COURAGE TO LIVE YOUR GOD GIVEN DREAM

Chapters

• 0:00 Under Siege And Out Of Options
• 0:51 Dreams, Faith, And Taking First Steps
• 2:01 Why Sit Here Until We Die
• 3:15 Counting Costs And Choosing Courage
• 4:50 Rise At Twilight: The Moment To Move
• 6:12 Faith In Action And Growing Capacity
• 7:42 God Goes Before You And Clears The Way
• 9:11 From Empty Camp To Overflow
• 10:10 Share The Good News And Build The Church
• 11:10 Restoration, Restart, And A Call To Move

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:07

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SPEAKER_00: 0:13

To 2 Kings chapter 7. It is a story that has always been encouraging to me over the years and every time that I have read it. It is an incident where there are lepers and they are starving to death because Samaria is under siege by the Syrians. And they're starting to devour one another. They're starting to eat one another. There's no hope. They don't know what they're going to do. Many of you today, you may feel like you're under siege. How many times has that happened to us? You feel enclosed, you don't know what's going to happen, you feel so confined, you feel so restricted, and you're thinking, I need help. This particular story that I'm going to read and to share with you today, I believe it's going to give you courage to live your God-given dream. Every believer, when you are born again, when you know the Lord, there are dreams and visions inside of you of things that you feel that you would like to do in the kingdom of God. Maybe there's things that God spoke to you that He would like you to do. So I'm going to build your faith today. I'm going to help you. And I'm going to give you courage. Do not give up. We pick up our story, and we find the four men are having a discussion. They are lepers. They are outside the gate. And the Bible says in Kings chapter 7, verse 3, there were four leprous men at the entering in of the gate, and they said to one another, Why set we here until we die? If you're looking for something, and you're believing God that He's going to do for you what you'd like to have Him to do, and you're just sitting there, nothing happens. I have found that whether I'm setting up to do live streaming, whether over the years, tent ministry, radio, television, foreign fields, traveling in various churches and various countries around the world, you know what I have found that everything had in common? I had to get up and do something about it. I couldn't just sit there and dream about it. I had to start putting feet to my vision. And that required faith. And you might say, oh, Don, you've got something that I don't have. I'm going to tell you, we've all got faith. And that is the ingredient of action that's going to make the difference. You can imagine lepers who are shunned by society, and they're thinking we are going to change our situation, and we're not going to sit here until we die. When we come to the Lord, we have a spiritual capacity within side of us that is huge. And it should always be bigger than our natural intellect. We're always learning. There are people who want to learn about how to raise tomatoes. They want to know how to go into business. They want to know how to become billionaires. And that is wonderful, all of those dreams, but we have the capacity to walk in the realm of the spirit that supersedes all natural limitations. You have to have courage to do something between who you are on the inside and what you want to express on the outward. That takes courage. You can let people intimidate you. You can so choose, listen to people who tell you that you will never be able to do it, that it doesn't happen, that it's all a myth. You can listen to that kind of talk, but not if you're going to arise and go forth. And I'm not going to set until I die, I'm going to do something about it. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20. Now on to him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. That's for us. And these lepers are sitting outside the city at the gate, and they said, Why are we going to sit here until we die? It's not going to get us anything. We're going to have to do something about it. And I like the decision that they made. We go to verse 4 of 2 Kings chapter 7. If we say, now listen to that, isn't that a key? That's how faith works. That's Old Testament historical account. But in here is mighty imparting life principles. If we say, let's see, these are the lepers, if we say we will enter into the city, then the famine is in the city and we shall die there. So that's not going to be the direction. If we get still here, we die also. Now therefore, come and let us fall onto the host of the Syrians. If they save us alive, we shall live, and if they kill us, we shall but die. We might say they had nothing to lose. When everything is against you and you feel besieged and there is no hope, I'm talking about you as a believer, someone that the word of God is alive in. Don't sit still. Get up and go. Jesus said in Luke 8.22, he said to his disciples, let's go over to the other side. There's something waiting for us there. And there was something waiting for these four leprous men. And there's something waiting for you when you're moving God. You've got to be hungry. You ever read that passage where it says, Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled? You've got to be hungry to get up and go. You've got to be hungry to go beyond the confinement that you're finding yourself in. So what's the big thing about being hungry? When you are hungry, you will make every effort to obtain that which you are lacking. When the Lord speaks to me about something and I begin to seek God, and I don't know how I'm going to accomplish that which He wants me to do. Many times. Yes, there are lots of things that God will ask us to do that we have done many times, but you will find that if you are a believer and you always move forward in what God wants you to do, you're going to find that God is going to start bringing you into new areas and into new things because He knows that you are the kind of person that's not going to sit still. And when you're hungry, you're going to make every effort to obtain. And I have found that when God speaks to me, and I don't have the means and the natural to obtain it, I start speaking it. I pray about it. I look at scriptures. I meditate upon it, and God will make a way for me. I'm going to be able to keep moving forth. In 2 Kings chapter 7, verse 5, here is what they did, and here's what you have to do. When you require victory, when you require healing, whatever it is, here's what you have to do. They arose up in the twilight to go onto the camp of the Syrians, and when they were come to the uttermost part of the camp of Syria, behold, there was no man there. This was a huge, mighty army. The evening meal was still cooking in the pots. They were so frightened they took off and they got rid of all the extra cumbersome things, swords and armor, whatever it was, and they were running for their life. Rising at twilight. This is what I learned over the years. There is a time to move. And the moment is right when your faith is there. The moment is right when you can see the answer. In Matthew 17, 7, it said, Arise and be not afraid. They arose at twilight. They weren't afraid. Do you have the courage to live your God-given dream? You have to. You have to exercise faith. It takes courage to operate in faith. It takes courage to stand up and say, this is what the Lord would have us do, and we're going to start marching toward it. When we built this college building, I remember standing where we are now, and I held up a 17-foot-long piece of two by four. You're going to say, why did you do that? Because I was believing God for a ceiling. And that's all I had. I had faith. I had believed that God wanted me to do it. I did not have the money to move forward. And I stood with a 17-foot-long piece of two by four, stood over here in the corner, and when I held it up, I saw the ceiling. And I had courage to tell people that. So what were you doing, Don? I was exercising my faith. I was putting it into action. This was all I knew what to do. I had to go to the next step. Faith works like that. Faith takes you from where you are right now, and it takes you to the next step. And here's something else I have found about faith. It grows when you exercise it. In Romans chapter 12 and verse 6, having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith. And that proportion, I believe that we can walk into what is meant for us. You have got a mighty big portion from God. It's yours. And I want you to walk out in that. You can do it. And the only reason you're afraid is that the thought came to you, it isn't going to work. People are going to think that I am being fanatical. I'm just going to make an absolute spectacle of myself, and it ain't going to be pretty. How many times you were worried about what was going to happen, and when you got and did it and got there, not one of those things was there. You thought it was going to be. They probably were when you first thought about it, because the devil was reminding you the enemy would be telling you, this is what's going to happen to you. But when you move by faith and by the power of God, God goes before you and he moves all of those things out of the way. He not only moves the obstacle, he moves the enemy. I read somewhere, I don't know where I read this. Fear looks at things, but faith jumps at things and takes them. There's so much to work with. Things that you didn't know that would be even possible. But as you walk it out, God makes the way. Another scripture that will encourage us, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 4. It talks to us about the weapons of our warfare. They're not carnal, they're not like what you experience in the physical, but they're mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. That's what we work with. And these four leprous men, not realizing God was going to take and use them, and you're going to say, why would God use them? How do you know that for sure? Because the prophet said the day before, about noon tomorrow, you're going to have more food than you ever dreamed of. And how was this going to take place? Because four leprous men had the revelation. If we sit here, we're going to die. And if you're going to sit there, you're going to die there. You have to get up and you have to move. 2 Kings chapter 7, verse 6. Here's what it said. For the Lord had made the host of the Syrians to hear a noise of chariots and a noise of horses, even the noise of a great host. And they said one to another, Lo, the King of Israel hath hired against us the kings of the Hittites and the kings of the Egyptians to come upon us. All it was four lepers' men being propelled ahead by the prophetic, they still didn't realize the full impact of what their decision was going to bring. Just like you and I. We don't realize many times what the outcome is going to be of the decision, the faith decision that we make. It sounded like many chariots. The Lord caused that. The Lord is going before you. And when the Lord goes before you, He does the battle, He does the work, He does the ministry, He makes the way. Every stronghold, every obstacle. God brings it down. Second Kings 7:7. Wherefore they arose and fled in the twilight and left their tents and their horses and their asses, even the camp as it was, and fled for their life. It's talking about the Syrians. Faith operates by the word of God. Doesn't operate by some general consensus that some legislative body had agreed upon. Faith operates with the word of the Lord. Live by the word of God. God is more than enough. God was moving ahead for this city that was under siege. And God was using the most unlikely people to bring the deliverance. The most unlikely. But God wants you to know that he's more than enough. And he'll make the way for you. Let's go to verse 8. 2 Kings 7:8. And when these lepers came to the outermost part of the camp, they went into one tent and did eat and drink, carried thence silver and gold and raiment, went and hit it, and came again and entered into another tent and carried thence also and went and hid it. And they were in paradise. Let's go to verse 9. They said one to another, Here is the secret of giving and receiving. Now therefore come, that we may go and tell the king's household. They're sharing good news, they're sharing the wealth. I look at the king's household as the church. We're the church. King Jesus rules and reigns here. And when God gives us something good, let's share it with the church. Whether it be something in the natural, something in the spiritual, let's share it. Some good thing that God has done for us, some victory that we have attained. Let's rejoice together because the Bible says that. Rejoice together. You can only do that if you tell one another. We do things together. This is our life in the church. Every spiritual awakening in history was marked by men and women who did not allow themselves to be held back. And I'm going to tell you something. There's going to be some of you listening today. You've been confined so long. You may think that your heavenly father is not going to bless you and use you. I want to tell you, your heavenly father is not through blessing you, and your heavenly father wants to restore you and restart you.

SPEAKER_01: 20:46

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