Galatians 1:11-24 | Midweek Bible Study | Pastor David Flores

Join us for our midweek Bible study as we dive into the book of Galatians! Join Pastor David as he explores the depth of the Word of God in this rich New Testament letter from the Apostle Paul.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

And let's just be very blunt and very honest. The spirit of religion, the religious spirit to divide, to conquer, to control, to manipulate, to literally go against what God's doing. See, when Jesus came to this earth, he brought a new way, he brought a new a new look, a new understanding. And many times he would say, You have heard it said in the past, but I'm saying this today. And then he was revealing the father to the children of Israel, to the Jews of the day. He was revealing the Father. And of course, you have to understand they were being taught about the Father in the Torah, the first five books, as my grandson says, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible. And it would be good to go back and do some of those. And I'm I'm really contemplating going in the book of Genesis and Exodus, two of my favorite books. But you know, we need to understand that they were caught up in the religious experience, what they were being taught. It had developed in the time where not only the priests of the day, which were representing God Jehovah to the people, they had the sacrifices that were instituted uh through the law of Moses and all these things, but time had gone forward. I mean, thousands of years, and now here's Christ. And if you can imagine, I've only been alive 67 years. Imagine a thousand years or so going by and people's understanding of God, people's interpretation of God, people's understanding of what quote unquote the rules, because let's make let's just be real frank about this. You know, we just want to know what do I need to do to get in? Just like little old Nicodemus came in. What must I do? How about the rich young ruler? What must I do to be saved or have eternal life? I mean, come on, we just want to break it down, give me the basics. What's the bottom line here? And so that's where they were in, that's where they were living at. They had the scribes who began to write things, they had commentators, they had teachers, the rabbis, everybody had their say. And so, really, you know, what started with Moses, and by the time Jesus got there, it needed some reevaluation, it needed some new interpretation, it needed some new insights. And here's that's what Jesus came to do. He said, I didn't come to destroy the law, but I came to fulfill it. He literally was the law personified, he was everything Moses talked about, he was right there with them in the flesh. He was one, as the Bible says, that he he lived it out and completely fulfilled it and never sinned, tempted in every area. So you think Jesus kept the Ten Commandments? Yeah, he kept the Ten Commandments. Did Jesus keep all the other dietary laws? Yeah, he kept the dietary laws. Did Jesus keep the Sabbath? Yes, he kept the Sabbath, but he would also reveal he's the Lord of the Sabbath. Yeah. Um, say we had say we had a rule that said you could only pray from this hour to that hour, and suddenly you were praying at the wrong hour. And I'm calling it the rules of time. Okay, we set this time, and that's the time you can pray from eight to ten. That's it. You can't pray from eight to ten, you gotta wait till the night prayer, which is from 10 to 12 or whatever, you know. What if there were these quote-unquote rules, understandings of how to be a Jew, all right? To how to practice Judaism, okay? So here we are today in a thousand years, and here's Jesus comes in, he says, Okay, you guys are trying to do all this, and then you got the scribes writing their commentaries, you got the priests saying these things, you got the rabbis teaching these things, all right? And then so, but you guys are totally missing it, is what he's saying. You totally are totally missing it, and he revolutionized everything and he stirred the pot up, and the religious leaders of the day were upset because he came, quote unquote, teaching something else. He was teaching a new way, he was teaching a personal relationship with Jehovah, where they were teaching him, stay out, stay away from Jehovah. You don't know what he's going to do. Don't even mention his name, don't even come close. You know, almost like I'm thinking as I'm meditating today, you know, they're trying to make him appear like the wizard of oz. We all seen, you never know what he's gonna do, he's gonna blast you or whatever. No, that was that's and that whole creation of the wizard of oz and all that and the interpretation of what he's doing, a lot of a lot of spiritual things going on there, but that's not God, but that's what they were raised to believe. If you ever seen the fiddler on the roof, and I encourage you if you have not rent it, download it, find it somewhere, and just watch a little bit of it. And you're gonna hear the responses and the references, how they relate to God and how they thought God was. Yeah, the main song, if it was a rich man, I would do this, I would do that. But in the law and in the promises of God in the book of Deuteronomy, it says it is God who gives them the power to get wealth. And hear that guy, Tebya, he's saying, if I was a rich man, I'd be doing this. And then they're talking to God, God, what about this? Why do you let that happen? I don't get it. So that's how they were living their life, and that's you know, but that's normal even for us as quote-unquote Christians, Protestant Christians, or whatever you want to call, you know, we've become the same. We got the we got the books of the Bible here, we've got the New Testament, the Epistles of Paul, we got the gospels of Jesus Christ here, and yet all the same things are happening. What happens to the Jews? The writers, the scribes, the commentators, the teachers, and you don't know who's telling the truth or what. And here comes Jesus saying, Let's get back to here. Yeah, this is the way to do it. Follow me. Basically, he's you know, apostle Paul says, I follow me as I follow Christ. Well, it was Jesus who said, Follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men. So he was the first to say that. And so he was a and so the religious leaders thought he was, you know, contradicting, they thought he was extremist. They thought, you know, he went too far. He calls Jehovah Father, claiming to be the Son. And so, you know, what do we learn today? I know this, I always pray, as Jesus said, our Father, who are in heaven. Yeah, I refer to him as Father, because that's how I want him to be for the rest of my life, as Father, yeah, not God, which is literally a German word that they brought up to describe or to name Yahweh, Jehovah, God, the German word. That's what we got God. So, like you say, you know, there's gods here, there's gods there, there's little g, there's big g. A lot of people who are not, you know, in church realm, and and believers and studiers, they think, well, who's a real God? What is this? And why does everyone have the same name? Doesn't he? Well, his real name isn't God, his real name is Jehovah Yahweh. But we don't say that's because oh, it's it's Hebrew. But if you would start saying, start playing praying to Jehovah Yahweh, I wouldn't say, Hey, what are you doing? I mean, that's his name. You can pray, you can call me, hey Pastor. But if you see my street and say, Hey David, I'd say I wouldn't rebuke you. That's my name, David. But you know me as pastor. I know him as Father.

unknown 7:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:01

Okay. You need to understand it's all about relationship with the Father God. Yeah, it's about that. When it's all said and done, as Jesus said, Do I know you or don't know you? Am I related to you or I'm not related to you? And so that's what it comes down to. It's not about working the rules, working the system. As you know, I've taught many messages. It's not about it's not about seeing how far from God you can get and still make it, still make it in by the area of your chinny chin channel it's not about that. It's about how close can you get? How close can you get? And and many times we say, Lord, I need to be closer to you, Lord. My life, what I just did there, what I said that, that's a sign to me that I'm not that close to you. I need to be closer, I need to walk closer with you. And maybe my friends list will drop out, and maybe my playlist will change, and maybe this will change because I'm getting closer to you. Well, don't be surprised if that happens. It's happened to me, it happens to many people here, that when you pressed into God, the ones that weren't gonna follow with you, they stay bad. Nothing wrong with them, they just made a choice not to follow with you. Years ago in my early 20s, I told my dad, Dad, I'm I'm doing this, I'm inviting people here, I'm going there. And they all say, No, that's okay, I don't want to go. So I began to let them fall off, just drop off. Because it was their choice. And they can't stand before God and say, Well, David didn't invite me to a West Coast Believers Convention, David didn't invite me to this prayer conference. David didn't say where he was going. No, I told them where I was going. They didn't want to go. When I took a busload of young people to a convention, it was the greatest thing of my at that moment in my life and ministry, I was the greatest accomplishment. I got 45 people in a bus, and we're going to a convention. And we were receiving offerings on Sunday school. Yeah, we were receiving offerings in Sunday school. And then when we got there, we said, Here, you got $10, $10 to go. Buy whatever you want out there. Kids in the candy store, coming home with t-shirts and a mug or this or that, you know. Got home, it was a great service. Phil Drisco was there. He he played a concert at the night after the convention. It went up late. We had Sunday school service in the morning. We got there, they called me on the conquer right after Sunday school was over. I thought I was doing, I felt like Jesus. Right there, I felt like Jesus. You're not supposed to be doing that. That's not how we do it here. Oh, we don't believe this way. In my mind, I'm going, why? Why don't you believe this? Wait, I got all this from hearing my dad preach. And people in the church come and preach. I didn't just come up with this. I was in church on my line, and I've been getting to hear preachers preach and teachers teach. And the way it was lighting up with what I've been learning and all my life. So that's it, that's it, that's it. Suddenly I could realize when someone would say something, that's not in the book. That's not in the book. So we're living in the same time period today, and the devil stirring up religious, the church kingdom against each other, calling out each other, you know, saying this guy's a heretic, that guy's a heretic, oh, this, that, and that, that, and all your you preach this of the gospel. It's just the same old thing. It's happening right there, it's happening today. So the more you know have a good foundation of your relationship with God, your relation to Christ, as a pastor, that's my job. Jesus said, Go and make disciples. He didn't say go build a church. He said, I'm building a church. You go make disciples. You go make disciples of me, teaching them to observe all I've taught you to do. That's what he told me to do. And so, Galatians chapter one. We're reading here. Uh, we're gonna start towards the back end here, and uh let's see where I want to start. I want to start at uh let's go on here.

unknown 10:58

Divine revelation.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Okay, let's go to uh Galatians chapter one. We'll start around verse 11, okay? Verse 11, and I'm gonna read it here in the New Games Vir New King James Version, Galatians chapter 1, start about verse 11 there. Alright. And so take notes, write down things, whatever, pray over when you get home, read through. But we're looking at the apostle Paul writings to Galatia, the churches of Galatia at the time, and verse 11 he starts this, but I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. He's basically saying, I didn't get this from being taught out or watching the TV preacher or going to a theological seminary or being in Sunday school all my life. Okay, he said, I didn't get this because he was he was a Jew of the Jews. All right, he was the most smartest, knowledgeable guy of the Jew of Judaism, the law, everything, a teacher, the tribe of Benjamin. He had the credentials to be heard and to be listened to. And so when he says, What I'm preaching to you, the gospel that the other that Peter was preaching, that James was preaching, that John was preaching, okay, he says, You heard that preach to me. I didn't get that from man, or I didn't get it because the other 11 guys sat me down and tell you they're gonna take you to a two-week seminar. Here, you're gonna learn everything we learned in three and a half years, you're gonna learn it in two weeks. That's not what happened. That's not what happened, it was supernatural. He said, For I neither received it from man nor was I taught from man, but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ, or Christ revealing himself to Paul. All right, he revealed himself. They said, Well, that well, he's a special God who was very smart, he was educated, he he followed the law to the letters of the T as much as possible. He had a great reputation, but that's that's meaningless, it's irrelevant, he'll tell you it's irrelevant, doesn't mean anything. What means the most to him is that he had this encounter with Jesus. Yeah, he had this revelation where the Father, God, the Holy Spirit ministered to him. Jesus himself spoke to him. Now, people might say, you know, in our days and in that day, that's crazy. But that that's what happened. Okay, it came through revelation. Everybody say revelation. Okay, my revelation right now is that I haven't started my timer, so you got all that free. Okay. So, revelation, what's reveal? Again, wizard of Oz reference. Who's behind the curtain? When the curtains fall back because the little toe-toe gets in the way, sometimes dogs do good things. Reveal is a curtain, and there you go, you see who's back there. He is revealed. God doesn't want to be behind the curtain. In the holies of holies, yeah. He was, they said he was like shut, shut up in the curtain, the tabernacle, and the holies of holies, and all that. You know, that was the law, but it never was intended to be that way. God wanted them all when they were in the wilderness, he said, Tell the people to come to the mountain. Everybody, get dressed, take a bath, come to the mountain. And you know, somebody started saying, Oh, but that's scary. We're scared of the cloud, we're scared of the pillar of fire, we're scared that how we made it through the Red Sea. We're just, I'm I'm just living scared every man of my life because I still can't grasp what has happened. We were once in bondage in Egypt, but now we're out free in the wilderness. How did that all happen? I don't get it. And God, Jehovah said, Moses tell them all to come to the mountain. They didn't do it. They didn't do it. So, guess what? So he had to have a priest. He had Moses, he had Joshua, he had Aaron, he had to establish some kind of way to relate to them and that they could relate to him because they didn't want to come do it for themselves. This is what our we're living in the time period right now where God says, Come unto me. Jesus, when he showed up, said, Come unto me, come to me, don't stay back, come unto me, walk with me, I'll make you a fisher of man, I'll change you, I'll transform your life. Hang out with me, come close. And then when he was revealed after uh the resurrection, he said, Touch me, man, come on, get close. He's still doing the same thing today. Come close. So there was revelation of Jesus Christ to the apostle or to Saul, let's say his name at the time was Saul. Now the name Saul means desired one. Of course, you know King Saul back in the Old Testament, the first king of Israel. He was head and shoulders above everybody. He was handsome, he was all this. If you don't know about that, ask my grandson Joel, he'll tell you all about it. Okay. So Saul, he knows all about Saul and the David story, okay? So you know, Saul and Desire. They wanted a king, his name was Saul. Now, Saul is going to be turned into Paul, and the name Paul in the Greek refers to small or little. He's taking a step back. Small or little, not the desire, but not the one everyone wants to see and be around. You know, I'm small or little. That's the name change. Okay. So he says, For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, verse 13. How I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and I tried to destroy it. He literally was authorized to arrest the early church Christian believers, Christ followers. Okay. He was authorized to arrest them and to even have them executed. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more extremely zealous of the traditions of my fathers. So he even bragged about, you know, if you look at the rankings of the fellow uh, you know, Jewish people, you know, I'm in the top five or I'm in the top ten or whatever, man. I'm I got I got a reputation. People know me by my stats. That's what he was talking about. He was proud of it. He says, but when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb, he goes back to his beginning. And sometimes we read the Bible like this, and we read in the gun in the book of Jeremiah, the same kind of thing here, and Isaiah the prophet, the same kind of thing. Well, that's just select people. No, God has separated you and me from the womb. Every one of us, he's not a respecter of persons. He was he has separated from the womb and called me through his grace. I say, Well, Pastor, is that for everybody? I believe that's for everybody. But as Jesus said, many are called, few are chosen. Many are called, but few choose to get the acceptance.

unknown 17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

And that's just the way it is. That's the reality. Okay. So when it pleased God, he separated me from my mother's room, called me through his grace. So nothing that he earned, nothing about his reputation, to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles. I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood. In other words, he didn't go to other human beings and say, What do you think about this? What do you think about that? Yeah. That's conferring with flesh and blood. We're gonna talk about the Holy Spirit as we get further on in the book, okay? Leading by the Holy Spirit, God speaking to you, you hearing God's voice. It's not unusual for God to speak to people, it's not unusual for people to say, and I heard the Lord say and God said to me. And if you tried to explain it to me, you probably have trouble explaining to me. But you know, I know God speaks to everybody, He knows how to get a word to you and to me. He knows what we hear, He knows how to get it to us. Okay? So everybody's kind can also be different because we're all individually made, but He knows how to communicate, and so the thing is that we learn how to hear Him and discern that that's the Lord speaking to me. Yeah, that's God. Your idea, like you know, right here. I've got an example here, James. He got an idea dropped into his spirit in his mind, you know, and he to have a business. Okay, you want to say God idea? So far, I could say, yeah, God idea. Yeah, we can all stand and judge and say, Well, let's see how you go. Well, if it fails, I guess it wasn't a God idea. Well, if it goes good, I guess it is a god idea. You know, da da da, and everybody has their opinions. Yeah, you can't you can't judge things by success and failure. Because that individual knows what he knows in his spirit in here, and his job is to obey it, and that's what I do. That's what Pastor Dorr says. And then if you do that, yeah, and other people you confer with flesh and blood, they say, Are you sure God said that? Are you sure that's what the Lord wants for you? Or you know, and then nothing but doubt and hesitation and confusion all enters more voices, more confusion. Yeah, learn to hear him. And if you need help, say, Pastor, this is what I've heard the Lord say in my spirit, judge it. We're gonna judge it by the word. Does it follow the pattern? Is it something we've seen before? And if it's not ever seen before, but does it follow the pattern on God? And how he does that because what he wants to do in the earth today, and so we we were very careful how we judge those things, all right? So he said, I didn't confirm with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were the apostles before me. So I didn't go see the other eleven, but I went to Randia and returned again to Damascus. So he literally sent God out of town, and he stayed out there, and he studied and he listened and he heard, and this is where things began to happen for him. Okay, so let's go to the book of Acts, chapter 9. The book of Acts, chapter 9, I want to read here. Paul's it's many times it's written in your Bibles, Paul's conversion. Okay. Verse 1 says, Then Saul still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. So he was there. Uh you can read back, I think it was chapter 8, uh, one, where he says he was standing there when Stephan got stoned. He was authorized there. He said, Yeah, guys, go do it. Start stoning him. I'll take care of the coats. I got the paperwork here. We're all good and clear. No one of us, we're none of us are gonna go up for murder. Okay, we we got it right here. So he stood there. And then it says he's still breathing out threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. And he went to the high priest and asked letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus so that he found any who were of the way. That's what they called a believer in Christ. They called him a person of the way. You were of the way of the new way, the way. Okay, that's what they were called. They weren't called Christians yet, they were called people of the way. Where Jesus himself said in John 14, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. Okay. So he says, whether they're men or women, didn't matter, he might bring them bound, literally, arrest them for uh persecution, for judgment, prosecution, and even death. As he journeyed, he came near Damascus, and suddenly a light shone around him from heaven. Supernatural, doesn't happen every day, doesn't happen to everybody. A light shone from heaven. He fell to the ground when he was on a horse. And he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? My Bible has it in red letters, so I'm safe to assume it was Jesus the Lord speaking. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Now, just a step back real quick. Was Saul persecuting Jesus himself? No, he wasn't around when Jesus was walking the earth. He wasn't there, he wasn't a follower. He came after. But Jesus is saying, Why are you persecuting me? Well, who was he persecuting? The church, the called upon us, the believers of the way. He was persecuting. And so Christ, you can understand, he takes it personally what happens to you and to me. He takes it personally right here. Christians are saying, are being killed in Nigeria. Nobody hears about it. And suddenly a rap star starts talking about it and has a conversion. And it's a reality that there's Christians being, you know, killed. How many Christians have been killed in Iran? We don't know. But many being killed for their faith. And other Muslim countries as well, or Hindu countries, or whatever country that is not equal, we would call a Christian uh nation, so to speak. Alright? So that's happening. So it says here that he came to Damascus, the sun and light shone, and so Jesus saying, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And what's interesting is what he replies. He says, and he said, Who are you? Lord? You could have said, Who's talking? I have no idea who this is. I'm hearing a voice, but I don't recognize it. I don't get it. Friend or foe? You know, no. This is where Saul, as he becomes Paul and he writes in the book of Romans, and he says, You're gonna be saved when you declare Jesus Lord. I started to say, you know, that's gotta be the shortest prayer for salvation right there. He calls him Lord. And in Romans 10, 9, 10, he says, This is how you get saved. You call him Lord with your mouth. So he gets knocked down off the horse, he hears the voice, he's blinded by the bright light. All the guys that are with him, they're blinded, they don't see anything, but they hear the voice, and he responds, Who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goats or the prawns that are out there. You're kicking against us, and it's just gonna destroy. It's hard to do that. So he trembling and astonished said a second time, Lord, what do you want me to do? This is submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Lord, what you want me to do? Okay, so I can manipulate, extrapolate it, procure, and bring it and say, That's Romans 10, 9 and 10, right there. He said, Lord, and then he said, What do you want me to do? Submit to it. Believed in his heart. He's gonna believe in his heart that he's alive because he's talking to somebody. Raise him from the dead and say with your mouth, confessing their mouth, Jesus Lord. And the Lord said to him, Arise and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do. So he's given instructions. And the man who journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no one. So Saul does what he's told to do. He arises and he goes, all right, he gets up and goes, and he goes to a place there. And at the same time, the Lord is speaking to a man named Ananias, and he's telling him in a vision, Ananias, and he says, Here I am, Lord. So he was also a believer of the way. And the Lord said to him, Arise and go to the street called straight, inquire of the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus. For behold, he is praying, and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hands on him, and so that he might receive his sight. So the Lord is speaking to Saul, and now he's speaking to Ananias, and he's the plan is coming to fruition. This is what he's gonna have happen. Saul's gonna come meet somebody he's never met or heard of before, but they all heard of Saul Carsus. They heard and they were afraid of him. Ananias said, Lord, I've heard of many about this man, how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem, and here he has the authority from the chief priest to bind or arrest all who call on your name. But the Lord said to him, Go, for he's a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings, and even the children of Israel. For I will show him. Here's here if you can underline or highlight, I will show him, or I will reveal to him how many things he must suffer for my name's sake. So there's gonna be a revelation of the Lord's will for Saul of Tarsus' life, and he will be renamed Paul, the little one, the small one. So it all happens to things that's declared here. Saul shows up, they're afraid of him, they think he's gonna rest them. He doesn't. Revelation, I heard the voice, so we're gonna do what the Lord said to do. He said to lay hands on him, and then the Lord's gonna do the rest. It says here that he says, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road as you came, this is verse 17. Uh, he says, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Wow, you're just gonna get him, quote unquote, born again. He was gonna get filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he received his sight at once, and he arose and he was baptized. If he was water baptized, he was also filled with the Holy Spirit, all at one time. This was God's plan, this was God's man for that hour. He was picked like he said from them from the birth, from womb, from the womb, separated. And see, I don't know if you can do this for your own self, but if you can think back when you had an encounter with Jesus with Christ and you gave your life to him, if you're around that time period, or as you begin to walk with the Lord, then you have a moment where you say, Man, I must have been selected from the birth, I must have been separated. Something, this is not just coincidence. This wasn't random. This wasn't uh, you know, the luck of the draw. This wasn't, I was in the right place at the right time. This was, and you start to believe as you study and you begin to meditate on the Lord and how the Father God ultimately, the whole Bible has his plan, and you start thinking, this is not coincidence, this is not random, this was something before I was even born, that God had planned and prepared. And the moment you can think that way, you start to become the chosen. Many are called, fewer chosen. And you start to recognize that I was chosen by God for such a time as this. I'm here doing what I'm doing because I recognize I was chosen by God. Did I want to do what God chose me to do? No. Did I plan to do what God chose me to do? No. But then I look back years later and I say all the things I've been teaching about it for the last 20 years. What my mother showed me, where I was in church, how God spared me from dying here and there and there, bringing me here, bringing people before me, putting me in positions where Brother Copeland's across the road. I'm at USC and I'm hearing them on the radio because I'm traveling two hours to go to college every morning, five days a week, two college, two-hour commute, hour and a half or two to come back. I spent four hours on the road for four years. And there was a Christian station playing preachers, they'll be called the radio preachers, for two hours. And so that's what I listened to. I had an AM and FM radio, and they were on FM. They're what? I listened to them all the way to school. He's gonna be across the street to try and out a toy. Oh, he's now starting to be on TV. Oh, Fred Price starts having a TV program. Oh, yeah, I've seen four Roberts and Billy Graham. I actually went to the Coliseum, the Billy Graham's Great Crusade of Coliseum. My dad took me, I was there. So, you know, these aren't things that are not a coincidence when you think about it. And so I decided in my heart, Lord, you need to go see that man. You go see him in person. Never seen any of these people in person. You know, I saw Billy Graham in the Coliseum, but it doesn't matter. You never seen people in person. Okay, so I went. I skipped accounting class and I went. And I saw him and I heard him, and I thought, wow, it's not what I expect. But I like what I was hearing. And so you think back, God was choosing me, God was choosing you all along. And so the more you can embrace that, you know, I'm not gonna say the road's gonna be easier, but you're gonna have more confidence, you're gonna have more trust in the Lord, you're gonna have more faith because he brought you this far. And he didn't bring you for this far to leave you here, he's gonna take you all the way. Somebody say amen. Praise God. I'm already at the 804. Praise the Lord, but that's okay. I started late. Okay, so all right. So the Bible says here he received his sight, he arose and was baptized. So when he had received food, he was strengthened, and then Paul Paul spent some days with the disciples at Damascus. Okay, so this was his transformation story. This was his encounter with the Lord. Uh, my story here may not be as spectacular, but it's just as powerful, just as life-changing, just as real. And you need to understand it. Don't get caught up in the enemy, always trying to compare people, categorize people, judge people, say, well, this guy's better than me, or that guy had this, and I, oh, I wish I would have had that encounter. Like when I was growing up in church. Oh, I wish I'd be a drug addict. That way, when I get delivered, I have a great testimony. No, that's crazy thinking. Don't want to be a drug addict, go to jail, and then come back to church and say, Look what Jesus did. He saved me. Now I got a testimony. No, I have a testimony of God, kept me from the jail, God kept me from death, God kept me from drug addiction, God saved me from alcoholic stuff, all kinds of things through life. I look like He spared me, spared me, spared me. And here I am. That's a testimony. That's a testimony that you, many of you have, and many of you have other kinds of testimony, but they're all valid, they're all powerful, they're all life-changing, and someone needs to hear your testimony. Someone needs to hear this. Is Apostle Paul telling his testimony? Okay, telling them so. Let's go over to Matthew chapter 16, real quick. I want to close out with this. But we're talking about the revelation. So Paul goes on, and everything he's gonna teach, everything he wrote in the epistles, he can say boldly say, I learned it through revelation. Yes, he studied the whole Old Testament, studied it all. He was a scholar, Pharisee among Pharisees. So he studied it all, he knew Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, he knew them all. He knew the voices of the prophets. So, so yeah, he had that background. But even if you have that background and you know the Bible, if you don't get revelation of the Bible, it's just head knowledge. You know, it's just head knowledge, whatever academic study thing you like, if you know all the knowledge of it, if you don't have revelation how to do it, you can't, it doesn't help you, it doesn't help anybody. All right, so here we are at uh Matthew chapter 16. All right, Matthew chapter 16, verse 13. When Jesus came in the coast of Saesarea, Philippi, he asked disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, Some say you're John the Baptist, some Elias, others Jeremiah, or one of the prophets. And he said, But who do you say I am? Who do you know me as? What have you come to be to acknowledge? All right. I could ask you all the same question. Who's Jesus to you? Who's Jesus to you? And you might you can come up with different answers, you come up with biblical answers, but um basically I went for but what he is to you in your heart, in your spirit. Yeah, what do you know of him? We sing great songs, Jesus is the name, his name is holy. So he said, You're some say you're this, some say you're that. And we said, But who do you say? I'm and Peter, verse 16, answered and said, Thou art the Christ. He's the first to say he's the anointed one, and his anointing, or he is the Messiah, he's the chosen one. All right, thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And Jesus answered and said unto him, You are blessed, Simon. And your your family last name is Bar Jonah. So he's sermon Bar Jonan. For flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you. Flesh and blood has not revealed it unto you. Other versions say this. Jesus replied, You're blessed, Simon, son of John, because my father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. So as Peter got that revelation revealed, that's what the apostle Paul was saying. I learned it through revelation. He revealed it. It wasn't flesh and blood, it wasn't somebody telling me, teaching me, it wasn't my studies. I heard it in my spirit, in my heart. And Peter, maybe Peter's the only one who would actually say this. Think of all the other disciples, you know. Which one would say this? If Jesus asked them, you know, Matthew, who do you say that I am? You know, Jude 1, James 2, who do you say that I am? Andrew, who do you say that I am? John, who do you say that I am? They might hesitate to answer. Maybe if they heard the revelation, they would actually speak it out. But we know Peter, at the end of the day, he's the one who's gonna say anything. He's gonna be bold enough to spit it out. Go for it. Everybody else might hesitate. Well, I don't want to be wrong. Don't worry, man. I'm the kind of guy, I didn't want to be wrong, so I'm not gonna answer that question. Well, who knows this? Well, I don't want to get it wrong, and then everyone looking at me and go, oh, you messed up, you missed it. All of us have that human and human nature. We don't want to be wrong, but not Peter. He stood up and said, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. And Jesus immediately said it in order for him. You didn't get this on your own, you didn't learn this on your own. This is not from you, Peter, but the Father in heaven revealed it to you, showed it to you, pulled back the curtain, allowed you to hear this phrase in your spirit. Now they're not born again, but they're still able to hear anytime they can hear, because we were born again. Give your life to me, you know. And so he says, This was revealed to you by the Father. You did not learn this from any human being. The um revised version says, Yeah, flesh and blood didn't reveal it to you, but the father in heaven. Okay, so we we realize this is what we're talking about. When Apostle Paul says it was revealed to me, I learned by revelation. Well, that's how Peter learned by revelation, and that's for all of us. And I want to close that out tonight. That expect the Lord to reveal himself to you. All these wonderful songs we we sing, I believe, you know, most probably 99% of them, whatever, they were written because they had a revelation of who the Lord is. And they said, I'm gonna write a song about He's the Holy, Holy One. I'm gonna write a song that he's the miracle worker, way maker. I'm gonna write a song that he's the champion. I'm gonna write the song because there's a revelation. And so you write that song, you hear it in your spirit. And so all of us, God's the respect person, he speaks to all of us. I can't explain to you how I hear him, he speaks to me, but I know he does. And when he does, and I'm going to develop that, I gotta write it down. I gotta speak it out. I turn on the recorder and I just start speaking it and dictating it to my phone. You know, I I just can't try to remember what I just got. I gotta remember what I just got. You know, I've I've got pages and pages in my notes here of just speaking out what the Lord's telling me, downloading it, and just speaking it out, speaking it out, going back and then studying it. So he has that for you and for me. He wants to reveal himself to you. He says, Well, I'm you know, people say, Well, I don't know him as healing, because maybe you never needed to have be healed. And then you find yourself fighting cancer, then you find yourself fighting kidney disease, then you find yourself fighting this or fighting that, and now you need a revelation that, well, Peter, who do you say then? You're the healer, the Lord that heals us. You know, revelation. And you begin to believe it, you begin to study it. So you look back. I mean, he's your savior, he's the Lord, he's a soon-coming king, but what else is to you? Who do you say that I am? And as you live your life out and walk it out with the Lord, he will reveal to you this is who I am in your life. All right? Let's stand up, let's pray. Father, we just thank you, we give you glory, and we magnify your name for your word. Lord, we are so, so grateful, Lord, that you speak to us and to all human beings who want to have an ear to hear, eyes to see, and a heart to understand. Lord Jesus, that's what you said. If they have ears to hear, not physical flappers on their side of their head, but a spiritual ear in their soul and spirit, and an eye to see beyond what they're seeing in the natural, and a heart to comprehend, to embrace it. By faith, we understand. It says in the book of Hebrews, they shall be converted. You shall heal them, Lord. You said something's gonna happen when we will receive that revealed knowledge of you in our lives. And so we know that's what happened with Saul of Tarsus. He heard the voice and he immediately said, Lord, I don't know who you are, but I know your Lord, reveal yourself to me. And he began to do that. So, Father, I pray for each one of us tonight, Lord, as believers of the way, that we will grow in knowledge, in wisdom, and in understanding as you reveal yourself to us in the scriptures by the spirit of our of the Holy Spirit in Jesus' name that we can be strengthened, fortified, and be a witness unto you in these last days. In Jesus' name. Amen.