SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hi, my name is Michelle Steele. Pastor Phillip and I want to thank you for listening to this message from Life of Faith Church. We have more resources available to help you build your faith and frame your world by the Word of God. From our website, lifeoffaith.net, you can connect to our YouTube channel. Watch the live stream feed from our church services. Access books and downloads in our web store. And discover more about Life of Faith Church, producing like city, state, nation, and world. Visit lifeoffaith.net today.

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Matthew chapter 4. We're going to continue with the core values of the believer. And we've been centering up here the last few weeks on the uh first of the core values of the believer, which is put the word first place. Put the word first place. Everybody say that out loud. Put the word first place. Brother Hagin would often state that a believer needs to give as much reverence to the written word as you would to Jesus Christ if he stood before you in the flesh, because that's the kind of reverence that he gives his own word. All right? That we should give as much reverence to the written word of God as we would to Jesus if he was standing here in person, because that's the amount of reverence that he gives to his word. Amen. I remember early on in our walk in the word and our walk in faith, something that so impacted me over and over again. And I would hear Brother Copeland say all the time, he would talk about the integrity of God's word. The integrity of God's word. And you know, when I first heard that, I didn't quite comprehend exactly what it meant. Uh, but the the integrity of God's word. And and as I went on, I began to understand, you know, that uh uh integrity, that's where we get the word integer, you know, where we we deal with numbers, integers, and you know, an integer is a whole number. One, two, three, four. It's not a fraction, it's not one and a half or two and three-quarters or three-fourths or two-thirds. Integer is a whole number. And so he would talk about the integrity of God's word. God's word is wholeness, God's word is completeness. There's no holes in it. And then I would uh listen to Charles Capps, and he would talk about you know God doing exactly what he said in his word and the the absolute inability of God to lie, right? And so my life's changing. And I learned to give that reverence to the written word of God, right? I've said over and over again, you've heard me say it many times, this is not a book about someone, this is someone. This is the living word of God. And so when we decide to put the word first place, that means there's that reverence for the word of God. Amen. The reason, and we're going to get into why the word is so effective and these things concerning the word. Matthew chapter 4 and verse 4, you remember that Jesus is being tempted by the devil. And you can probably quote this by heart, but it says, you know, the devil had told him, if you're the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread. But he answered and said, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. And then in Luke chapter 4, verse 4, we see the same temptation. If you're the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. And Jesus said, It is written, the Greek says, and it's still on record, right? It's written, and it's still there, that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. One translation says, You shall not live by bread only, but within the sphere of this revelation, all right, of the word of God. And so in that situation, the temptation was to live by something other than the word of God. The temptation is always to live by something other than God's word. Amen. That's the temptation, always to try to make it happen myself, to try to figure out how I can do it, to try to figure out what steps I can take. But Jesus said, listen, you've got to live by every word that proceeds by out of the mouth of God. So the word of God is the only thing that has the ability to sustain us in all areas of our life. Only the word of God has the ability to do that. All right, the Bible calls it the living word of God. It calls it the incorruptible word of God, it calls it the power of God. Romans says that the word of God is the power of God unto salvation, unto completeness, unto wholeness, unto prosperity, unto healing, unto victory. All right. We don't use that word a lot today, unto, you know, well, blessed God, you know, this is the power of God unto salvation, right? It is the power of God that brings salvation, the word of God. And so it is the only substance that has the ability to sustain us in all areas of our life. And that's why we don't just read the word. We don't just memorize the word. But we live in and by the word. We live in it and we live by it. That's why, understand, the word we confess has to be the word we're living in. It cannot be something I'm just saying or something that I'm just uh uh uh quoting by memory. It has to be something I'm living in. It has to be something I'm living in. Say out loud, I'm living in the word. See, when you when you're living in the word, it means the word has your attention. I told the story in healing school on Tuesday about how Brother Moore, Keith Moore, was telling a story when he was at Rama. Uh, his job, part of his job, was to look at the uh uh video of Brother Hagin preaching and and edit them and do different things and get them ready for, you know, VHS tape and whatnot. And he said, I was sitting in that editing room listening to that message, and I thought, wow, that is good. Man, he's saying things I've never heard before. Boy, this is good. And he said, all of a sudden the camera panned down the front row, and there I sat. He said, you know, I was saying, I've never heard this before. He said, I was in the very message, I was in the very service where he was preaching it. His point was how that you can hear something from the word of God. And if you don't grab a hold of it and make it a part of your life, you can, you right, it'll slip right by. That's why Hebrews said that we should what? We should give the more earnest heed to the things that we have learned, lest at any time we should let them slip. The only person that the power of the word of God does not work for is the person that lets the word of God slip out of their life. Because it has the ability to change things. One of the most outstanding characteristics of the word is this it has the ability to bring itself to pass. The word has the ability to bring itself to pass. In Isaiah 55. And verse 10. He says, For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven and does not return there, but waters the earth and makes it bring forth in bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. Notice, so shall my word be. Now that's important. That one phrase right there is explaining something to us. In other words, this is how the word is. This is how the word functions. Right? We've had, thankfully, we've had a lot of rain lately. And it comes down, what's it do? It waters the earth, makes it bring forth in bud, and and notice, you've never seen rain come out of heaven, bounce off the ground, and go back to heaven. Right? You've never seen snow come down and kind of do a U-turn and go back up. No, it's for a purpose. He's describing the purpose of the rain, water the earth so that it what brings forth and causes a harvest. And then he says, so shall, no stronger affirmation of truth in the entire Bible than the word shall. It means without a doubt, without question. When you use the word shall, you've entered into a covenant term. It means there's no possibility that it can be any other way. This is how the word is. How is the word? Notice, so shall my word be that goes out of my mouth. It shall not. He uses the phrase again. It shall not. It shall not. It's impossible for it to do this. What? It shall not return to him void. It will accomplish what he desires, and it will prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. Now that's got to be your thinking about the word. It is impossible for the word of God to fail. It is impossible for it not to do what it has been sent to do. Hallelujah. The Amplified Bible says, So shall my word be, which goes out of my mouth. It will not return to me void, useless, or without result, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the manner to which I sent it. Hallelujah. Cannot be any other way. It will succeed in the manner, in the matter that it was sent to. Another translation of the CEV says, This is how it is with my words. They don't return to me without doing everything I sent them to do. They do not return to him without doing everything that God sent them to do. Hallelujah. The ERV says, My words make the things happen that I want to happen. They succeed in doing what I send them to do. They succeed in doing what I send them to do. So the word of God always produces what it's been sent to do. Always. It will always carry out the desire of God in our lives. Amen. Now sometimes you'll run into people and they'll say, Well, I've been declaring that, but it's not working. That's not what this says. It says if you're declaring the word, the word's going to do what you've been saying. It's going to happen that way. When you're declaring over your body, you're declaring over your finances, you're declaring over your family. Whatever you're declaring, the word of God will not fail in that it will do what it's been sent to do. Hallelujah. That's why your faith in the Word of God is so important. You have to have as much faith in the written word as you would have if Jesus was standing here in person. See, because here's what people think, and not you, but some people. They think if they could see something like that, that it would be easy to believe. Amen. Jesus told Thomas, he said, Look at the nail prints in my hands, look at the hole in my side, reach out and touch them, and don't be faithless. What's that mean? He could see the holes and feel the scars, and Jesus said, There's still the possibility that you could be faithless. Amen. The Bible says that there were people that saw Jesus after his resurrection and still didn't believe. How can you not believe when you see the man that you saw hang on the cross, you saw him put him in the tomb, you know he died, and now here he is alive, how can you not believe that? Because seeing is not believing. Seeing is not believing. If you're believing for healing in your body, that healing is going to manifest as you believe that God's word cannot fail but to do what it was sent to do. How can I not be healed if I've sent the word to my body? How can I not succeed if I've declared the word into my situation? How is it possible for me to fail? I've had people over the years say, I've had people intimate, what would you do if all the blessings of God went out of your life? And I looked at one brother and I said, I'd grab my Bible and go get them back. Because that's how I got them in the first place. Amen. I'm glad. I've told people this over the years. Pastor Michelle and I didn't have nobody to help us. Nobody believed in us. Nobody. Our own family members told us, you're the bottom of the barrel. I had a family member look at me and say, You're the bottom of the barrel in this family. You always have been, you always will be. What makes you think God's gonna use you? I just told my wife, let's go do what God told us to do. Nobody wanted to help us. And I'm not, I'm not crying, I'm not complaining. I just, we just took the word and we decided we're gonna build our life on the word of God. We're gonna frame our world by the word of God. And so I learned early on to put my total confidence in the word of God. I learned not to put my confidence in people, but to put my confidence in the word of God. The word of God cannot, not will not, cannot let you down. If you believe it, it cannot let you down. Why? Because it has the same characteristics of God Himself. This book has the DNA of God in it. I think the first scripture that we should teach all new believers is Titus 1.2. God cannot lie. That's the first scripture that they should learn. I mean, before John 3.16, before 2 Corinthians 5.21, 5.17, God cannot lie. Because if God cannot lie, then they see I'm a new creature in Christ. Well, God can't lie, I'm a new creature. I'm the righteousness of God. Well, God can't lie, so I'm the righteousness of God. God said he would supply all of your need. God can't lie, so God will supply all your need. Amen. The reason why it was so hard for some people to grab a hold of the word of faith and to grab a hold of the teaching in the Word of God was because we had to sift through all of that old religious dogma that we had been taught that God may or God may not. It might be God's will for you to be sick, God might be teaching you a lesson, it might be the icy breath of God, you know, blowing on your life. And we had to weasel through all that until we could finally figure out what the word was saying. But you take somebody that's a blank slate, man. My wife, I she was so blessed. I wish I'd have been like her. She didn't know nothing about the word. Nothing. Didn't hear about Jesus till she was 23 years of age. Nothing. Didn't hear anything about Jesus until she was 23 years of age. Came in and was a spiritual illiterate, would be an understatement. But whatever she found in the Word of God, that's how it was. She'd hear the preacher preach and she'd go up and say, Is that what that means? That's what that means. And that's what I got. And that was it. Amen. When she got born, am I helping y'all tonight? When she got born again, you've heard the story. She had lost everything. She had lost her driver's license. She had lost everything, lost her, our two oldest children. They had been taken away from her. I mean, her life was such a wreck. Her family took out life insurance policies on her. She's not going to live very long. She did die twice. Drug overdose both times. A mess. Sitting in that little church in Goodlitzville, Tennessee, my dad was preaching, and he walked back to her that night, and she was nodding out on methadone because she was trying to get off a heroin. And she'd go every week to Knoxville and get methadone, trying to get off a heroin, nodding out in service, and she went back and he went back and said, Do you want help? And she said, For a split second, I was in my right mind, and I said, Yes, I want help. He prayed for her. She went down under the power of God, got up, wanted to fight him, caught it, thought he knocked her down. But from that day to this, nothing but God. And if you tell her this is what is going on in my life, she will not tell you, this is what I think you need to do, this is what I think you should do. She'll take you to the Word of God and tell you and ask you what the Word of God say about this situation. She went to court to get our two oldest children back, and when they walked in the courtroom, the hallway was full of people that was there to testify against her. Why she should not be getting her children back. Not just one, not just two, not just ten, not just fifteen. Lots of people. And she had one person with her, my little four-foot-eight mama. That was it. Amen. And she said, look at all these people. My mom said, Look, no weapon formed against you will prosper. No weapon formed against you will prosper. The heart of the judge is in the hand of God. Amen. I'm telling this story for a reason. All she had was the word. But what what did the Bible say? The word will not return void. Amen. And so they they they got up there and and and and the defense started. You know, she's done this and she's done that, and she's done this and that and the other. And the judge, watch, God is my witness. The judge went, Okay, okay, hush. You still stop speaking. And he looked over here to the the uh uh defense, and he looked over here, or the prosecutor started speaking, and he looked over here to the defense and and the people that were in charge of all the programs that she was supposed to complete, and he said, Has she done this? They said, Yes. He said, Has she done this? They said yes, has she done this? Yes, did she pay all her fines? Yes, did she get her driver's license back? Yes, give her kids back. They didn't even get to talk. All those people that were lined up didn't even get to speak. Why? Because the Bible says that the word of God will silence your enemies, it will silence them. They don't have any answer for the word of God. Amen. And so, unlike me, she didn't have anything to unlearn. And it was just easy to start believing God. Hallelujah. So the word always produces. That's the importance of knowing what the word says, so you'll know what God desires for you. The Bible says in 1 John, and you know the verse, it says, if we ask anything according to his will, we know he hears us. And if he hears us, we know we have the things we've asked him for. So what does that mean? Asking in prayer is the same as an answer. Because he said, if I ask, I'd receive it. Do you see that? That's the that now that's what the word says. That'll free up your prayer life. Because I'm now I'm not praying to try to get something to happen, I'm praying and knowing it's already happened. Hallelujah. Look at Hebrews 4. This is so important. Hebrews 4 and 2, it says, For unto us was the gospel, the word preached, as well as unto them. But the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. This is talking about obviously the first group of Israelites that came out of Egypt. And the gospel they heard was the gospel of the promised land, the gospel of entering into rest. And he said, They heard that word, but notice it did not profit them because it wasn't mixed with faith in the heart of them that heard it. So the question is, what did they not mix with faith? The word. The word. What was the word? I'm taking you out of bondage, I'm taking you into a land that flows with milk and honey. I'm taking you into a land that you'll have wells and rivers, and you'll have houses you didn't build, and vineyards you didn't plant, and you'll have orchards that you didn't plant, and I'm gonna send my angel, and I'm gonna drive the enemy out from before you, and you're just gonna come in and possess it. That's what he said. That was the gospel that was preached to them. Right? But notice it didn't profit them because it wasn't mixed with faith in them that heard it. So the word of God that cannot fail. That cannot return void, that cannot return without accomplishing the thing that God sent it to do, has to be met with faith in my heart. The only thing that stops the word of God is faithlessness. Because it cannot function there. In verse 6, it says, seeing therefore it remains that some must enter in, and they to whom it was first preached entered not in. Notice, because of unbelief. So they didn't enter in. And when you see that word unbelief, my center column reference says disobedience. Well, why when we think disobedience, we think sin, we think, you know, doing something wrong. Unbelief is disobedience. Faith is rooted in obedience. If you see a person of great faith, I'll show you a person of great obedience. If you show me a person who's struggling in their faith, we'll find some areas of disobedience. And so he said they didn't enter in because of unbelief or because of disobedience to what? To the word. So when a believer doesn't believe the word, we rob it of its power to bring itself to pass. I'll show you this from this chapter in just a moment. We rob it of its ability to bring itself to pass. When is the word working? Right now. Who's it working for? You. When? Right now. Right now. Say it out loud. Right now, the word is working. Say it's working in me. Right now. Hallelujah. And everything around you may try to say it doesn't look like it's working. But that's not, that's not the barometer. That's not how we make our decisions. We make our decisions about everything according to what the Word of God said. Right? People say, oh, everything's going wrong. Who told you that? The Bible didn't say that. It said all things are working together for your good. Is that what it said? It said the pathway of the righteous grows brighter and brighter. It said that God turned the curse into a blessing for you. Deuteronomy 23, 25. God turned the curse into a blessing. It says you're more than a conqueror through him that loves you. It says you, God always causes you to try. Who told you everything's going wrong? Well, I can just show you that everything's going wrong. But you're not supposed to make your decisions about how things are going by what you see in the natural. You make your decisions of how things are going by what the word of God says. And you call things that be not in the face of those situations that look like they're going backwards. You're calling them done and complete and well and whole because you're living in the word. You're not living in your circumstances. They're there, they're true, they're reality in the sense of in this temporal world. I can't deny them, but that's not how it's supposed to be going. And when you consult the circumstance to determine how things, who told you you don't have enough money? Who told you you're not healed? See? If I'm living in the word, I'm consulting the word. I'm not consulting my feelings. Well, if I was if I was healed, wouldn't I feel better? Who told you that? God wants you to feel better. But before you ever feel better, you got to believe you're healed. Well, I'm believing God's gonna heal me. There's where you just missed it. God's gonna? He said, Whatever you ask, I'll do it. We know we have received. So if you go to God and you say, now according to your word, Jesus bore my sicknesses and carried my diseases, and with his stripes, I am, I am, I am healed. Yeah, but I don't feel any better. But you are healed. Where does it say that you have to feel better to be healed? I am healed. And then that's why you quit calling it yours. It's not your heart problem, it's not your sugar diabetes, it's not your whatever, it's not your celiac disease, it's not your eye problem, it's not your ear problem, it's not your ingrown whatever toe. Right? Why is it not mine? Jesus took it, it's not there anymore, it was mine before, but the curse of the law was lifted from me when Jesus became a curse for me, and now Galatians 3 13 flows through my bloodstream, eradicating every vestige of the curse. Why? Because I'm living in the Word. Amen. Hallelujah. In Hebrews 4, glory to God. I did it, I preached myself happy. I've had people tell me, they say, you are so, you are so one person said dogmatic about the word, another one said, you are just so vibrantly sure about the word of God. How can I not be sure of the thing that changed my life? When you're nobody going nowhere with nothing, and God shows up and gives you his word, that's what he gave me. He gave me his word. Everything that my wife and I were talking about it today because there's things God's asking us to press into. And you know, the process is the same, no matter what it is. Brother Hagin said this things cost what they've always cost. They cost faith. That's what they cost. Right? And so everything, I remember the day I was running down the road in uh uh uh Olatha, Kansas, where we lived. And I and I'm I'm I'm a runner and I'm I'm out in the morning, I'm running, and I was running by this house, and and I looked at this nice house. I said, Lord, that's a nice house. And he said, Yeah, well, you're supposed to be in Little Rock. I'm talking about a house, and he's talking to me about Little Rock. And I won't go into all of it, but you know, he told me I was behind and these different things, and so I ran right home and told my wife, you know, we're this is what we're gonna do, and this is these are the steps we're gonna take. Amen. And you know, we we jumped out and started doing what God told us to do, and it happened just like it always happens. We we we came here and we had a rental property, a house we were renting in Perryville. We were very happy there, and and it was a very nice place and quiet, and we we loved it being out in the in the in the uh the the country, and I got in trouble for putting Lily in the creek with her diaper on, and it was it was just yeah, it was fun. But anyway, God started telling us some different things to do, and and and he told us he had a house for us, and so you know we started we started looking and and God told us where to go and what to do, and and uh, you know, it didn't take us days upon days upon days upon weeks. God told us where to go, what city to go to, where to look. We we found the house that we're in now, and when we pulled, we came up in the cul-de-sac, and and the cul-de-sac's on a hill, and and we came back down and parked in front of the house. We were waiting on the realtor, and while I was sitting there, the Lord said, That's your house. Don't worry about it, that's your house. And so we walked in, man, it was the best house we'd ever seen. We still love that house. But when we walked through the door, the realtor said, What do y'all think? And I wanted to say it's ours, but I knew he wouldn't understand that. So I said, Well, it's nice. Amen. And my wife said to me today, she said, the way we got everything we have is is the way we're gonna do this. And so now we're looking at things that are multiplied, hundreds of thousands of dollars that God's asking us to do, and we just gotta step out and do it. Because the same word that started paying our bills in the beginning is the same word that's gonna get everything that we need now. Amen. You know, God's telling us we got to possess the airwaves. We got to possess, there's only so many airwaves out there, we got to possess them for Jesus. Amen. That's that's what's so important about our 24-hour-a-day Christian TV channel, CDF TV. That's what's so important about that channel, over-the-air channel. That's why it's so important about it, because it's always bringing the word of faith. On that channel, we got we've got uh uh Nancy Dufrain that's preaching the word, we've got Keith Moore that's preaching the word, uh, we've got other people, our friends in Rafael Hernandez, uh uh Pastor Eduardo. We've got all of these people preaching the word of God. And I told her today, I said, we need to contact Brother Moore's ministry, and we need to get his Spanish television broadcast, and we need to start broadcasting them over our channel. Why? Because God's asking us to possess the airwaves. And every time you talk to anybody about money, they talk about how expensive it is. The expense is not the issue, it's are you living in the word? If God tells you to do it, the word will bring it to pass. So I can't count money, I've got to look at the word. Hallelujah. And it's the same way with you in whatever situation you you need. If you're believing God to come out of debt, you've got to stand on the word. You've got to live in the word of God. It's not how big your debt is and what you make. Well, with what I make, I don't know if we'll ever be able to come out of debt. The word of God will not return void. Get your notes out, get your mortgages out, get your bills out and lay them on the kitchen table and say, now be gone, dematerialize, cease to exist. Jesus said if I'd speak to you, you'd move. Now you leave in Jesus' name. And you watch, you watch the money come, you watch things happen for you. Be a little bit radical with the word of God. Because people, listen, people think you're weird already. So, right, it really don't matter what they think about about the word of God. Am I helping you? But you've you've got to take those steps that say, I'm living in the word. See, the word has to be the first option. The Lord said to me when he said, put the word first place. He said, if the word isn't first, it's second. You have to put the word first. Now please understand what I'm saying here, and don't misunderstand this. But the first option is not the doctor. The first option is the word. I might go to the doctor, but the first option is the word. You know how many people that have not been healed because the word was the second option? I'm surprised sometimes at the number of people that call me after they're at the doctor, after they've already heard what the doctor said, after they're in their room. Oh, I wanted to let you know I'm in the hospital. Well, thank you. What could we have got done if you'd have called me before you left? Psalm 103 says what? He sent his word and he healed them. I'm not telling you not to go to the doctor, but the doctor's not first. That's not the first option. The first option is the word. Hallelujah. The loan is not the first option. The first option is the word. Hallelujah. Quiet and Zion. But you what you did here, I hope, was I didn't tell you not to go to the doctor. But I said the doctor's not the first option. Isn't it amazing? How many times people will begin to feel something? Something will be going on. Oh, I gotta go to the doctor. And they get to the doctor, and it's nothing. Oh yeah, I went to the doctor and it was nothing. You suppose if you had asked the Holy Spirit, he would have told you it was nothing? He knows at least as much as the doctor. I'm telling you how you learn to put the word first. There are things you gotta go to the doctor for. I get it, I understand it. All right. I go to the doctor, I have a good doctor, a good Christian doctor, good Baptist doctor. We're never going to agree about tongues, but he's a good doctor. Right? But here's the thing is that's not my first option. If I wake up in the morning and I don't feel good, I don't think call the doctor or go to the doctor. I think get in the word. Why? Because I still remember the day, the very first day I made I made the decision. This is gonna work for me. And I got up and I went to work. I was working in the corporate world then, and I went to work, and man, I was sick, just sick, sick as a dog. I don't know how sick a dog is, but I was sick. And I had to ride the bus back in those days. And so, uh, or excuse me, I I was driving our car then. I I just quit riding the bus. And and I got in my car and and went to work, and and I was I was there, you know, doing my best, and my department lead came to me, and she was a very nice lady, and she said, Look, I appreciate you trying to be here, but it's evident you don't feel good. You need to go home. And so I got in the car and went home, and I walked in the front room of our little house, our little our little rental house at 7548 Corona Street in Kansas City, Kansas, right off State Avenue, just like four miles from Kans City, Missouri. And it and it was our home, my wife and our three kids, and about 500 cockroaches that the previous residents had left us. Right? But anyway, we're there, and I walked in, and I remember our bedroom was down the hall. And I said, No, sir, I'm not doing it this time. I've been in the word about this. The word's gonna heal me today. And I sat down in that armchair we had, and I turned to Isaiah 53 and 5, and I read it out loud. I read it out loud for hours by his stripes. I am healed. I'm not going to bed, I'm not sick, I'm healed in Jesus' name. Now it took about four hours, maybe closer to six. But I went to bed healed that night. That now understand why I'm saying this. I had that was a decision point in my life. That was a turning point. I gotta live in the word. If I'm gonna live healed, I gotta live in the word. Will sickness attack your body? Yes, because you live in an earth with the curse on it. What can you do when it attacks your body? Get rid of it with the word of God. Why? Because that's what'll happen. Yeah, but I've been declaring the word uh over the past few months, and it doesn't seem like anybody anything's changed. Who told you that? Who told you nothing was changing? It's changing. If you're applying the word, it is changing. If you're applying the word of God, something is changing. Your body is changing. Oh, hallelujah. So, so verse 11 of Hebrews 4, y'all got me to preaching, and I may not get through everything. It says, let us labor, therefore, to enter into that rest. What rest? That promised rest, not the promised land, not heaven, the promised land we've been promised as believers, New Testament believers, the rest of Jesus Christ. Freedom from the curse, freedom from the things of the curse. Let us labor to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Now, very often when people quote that verse, they'll say, You know what the Bible says? The word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. The actual quote is for the word of God, is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword. Because he has just spent the last few verses telling us how that unbelief in the word of God stopped those Israelites from entering into the promise. And he's saying, here's the thing: if you will believe the word of God, it is quick, it is active, it is alive, and it will bring to pass what you say. Oh, hallelujah! Glory to God. One translation says, Whatever God says is full of living power. So the writer is saying, had they believed the word, the word God had spoken would have brought them into the promised land. The word that God has spoken will change your circumstance. It will change every facet of what you're doing. Now it requires honesty because am I working the word or am I quoting the word? Am I working the word or am I just saying it? I got to be working it. Well, what does that mean when I'm working the word? It means every time that situation comes to mind, I'm attacking it with the word of God. I'm bringing it into submission with God's word. I'm not allowing it any breathing room. There are things in your life as a believer, you cannot allow them any breathing room. You cannot allow them any wiggle room at all. You can't allow any at all. Why? Because it's too important. It's got to be uprooted, it's got to be moved out of your life. And the only way you do that is attack it with the word of God every day. Every time you think about it, you're declaring the word of God. I'm not giving you a formula. I'm not giving you a formula. I'm giving you the word way to change the circumstance. Every time something went wrong in these Israelites' existence, they said, God brought us out here to die. We're not gonna make it, we're not gonna go into the promised land. Wish we were back in Egypt. Hallelujah. Keith Green wrote the song. You remember the song? Keith Green sang, So you want to go back to Egypt? I mean, right? Leeks and garlics and onions and flesh pots. Yeah, Pharaoh gave his slaves everything they wanted every day. But they were still slaves. They were still in bondage. They couldn't go where they wanted to go, do what they wanted to do, couldn't live their life. Looked like they had everything they wanted, but they were still in slavery. Every time you turned around, God brought us out here to die. We're not gonna make it. This, that, and the other. Right? And finally, God said, when you read Numbers chapter 14, finally, God said this, you go tell them that as they've spoken in my ears, that's how it's gonna be. And that's what happened. Now, why? Because they worked this in reverse. Every time something happened, they said, See, we're not gonna make it. And eventually it got them. Every time something seems to be going wrong, don't call five people and tell them how bad things are going. Would you please pray with me? Everything's going wrong. No, get the word of God out and attack it. Attack that situation with the word of God. Every chance you get. Talk it in the morning, talk it in the evening, talk it in the in the afternoon. You're talking the word. You're talking the word. Why? Because the word will do what? Bring itself to pass. Hallelujah. Now, uh, Jeremiah 1.12. I think I got time to get into this because I'm almost done. Jeremiah 112, you know the verse. He asked Jeremiah, what do you see? He said, I see an almond tree. And he said, You've seen rightly. And he said, For I am, I will hasten my word to perform it. One translation says, I'm watching my words and I will cause them to happen. Now, if we believe, according to John 17, 17, that the word of God is truth, absolute truth in the absolute sense, then according to Scripture, he will cause it to happen. Then he said, I'm it another says, I'm intent upon my word to perform it. So the idea there is I'm intensely watching my word for what purpose? To perform it. I want to perform my word in your life. I'm intently watching it. Another translation says, I'm watching over my word to put it into effect. So while you're sleeping tonight, the word's working. While you're praying in the morning, the word's working. While you're in your job tomorrow, the word's working. And what's God doing? He's watching over the word with the intention to bring it to pass. How do I know your children are gonna be saved? Because God's watching over his word. It cannot be any other way. Yeah, but they're not living for God today. They're not living for God yet. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen yet. I don't see it yet, but I'm gonna see it. Why? Because the word's at work. One translation, the Wycliffe noble says, I am on watch to carry out my work. Now let me let me try to finish this. God never just says something. You gotta banish that statement from your vocabulary. Well, I'm just saying that's gonna get you in trouble. Banish that from you're never just saying. You're never just saying. Your words carry power, your words carry authority. Never just saying. You know, you'll hear people say they'll say something, well, I know I'm just saying. God's never just saying something. He says it and then he watches over it to see that it comes to pass. He says it and then he watches over it. When we speak the word of God, we're releasing the ability to bring to pass what we're believing for. God's watching over his word to bring it to pass. Hallelujah. So he doesn't, it's not just what we want, he's watching over his word to bring it to pass. This is where we get the idea God is bound to his word. God has bound himself to his word. Now we say that a lot, especially in our circles. But understand what this means. God, it's impossible for God to not do what he put in his word. Because the word is an extension of God. What God said he put in written form, and the Holy Spirit translated or brought it to those that wrote it down, and it has lost none of its ability. It's lost none of its God DNA. So God is bound to this word. That's why every person that you know that calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Because God said, whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. There's nobody that's called on his name didn't get saved. There's nobody God's had to hit the reset button and go, whoa, whoa, that didn't take. Let's do that over. God's bound to his word. Numbers 23, 19. You remember what it says? It says, God is not a man that he should lie, son of man that he should repent. Has he said it? Shall he not do it? Has he spoken it? Will it not stand fast or stand firm? Hallelujah. One translation says, when he gives his word, does he not perform it or does he promise and not fulfill it? The answer is no. So that's what we mean by God has bound himself to his word. Or by his word. Anything God has said is forever his will. And so you speak the word with expectancy. Why? Because it'll happen. Hallelujah. And we'll close here with Mark 11, 23. You know what it says. Jesus was speaking to his disciples, and he said in verse 22, have faith in God. Have the God kind of faith. One translation says, have the God kind of faith at all times. I was reading that one morning, and that's when the Lord dropped that statement into my spirit. Every day is a faith day. And I wrote the book, Every Day is a faith day. I taught on it for weeks. Have the faith of God continually. Have the God kind of faith. Have God's faith. And he said, For truly I say to you that whosoever shall say unto this mountain be removed and be cast in the sea, but shall not, and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe those things which he saith will come to pass. He will have whatever he says. Now God's bound to that. So that means two things. That means you can't, number one, you cannot say anything and not receive it. Because he said you'll have whatever you say. That's not just good things. That's everything. Some people act like, well, I'm going to say what God said and I'm going to receive this, and then they say a bunch of unbelief, and they want to act like they're not going to get that. Well, the fact you're saying it means you believe it. Or at least it's right there. He said, notice what he said. He said, Say to the mountain, don't doubt in your heart, but believe those things you say come to pass, and you'll have whatever you say. That settles it. Now that's important. And that and something that you spoke to, if it looks like it's still lingering around, you don't even got to pay attention to it. I'll finish with this. Remember the story I told you about Charles Caps? He said, This is how it works. He said, You speak to the mountain, you see the mountain out your kitchen window, and you speak to the mountain, you tell the mountain to move. He said, Then you get up in the morning, you come to the kitchen for a drink of water, and you pull the curtain back, the mountain's still there. He said, What do you do? You don't speak to it again. You say, Thank God the mountain's moved. He said, You do that day after day after day, morning after morning after morning. He said, and one morning you get up and the mountain's gone. And people say, Well, isn't that good? That mountain finally moved. No, it was rotten out from the inside. The word was working on it from the inside. I'm saying this by the Spirit of the Lord. Those things that you've been wanting God to begin to change and reverse and make different, the word's working on them right now. Don't let up the word pressure. Because if you let up the word pressure, my wife was, we were facing a challenge one time. And uh we'd had some people that had made some decisions in the church and some leaders. I had uh I had three families leave the church, and uh a couple of them were in leadership, and um they took uh that those families took around, if we're just looking at natural finances, about four thousand dollars a month or or or every two weeks out of the church, and so they they were given about eight thousand dollars a month, and so you know when you have a budget set and and you have these different things, and all of a sudden you have eight thousand dollars a month than you had, well that's that's quite a lick. And so uh, you know, you you don't get up and tell the church your problems, so I quit taking a check, and my wife quit taking a check. And uh, you know, we're we're believing God. And uh I've been full-time in the ministry for almost 30 years now, and uh He God's been good to us, but my wife took a uh a job at night, and um, and she was was was driving to her job, and uh it was not what she was supposed to be doing, and we knew that. And all the way there, she would, my wife would come on Sunday morning, she would get off on on Sunday morning, she worked Saturday night, she would get off on Sunday morning, she would come home, take a shower, eat, go and and lead praise and worship at the church. If I wasn't there, she would preach. And then after she had done all that with no sleep, she'd go eat lunch, get back in the car, and go back to her job for that night. No sleep, none. And she was going after church on a Sunday night, she was going back to her job, and she was crying and just praising and worshiping the Lord, and the Lord said something. He said, Listen, if you don't get a hold of this with the word, he said, the devil's gonna keep pushing and he'll push you all the way back until you begin to question everything you believe. You better get a hold of it. And she got a hold of it, and that was around Thanksgiving time, and she she uh uh uh we we were having Thanksgiving dinner, and she was supposed to work Thanksgiving night. And I looked at her and I said, No, go get your uniforms. I said, We're gonna go turn them in. You're done with that job. We're gonna go turn them in. And we did. We turned them in. She walked in, and and and I've had people say, Well, how'd you think you were gonna make it? I knew exactly how we were gonna make it. I knew exactly how we were gonna make it. We're gonna believe God. Listen, either God's word is true or it's not. If it's not true, let's find out early and go find something that is true. If you're not gonna stand on the word of God, go find yourself something that you can stand on or that you believe in and do your best. But this is the only supernatural source you have. And I did what I've always done. I made the decision. I didn't stand on it physically like I did in the beginning, but I said out loud in my home, devil, I'm standing on the word. Here I stand. I'm not moving. Amen. You know, God immediately began to turn things around. And it wasn't two months, you wouldn't have even known there was a problem. Not only did he replace the finances, he brought back double the people that had left, brought back faithful people, brought back people that loved the Lord and wanted to do things for God. God will always, he'll always turn it around. Amen. Let's stand up tonight, shall we? Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you for this awesome opportunity that we've had to minister the Word of God tonight. I thank you for your precious people, Lord. I thank you for their dedication to the things of God. I thank you, Father, for their uh discipline to believe you in every area of their life. Now, Father, I speak over them a blessing. I speak over their families that they are blessed going in and coming out. I speak over their families that all the works of their hands are blessed. I speak over them, Father, that they are a blessed people and not a cursed people. I thank you, Father, that they are blessed in all that they do. I plead the blood over them. I plead the blood over their families, I plead the blood over their marriages, I plead the blood over their children. I plead the blood, Father, over their homes, over their jobs, over their finances. I plead the blood over their bodies, I call them healed and well and whole. I plead the blood over their finances, I call them blessed, and I call them prosperous. And I declare that they are fully supplied, completely filled, rich, rich, rich, in the name of Jesus. Now, Father, I thank you that as they go home tonight, that in their pathway is life and there is no death. I thank you that they are kept by the power of God. And because they have come to church and they will leave and go back, they shall return. For the book of Isaiah says the redeemed of the Lord shall return. And so, Father, we thank you for it in the name of Jesus. Help us to make the word of God our final and only source in the name of Jesus. Amen and amen. Well, don't forget Sunday morning, we'll be here ministering the Word of God at 10 a.m.

unknown 54:21

Let's say our business.