get everything right away.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I was I was going back and looking at some of the words that we've had in the past.
SPEAKER_00: One of the most amazing uh nights, I think, in my ministry and all the time all the things that I can remember.
SPEAKER_00: And I I go back on a regular basis and think about uh just what God has done and thank him.
SPEAKER_00: You know, God loves to be thanked for things.
SPEAKER_00: But on Rosh Hashanah night of Sunday night, I think it was the 19th of September 2019, I mean, I got into a prophetic river.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't just a word, it was a river.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I stood up here and it was just like one thing after another after another.
SPEAKER_00: It took five or six typewritten pages to put everything down that was spoken that night.
SPEAKER_00: And that was a night that I prophesied 2020 will be the greatest year yet.
SPEAKER_00: And so I got the word for 2020 way in advance.
SPEAKER_00: Here it was September before it it came, and that's the Jewish New Year.
SPEAKER_00: That's, you know, that's the that was new in the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah, the Feast of Trumpets.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh when we look back on 2020, I don't think very many people would mark that as the greatest year.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's the worst year.
SPEAKER_00: That was COVID.
SPEAKER_00: That was the shutdown.
SPEAKER_00: Churches closed and didn't ever reopen.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them disappeared.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of pastors left the scene, a lot of them died.
SPEAKER_00: I know a couple of ministers that died at 60.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have a long life because of that year.
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't say it was the greatest year they ever had because they left the scene.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but you know, for us, it was the greatest year yet.
SPEAKER_00: And and and in that in that word that came, and it was just a long series of of uh different, uh, it was a prophetic word, it was visions, it was seeing, it was remembering previous dreams, it was just an amazing night.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I'm kind of reminded uh of that when I look at this word that we have right now.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't I haven't been in a prophetic river like that here and speaking, but these messages are none no less prophetic.
SPEAKER_00: They're they have no less weight because it's God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And God's word is anointed.
SPEAKER_00: God, this these words are true and faithful.
SPEAKER_00: So uh so this asking, seeking, and knocking, at that time I I I challenged the church in 2020.
SPEAKER_00: I said, spend the first 10% of this year meditating on these scriptures, and that was after January the 1st.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if if you'll recall, uh that would be 36 days that you that that I challenge you.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you did it, but you ought to be meditating on these verses that I gave.
SPEAKER_00: One of them was I uh was uh Psalm 92, 10, I shall be anointed with fresh oil.
SPEAKER_00: And we had a series of cer of of verses to meditate on.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it wasn't very long after 2020 got underway that all of a sudden, you know, the latter part of January, we started hearing uh about a Chinatown here in town.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there's a a Chinatown near town where they have all these Chinese restaurants.
SPEAKER_00: People were getting viruses in China, uh, which wound up being the coronavirus, and they were coming and they were, they were, they were they were afraid.
SPEAKER_00: They had a lot of their food shipped from there.
SPEAKER_00: They and so people quit going, you know, the Chinese people that would go to Chinatown to eat out, they wouldn't go.
SPEAKER_00: They were afraid.
SPEAKER_00: And I re do y'all remember the mayor coming out, oh, it's everything's for Sheila Jack, she Jack gets up, oh, everything is just wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all just come on down and eat all the China.
SPEAKER_00: So then the next month they they they shut the rodeo down the next month.
SPEAKER_00: Because one person went to the Mardi Gras and came back with coronavirus.
SPEAKER_00: One person at the barbecue cook-off, you had about what, a hundred people were exposed.
SPEAKER_00: And they shut the entire rodeo down.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they could.
SPEAKER_00: See, then we began to see the abuse of power.
SPEAKER_00: And this church wouldn't bend its knee.
SPEAKER_00: This church would not accept that garbage about masking up and six foot and all of that garbage.
SPEAKER_00: I knew it was garbage.
SPEAKER_00: And now they admit it it's all garbage, it's all made up.
SPEAKER_00: And still, there's still people that hadn't caught up.
SPEAKER_00: You're not gonna be some of those people, you're gonna hear the truth from this pulpit.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I'm reminded of that, and I believe this is just as earth-shaking.
SPEAKER_00: I believe this word has got even more significance right now, the new things.
SPEAKER_00: We must have these new things to break through the limitations.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them are self-imposed, but others have been demonically imposed.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna break through every one of them.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: So uh we started off with ask, seek, and knock.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's more than a casual prayer.
SPEAKER_00: That's your, you need to get into this for a for a period of time.
SPEAKER_00: Spend some time asking, seeking, knocking.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, what is it?
SPEAKER_00: What are we asking about?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, what can I let go of?
SPEAKER_00: What do I need to let go of?
SPEAKER_00: What do I what is done?
SPEAKER_00: You know, God will show you when something's done, and if you're not careful, you'll hang on to something.
SPEAKER_00: Especially relationships, friendship, friendship.
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes there's just really no godly uh purpose for the friendship that you're hanging on to.
SPEAKER_00: They you keep going up and they keep going a different direction.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you keep hanging out with people that are inappropriate?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even talking about sin, I'm just talking about people that weigh you down.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about people that will not encourage you.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about people that are not gonna do what you are gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: You need to let something go.
SPEAKER_00: I've had to do that over and over.
SPEAKER_00: I've had to let preachers go that I was close to.
SPEAKER_00: And thank God I did, because a couple of them are dead.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you can hang on to people too long and you can wind up like they are.
SPEAKER_00: Or you can go on with God.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, I'm gonna go on with God no matter who it separates me from or identifies me with.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be faithful with my godly relationships, but anything else that's soulish, I mean, I gotta put that on the altars of God.
SPEAKER_00: What you know, I'm willing.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what you're praying about.
SPEAKER_00: What can I let go of?
SPEAKER_00: What can I pick up?
SPEAKER_00: What can I assume?
SPEAKER_00: What can I begin to do to do for you?
SPEAKER_00: What assignments have you got?
SPEAKER_00: Here I am, Lord, send me.
SPEAKER_00: But you're so busy doing the old thing you don't have time to say, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Well, God, I can't.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's what I talked about last week about our staff.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they all were hired with a job description, and it's like a plate at Thanksgiving, and next thing you know, you go through the line, you pile the plate up, and it starts falling off the sides, and the dressing's coming off and hitting on the floor, and the and it's really bad when the cranberry sauce goes.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it goes everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: You know, got you know, dark red stuff all over the cake, tablecloth, and everything, all because it's piled up.
SPEAKER_00: No, we don't want their plates piled up.
SPEAKER_00: We want them to be able to do the thing that they're anointed to do efficiently.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're we're we're going through this process right now at the church.
SPEAKER_00: I believe we all need to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And then what do we do now?
SPEAKER_00: I've got more to talk about to do now.
SPEAKER_00: I've got something for you to do pretty soon.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll talk to you about that later.
SPEAKER_00: But there's going to be some action things that you need to do right away.
SPEAKER_00: And then last week we talked about don't limit God.
SPEAKER_00: Don't limit God with your mind, don't limit God with your ability or lack of it, don't limit God by the calendar or the clock.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take the limits off of God.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because of God's unlimited.
SPEAKER_00: And so now today I want to get into uh let's look at Joshua chapter 3 and let's keep reading.
SPEAKER_00: We stopped at verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: And I want to give you some things that that uh God gave me back in 2019 concerning the greatest year yet.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you ever remember the greatest year yet?
SPEAKER_00: Three people.
SPEAKER_00: Man, it must not have been a great year.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't turn out like we thought, huh?
SPEAKER_00: He wanted, you chose to forget it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I got it.
SPEAKER_00: All right, uh Joshua chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and he gave me three words that uh that came from the verses, and it was perspective, power, and prominence.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say perspective?
SPEAKER_00: See, God's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: See, God's when you pray, you get God's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: When you read your Bible, you get God's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: That's why a word life and a prayer life is absolutely there's no substitute.
SPEAKER_00: You will never have God's perspective without those two active in your life.
SPEAKER_00: You'll have your perspective.
SPEAKER_00: And your perspective may not be a sin.
SPEAKER_00: Your perspective may not be totally wrong, but it isn't God's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: And we need what?
SPEAKER_00: God's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: And then when you get God's perspective, then his power is able to be released in its fullness.
SPEAKER_00: And the result of that release of power is gonna mean that you've got a bigger footprint.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have more prominence, you're gonna have more influence, you're gonna be a light.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Jesus said don't let your, don't hide your light under a basket or under a bushel, let your, put your light on a candlestick so that everybody can see it.
SPEAKER_00: God's not, listen, God's not against you being exalted, he's just against you exalting yourself.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, it's just automatic.
SPEAKER_00: You get exalted when you follow these things out.
SPEAKER_00: And God uses you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, how can he use you and you're hiding in a corner?
SPEAKER_00: And you can, well, I'm just humble.
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's that's you know, really, it's just fear.
SPEAKER_00: Let's not call it humble.
SPEAKER_00: Let's call it what it is.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm just shy.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what is that?
SPEAKER_00: Fear.
SPEAKER_00: No, you're bold.
SPEAKER_00: The righteous are bold as a lion.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's I'm getting more bold as as every day goes by.
SPEAKER_00: I'm bolder and bolder.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, this generation needs a bold church to stand up against it.
SPEAKER_00: Stand up against the outright lies that come forth from these people.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: They just make it up.
SPEAKER_00: And so we've got to have answers.
SPEAKER_00: So today, Joshua chapter 3, verse 5, and uh we'll read here.
SPEAKER_00: And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.
SPEAKER_00: Sanctify yourself.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, there they are on the banks of the Jordan River.
SPEAKER_00: They're on this side.
SPEAKER_00: They haven't crossed it.
SPEAKER_00: It's flooded.
SPEAKER_00: They're told they're going to cross and it's flooded, and so they're going, hmm.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, they're commanded to follow the priests.
SPEAKER_00: The priests are gonna cross, and they got to follow the priest, but they still don't know exactly.
SPEAKER_00: But but they're commanded, Joshua said to the people, sanctify yourself, set yourself apart.
SPEAKER_00: And when I read that, I remembered how Moses, when God came and gave him the Ten Commandments and Mount Sinai trembled and shook.
SPEAKER_00: And he and he he said something similar.
SPEAKER_00: He said, you know, sanctify yourselves against tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Come not at your wives, for God is going to come down and visit you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he that mountain shook, and they they they got so afraid they fled to the backside.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't want to, they didn't want to face God.
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't face him.
SPEAKER_00: So they would have, if they had had marital relations, they would have been unclean, ceremonially unclean.
SPEAKER_00: When a husband and a wife have marital relations, they have to, then after that, they should have those, they should have children, but then they have to, they have to cleanse themselves in a certain way.
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, if they did that, they wouldn't have time to qualify as being clean.
SPEAKER_00: They would still be unclean when God is gonna show up on the scene, and they can't, they can't stand before God in unclean.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they can't do that.
SPEAKER_00: They gotta be clean.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's really what this means.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you talking like that?
SPEAKER_00: I'm just saying we need to shake loose of things that we know need to go.
unknown: That's right.
SPEAKER_00: Poor attitudes need to go.
SPEAKER_00: We need to just go ahead and own that we've had a poor attitude.
SPEAKER_00: We need to own that we haven't walked in love.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do a whole series of messages starting this Wednesday night on love.
SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: This series of messages on Wednesday night, Love Wednesdays, is critical for this message to work in your life for God to do new things because love is the major thing.
SPEAKER_00: But love's our only commandment.
SPEAKER_00: When we fall short in love, we've, you know, we have we're not sanctified.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I thought Jesus, yeah, well, that was Jesus' side, but our side is to obey the word.
SPEAKER_00: Why why call you me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?
SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, you can't say you love me.
SPEAKER_00: If you love me, why don't you do the things that I tell you to do?
SPEAKER_00: I love you, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Well, bluebirds love the Lord, but I mean, you know, you need to obey him.
SPEAKER_00: You know what those things are already.
SPEAKER_00: So get rid of them.
SPEAKER_00: See, that's what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_00: He's not gonna get rid of them.
SPEAKER_00: You have to get rid of them.
SPEAKER_00: Are you with me now?
SPEAKER_00: Sanctify yourselves again.
SPEAKER_00: Because tomorrow the Lord's gonna do wonders among you.
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna take wonders and signs and miracles for you to get the new things.
SPEAKER_00: There's obstacles that have to be crossed.
SPEAKER_00: Some supernatural, some natural, but they all have to be crossed, and you're gonna do it with the power of God on your side.
SPEAKER_00: And uh so he said, verse 6, Joshua spoke unto the priests.
SPEAKER_00: Take up the Ark of the Covenant, pass over before the people.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure they're thinking, what are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: It's flooded out there.
SPEAKER_00: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: Give me a break, Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I, you know, I really I like you and everything, but you're trying to commit suicide here.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's flowing, man.
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember it's going.
SPEAKER_00: Pass over, he said.
SPEAKER_00: Take up the ark and go before the people.
SPEAKER_00: And the Lord said unto Joshua, this day will I begin to magnify thee in the sight of all of Israel, and they will know that I, as I was with Moses, so I'll also be with thee.
SPEAKER_00: And you now, then he gives him the how it's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: And you shall command the priests that bear the ark of the covenant, saying, When you are come to the brink of the water of Jordan, you shall stand still in Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, Come here and hear the words of the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: So this is all before anything, anybody'd move.
SPEAKER_00: This is before the priests had gone out there yet.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna bear the ark on their shoulders.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna wade out in there.
SPEAKER_00: It's before that happened, and so he's telling them ahead of time how it's gonna be.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua said, Hereby you shall know that the living God's among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Gergesites, the Amorites, the Jebusites, the Budites, the Hedites, the Lolites, Termites, all the ites are gonna be driven out from before you.
SPEAKER_00: I will drive them out before you.
SPEAKER_00: This is how you're gonna know that.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, look here now, pay close attention, watch this happen with your eyes wide open, quit hiding behind a bush because you're afraid to cross.
SPEAKER_00: Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord, not the Lord of Israel, the Lord of all the earth.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 13, and it shall come to pass as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests that bear the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, double annunciation of God, he wants them to know that that's not just the God of Israel, that is the God of all the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes I think we think just God's just the God of the Christian, God's just the God of the Jew.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's the God of all the earth.
SPEAKER_00: All the earth.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say all the earth shall rest in the waters of Jordan, that the waters of Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand upon a heap.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it all happened just like that.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me just paint you a picture real quick.
SPEAKER_00: So now the Jordan River has cut a trench through the land, and all rivers are like this.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you go to the Guadalupe, you go any any river, whatever river.
SPEAKER_00: New Aces River, Guadalupe River, Sabinau River, uh, you know, it's got a bank.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because the water has just worn the soil down and you've got a drop-off.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you don't just you don't just wade out into the river because it's pretty steep.
SPEAKER_00: But now, if the water has overflowed the banks, now the water is out here where it doesn't normally run and it's not as deep.
SPEAKER_00: And so they began to get their feet into that water.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't out in the river part, they were out in the overflow part.
SPEAKER_00: Are y'all with me now?
SPEAKER_00: I want you to see how it worked.
SPEAKER_00: And all three million of these Jews, they were arranged in places where they could all see a half a mile, they could see what was going down when those priests started waiting.
SPEAKER_00: And Joshua, this is how it's gonna work.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna do it, see?
SPEAKER_00: So they start walking, and as they as their feet got into that overflow, the water started stacking up.
SPEAKER_00: It started stacking up, started stacking up.
SPEAKER_00: And the water out in front quit flowing, and so that water started flowing away, and that level dropped to where now you can see the bank.
SPEAKER_00: You know, and the bank is pretty steep, but there's still water out there, and where's that water going?
SPEAKER_00: That's flowing to the Dead Sea.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is up, you know, up north.
SPEAKER_00: It's just stacking up to the north, and to the south, it's flowing to the Dead Sea until all that water drains off.
SPEAKER_00: And then they go out and they keep waiting until they and they have to go down that bank, and all the people of Israel are watching them do all this.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't take, it took a little while.
SPEAKER_00: I said it took a little while for them all for it all to soak in.
SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, they and then they went, walked out there, and all that water stacked up and the light and the ground dried up.
SPEAKER_00: Ground dried up.
SPEAKER_00: So uh God's making all things new.
SPEAKER_00: That's our word, and this this picture is a picture of what he did for Israel.
SPEAKER_00: He made them new.
SPEAKER_00: I I mentioned this before.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have time to re-preach it.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you need to read here hear those messages.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, their slave mentality, you know, that that's how they think.
SPEAKER_00: They've got to be told every little thing to do, they have no initiative, they have no trust.
SPEAKER_00: They tend to complain.
SPEAKER_00: Their parents died because of it.
SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, this generation learned from their parents what not to do.
SPEAKER_00: Now they've got uh this dried-up river.
SPEAKER_00: So in the supernatural crossing of Jordan, Israel received God's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say God's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: What was God's perspective that he expressed to them that they didn't know?
SPEAKER_00: Number one, God will drive out the nations occupying your inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: In other places, and Moses said, you know, what other nation under heaven has God chosen to defeat nations that are greater and mightier than you?
SPEAKER_00: See, all the nations they faced were greater and mightier.
SPEAKER_00: In some cases, they were giants.
SPEAKER_00: In all cases, they were more numerous.
SPEAKER_00: In all cases, they were much more practiced in battle.
SPEAKER_00: They had chariots, they had weapons of war.
SPEAKER_00: They were much more skilled in battle.
SPEAKER_00: So you can understand how, you know, the ten spies, their their fathers that went before 40 years ago, they went into the land and spied it out.
SPEAKER_00: They came back, said, Oh, it's just like Moses said, it's the land of milk and honey, and this is a fruit of it.
SPEAKER_00: Nevertheless, there's giants in the land, and there's wall cities, and we be not able because we're like grasshoppers in their side and grasshoppers in our.
SPEAKER_00: That was their perspective.
SPEAKER_00: Their perspective was they were not able.
SPEAKER_00: God was not in the equation, even though God already told them that he was gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00: God was just forgot about God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's forget about God.
SPEAKER_00: We are not able.
SPEAKER_00: We just don't have it.
SPEAKER_00: We don't have, we're like grasshoppers.
SPEAKER_00: No, this time they've got God's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: God tells them right on the spot this is the way you know God's with you.
SPEAKER_00: When that water dries up and you drop across there, you're gonna know that that same God that dried the water up is gonna be with you, and he's gonna drive out these greater, uh, greater uh armies than you.
SPEAKER_00: In some cases, giants.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say perspective.
SPEAKER_00: And then he another perspective, God uses a line of authority to execute his plan.
SPEAKER_00: He magnified Joshua in the sight of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Now just think about Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he's been with them all these years.
SPEAKER_00: He's seen how they tend to be.
SPEAKER_00: He's been the second banana, if it can say that.
SPEAKER_00: You know what that means.
SPEAKER_00: It means that he's kind of the chief of staff.
SPEAKER_00: Moses is the is the one that everybody.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't it strange that after people die, they're suddenly deified and they're put up on a pedestal.
SPEAKER_00: And and I mean, while Moses was alive, they didn't pay any attention to him.
SPEAKER_00: They argued with him every day.
SPEAKER_00: They they differed with him, they they criticized him day and night.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot follow a leader and receive from a pastor that you criticize.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that he's right.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that he's even likable, but you start criticizing him, you might as well.
SPEAKER_00: You just cut off any kind.
SPEAKER_00: That's God's plan.
SPEAKER_00: God made this thing to work.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one that set these things in place.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're gonna ever get anything from God and get anything, break through these kinds of things, you've got to learn to follow the leader.
SPEAKER_00: So he had, just think about it.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he he, in comparison, you know, look at Moses.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, Moses had this story, I mean, you know, this whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: And he was a prince of Egypt and highly learned and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Joshua didn't go to school.
SPEAKER_00: He he didn't have a doctor's degree in science.
SPEAKER_00: He he, no, he's just a farmer and a slave at that.
SPEAKER_00: But you don't, when you've got the anointing, you don't need a whole lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: The anointing fills in all the gaps.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying you shouldn't go to school, I'm not saying you shouldn't learn things, but I'm telling you, the anointing, there's no there's no comparison to the anointing of God.
SPEAKER_00: So he uses a line of authority, and then the next thing that I see is that he uh let's skip down to chapter 4 here, verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Take you twelve men out of the people, one of every tribe a man, and command them, saying, Take hence out of the midst of Jordan, out of the place where the priests stood firm, feet stood firm, twelve stones, and you shall carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where you shall lodge this night.
SPEAKER_00: And so they did that.
SPEAKER_00: Twelve men took twelve stones, carried them over to the lodging, and just laid them on the ground where they camped out across the river.
SPEAKER_00: And it says here, verse 6, that this may be a sign among you that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, what means these stones?
SPEAKER_00: Because Moses, uh Joshua built a memorial on the other side.
SPEAKER_00: He stacked them up, built a memorial.
SPEAKER_00: What means these stones?
SPEAKER_00: You shall answer that the waters of Jordan were cut off from before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off, and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel forever.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say a memorial.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and so the children of Israel did what they were commanded, and uh they carried them over.
SPEAKER_00: Now in verse 9, I never saw it in my life.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many hundred times I've read the book of Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I camped out in Joshua when Brother Osteen died.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, God spoke to me out of Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: Moses, my servant, is dead.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when Brother Osteen went to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's in chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, God spoke Joshua to me.
SPEAKER_00: I camped out in Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many hundred times I've read it, and I never saw it until just the other day.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say, New things.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you've got this memorial over there in the campground, but look what verse 9 says.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9, and Joshua set up 12 stones in the midst of Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: No, not in the campground.
SPEAKER_00: If you already got that, he came back down and got 12 stones and built a memorial in the bottom of the riverbed.
SPEAKER_00: Bottom, the riverbed.
SPEAKER_00: He built a memorial right where the priests were standing.
SPEAKER_00: While they're still standing.
SPEAKER_00: He had to wait till they see they they had to stay in the river till he built that memorial with 12 stones, one for each tribe of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: And so Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests, which bear the Ark of the Covenant, stood, and they are there unto this day.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say two memorials.
SPEAKER_00: That's you know, that's that gives you God's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: When God does something so new and so tremendous that he wants it to be remembered, not for just a little while.
SPEAKER_00: He wants He wants it to be forever.
SPEAKER_00: He wants a memorial forever.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, you know, I mean, I'll be honest, God's I'm talking about what God did in 2019, 2020.
SPEAKER_00: I I consider that a memorial to him.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that was the most amaz one of the most amazing words I've ever uh had the honor to be part of and and to to give.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll talk about some of that tonight a little bit more in detail.
SPEAKER_00: So don't miss it tonight.
SPEAKER_00: I don't mind telling you to come back.
SPEAKER_00: I know most of you won't, but some of you will.
SPEAKER_00: I hope you'll start to change.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, look, how many more days of this do we have before he comes?
SPEAKER_00: I I I'm feeling maybe it's my age.
SPEAKER_00: Another birthday.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's, I mean, when I when I started this, I was a young man, and here I am.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to believe I'm in my 80th year.
SPEAKER_00: So I it's hard for me to even relate to that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't see myself that way, but I have to look at it how many years I've been saying, how many years I've been teaching, how many years I've been looking, how many more years have we got left to have a service like this?
SPEAKER_00: So, new things should be remembered forever.
SPEAKER_00: He had two memorials.
SPEAKER_00: You know that if you've been here very long, you'll hear me talk about the double annunciation of God.
SPEAKER_00: Verily, verily, I say unto you.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham, Abraham, hurt not the lad.
SPEAKER_00: Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?
SPEAKER_00: Martha, Martha, you're cumbered about with many things.
SPEAKER_00: See, the double annunciation of God.
SPEAKER_00: When he's when he speaks something twice, it's it's solid.
SPEAKER_00: You can put it in the bank.
SPEAKER_00: It's going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: These two memorials are are, I don't know of any other place where he put put two memorials.
SPEAKER_00: But one was in the middle of the river that basically said, this river had to had to dry up.
SPEAKER_00: We came across right here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when that when that river came back, it was still in flood stage, and so you didn't see the memorial.
SPEAKER_00: It was underneath the water.
SPEAKER_00: And then at some point in time, perhaps, I don't know how tall that memorial was with six stones, how big were the stones.
SPEAKER_00: We're not told those details.
SPEAKER_00: But I have to believe that it must have stuck up where you could see it.
SPEAKER_00: And even if you couldn't see it uh from out there, if you're in the river, you could see it.
SPEAKER_00: The water's pretty clear.
SPEAKER_00: You could see it just like the memorial we built in Pearl Harbor, the Arizona, USS Arizona, with 1,100 sailors still on board.
SPEAKER_00: Their bodies are locked in a tomb.
SPEAKER_00: They couldn't get them out of the sunken battleship.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a memorial there in Pearl Harbor to commemorate the attack of the Japanese on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's one of those things that every time I've been to Hawaii, I I've I flew through Hawaii, through Honolulu, three times on Asian trips before I ever went there on a vacation.
SPEAKER_00: But every time I've flown into that place and landed, I thought about that attack, I thought about that memorial.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I remember that thing.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I you'll never you could beat me into a greasy spot, and I'll never not keep thinking about December the 7th, 1941.
SPEAKER_00: We hardly even mention it anymore.
SPEAKER_00: We hardly mention 9-11.
SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget 9-11.
SPEAKER_00: I will never forget it.
SPEAKER_00: Are y'all with me now?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So then, so God gave them his perspective, and they needed that, and then Israel saw God's power.
SPEAKER_00: See, it took faith for the priest to do what Joshua told them to do.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, they're they're like any, they're like you and me.
SPEAKER_00: If I'm standing on the side of a rushing torrent, I'm not ready, I'm not ready to go out there.
SPEAKER_00: I am not gonna wait out there, you know.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I read about some kids that went kayaking on the Cypress Creek, you know, when it was right after Harvey.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, are you stupid?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they're stupid.
SPEAKER_00: They don't know what they're doing, they have no idea what what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: That that creek, I mean, when that thing gets up and and you're gonna drown it.
SPEAKER_00: That if you fall out of that kayak, you've got very little chance of surviving.
SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of branches, there's all kinds of tangle in there, there's trash in there and all that.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, you know, you just you're taking your life in your hands to get in a uh in a cypress creek and it's running like that.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, or any river, San Jacena River.
SPEAKER_00: I had a guy I played football with and graduated high school with and drowned the summer after our high school graduation because he got drunk and and he got liquor courage that he could swim the Ranges River.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he couldn't.
SPEAKER_00: Rivers are dangerous.
SPEAKER_00: It looks like, oh, I could swim that.
SPEAKER_00: You man, it's got twerk, it's got these little eddies, it's got these currents, they will suck you under and you can't get back up and you get caught.
SPEAKER_00: And he drowned, died.
SPEAKER_00: 18 years old.
SPEAKER_00: Oh.
SPEAKER_00: So Israel saw God's power.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because they had the faith to do what they were told to do.
SPEAKER_00: They they were they were the tip of the spear for the whole nation, the priests that bore the ark, they had to have enough faith to take that step and get in that water, and then when they had the faith to get out there close enough to that before it dropped off, then it started stacking up and they could see.
SPEAKER_00: So faith is a switch that turns on the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is the switch.
SPEAKER_00: It was God's power that dried up, dried that river up and stacked it up on one side and dried it up on the other, and then dried out the river bottom.
SPEAKER_00: And they passed over on dry ground.
SPEAKER_00: So now they have evidence that God's power will drive out the ice.
SPEAKER_00: He said, you know, that's what he said.
SPEAKER_00: Now you know.
SPEAKER_00: The same God that dried the river up is going to drive out all the ice, all the nations that you but were your parents were afraid of.
SPEAKER_00: You have no reason to be afraid of any enemy.
SPEAKER_00: You have no afraid, no reason to be afraid of any devil that's afflicting your children.
SPEAKER_00: You have no reason to be afraid.
SPEAKER_00: You've got all authority in heaven and earth that's been given unto Jesus, and Jesus gave it to us.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say power.
SPEAKER_00: And then Israel received God's prominence.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's uh keep reading here Joshua chapter uh four.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: On that day, what day am I talking about?
SPEAKER_00: The day when the Jordan River was dried up, they crossed over.
SPEAKER_00: On that day the Lord magnified Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they feared him as they feared Moses all the days of his life.
SPEAKER_00: It's just absolutely, you know, what what do I mean, fear?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, you take into account what is spoken and said to you.
SPEAKER_00: A leader can't lead without respect.
SPEAKER_00: He can't lead without honor.
SPEAKER_00: And God is the one that can place that honor on a person.
SPEAKER_00: It's supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: But it can be chosen.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, in 30 years, we've had people that honored me and people that didn't.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just that's just how it is.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I, you know, if I had thin skin, I wouldn't be here.
SPEAKER_00: I'd already be cut to ribbons.
SPEAKER_00: So it's not on me.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that I've got to do anything.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that I'm, you know, personally, it's the office that I stand in.
SPEAKER_00: It's the all, everybody say the office.
SPEAKER_00: So as their leader, Joshua received greater prominence and honor and fear.
SPEAKER_00: God is the one that did it.
SPEAKER_00: He told Joshua ahead of time, I'm gonna do that this day.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00: And then let's keep reading here in chapter 5, verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: And it came to pass when all the kings of the Amorites, which were on the side of Jordan westward, and all the kings of the Canaanites, which were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of Jordan from before the children of Israel until we be passed over, that their heart melted.
SPEAKER_00: Neither was their spirit in them anymore, because of the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: You talk about expand their footprint.
SPEAKER_00: You talk about somebody that all of a sudden they're not grasshoppers, they are a force to be reckoned with.
SPEAKER_00: These are giants.
SPEAKER_00: They're, you know, we'll talk more about this next week, but what was the first assignment?
SPEAKER_00: It was Jericho, where the giants were.
SPEAKER_00: It was the giant, it was the one, it was the same one that they came back and gave report on.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there's wall cities that are walled up there.
SPEAKER_00: There was no walls like the walls of Jericho.
SPEAKER_00: The walls of Jericho not only were tall, but they're broad.
SPEAKER_00: They've drove chariots on the top of the walls.
SPEAKER_00: You don't break through that wall.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way to break through a wall like that.
SPEAKER_00: The only way to break into the city would be to break uh, well, either either one of you break through the gates of the city or you would mount up a uh a mound and climb the wall from the outside.
SPEAKER_00: Well, how are you gonna do that with archers and guys on chariots?
SPEAKER_00: They've got, you know, spears and everything else to kill you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you you can't.
SPEAKER_00: It was unconquered and unconquerable until that was their first assignment.
SPEAKER_00: And God gave them a new battle plan that nobody had ever heard of before.
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about that next week.
SPEAKER_00: Are y'all with me now?
SPEAKER_00: So Israel received prominence in the sight of her enemies.
SPEAKER_00: So as we sanctify ourselves, I just challenge you do your asking, seeking, and knocking.
SPEAKER_00: Start dealing with things that you know need to be dealt with.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Ghost will help you do whatever you put your hand to do.
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to do it by yourself, but you do have your part to play.
SPEAKER_00: And start doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Start moving toward those things to sanctify and prepare yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You know, next week we'll talk about it, but one of the first things they did when they went across the river, they circumcised all the men.
SPEAKER_00: They circumcised them all.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, that's not a very good plan because you've got your enemies right over here.
SPEAKER_00: They're not very far from you.
SPEAKER_00: They're right around the right around the bend over there, and you're over there wounded.
SPEAKER_00: You can't do anything for a while until you get healed up.
SPEAKER_00: But say they didn't have to worry about that because they're all afraid of them.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what was that ball about?
SPEAKER_00: That that's about cutting away things of the flesh that need to go away.
SPEAKER_00: That's part of sanctifying, that's part of becoming uh of cleansing yourself of all filthiness of the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Bible tells us to do that.
SPEAKER_00: Present your body a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable.
SPEAKER_00: You present your body.
SPEAKER_00: Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.
SPEAKER_00: You renew your mind to the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: You do that part, and God will do the rest.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So as we sanctify ourselves and yield to the Holy Ghost, we begin to receive God's perspective, power, and prominence for this year, 2026, the year of new things.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, let's lift our hands and receive the word.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: Did you get anything out of this today?
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, now, if you've brought rocks in, we'll put them away.
SPEAKER_00: The next one you might not be as excited, but I want to charge you.
SPEAKER_00: I want to charge you to begin to pray about a memorial offering.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say offering.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not receiving it today.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to pray about it.
SPEAKER_00: And I you know, I know in my own life, you know, you get comfortable giving a certain amount.
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I'll challenge myself, and sometimes I'll just say, bless God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna break out of that and I'm gonna give more.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, always tithe.
SPEAKER_00: Tithe is the first tenth.
SPEAKER_00: But then the rest of it is up to you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, as a as as you determine in your heart, we try, we don't try to bleed you, we don't try to wring things out of you.
SPEAKER_00: We want you, though.
SPEAKER_00: I I like Brother Mark coming here.
SPEAKER_00: One of the big reasons I have him come is because he will impart a spirit of generosity through his teaching.
SPEAKER_00: And generosity is something that we learn.
SPEAKER_00: Generosity is something we grow.
SPEAKER_00: It's a fruit.
SPEAKER_00: You're not born with it.
SPEAKER_00: You're born with selfishness, aren't you?
SPEAKER_00: Babies are not generous.
SPEAKER_00: They're gonna keep what's theirs, they're gonna fight for that toy, they're gonna fight for that doll, they're gonna fight for that truck, and they're not gonna give, and so you have to, what do you have to do?
SPEAKER_00: Little by little, you know, you train them to play nice and and be generous and all.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, it doesn't stop.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you we all can be generous, and I like what he says.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if if we just give and we can forget, then it wasn't really, we're not probably gonna notice the harvest that comes from it.
SPEAKER_00: The harvest is gonna be inconsequential.
SPEAKER_00: We determine the amount of the harvest by the generosity of the gift.
SPEAKER_00: And generosity in my case, I mean I had to rearrange my finances one time.
SPEAKER_00: I had planned, I'll tell the story again.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's worth talking about.
SPEAKER_00: I had planned on giving$3,000 in the offering.
SPEAKER_00: I had already filled out the uh offering envelope at Brother Mark's uh meeting.
SPEAKER_00: It was one of his meetings, invitation-only meeting in March several years ago.
SPEAKER_00: And uh he was beginning to take the offering in the morning meeting, and I talked to Gladys and we agreed, and so I filled out the information, credit card, all the numbers and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Took me a while, and I'm I'm trying to listen to him, but I'm filling out the long, all that.
SPEAKER_00: Got it all done, ready to go, and I put it on a credit card.
SPEAKER_00: I don't like to do that, but I did it because I just didn't bring a check.
SPEAKER_00: And uh so he starts, you know, preaching the offering, and and he goes along, and he in the Galatians he just mentions as often as you have opportunity, you know, as you have opportunity, I think it's Galatians 6.
SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Ghost said, Well, you've got opportunity to do more than$3,000.
SPEAKER_00: And I turned red.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, embarrassed me.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and I but I started laughing, and I said, Well, yeah, you're right, because I had just refinanced our mortgage, and I was gonna pull money out of the equity of our house, it was gonna increase our monthly payment, but I was gonna get a chunk of cash that I had here, and it's two and three-quarter percent mortgage.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna pay two and three-quarter percent for this money that I'm gonna get.
SPEAKER_00: It's borrowed money, it's costing me two and three-quarters percent, but I knew that I could invest it over here in some investments that I had that was gonna give me a lot more than that.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what was my plan was.
SPEAKER_00: But when the Holy Ghost said, You, you know, you've got opportunity to do a lot more than that.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, yeah, Lord, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, of course I do.
SPEAKER_00: I just refinance.
SPEAKER_00: So you let me get this straight.
SPEAKER_00: You want to use some of my refinance money to put in an offering, borrow money to put in the offering?
SPEAKER_00: He didn't answer me, but I knew that was the answer.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Lord, I'm willing to do that.
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
SPEAKER_00: I re- I don't have to invest that money.
SPEAKER_00: I can put it, I can put it all or some or whatever, whatever you were, whatever you think is a good idea.
SPEAKER_00: He still didn't answer me.
SPEAKER_00: But I do have to talk to Gladys before I do this because she's got to be part of this, and I can't just do it this morning.
SPEAKER_00: So we arrived at a very substantial for us,$30,000.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say$3,000 and$30,000.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Pastor, you're bragging.
SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not bragging.
SPEAKER_00: God knows my heart.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not bragging on anything.
SPEAKER_00: I'm giving you an illustration out of my life.
SPEAKER_00: Giving you an illustration out of my life.
SPEAKER_00: That I had to rearrange some things.
SPEAKER_00: I had to, I had to put off this investment.
SPEAKER_00: I had to wait on that.
SPEAKER_00: I went ahead and refinanced the mortgage.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't all the money I got out of it, but it reduced it enough to where I needed to not do the thing I had in mind.
SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of thing I want you to pray about.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not embarrassed to say so.
SPEAKER_00: We have needs that are in the absolutely unprecedented before us this year.
SPEAKER_00: And yes, we're raising money outside these walls, we're doing what we can do, but the light that shines furthest shines brightest at home.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're, you know, I want you to, I want you to prepare a mission uh a memorial offering.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll we're not doing it today, we're not even doing it next week.
SPEAKER_00: We want you to pray about it.
SPEAKER_00: We want you to search your heart and you get at peace about what it is that you want to do.
SPEAKER_00: I've used my life as an example.
SPEAKER_00: This is an example of how I operate.
SPEAKER_00: Let every man give as he determines in his heart.
SPEAKER_00: Not out of compunction, not out of being forced.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna send anybody to your house to get a pledge.
SPEAKER_00: In 2019, 2020, we had the greatest year yet offerings.
SPEAKER_00: I still see them come across in the offering.
SPEAKER_00: GYY, and there's an amount on an envelope.
SPEAKER_00: People are still paying on what?
SPEAKER_00: A faith promise they made God, and we never, I never asked them to tell us what they promised.
SPEAKER_00: We never did collect it.
SPEAKER_00: We won't ask you anything.
SPEAKER_00: We're not asking you for an amount.
SPEAKER_00: We're not asking you to tell us what it is.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't have a significant offering to give yet, or you can give nothing yet, you can arrive at a faith promise.
SPEAKER_00: A faith promise says God, I promise.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as you supply seed to the sower, I will pay, I will pay that, I will pay that amount.
SPEAKER_00: I will give that in the memorial offering.
SPEAKER_00: And then you might want to just uh uh pay a little on it at a time.
SPEAKER_00: And again, we're not gonna keep track of it.
SPEAKER_00: You'll keep track of it.
SPEAKER_00: Ah, we'll keep track of the giving.
SPEAKER_00: I'm and if you and we'll get keep track of what was given in the memorial, but as far as us knowing how much you said you were gonna do, we won't know that.
SPEAKER_00: That's between you and God, totally between you and God.
SPEAKER_00: I haven't had to dodge any rocks.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, praise God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm bold.
SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, we're on this together.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is this is God's money.
SPEAKER_00: This is God, God owns all the gold and all the silver.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, when you start committing yourself to something that's greater than you've ever done, God's gonna do some things greater than He's ever done for you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're gonna have greater doors, you're gonna have greater, you're gonna have greater victories, you're gonna have greater results, you're gonna you're gonna break through plateaus, break through lack of growth, break through uh limits on your income, break through limits in your businesses, break through limits.