SPEAKER_00: Lift your Bibles up and wave them around.
SPEAKER_00: Make Jesus glad, the devil mad.
SPEAKER_00: Say this together.
SPEAKER_00: Say Heavenly Father, thank God for Sunday night.
SPEAKER_00: This is the right place at the right time for me.
SPEAKER_00: I have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to me.
SPEAKER_00: This Bible is God speaking to me.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not just a hearer of the Word, I am a doer of the Word.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Let's look at John chapter 16.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll read it first in the King James, John 16, 33.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus on the night before he was crucified.
SPEAKER_00: 13, 14, 15, 16, 17.
SPEAKER_00: Those were his capstone.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is right when he's going to the cross, kind of saying goodbye temporarily to the disciples.
SPEAKER_00: They're sad.
SPEAKER_00: And he says in John 16, 33, these things I have spoken of you.
SPEAKER_00: What things?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he talked about the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_00: He talked about, you know, he talked about a lot of things.
SPEAKER_00: And these things I have spoken unto you.
SPEAKER_00: He said, it's better for me that I go away.
SPEAKER_00: If I don't go away, the Holy Ghost won't come.
SPEAKER_00: He said, the works that I do shall you do also in greater works than these shall you do.
SPEAKER_00: So he's talking about those things, those things, see.
SPEAKER_00: These words spake Jesus, excuse me, these things I have spoken unto you that in me you might have peace.
SPEAKER_00: You might have shalom.
SPEAKER_00: See, uh, this is the Greek, but in in the Hebrew he's he used the word shalom, ain't it?
SPEAKER_00: You know, shalom is health, prosperity, and peace.
SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
SPEAKER_00: It's might.
SPEAKER_00: You might have it.
SPEAKER_00: It's not on God's side, it's on our side.
SPEAKER_00: These things I've spoken unto you that in me you might have peace.
SPEAKER_00: In the world, you shall have tribulation.
SPEAKER_00: But be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
SPEAKER_00: And then I'll read it in the amplified.
SPEAKER_00: The last part.
SPEAKER_00: In the world you shall have tribulation and trials and distresses and frustration.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of frustration today.
SPEAKER_00: But be of good cheer.
SPEAKER_00: That is, take courage, be confident, certain, undaunted.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I like that word.
SPEAKER_00: Undaunted.
SPEAKER_00: For I have overcome the world.
SPEAKER_00: I have deprived it of power to harm you and have conquered it for you.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, lift your hand right now.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: And so my message tonight is entitled Courage at Crunch Time.
SPEAKER_00: Courage at Crunch Time.
SPEAKER_00: We all get to places where it seems like it's crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: If God doesn't show up, we're done.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, if we learn how to trust Him, we can have peace and shalom at crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Brother Osteen used to say there's no great faith without great tests, no great victories without great battles.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I think about the Thessalonian church.
SPEAKER_00: Paul was congratulating them.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just read it to you, 2 Thessalonians chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: I was reading it recently.
SPEAKER_00: And uh he was he was bragging on them.
SPEAKER_00: And uh in chapter 1, uh verse 3, we're bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as in meat, because that your faith groweth exceedingly.
SPEAKER_00: So if you stop there, well, wow, their faith grew.
SPEAKER_00: And look what else what happened, though.
SPEAKER_00: Look how it grew.
SPEAKER_00: Their faith grew exceedingly, and the charity or the agape of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth.
SPEAKER_00: So they went through something together, and they stuck together as a church, so that we ourselves glory in you and the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure.
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: Persecutions and tribulations, which is a manifest token of the righteous judgment of God that you may be counted worthy of the kingdom of God for which you also suffer.
SPEAKER_00: Seeing it is a righteous thing for God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you.
SPEAKER_00: See, you don't have to worry about getting back at anybody that's giving you trouble.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, God knows how to handle that.
SPEAKER_00: So in the world, Jesus is warning his disciples, you're gonna have it, you're gonna have it.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: Crunch time was when he left the earth.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when he was died on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You talk about crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: They forgot what he said.
SPEAKER_00: They forgot that he said he's gonna rise again from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: They just, they were so overwhelmed by the by the blood and the torture.
SPEAKER_00: Leave it to the Romans to invent crucifixion.
SPEAKER_00: Horrible way to die.
SPEAKER_00: Generally, it took days where you would just finally suffocate.
SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't be able to have the strength to raise your chest to take a breath, and you'd have all this fluid buildup, and you'd just strangle and choke and suffocate.
SPEAKER_00: It'd take days.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, when the soldiers uh were inconvenienced, well, they'd just come along and break the legs of the prisoners, and then they couldn't bear up, and then they would die quicker.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what they were going to do, because there was a storm.
SPEAKER_00: And they went over to Jesus to break his legs, and he was already dead.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: How could that happen?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, because he died of a broken heart.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he took our sin, he took our sickness.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So the night before this crucifixion, it's crunch time for the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: It looked and felt about as bleak as it could be.
SPEAKER_00: Yet Jesus is calling the things that be not.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I've overcome the world.
SPEAKER_00: Well, he hadn't done it yet.
SPEAKER_00: Hadn't gone to hell yet.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's calling the things that, you know, if Jesus can do it, we can do it.
SPEAKER_00: We can call ourselves victorious right in the midst of the biggest mess you've ever seen.
SPEAKER_00: You can you can say, Well, I'm winning this one.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: He had courage and was demonstrating to them how to get it.
SPEAKER_00: You don't ever get it by having a pity party.
SPEAKER_00: You don't ever get it by magnifying the problem.
SPEAKER_00: He had courage.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had courage at crunch time, and we can as well.
SPEAKER_00: Similar time between Moses and Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: You know, Joshua is what they call the second banana.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you know, he's he's kind of the assistant.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's kind of front and center and pretty pretty popular, but he's not the leader.
SPEAKER_00: Moses is the leader, but God has selected him.
SPEAKER_00: And hey he doesn't know it, he's humble, he doesn't, he doesn't presume that.
SPEAKER_00: But I mean it was Joshua that made the sun stand still and the moon.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't Moses, it was Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, man, what a man of faith that could just hold his hand up.
SPEAKER_00: He he knew something about the covenant and was well able.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but yet it got down to crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: And Moses had disobeyed God and couldn't go into the church, they're about ready to go into the promised land, and Moses had struck the rock the second time and violated a major type and shadow of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You know, he's gonna be the rock of our salvation, was struck once and then he for our sin.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't die twice.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he struck the rock the second time, he violated the whole type and shadow that God was wanting to put into effect.
SPEAKER_00: It was a serious thing.
SPEAKER_00: He let his temper, you know, if you don't, if you've got a temper, you better get it get a control of it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes I can have a temper, so I have to make myself, you know, calm myself down.
SPEAKER_00: And uh it's not a good, it's not a good trait.
SPEAKER_00: But his temper cost him being able to go into Promised Land.
SPEAKER_00: He got mad at the Jews and he said, I'll show you swap.
SPEAKER_00: And the water came out anyway, even though he sinned, the water came out.
SPEAKER_00: God honored the office he stood in.
SPEAKER_00: The water came flowing out of there to water three million people and their animals.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's a huge gusher.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, God said, All right, because of this, you're not going to the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: You can't enter in.
SPEAKER_00: And so as time went on, it got time for them to go across.
SPEAKER_00: He said, All right, I want you to lay your hands on Joshua, put some of your honor, some of your honor on him.
SPEAKER_00: And and speak over him in front of all the of Israel so that they know he's in charge.
SPEAKER_00: And so this is crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, you're used to having someone over you that is responsible, and now the buck stops here.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's it had to be a little bit unnerving for Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: He's responsible for these people now.
SPEAKER_00: It's always been Moses.
SPEAKER_00: They were always wanting to give Moses problems, but now he's the leader.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: And so let's look at it, Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: These verses are just holy to me.
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you why in a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Most of you know, but some of you don't.
SPEAKER_00: Now, after the death of Moses, see, what did what happened to Moses went up on Mount Pisgah, got to see the promised land from a distance, and then God he died up there, and God hid his body.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody found his body.
SPEAKER_00: Well, why did he do that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, because God knew that if he died where the Jews could get a hold of him, they'd embalm him.
SPEAKER_00: They knew about embalming from the from Egyptians, and they would probably turn it into a horrible idol.
SPEAKER_00: They would have that body, they'd haul that body around and worship.
SPEAKER_00: So he hid the body from the devil.
SPEAKER_00: Now, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead.
SPEAKER_00: Now therefore, arise.
SPEAKER_00: Go over this Jordan, thou and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even the children of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.
SPEAKER_00: And then he describes the boundaries, from this wilderness of Lebanon, even unto the great river, the great river of Euphrates.
SPEAKER_00: Man, that's a long way from present-day Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They haven't gotten their land yet.
SPEAKER_00: The whole world's upset about that little tiny postage stamp of a country, and they still don't have what God gave them.
SPEAKER_00: God gave it to them, not the United Nations.
SPEAKER_00: The land of the Hittites and under the great sea, according toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.
SPEAKER_00: There shall not be any man able to stand before thee all the days of thy life as I was with Moses, so also I shall be with thee.
SPEAKER_00: I will not fail thee nor forsake thee.
SPEAKER_00: This is God talking to Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: It's crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: God knew it was crunch time, and he came and he gave him a powerful word, mouth to mouth.
SPEAKER_00: He came and visited him and told him this thing.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Be strong and of a good courage.
SPEAKER_00: For unto this people shalt thou divide for an inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them.
SPEAKER_00: In my margin, it says, You shall cause this people to inherit the land.
SPEAKER_00: You shall cause this people.
SPEAKER_00: Joshua, you shall cause Israel to inherit their land.
SPEAKER_00: Which I swear unto their fathers to give them.
SPEAKER_00: Only be thou strong and very courageous.
SPEAKER_00: Second time.
SPEAKER_00: That thou mayest observe to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded thee, turn not from it to the right hand or the left, that thou mayest prosper whithersoever thou goest.
SPEAKER_00: This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate therein day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that's written therein, for then you shall make your way prosperous, then you shall have good success.
SPEAKER_00: Have not I commanded thee, be strong and of a good courage three times, third time.
SPEAKER_00: What does that tell you?
SPEAKER_00: It tells you he's gonna have an opportunity to break.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna have an opportunity, a lot more crunch times are in his future.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it says.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, don't look it up.
SPEAKER_00: But it's just a popular kind of way of thinking where the chips are down, when the rubber meets the road.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, when you know, when you've reached the end of human strength, crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: Have not I commanded thee, be strong and of a good courage, be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee.
SPEAKER_00: We sang that tonight.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord thy God is with thee.
SPEAKER_00: Whithersoever thou goest.
SPEAKER_00: Thirty one.
SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy means the second giving of the law.
SPEAKER_00: Why'd you have to give it twice?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you had the people of all the the children of the disobedient ones, they all died in the wilderness, and the second generation had to be retaught everything that the first generation thought they knew.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't write this down, I'm just flowing right now.
SPEAKER_00: They're doing running with what?
SPEAKER_00: Thirty-three?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, thirty-one twenty-three.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: And he gave Joshua, the son of Nun, a charge and said, Be strong and of good courage.
SPEAKER_00: Where have I heard this before?
SPEAKER_00: Joshua said.
SPEAKER_00: Where have I heard this before when Moses told him?
SPEAKER_00: Be strong and of a good courage.
SPEAKER_00: You shall bring the children of Israel into the land which I swear unto them, I will be with thee.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and you know, he he laid hands on him, gave some of his honor to him.
SPEAKER_00: So it was crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: Crunch time for Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: And how important it was to have courage, how important it was to lean on God, to rise up.
SPEAKER_00: As I was with Moses, I shall be also with you.
SPEAKER_00: See, how are you going to be strong?
SPEAKER_00: With the word.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to be strong in the word.
SPEAKER_00: Meditate in this word day and night.
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, one of the reasons why these verses are dear to me is because one of the major crunch times in my life and ministry occurred in January of 1999.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor Osteen went to heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And uh my phone rang at 2 o'clock in the morning, and uh the staff member told me that Brother Osteen had collapsed.
SPEAKER_00: They carried him to the emergency room, didn't look good.
SPEAKER_00: He was an organ failure.
SPEAKER_00: And uh Gladys woke up, started walking up and down in front of the bed.
SPEAKER_00: I'm still laying in the bed, put the phone up next to me, and she's walking up and down, hollering at the devil, praying in tongues.
SPEAKER_00: And uh in the middle of all that, uh I heard these words Moses, my servant, is dead.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, arise.
SPEAKER_00: As I was with Moses, so I shall also be with thee.
SPEAKER_00: Be strong and very courageous.
SPEAKER_00: No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life.
SPEAKER_00: He just said the same thing to me, he said to Joshua.
SPEAKER_00: That's why this is holy to me, because it was just so supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: So supernatural.
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, uh the let the record state that they didn't really unplug him until that afternoon, but God told me he was gone.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: I kind of feel a little weird saying it in public.
SPEAKER_00: I guess I'd kind of be embarrassed for the family to hear me say that he was already gone at two o'clock in the morning, but he was.
SPEAKER_00: That's what God told me.
SPEAKER_00: He said he's gone.
SPEAKER_00: He's dead.
SPEAKER_00: You know, they can keep you alive, they can they can keep your heart pumping, they can keep you breathing, but I mean you, your spirit can leave your body, and I believe that's exactly what happened.
SPEAKER_00: Because based on what all I went through that that evening, so on the heels of that, I said, honey, honey, it's it's it's it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: He's he's gone.
SPEAKER_00: He's in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And so then I was reminded about an occurrence that happened the previous November.
SPEAKER_00: This is November, this is uh January 23rd, sometime in November.
SPEAKER_00: Well, October I'd seen him at a meeting.
SPEAKER_00: I went to see uh Rodney Howard Brown and uh at a church here in town, and Brother Osteen was brought in by, I won't say who he is, but his friend had driven him, and I was so shocked.
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't seen him in a few months, and he was just so frail and so white.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, he was white, and he looked terrible.
SPEAKER_00: It's very frail, very frail.
SPEAKER_00: And I could tell he didn't really want to be there, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_00: And uh so I I I greeted him, I hugged him.
SPEAKER_00: And then the next month in November, I got a phone call at home from a staff member and says, you know, Brother Osteen has gone to dialysis, his kidneys have failed.
SPEAKER_00: And I was so sad.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it was a it was a morning time, and I prayed for him.
SPEAKER_00: We had already been praying for him, he he had had some, had all his.
SPEAKER_00: Sons come and lay hands on him one time at a special prayer meeting at Lakewood.
SPEAKER_00: I was honored to get to be one of the ones that laid hands on him.
SPEAKER_00: And so I was walking from the kitchen.
SPEAKER_00: There's a little hallway that goes by the utility room into the dining room and goes up, and I cut across the entry hall and go to my study.
SPEAKER_00: That's where I was headed from the kitchen to the study.
SPEAKER_00: And when I got even with the utility room, suddenly I just didn't know what it was at the time, but I was in a trance.
SPEAKER_00: And I was in this paneled room, big table, didn't see any people.
SPEAKER_00: Looked like a lawyer's office, looked like a lawyer's conference room.
SPEAKER_00: Books, big wall, bookcases of books, big long table, no people.
SPEAKER_00: But I heard this voice.
SPEAKER_00: And a John Griner I bequeath.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a lawyer reading Brother Osteen's last will and testament.
SPEAKER_00: And a John Griner I bequeath, and I didn't hear what he bequeathed.
SPEAKER_00: I felt the awe and wonder, the shock of it, even though I didn't know what it was.
SPEAKER_00: And I said in this trance, I said, You mean he left me that?
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even his blood.
SPEAKER_00: And then I came to myself, and I'm standing in the utility room, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I came to myself and I said, devil, that's a vain imagination.
SPEAKER_00: Brother Osteen is going to live and not die.
SPEAKER_00: Declare the works of the law.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't receive it as from God.
SPEAKER_00: I, you know, that went against what I was praying, went against what I was believing.
SPEAKER_00: I was believing for him to recover.
SPEAKER_00: And so this night, after this Moses, my servant, is dead, I relive that trance.
SPEAKER_00: And then that's when I realized it was a trance.
SPEAKER_00: It was the Holy Ghost giving me a foretaste that I was about to receive something of my inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: Now I didn't get his mantle, forget about it.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody said, Oh, you got his mantle.
SPEAKER_00: No, I didn't either.
SPEAKER_00: I got an inheritance.
SPEAKER_00: I got what I sowed seed for.
SPEAKER_00: It was a spiritual deposit.
SPEAKER_00: And so after that, after I had this rehearsal of this trance, he replayed the trance just like I told you.
SPEAKER_00: So that's the second time.
SPEAKER_00: I had the trance originally.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't accept it.
SPEAKER_00: And now he gave it to me again.
SPEAKER_00: I'm still laying in bed.
SPEAKER_00: Gladys is finally crawled back in bed and covered up.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of chilly.
SPEAKER_00: It's January, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And uh and she's wondering what's going on with me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm just, you know, lay, you know, laying there at the lamp on.
SPEAKER_00: I'm laying there with my eyes open, just trying to figure out what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: And the next thing I know, I'm on like a nose cone of a rocket.
SPEAKER_00: The only way I can describe it is like I'm on the nose cone of a rocket.
SPEAKER_00: It's like my, I'm, I can't see anything behind me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going through space like this, real fast.
SPEAKER_00: It's outer darkness.
SPEAKER_00: It's just like I have a sensation of speed.
SPEAKER_00: And then I got a little further and I went into this narrow place.
SPEAKER_00: Hard to describe it.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't see the walls of it.
SPEAKER_00: I just felt this narrow place, and on the other side, I burst out the other side with a huge amount of velocity.
SPEAKER_00: And I came to myself.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody heard that and said, Oh, you went through the birth canal.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know if that's the birth canal or not, but I'm an engineer by by education, and I don't know a venturi is a narrow thing that you had back in the days when they had carbon.
SPEAKER_00: Well, they still have venturies.
SPEAKER_00: It just is a place for the air coming into your engine to accelerate and to break up the fuel droplets so that the car can run.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what I did.
SPEAKER_00: I went through this narrow place and popped out on the other side.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I believe that was the time that God deposited this uh gift upon me.
SPEAKER_00: So he said, as I was with John Osteen, so also I'll be with you.
SPEAKER_00: You shall cause your people to possess their inheritances.
SPEAKER_00: Be strong.
SPEAKER_00: No man's gonna be able to stand before you.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm gonna tell you something, the devil opposed me.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, right away, man.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's when I mean I I realized right away that it wasn't gonna be fun and games.
SPEAKER_00: I had a member of my church that I knew very well stood up against me and took 60 families out of my church, chart started a church out of our church.
SPEAKER_00: And uh a lot of people left with him.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, man, how how do you think that's ever gonna get blessed when you steal sheep?
SPEAKER_00: And uh, but you know what, it didn't really affect us.
SPEAKER_00: We just kept on going.
SPEAKER_00: I forgave him.
SPEAKER_00: You know, uh later that same year, a group of leaders grew up, uh rose up and uh lied about my family and lied about me and took a bunch of people and moved down to another church and uh right at crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we needed them to help us because we had lost our lease on the Baptist church down the street, and here we're preparing to move, and they all leave.
SPEAKER_00: We lost half our church.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, I had to forgive them.
SPEAKER_00: And I and I took my pastoral covering off of them.
SPEAKER_00: You've heard that story.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I said, what do I do now?
SPEAKER_00: Well, forgive them.
SPEAKER_00: I said, okay, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I said, he said, pray mercy on them.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh Lord, I'll do that.
SPEAKER_00: I'll pray mercy on them.
SPEAKER_00: Take your pastoral covering off of them.
SPEAKER_00: That's the first time I'd ever heard of a pastoral covering.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know I had one to give.
SPEAKER_00: Never had any teaching on it.
SPEAKER_00: Which means that they are no longer, I'm no longer responsible for anything in their life.
SPEAKER_00: I'm no longer responsible for their destruction that they're gonna have.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're gonna have destruction when you steal sheep or when you lie about a minister.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have, I mean, you return evil for good, you're gonna reap a lot of bad stuff.
SPEAKER_00: So, the church they picked, the pastor was in about six months, he was arrested for rape of a staff member.
SPEAKER_00: He was giving her, um, she had trouble in her marriage, so he was giving her marriage counseling and wound up having an affair with it.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that sweet?
SPEAKER_00: He was arrested for rape.
SPEAKER_00: He plea bargained and took all the church's money and went to Dallas and opened up another ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And all these people left our church with their tithe that they should have supported the church that God assigned them.
SPEAKER_00: They were assigned me, but they they rejected that.
SPEAKER_00: They went down the road and you know, blind leading the blind.
SPEAKER_00: Why am you saying all this?
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about courage at crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: I had to have courage.
SPEAKER_00: I had to know that God was with me, he was for me.
SPEAKER_00: Are y'all with me now?
SPEAKER_00: Confident, certain, undaunted.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I had my I had my weak moments.
SPEAKER_00: I admit when I found out the the de the depth of the betrayal, I I woke up at 2 o'clock in the morning, laid on my den floor, and wept and you know, boo hooed, and gave myself a 60 seconds to have a pity party, and then that's when I asked the Lord, what do I do?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Forgive them.
SPEAKER_00: You ever feel so dumb, you know?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay, yeah, I'll do that.
SPEAKER_00: Pray mercy on him.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, yeah, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I this is what I said.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Lord, I don't understand why I didn't know about it.
SPEAKER_00: I have gifts of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Why didn't you tell me?
SPEAKER_00: Why didn't I know?
SPEAKER_00: Did you tell me and I didn't hear you?
SPEAKER_00: Why, how, how, how is it that this whole rebellion happened right under my nose, people I trusted?
SPEAKER_00: How in the world?
SPEAKER_00: How in the world could that happen to me?
SPEAKER_00: I know things by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Why didn't I know?
SPEAKER_00: I'm the shepherd, I should know these things.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Well, let me ask you something.
SPEAKER_00: Uh did you give your life to me?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, yeah, Lord.
SPEAKER_00: He said, So you belong to me then?
SPEAKER_00: I said, Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, so then I can do anything I want to with your life.
SPEAKER_00: Is that right?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_00: You can.
SPEAKER_00: He said, even prove people out.
SPEAKER_00: I said, yes, sir.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't prove out.
SPEAKER_00: And God used me.
SPEAKER_00: You know, that's not the kind of prayer that you pray.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, God, use me to prove people out.
SPEAKER_00: You know, have some people betray me really, really hard, lie about me.
SPEAKER_00: Are y'all getting anything out of this tonight?
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about courage, crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: So confident, certain, and undaunted.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I just I just picked myself up and I knew that God was on my side.
SPEAKER_00: It looked bad.
SPEAKER_00: We had lost our lease.
SPEAKER_00: This was uh Wednesday night after a church service that I realized so many of these people had, in fact, one of them walked out on me.
SPEAKER_00: Wednesday night, God said, okay, you go to the church and don't have anybody on the platform.
SPEAKER_00: You sing with tracks, don't let anybody accompany you, just be by yourself, don't have anybody up on the platform with you.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, wow, this is kind of weird.
SPEAKER_00: And this was our last service on a Wednesday night at the church down the street, which is now the Christ Church Baptist up there.
SPEAKER_00: We had leased it from Champion Forest Baptist.
SPEAKER_00: And they had sold it out from under us.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, we had to move.
SPEAKER_00: You ought to try moving churches in 90 days.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know where we were going yet.
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't really landed on a place yet.
SPEAKER_00: And this is Wednesday night and coming up Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, where are we going to meet?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: So he had me up there all by myself.
SPEAKER_00: I preached a message.
SPEAKER_00: I led praise and worship by myself with a microphone, uh corded mic.
SPEAKER_00: And I guess Jay ran the sound.
SPEAKER_00: I don't remember.
SPEAKER_00: I know he did.
SPEAKER_00: But nobody up there with me, and I had a worship team.
SPEAKER_00: I said, no, y'all, I won't need y'all tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Well, two of them were ones that had betrayed me.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know it.
SPEAKER_00: But after the service, I realized the depth of the thing, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh that's when all this, you know, God told me to take my pastoral covering away from them.
SPEAKER_00: So I told the crowd Wednesday night, I said, you're all asking, where are we gonna meet Sunday?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you'll get a call.
SPEAKER_00: We'll have a place by Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: I just spoke it out.
SPEAKER_00: I said, we'll have a place Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: I know God's faithful.
SPEAKER_00: He hadn't led us this far to leave us in a lurch.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have a place to meet.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you curse, but we will call you.
SPEAKER_00: So Thursday morning, 9 o'clock in the morning, I had this elder from the Seventh-day Adventist Church, West Houston Seventh-day Adventist, at uh close to Beltway, just inside the Beltway on, uh inside of I-10 on the Beltway, and uh east of the of I-10.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I had looked at the at the building uh a month before, and I didn't have a witness.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, I was so attracted to the building, it met all the needs that we had, but I had no witness.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Gladys, do you have a witness?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: I said, uh golly, Jay, do you have a witness?
SPEAKER_00: Selena, do you have a witness?
SPEAKER_00: Ethan was there.
SPEAKER_00: Little Ethan, Ethan, do you have a witness?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, Ethan was Claire, do you have a witness?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody had a witness.
SPEAKER_00: I thought, why?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is a perfectly acceptable we need a place.
SPEAKER_00: Why can't we?
SPEAKER_00: I just learned to trust the witness of the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_00: So then here it is Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_00: I find out the depth of all this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm boo-hooing and I'm crying, and God said, Well, I used your life to prove people out.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't prove out.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, so then the next morning, Thursday morning, the phone rings, and the elder that I dealt with at the Seventh-day Church, a guy by the name of Dr.
SPEAKER_00: Pagani.
SPEAKER_00: He's a medical doctor, an Indian.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Pastor, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: We need you.
SPEAKER_00: And I just about dropped the phone.
SPEAKER_00: I wept.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the witness hit me like a ton of bricks.
SPEAKER_00: See, God waited to give me the witness when it was crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: It was all the way at the end of any possibility of me being able to maneuver anything.
SPEAKER_00: Where are you?
SPEAKER_00: We need you.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, we need you.
SPEAKER_00: And so we were there four and a half years.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the only reason we stayed because the witness of the Spirit, I knew God was in it, and I never had a witness to leave.
SPEAKER_00: Even, you know, there were circumstances there that were almost intolerable at times.
SPEAKER_00: But God would never allow me to leave there until we moved into this building.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say, courage at crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: So we overcome.
SPEAKER_00: Look where we're look where we are right now.
SPEAKER_00: Look where we are right now.
SPEAKER_00: We're here because God gave me courage.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus deprived this world of any power to harm me and you.
SPEAKER_00: So courage, of course, comes from faith, and faith comes from, you know, knowing the Word of God, hearing it over and over.
SPEAKER_00: So I've got three things to give you tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Courage comes from faith, so stop listening to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you listen to the flesh, that's not faith.
SPEAKER_00: Your own flesh as well as other people's flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Other people will tell you all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: The voice of the flesh is feelings.
SPEAKER_00: Emotion.
SPEAKER_00: I have to say, in my experience, 45 years of dealing with people, that most people are led by their feelings.
SPEAKER_00: They're happy one time and sad the next.
SPEAKER_00: They leave a church because they're offended.
SPEAKER_00: Or they, you know, they go to a church because they're excited.
SPEAKER_00: Or they, you know, they don't, they don't, they're not guided, they don't listen to the witness of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: They don't even know how to do that because they've never been taught.
SPEAKER_00: We teach you all the time about the witness of the Spirit, being led by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Give you testimonies like tonight.
SPEAKER_00: And so stop listening to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: The voice of the flesh is feelings.
SPEAKER_00: You have fear, anguish.
SPEAKER_00: You know, I just think about I could have, I could have melted on my den floor that night, come apart, and missed all of what God had.
SPEAKER_00: This church could have died that night if I hadn't rallied and gotten up and stopped that down.
SPEAKER_00: Fear, anguish, frustration, distress, disappointment.
SPEAKER_00: I had all those at once.
SPEAKER_00: All those feelings.
SPEAKER_00: Thank God for the witness.
SPEAKER_00: Thank God for the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_00: Don't listen to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Courage.
SPEAKER_00: Your courage.
SPEAKER_00: You can't listen to the flesh and have courage.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, stop listening to reasonings.
SPEAKER_00: Reasonings are the voice of the mind.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, you start trying to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: God is wiser and smarter than you are.
SPEAKER_00: You'll never figure him out.
SPEAKER_00: He does certain things for certain reasons that you'll never know why.
SPEAKER_00: And there's no point in you trying to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: There's no point in you trying to figure uh reason it all out and figure, well, you know, the A, B, C, well, if I do A, he'll do B, and then I can do D and E.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: Don't listen to reasonings.
SPEAKER_00: Voice of your mind.
SPEAKER_00: Your mind will tell you you must be out of the will of God.
SPEAKER_00: God settled that on my den floor.
SPEAKER_00: I never even worried about that after he visited with me.
SPEAKER_00: What do I do now?
SPEAKER_00: Forgive them.
SPEAKER_00: Pray mercy on them.
SPEAKER_00: Take your pastoral covering off of.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I didn't, I mean, you know, we at the same time when we were doing all that, the Aggie bonfire fell and killed some Aggies.
SPEAKER_00: And that was another emotional thing.
SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget when I went to the Champion Forest Baptist, they had they were meeting.
SPEAKER_00: They had moved out of this big facility and had their land over there where they are now, but they hadn't built that building.
SPEAKER_00: They were meeting in the cafeteria.
SPEAKER_00: And I was listening to the radio and they were they were updating where they were trying to get into the fallen uh uh bonfire.
SPEAKER_00: I'd worked on the bonfire, you know, and Claire worked on the bonfire when she was there.
SPEAKER_00: And here these young students were crushed under there, and some of them were were killed, and it was a horrible day.
SPEAKER_00: They got rid of the bonfire.
SPEAKER_00: You know, got rid of it.
SPEAKER_00: And I was sad over that.
SPEAKER_00: You know, there was a lot of emotion.
SPEAKER_00: Are y'all with me now?
SPEAKER_00: You can't let emotion lead you.
SPEAKER_00: You must have disobeyed God.
SPEAKER_00: You just aren't educated enough.
SPEAKER_00: You just didn't do that, you didn't do the other, you would have, you, you should have done this, you could have done this, you would have done this.
SPEAKER_00: This is why.
SPEAKER_00: No, don't don't let don't let reasoning take over your thinking.
SPEAKER_00: Look to your spirit, look to the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: What does the word of God say about your crisis?
SPEAKER_00: What does the word of God say about your trouble?
SPEAKER_00: What does the word?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first of all, he says you're gonna have it.
SPEAKER_00: Quit being so amazed that you've got it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said you're gonna have it.
SPEAKER_00: So quit being amazed.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, don't be amazed when things happen like that.
SPEAKER_00: You don't be amazed.
SPEAKER_00: But do listen to the Rhema word of God.
SPEAKER_00: I needed a Rhema word, and I got one.
SPEAKER_00: I needed a Rhema word.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you're at crunch time, God will give you a God-breathed word.
SPEAKER_00: He will speak to you.
SPEAKER_00: You might hear your own spirit tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: You might, you might just get a verse that jumps off the page.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you've got to have a Bible reading life.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to have a word life, you've got to have a prayer life.
SPEAKER_00: You've got to have it.
SPEAKER_00: You can't, you're not gonna get through the trouble without having a word life and a prayer life.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's where God can.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this Bible is God speaking to me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to hear his voice, I've got his word.
SPEAKER_00: Now, God did speak to me, you know, but it was the still small voice, so it's really my own spirit, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And where's my where's the Holy Ghost?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's in there mixed up with my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So when your spirit talks to you, the Holy Ghost is right in there, helping your spirit tell you what is true.
SPEAKER_00: You can depend on your spirit to tell you the truth.
SPEAKER_00: That's why I already know.
SPEAKER_00: See, I know what the truth is.
SPEAKER_00: My brain might not know it, but my spirit knows what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's all mixed up with the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_00: Are y'all getting anything out of this?
SPEAKER_00: So listen to the Rhema word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to your own conscience, which is the voice of your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And speak forth the word of God like a rushing stream.
SPEAKER_00: I got up off that floor and I said, Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter who betrays us.
SPEAKER_00: It's not no matter, it doesn't matter who but who leaves.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter, I'm telling you, we're going on.
SPEAKER_00: God proved to man, God used me, and He's going to keep on using me, and I'm going to keep on going.
SPEAKER_00: And boy, the next morning the phone rang, and praise God, we had a place to go to church that next Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, just think about that.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't have a place.
SPEAKER_00: Wednesday night, we didn't have a place.
SPEAKER_00: Thursday morning, we had a place.
SPEAKER_00: Sunday morning, we were there.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that just you can't imagine how hard it is to find a place for a church to lease.
SPEAKER_00: Are you kidding?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's getting happy back there.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm happier than you, I'll tell you right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all found us.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy we found you.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you get that word of God coming out of you.
SPEAKER_00: Speak in other tongues.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when the Bible says when you pray in an unknown tongue, your spirit prayeth, but your understanding is unfruitful.
SPEAKER_00: So how is it?
SPEAKER_00: You'll pray in the spirit, you'll pray in the understanding.
SPEAKER_00: So much of the church prays in their understanding.
SPEAKER_00: They pray mental prayers and wonder why they don't have God's best.
SPEAKER_00: See, when you pray in other tongues, the Holy Spirit Himself is actually giving you the utterance.
SPEAKER_00: He's really telling your spirit how to speak it out.
SPEAKER_00: It's his prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can't lose when you pray in tongues.
SPEAKER_00: I said, you can't lose when you pray in tongues.
SPEAKER_00: You might not know it here yet, but when you pray in tongues, I'm telling you, that trash is trying to come in you.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever seen sand try to go into a to a to a water spout?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it just blows everything out.
SPEAKER_00: No dirt can get in there, nothing can get in there.
SPEAKER_00: That's that's that spout that that is pouring out of you.
SPEAKER_00: Encourage yourself in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I did that night.
SPEAKER_00: Two o'clock in the morning, got up all heavy, and I went to bed encouraged.
SPEAKER_00: I went to bed knowing that God was with me, knowing that I had not missed God, knowing that I had not missed his voice.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, it was such a comfort.
SPEAKER_00: But you know, we had some battles after that.
SPEAKER_00: We've had battle after battle, and we've won every single one of them.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because I know how to lean on the one who gives us the victory.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Courage and crunch time.
SPEAKER_00: Come on, let's lift our hands right now.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
SPEAKER_00: Glory to God.
SPEAKER_00: It feels good to give my testimony.
SPEAKER_00: I'm giving testimony about the church.
SPEAKER_00: And the strength of this church is lies in that.
SPEAKER_00: Praise God.
SPEAKER_00: Not bragging on me, I'm bragging on him.
SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.