The more this world is erupting into the conditions and the shapes it in,
you know, this is the only respite you get during the week.
This is it.
And if you truly are a seeker and a lover of the Lord,
it's okay. Amen.
I'm just telling you, I'm having a struggle because I feel like sometimes I go way too long.
So you just pray that the Lord help me.
It may be the enemy.
It's not Sister Kathy.
She don't tell me that.
Except the other night at that other little church, she said that was way too much.
So, at least it wasn't y'all.
Thank you Lord, He needs it.
Hebrews 10, again at verse 19.
And I know how distracting that rain on a tin roof is.
My eyelids are heavy too.
Listen to that.
And in the presence of the Lord, I tell you what we could do.
And it might be the most spiritual thing I could do.
We could dim these lights.
We could sit on our seats.
We could let them come back up and just play softly, worship.
And we could meditate on them.
I'm telling you, we could get our minds on the Lord.
Some of you would sleep.
I might even sleep.
But when we woke up 30 or 40 minutes later, I guarantee you we'd leave out of here refreshed having been in His presence.
We would.
At least eight or nine of us would.
But we're not going to do that. We're just going to turn it up and preach over the rain.
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
By a new and living way which He had consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say His flesh.
Having a high priest over the house of God.
Let us draw near with a true heart.
And full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering.
For He is faithful, that promised.
Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as some did this morning.
But exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
We're going to recap some of what we talked about last week.
Critical but stable.
And when we got near to the end, the whole premise was the end of those points that I just ran through.
And that's the hope that we need.
That was the strength for the week that was ahead.
And I felt like we just had to rush by it.
Because we did.
Because I'd already preached way too long.
So we're going to hurry up and get to that.
And see what the Spirit of the Lord will say to the church this morning.
And that we be renewed and refreshed in His grace and by His Word.
Father, I love you.
I thank you for your Word.
I need your help today, Lord.
Lord, such a moment to try to discern this atmosphere.
I almost had them turn the lights down.
But Lord, I need your help.
I need your grace.
I need your touch.
I need your guidance this morning that we would simply do what would be pleasing to you.
And edifying to the body of Christ that we leave here lifted up in your grace.
So help me today, Lord.
Help us together.
As we are the family of God.
We are the Hopewell family of God.
And Lord, as we're here together today, just simply to be enriched by your grace.
Touched by your glory.
And empowered by your Spirit.
We love you and we thank you in Christ's holy name.
Amen and amen.
You can be seated.
Critical but stable.
Understanding that we may live in the flesh but we don't war after the flesh.
The weapons of our warfare are mighty through God.
So the pulling down of strongholds.
Taking captivity every thought that comes against the knowledge of God.
And every imagination that lifts itself against the knowledge of Christ.
So if we're in the flesh but we're not of the flesh.
We're alive as they're not supposed to be lived in accordance to the flesh.
But to the yearning of the Spirit that's in us that has been resurrected by his grace and his precious blood.
And the redemption of Christ that we have received through repentance.
And through the washing of this pure water that we've read in our text today.
We're grateful and thankful this morning that he is our Savior.
As we're living in this world is what Paul would tell Timothy.
He said the Spirit speaks expressly that in the last days there's going to be some difficult times.
Pairless times would come.
And then he began to identify and give some identifiers of the types of people and the characteristics that people are going to take on.
But he wasn't necessarily talking about the world as he was writing to Timothy.
He's talking about the condition of the latter church.
And how that men would heap to themselves with itching ears.
Wanting people to come tell them everything is OK.
And that any way you want to live is an OK way to live.
Just you be the dictator of your heart.
Men would be lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.
Lovers of themselves disobedient to parents.
The conditions of the latter times that he was writing to the young evangelist, pastor, preacher.
And he told him to endure and to encourage himself.
He would actually tell Timothy to stir up the faith that is in him.
Stir up your own faith, the gift of God that is in you.
And as we're here today and we talked some a bit last week about this critical condition.
It wasn't the world that I was in referencing to.
It was the church as the things coming against the church.
Culture of corruption and abuse of power.
It's in the church.
Laws of truth.
It is the church we're in referencing.
A crisis of knowledge.
It's the church not having any knowledge.
People are destroyed because of the lack of knowledge.
It's expressive individualism.
We want to be our own self.
We cannot be our own self and be Christ.
You're either his or you're yourself.
And if you're his, you have to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow after him.
We must keep his commandments and allow his commandments to be the dictate of our heart and of our life.
We must be in obedience to his word and to his teaching.
Thus we have the great commandment.
Going to all the world, teaching them to observe everything that I've taught you.
And baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
There is instruction that we must have and dictates that we must live by.
It moved into that age of digital distraction where hyper personalization has come in.
And I think that's where we are living today.
And not only just in the world, but it's the church world in which we are living.
It has been the devil's mission.
You know, the lion that goes about roaring and seeking whom he may devour.
It's the church that he's looking to devour.
It's you that he's looking to destroy.
It's you that he's looking to cast down.
And that's the reason we have what the Lord told us.
That the thief cometh not but to skill, teal, skill, teal and destroy.
And I'll get it out in a minute.
Steel, kill and destroy.
But it's also understood what the Lord said for us concerning himself.
He said, but I have come that you might have life and that you might have it more abundantly.
And we have this more abundant life living in the age in which we're living if these are the issues
that are confronting the church, not necessarily the world,
but the issues of cultural dictates against the church.
And we are falling in and going by that flow.
So if we take that good look and we take that critical evaluation of everything that's around us,
I believe that we, the church, need to resume and get back to the basic tenets of our faith.
And here the author of Hebrews says, having therefore brethren bold as to enter in to the holiest by the blood of Jesus.
Now, hear me.
That's the only way we receive anything at all.
It's by his sacrifice, by the giving of his blood.
It's a new and living way.
I love it that he just made the point to let everyone know that Christ is alive.
He is not dead.
He was crucified.
He was buried.
But he also rose again.
And he's alive today.
And at the right hand of the Father, and at the right hand of the Father,
he's ever making intercession on your and my behalf.
It's not caught him by surprise at the dictates of this world and the condition of his church.
He's already forewarned it.
He already declared that it was going to come to pass.
But yet now here we are living it out.
But what I desire to do is be opposite of those in whom he described that in the latter times the church would be.
I am desiring to be the one who understands that Christ is the Lord of all and not only of all,
but he is especially the Lord of my life.
And I wish to and desire to bend the desire of my heart and the will of my life to take on his will
that those who are lost and hurting and dying around us have a hope for eternity and not only a hope for eternity,
but then I tell you people need a hope for the day in which they are living and the only hope that they can have
and the only hope that is found, the only assurance that we receive is through Christ.
And that is the peace that is dictated under the hearts of the believer.
And we need to lead people to the peace of God.
And if you lead them to the peace of God, you lead them through the blood of Jesus Christ.
My, my, my, there's no greater soothing agent in this world than the precious shed blood of Jesus Christ.
It is the soothing for the soul.
It is the peace that overshadows the mind and passes all understanding by a new and living way,
which he has consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh.
He died physically at Calvary and having a high priest over the house of God.
Hear what he declares.
Let us draw near with a true heart.
That is you and me.
If we're going to live out his commandments and his will in his way, then we must draw near to him.
And the only way to draw near to him is to have a true and pure heart.
And the only way to have a true and pure heart is to have your old heart regenerated by the work of Christ.
Hallelujah. And become a new creature, a new creation, because old things pass away.
I think we drag around too many old things, old characteristics, old desires, old lusts, old drives of our old lifestyle.
I'm here to declare to you today it's time that we lay them all aside.
Truly the author was correct when he declared, let us lay aside the weight and the sin which does so easily beset us.
And then he declared, looking unto Jesus, who is the author and the finisher of our faith.
What does that mean?
He is the originator and he is the one who completes it.
He is the completion of your faith. Why?
Because it was his faith in the Father when he surrendered his will,
that when he laid down his life, he would also raise it up again.
And it's that same quickening power that would enable you to...
Oh, come on this one. It's the same quickening power.
So we determine the questions that are asked. How are we going to live?
How are we going to live out this life?
We have a high priest over the house of God as we draw near with a true heart in full assurance.
That's the reason the songwriter penned the words to blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.
Oh, what a foretaste of glory, divine.
I'm here to tell you today the foretaste of glory that is ahead your way
is the relationship that you have in Christ right here and right now.
If my hope is only in eternity, then I become a man that's most miserable.
But the hope that I have is the here and now that will carry me into the eternity
because I have an assurance that he will watch over and he will keep
and he is able to do what he proclaimed to me that he would do
and that the sins that he washed away will remain washed away.
I have an assurance.
This assurance is a faith, assurance of faith.
Having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience.
As you read the book of Hebrews, you'll find that word sprinkled many times.
It's a theme there and it's in reference to Exodus 29.
As there is a command from God for the sprinkling,
the sanctification of the temple and all of the vessels,
the blood was to be sprinkled.
It was to be set apart, can I tell you?
Our hearts have been sprinkled, but more than a sprinkling,
there's been a plunging hallelujah.
You go read in Exodus as his thumb is dipped in blood
and it is applied on the corners of the altar,
but then it says I want you to pour the rest of it out.
Hey, my God, I feel like I've been poured out on this morning.
I cannot help but be reminded of his grace that is accompanied by his blood
and the assurance that is added into my life.
When I think about it and I look at it and I see the condition of our culture
and I hear those who are working in our schools,
who have been mandated to do things that are against their faith,
it breaks my heart, but it lets me know that we're living right on time
with a prophecy of the word of God, that we're living right in the age and the time.
The people that was prophesied and told in those last days,
perilous, troublesome times are here.
Oh, and men become lovers of themselves more than God,
but we can't allow the church to be that way.
You and I must let our heart be arrested by the grace and the love of God
and fall in love with him over and over and over anew.
We must be revived in our love because if our love is revived,
the assurance is renewed and if the assurance is renewed,
we want to declare to all his good hope and help.
From an evil conscience, we might not think our consciences were evil,
but they were because the content of our heart was driven by evil
before our salvation experience.
The only desire we had was to please the flesh.
Why do you think there's such a war now with the flesh?
Because we no longer hear that we must crucify our flesh.
We don't hear that much.
You could go to 10 or 20 churches around town this morning
and probably not even hear a reference to it.
Thus, the condition of the church is the church's responsibility.
Because of the assurance that we have,
we must have our hearts continually sprinkled from an evil conscience.
Because look, when you leave here,
you're going to rub elbows with the world all week long.
Thus, the reason with Peter and Christ's encounter at the foot washing,
when he finally understands what Christ is doing,
he wants a whole bath, he says,
look, you don't need me to wash you from head to toe.
You bathe before you got here.
All I need to cleanse is what is dirty.
From time to time, we need a cleansing of what has gotten dirty.
Oh, come on, somebody,
so that we may have this assurance of the hope that is within us
and having our bodies washed with pure water,
which is the washing of his word.
Hallelujah.
That's the reason I think this initiative of Revive 75 will be so,
I think, revealing to some of us,
because as we begin to get in his word,
it'll begin to reveal who we are and what we are and where we are with him.
And it'll cause an alignment.
It'll call a cleansing.
It'll cause a washing and a renewing of our hope and our faith.
I don't recommend starting in James.
Somebody told me this morning, said, man, I've got into that,
and I started in James.
I said, oh, no.
It's good to start with John, get the love of God,
before you get on over to that.
Oh, there's a reality check when you read the book of James,
especially if you've got a tongue problem.
Oh, Lord.
Let me move on.
Let us not be washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the profession of our faith.
Let us hold fast the confession of our faith.
How many of you have confessed Christ as Lord
and repented of your sins just by straw pole?
Here we are receiving an instruction that was received by the Church of the Day
for the Hebrews.
So here you and I are hearing it again.
Let us hold fast the confession of our faith.
You know, it's so easy to let our confession go.
It's so easy to lighten up and slack up on our profession,
but we've getting the instruction.
If you're going to draw near with a true heart,
you've got to hold fast the confession of your faith without wavering.
It would be James that would say that a double-minded man is unstable
in all of his ways.
He would talk about a man who was in and out like the waves of the sea.
It would roll in upon the shore and then roll out.
Hallelujah.
Can I tell you this morning, I do not mind you having up and down experiences
because that is the roller coaster of life.
That is the sea of life that we are on.
There's high moments, there's mountains, and there's low moments
that they are valleys.
But please don't be so unwavering that you are in and out.
Hallelujah.
You need to be in all the way.
You may be up and you may be down,
but we cannot be wavering in our commission
and we cannot be wavering in our commitment.
We must remain committed to the assurance that is over our life
and draw near unto Him.
Hallelujah.
Letting our hearts continually be sprinkled and consecrated
and set apart so that we may be for His good work and His good use.
Without wavering, why?
Why should we be steadfast?
Why should we hold fast?
Why should we get a secure grip?
Why should we take a firm wrap around the confession of our faith?
Because He is faithful, that promised.
That's why.
He has never given up on you.
He has never forsaken you since you became His,
and He purchased you with His precious blood.
He's never failed you.
Well, He hadn't done this, He hadn't done that, but what did He do?
I'm telling you, God doesn't always do what we tell Him to do.
My Lord, He does what He knows is His will to be done in our life
which will benefit us, and sometimes He allows you to go through the storm
and doesn't take you out of the storm.
Sometimes you grieve and tears stroll down your face
because He did not do as you dictate to Him,
but draw near to Him and hold fast to your confession
because God has never, ever lied to you.
The songwriter said He never promised you a rose garden.
What He did promise you was a cross.
What He did promise you was in this life you shall have tribulation.
Not maybe, not possibly.
You're going to go through some things,
but He didn't leave you with the thought of tribulation.
He said, but be of good cheer because I have overcome the world.
Yes, things are critical, but my God, we are stable because His faith is in us.
So you must have an assurance of the faith that you have in Him
because He is faithful who promised.
He just never promised us He would do what we told Him to do.
He's proven that fact to me time and time again.
And when it's all over and said and done with,
I am so glad that He didn't do a few things the way I told Him to do it.
Don't you think that Israelites ought to be,
when Moses told God to go ahead and destroy them,
okay, I'm with you now, get rid of them, we'll start over.
Now what God told Moses, He said, I'm tired of this bunch of heathens.
I'm going to wipe them out and I'll start over with you.
But Moses interceded on the people's behalf.
So God spared them and then one day, Moses is mad.
Okay, God, I'm ready. Take them out.
We'll do it your way.
Well, we better use what we got.
I'm so glad that He didn't do what I instructed Him to do from time to time.
I'm so glad that His ways are higher than mine.
I'm so glad that His thoughts are above my thoughts.
I'm so glad that He's God, infinite, and here I am, finite.
I'm so glad that when things I can look back to and I say, Oh God, forgive me for that.
Forgive me for asking for that. Forgive me for instructing that.
Forgive me, Lord.
And the further I go in life and my relationship with Him as a believer,
I find myself progressing as Apostle Paul.
Sometimes I just go in prayer and just open my mind and say,
God, have your way in my mind because I know I'll mess it up if I start talking.
Let's hold fast without wavering.
Don't waver, folks. I'm telling you, up and down is okay because life stinks sometimes.
Hello?
If everybody did the right thing, it would be different.
We'd be in heaven.
But obviously we're not.
We're not there yet.
But we're heading that way.
I'm only passing through.
So as you stop and evaluate some of the crises that's going on in your life
and the critical situations and conditions that you're trying to live your way through right now,
let me just remind you, you're only passing through.
You're only going to have to come through this thing one time,
and then it's going to be different after you get through this time
when the life in your flesh is over and your spirit renews,
refreshes, revives, and resurrects.
Hallelujah.
And when you receive that new body, it's all going to be worth it.
It's all going to be worth it.
Let's consider one another.
I think that's part of the problems.
We don't consider each other.
I think that's the reason it's part of the great commandment.
What's the greatest of commandments, they ask Jesus.
Thou should love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul,
with all thy mind, everything that's within you.
And before they could interject, he said, second unto this.
Unless you love your neighbor, like you love yourself.
We've got to consider one another.
We've got to consider each other as we're going through this life.
That's the reason Paul would say, you know, I'm going to mourn with those who mourn,
and I'm going to rejoice with those who rejoice,
because I'm considering the plight of their journey.
When we fail to remember the plight of others' journeys,
we become selfish in our own journey.
And when we become selfish, we become idolatrous,
because it's about us and not about him.
And if it's about him, then we consider others who are also in the journey of life,
on the sea of life, and we consider their ups and we consider their downs.
And we consider that, yes, life may be critical, but we are stable,
because we are within the limits of our hope,
and we are within the limits of the trust and the faith that we have in God,
so long as we stay within the parameters of his word.
And we are faithful to him who is faithful, that promised,
and we allow our faith, and we draw near to him.
And as we draw near to him, the hope that is instilled in us causes us to rise,
rise above the circumstance and situations.
How do we do it?
Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together,
as the manner of some is, but exhorting one another,
so much more as we see the day approaching.
How do we live in this life?
What manner of life are we going to live?
As I told you last week, we must have an affirmation.
There must be a response in your faith.
You have to have a Daniel response.
As Daniel 1 and 8 says,
But purpose he and his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat,
nor the wine which he drank.
I think today that we are giving in too much.
We are giving up too much ground.
We are giving over too much to the king's wheel.
And we are taking in the intoxicating things of the world that the king of the world has to offer.
And we are bringing it in.
And we are trying to sprinkle the unholy things with blood to make them holy.
And it doesn't work that way.
It will never work that way, child of God.
But there must be a purposing in your heart that you will refuse to participate
in the things of this world that bring your soul down,
your life down and abstract your relationship and divide you from God's grace
and divide you from God's glory.
But somewhere along the way there must be a purposing in our hearts that we will refuse.
And when there is the refusal, then the grace of God whom we stand for will enable us to do what we have to do.
Oh, Daniel, he had to stand after a 10-day trial period of him eating vegetables
and his friends eating vegetables and drinking only water.
And when the chief unit came back, they were in better shape, more fair,
the scripture said, than all the others.
And therefore he took away the king's meat and he took away the king's wine.
We got too many winebibbers trying to creep into the church today,
wanting to intoxicate themselves on the things of this world.
But he said, no, we're going to separate.
We're going to stand for God and for God alone.
And God didn't fail them in their stance.
And at one point when there was a search through all the land,
as the king had a dream and would refuse to tell the wise men what the dream was
so that he would get a correct interpretation.
He said, if you can't tell me, you're all going to die.
Daniel got word of it, sent word to the king and said,
hey, there's someone here who can tell you what your dream is and the interpretation thereof.
He set himself to pray and God revealed to Daniel the king's dream.
And when he revealed it to the king, the head of gold all the way down to the feet of iron and clay,
he revealed it to him, my Lord, God will not forsake you in your stance for him.
Oh, how do we know that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they made their own stance. Amen.
And when after this revelation of what this dream was, Nebuchadnezzar had this idol built about 90 feet tall.
And the decree went across the land that everybody is to bow and everybody is to worship that image.
When the music plays at the striking of the first chord, everybody in the land is supposed to bow.
Isn't that the dictates of the world in which you and I are coming up in now?
There is a demand that we bow. I'm not going to bow.
I am not going to bow. I am not going to bow.
Oh, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they were they were sort of in favor and they got brought before the king.
And before the king, they begin to answer. He said, Well, I'll tell you what I'm going to do, gentlemen.
I'm going to have the band strike up one more time.
And when the band strikes up one more time, you'll have your opportunity to bow.
Maybe you didn't hear it. Maybe you didn't understand it.
But I'm going to give you one more opportunity.
And I love the response of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
He said, Oh, King, it doesn't bother us to answer you.
In other words, you can do what you want to because we're still not going to.
But we know this one thing.
Their declaration was this in the assurance of their faith.
They said, Our God is able.
But here's where faith soars off the chart. Our God is able.
But if not, if he still doesn't do it, if we have to go into the furnace, just throw us in.
We're not going to bow. We're not going to give in.
You got to have a response today.
And your response must be with David and those who stood in days of I will not bow.
And if he doesn't get me out of it, that's OK, too.
Because it doesn't change the fact that he is able if he wills.
So don't get your feelings hurt if his will is for you to go in the furnace.
Oh, I'll tell you a great ending to that story would have been if God would have shown up before they stoked up the fire.
But that wasn't when he showed up.
They heated it up. The old king was furious.
I'm talking about throw the coal to her boys.
Get her seven times hotter than you ever had it before and bind them up and throw me in.
What does it matter whether they're tied or not?
You're throwing them in a furnace.
It doesn't matter for bound up or not.
If it's seven times hotter, you know it had to be hot.
So their their bonds were going to melt like flax or like wax.
They weren't going to be on them very long anyway.
But it was just because the king was offended.
Bind them up and throw them in.
Oh, I love the story.
They march them down.
And when the door was open, those who held them and were about to cast them in because of the heat, they fell down dead.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abinago walked into the furnace.
My God, I'm looking for some people who are ready to walk on in.
Oh, my God, they could have saw that their guards had fallen and tried to escape.
But no, no, no, no, they refused to bow because they knew God was able.
And not only was he able, but he proved himself.
Don't panic because it's getting hot.
It may get a whole lot hotter.
You may walk in feeling like you're alone.
But once you get in, you're you're not alone.
Even a heathen pagan had enough sense to look over down into the furnace.
Hey, one, two, three, four.
Did we not throw three in?
Yeah, OK.
We didn't throw them, but they walked in.
Who is this fourth man?
That I see in the fire, like and to he had no idea what God looked like.
But he likened them unto any other deity that he may have worshiped.
He's like a god in there.
He's not only like a god, he is the god.
Hallelujah.
You may go in, child, but you won't go alone.
He's in there waiting for you.
And when you get in the midst of the fire, he'll see that you come out on the other side.
You will not be damaged.
You will not be heard.
You will not be burned.
You will not even smell like smoke.
Depending upon our response, we're going to have to make a very calculated response in our future concerning our faith.
I believe that with all my heart.
You cannot be wishy washy in the days that are ahead.
Well, how soon?
I don't know how soon.
You don't have to be a prophet to read the signs of the times to see that it's coming our way.
I read where they arrested a young street preacher the other day.
They arrested him on a noise ordinance because he was reading the Bible and an LGBTQ and whatever other letter you want to throw on it.
Rally.
He was standing off to the side, had him a bullhorn.
He wasn't preaching.
He was reading the scripture.
If you want a devil to squirm, I dare you to read the scripture.
The next time one shows up front of you, start reading the scripture.
You mean out loud?
Yes, I mean out loud.
Why?
Because that's the confession of your faith.
That's the assurance of your faith.
And when you look the devil in the eye, I'm telling you, he may start falling and screaming.
He may come after you.
But let him come on because greater is he that is in you than he that is in this world.
It's got to be an affirmation in your life.
You've got to affirm that Jesus is Lord and God is who you serve.
Can't stand on the fence much longer.
You know what?
That gets you.
You stand on the barbed wire fence straddle.
You're going to be sore.
You're going to have a hole in your britches and you're going to have to explain it to your mother when you get home.
What were you doing?
Because you were told not to cross the fence.
There's got to be an affirmation in your life.
Joshua chapter 24.
Joshua is making the declaration.
You've got to choose who you're going to serve.
Are you going to serve the gods of Egypt or the gods of this land?
Are you going to serve the god of your fathers?
You've got to make up your mind.
You've got to make your own affirmation.
I'm about to release you into the promise and the blessing and the inheritance of the promised land.
I'm about to let you go and let you have it.
But as you leave this place today, you have to make a declaration of affirmation.
You've got to say it.
You've got to declare it.
But then I think a little bit of Pastor Waters rose up in old Joshua.
Something come up his spine.
All of a sudden he looked at him and said, you can do what you want to do.
You can serve them if you want to.
But as for me and my house, I'm telling you right now as I'm up above and looking on y'all,
as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.
You do what you think is necessary.
You do what you think you need to do.
That day they made a proper declaration and affirmation.
They declared Jehovah will be our God.
It still didn't matter to him because he made up and purposed in his heart.
He said, I'm not going to bow.
You do what you want to.
I've been on the side of the mountain where the glory of God was.
I was up just below Moses as the mountain is shaking and quaking and the finger of God is riding the teakum.
I was there.
So you do what you think is necessary.
Might I tell you and instruct you that this morning?
If you think you know better than I, if you think you know better than the forefathers who laid out
and dictated the tenets of our faith, then you do what you want to.
Hello?
But as for me in this pulpit, as long as I'm behind it, I'm going to make an affirmation and a declaration.
I'm going to preach the word of truth.
If you want to put your sin, you put it on, you'll put it all the way to hell.
Hello?
All the way.
I got to get off of that one.
There has to be a declaration in your heart, affirmation, but there has to be a determination.
We were singing an old song as growing up in church.
I am determined to hold out to the end.
Jesus is with me.
On him I can depend.
For I know I have salvation.
For I feel it in my heart.
I am determined to hold out to the end.
Not enough folk determined anymore.
But I'll tell you what your determination will get you.
If you are determined as Jacob was determined in Genesis 32, 25 through 32,
if you have that determination in your life, that you're not going to let go, you're not going to let loose.
Jacob had been a lot of things.
He was a healer, he had been a deceiver, thus his name proclaims it.
He's the heal catcher.
He deceived his dad, he tricked his mom, he lied to his brother, he done all sorts of things.
But somewhere along life, God got a hold of old Jacob.
Why?
Because he knew that Jacob was a posterity of the covenant.
And over on the other side, he got a hold of old Jacob's heart.
And Jacob is going back to Bethel.
My God, some of us need to make another journey and get back to Bethel.
And he met God. Bethel was where he had that vision.
As he's running away from home, he's running away from what he did.
He's running away from his brother because he knew he saw what's going to take his life.
As he ran as far as he could run until he gave out, he sat down to camp.
And there was a stone that he made for a pillar.
And as he laid his head upon that stone, in the midst of the night, hallelujah, a vision was revealed to old Jacob.
There is a ladder extended from the heavens to the earth.
The men of God and the angels of God are going up and down.
My, my, my, my.
I'm here to tell you when God reveals something to you.
He woke up the next morning and he said, surely God has been in this place and I did not even know it.
And there he named the place which was called Luz.
He renamed Bethel, meaning the house of God.
My, my, my.
He journeys from the house of God, goes through some other trials and tribulations,
and finally begins to make his way back toward home and make his way back toward the covenant promise that he was going to fulfill.
And oh, on the night of his camping, my Lord, he sent his family over.
He sent all of his possessions over because he heard that his brother was on his way.
He was in sight.
The dust of his camp was getting near and he hoped that his children and his grandchildren and his family
and everything going in front of him would ease the anger of Esau.
But that wasn't what done it.
My Lord, it was in the midst of the night that the angel of the Lord began to wrestle with him.
Oh, he wrestled with a man until the breaking of the day.
And the man begins to say, turn me loose and let me go.
And Jacob said, I will not let you go until you bless me.
You read that story, you'll see that he was smote in the hollow of his thigh.
And he still wouldn't let go.
Sometimes you've got to read these stories a couple hundred times to get the full revelation of them.
Because every time you go back and read it again, God's going to show you something else.
Because you never get it all the first time through.
I looked at that again this morning.
He smote the hollow of his thigh and he wrestled on.
He didn't give up. He didn't stop.
He didn't let go.
The man had another appointment he had to attend to.
He said, turn me loose.
He said, I am not going to let you go.
Can I tell you today, you don't have to worry about that with God.
He doesn't have another appointment to rush off to.
And don't let the enemy convince you to turn him loose because you're suffering a little bit of pain.
Don't let go because the suffering of your pain could be the marker of your faith.
Hallelujah.
When Jacob left that place, the man asked him, what is your name?
And he says, why do you want to know what my name is?
And I can see him wrestling around in the dust, one in a headlock, the other in a full bar, Nelson somehow or another.
And both of them screeching and he's got a thigh out of joint.
And he says, why do you want to know what my name is?
What's your name, boy?
My name is Jacob.
Not anymore.
I'm changing your name.
You don't have the authority.
Oh, yes, I came with the authority.
Your name shall no longer be Jacob.
Some of us need a little change.
If you don't let go, if you don't turn loose, your blessing is on its way.
Don't let go.
Turn loose.
So then you'll your determination will turn into a declaration that's affirmation before you respond.
And you'll be with old you'll be the king David.
Yeah.
Some 27 and one, the Lord is my light, my salvation.
Whom shall I fear?
But that's not the most familiar declaration to all of us.
The most familiar declaration of David is the Lord is my shepherd.
I shall not want.
Well, I wonder how many of you is in here wanting tonight.
This day, I don't even know where I'm at.
Don't know what time it is.
How many of you could be one of the places what's known as the dark night of your soul?
It could be the darkest point of your existence since you've ever known it.
I'm here to tell you if it's that dark, he is your light and he is the light of your salvation.
And if he's a lot of your salvation, your declaration is this.
The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want because you follow the psalmist through that declaration.
He's led by still waters.
He's led in the green pastures.
He's led into the enemy's camp where he is now having a table prepared before him that he sits at the table amongst all of his enemies.
You will see him in his declaration.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I'll fear no evil for thou art with me.
You'll hear him declare thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.
Thou anointest my head with oil.
You are the healing agent.
You are the salve and the balm of my life.
You are my shepherd and his declaration is surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
What a declaration.
You get to the point where you can declare those things, you'll find yourself with Christ.
You'll find your confession.
I shared with you, I think, last week that Gethsemane was the victory point for Calvary.
After Gethsemane, Calvary was a formality.
The whipping post, a formality.
The purple robe to be laid on him, formality to fulfill the text.
His visage to be marred, his look and his countenance to be marred beyond recognition.
His fulfillment had already been stated.
It wasn't Calvary, it was at the foundations of the world in the beginning of time.
And before time began, he was slain.
Our confession of victory becomes his will for our life.
Nevertheless, Father, not my will, but thy will be done.
If there would be another way, if there is another way that I wouldn't have to drink this bitter cup, but I know there's not.
So not my will, but thy will.
When you get to the place in the victory of your faith, that in every aspect, circumstance or situation,
you may have to pray to that field as though your sweat becomes his great drops of blood.
But if you confess his will and not yours, his victory will be yours.
Because you see, our faith is even our victory.
It's our confession.
That confession leads to a proclaiming, as Paul would proclaim,
for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.
But as confession leads to this, the life that I now live, I don't live by my own, by myself, by my own will, by my own desire.
But I live by the faith of the Son of God.
Is that how you're living today?
Is that how you're making it today?
Is that your confession? Is that your proclamation?
Would it be where he would declare in Acts 20, none of these things move me?
We are to be steadfast.
We are to hold fast.
We are to run at the first sign of resistance.
We must endure.
Stand with me as I close today.
That proclamation leads you.
Romans 8, we are saved by hope, but hope that is seen is not hope.
For what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?
But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect, it is God that justifieth.
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ shall tribulation or distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril or sword.
As it is written, for thy sake we are killed all the day long.
We are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.
Listen to verse 38.
Here's a proclamation.
I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities, powers, things present or things to come, nor height nor depth nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
That proclamation leads you to the acceptance of Peter's hope.
This is how we're going to make it.
Chapter one, first letter of Peter.
Verse three.
Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ which according to his abundant mercy have be gotten us again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible undefiled that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you.
Don't let go.
For you who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation wherein you greatly rejoice though now for a season if need be.
You are in heaviness through manifold temptation.
For the style of your faith being much more precious than of gold that perish though it be tried with fire might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.
For the God of the Lord Jesus Christ is not seen you love in whom though now you see him not yet believing you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory receiving the end of your faith even the salvation of your soul.
Father I love you today.
I need your help this morning.
I thank you Lord for your touch today.
I thank you for your word.
Speak to our hearts and minds today.
Lord all of us have some kind of critical situation most likely going on in our life.
We're here.
We're stable.
Like old Jacob I've made up my mind.
I'm determined.
I am not going to let you go.
I'm not going to turn loose.
I'm going to hold on.
While every head's bound.
How many of you been having a little bit of a struggle.
Some kind some situation something that just kind of been a little bit draining on your faith.
Lift your hands up.
A little training.
Heavenly Father.
Hands are up across this room.
Thank you for your word today encouraging us not to let go.
I pray for each one with a lifted hand.
And every other with a heavy heart and a heavy mind.
I pray today Father.
That you would minister to them.
In a special special way.
Touch their heart.
Touch their mind.
Empower them this morning as they leave this place.