Oh, mercy, mercy.
I had a flashback about five years ago, a little earlier.
I leaned over and told Sister Cathy, I said, boy, we come a long way.
Woo!
We've come a long way.
Hallelujah!
The Spirit of the Lord's in his house, isn't he?
As much as I'd like for us just to keep on singing, I better preach to you a little while.
Amen?
See the bright light shine.
Right?
The Lord's good.
If you've got your Bibles with you, I hope you do, or at least you've got the U-version
Bible app.
If you've got that, we're going to look.
John chapter four, we're going back there this morning, and then we'll touch on Matthew
nine as well.
Well, hallelujah.
I didn't know Brother David could get that high.
I kind of had to look around to see who was hitting that note.
I thought, that's Brother David.
There is a combination quartet in here.
If he can hit that tenor note, Brother David can hit the low note.
I've heard him do it.
So Brother Brian can carry the lead.
Just got to have one more, and I think we can make it happen.
Get him to practice a little bit, and we might hear a good little couple renditions of a
good Southern gospel quartet.
Amen?
John chapter four, beginning at verse 34.
Thank you for being in the house of the Lord today.
If you're visiting with us, if you hadn't got scared and left by now, you're probably
going to make it the rest of the way.
We just worship the Lord in spirit and in truth, and we're so honored that you're here
with us today.
Amen to you.
You could have been a lot of places today, but you chose hope well.
So as pastor, I thank you this morning for your choice to worship with us today.
John records in the 34th verse of the fourth chapter, Jesus said unto them, my meat is
to do the will of him that sent me and to finish his work.
Say not ye, there yet four months and then cometh harvest.
Behold, I say unto you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields for they are white
already to harvest.
And he that reapeth, receives wages and gathereth fruit unto life eternal that both he that
soweth and he that reapeth, they may rejoice together.
And herein is that saying true.
One saw with another reapeth.
I sent you to reap that where on you bestowed no labor.
Other men labored.
You are entered into their labors.
Matthew nine verse 35 reads and Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching
in their synagogues and preaching the gospel.
So I say the gospel, preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness
and every disease among the people.
But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them because they were
fainted were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd.
Then Jesus said to his disciples, the harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few.
Pray you therefore, the Lord of the harvest that he will send forth laborers into his
harvest.
Back on that thought, we're going to be on it for another week or two probably.
It's now.
We're in the middle of it.
We're standing in the middle of the harvest.
It's his harvest and we are the called laborers to that harvest.
Amen.
Father, I love you this morning.
Thank you for your goodness, your mercy, your grace.
I pray God that you continue to have your way in our hearts and minds today for I know
that none of us are here by accident, but we're here because our steps are ordered.
You assigned us here this morning.
So here we are.
So speak to us today.
Let your word echo in our hearts and may we be enriched and strengthened according to
your word.
And Lord, we'll be quick to praise you for you are good and your mercy endures forever.
And the church said, Amen, tell your neighbor it's harvest time.
Last week as we began this, this particular series, you know, it's a it's coming off
of the church of God general assembly.
And this was the message that was laid upon the heart of our newly elected general overseer.
And he he along with the executive committee preached this message on that Friday night.
And as customary, I just try to bring back the heart of that word.
I think it's a word from our pastor across the board.
What the Lord had laid upon his heart for the church in the next coming years as he
leads us toward reaping the harvest and gathering in the harvest.
And what does that mean for the whole Church of God?
And I think it has a lot to say to us.
I think we are more healthy now as a church than we've been in many, many a year.
Amen.
We're spiritually healthy.
We're not perfect by any stretch of the imagination.
Well, how do you say that?
Well, I'm your pastor and I am not perfect.
So right up front, we got that mark against us.
But what we have going for us is that God is on our side.
Amen.
And the error that we try to make, we try to make on the benefit of his goodness.
And as we begin to strive and move forward, we have to know that in in our day, there
are there are many misunderstandings concerning the Christian life.
If you go to any Christian bookstore, you'll find shelves lined with books that that talk
about how to make the Christian life easier and how to make it more palatable for the
world that is around us and acceptable to the world.
Well, I'm just here to tell you the church is countercultural.
We're not to blend in.
We're not to look like act like talk like smell like all the other adjectives that you
can put together.
We are countercultural and we are not to be accepted.
Matter of fact, we can take Christ himself who would tell us the world hated me.
And if you're loving me like you're supposed to, they're really not going to get along
with you too well either.
Matter of fact, his words is they're going to hate you too.
Why?
Because my in your very presence rubs them the wrong way.
Just by virtue of you showing up being a blood bought born again, sin forgiven Christian
child of God, just by you showing up, it rubs them backwards.
It's like petting a cat walking the wrong way.
How many of you got cats?
It won't hurt them.
Try it.
Next time he comes by, I want to rub on your leg.
Just rub his hair backwards.
He ain't gonna have it.
Instead of from his head back toward his tail, start his tail and go toward his head.
You don't like that.
That's the way the world is.
When you and I show up, it's just a rub.
It's a backwards rub.
It just, it doesn't sit well.
Why?
Because you've got joy in your life where they're just dealing with misery.
You got hope in your life when they're just trying to figure out what they're going to
do tomorrow.
They may be going to come cut your power off tomorrow, but you can do it with a smile.
Why?
Because we trust in God, my savior.
We trust in him.
I may have to go with a candle and read my Bible with a candle for a day or two, but
I know this.
He's not going to forsake me.
He's not going to leave me behind.
Amen.
He's going to care for me.
We're in this countercultural world.
We're not out to be, I'm not out to be accepted and neither should you.
When we enter into a harvest that is already around us, it's not a fact of about being
accepted.
We understand it.
We are the church and the church is a rub against society because we stand against everything
that the world is for.
It's the old good versus evil, light versus darkness analogy.
You are the light.
Isn't that not what Jesus said concerning you?
You are the light of the world and you can't hide your light under a bushel.
Have you ever seen someone you know who is trying their best to live a Christian life
and they don't know you're watching them and you see them enter into the opposite crowd?
They enter into the dark.
Have you ever seen them try to, well, I'm just going to kind of blend in here today.
I don't want to stand out too bad.
Well, can I tell you baskets got cracks in them no matter how tight they're woven and
in the darkness.
You can't hide your light under a bushel.
It's going to shine through anyway.
I just love to watch people try to blend and knowing you can't blend in right there, you
outshine all that mess.
You might as well just go ahead and let the love of Jesus shine and just let it illuminate
everybody around you.
You can't hide it.
You can't hide the love of God.
Oh, I don't want to offend people sometimes with my joy that I have.
Oh, don't get me wrong.
We fight our battles and we're going to get over to that here just a little while.
We have our battles, but I can go into battle with a smile on my face.
I can go in with my hackles raised up at the devil, but yet I know that I am the victor.
Hallelujah.
And so are you.
You can't hide your light.
It's going to shine through.
So we are the church.
We talked about the church.
We talked about being the church and going that we have a mandate.
It's in Matthew 28 and that mandate is to go into all the world.
It means as you're going, when you go to the soccer field, when you go to the grocery store,
when you go wherever you go, as you are going, we are to illuminate the path that is around
us and let the light of the glorious gospel of Jesus Christ shine into those lives who
are in misery.
And they feel so hopeless.
They put on the facade of happiness, but they're not happy because the joy of the Lord is absent.
Can I tell you, you can only know true happiness when you understand the true joy of the Lord
and you draw deep of Isaiah's well when he declares, I draw from the well of salvation
because you know that it's the good hand of God.
And this is the worst.
This is the worst that you'll ever have to endure.
Somebody, you need to make yourself a note.
This is as bad as it gets for me.
Hello?
Hear me, child of God, whatever happens to you here, how the enemy comes against you
here, this is as bad as it's going to get.
It gets better from here for the child of God.
So as we go, that's what we go with.
We go with the hope of Jesus Christ and so we're the church and so we go as the church.
And as the church goes, we preach.
Hallelujah.
Here's where we're going to put down our roots just a little bit.
We are a preaching church.
The church of God has always been noted for its preachers throughout time.
Amen.
We've had good singing, but we've always had great preaching.
Amen.
You go all the way back.
A.J.
Thomason was a great preacher.
You begin to make your way forward and Wade Horton was a great preacher.
Amen.
And the way forward, the prince of Pentecostal preachers, amen, was Brother Hughes.
Brother Ray, there is no greater Pentecostal preacher than Ray Hughes and the movement
of the church of God and probably never will be cut from one mold used of God.
We had, I can, my mind begins to think about preachers of old and I think about John Nichols
was a good preacher.
I think about T.L.
Lowry.
T.L. Lowry was a great preacher.
You think about others.
Orville Hagan was a great preacher and they keep coming on.
Our former general overseer now, who is our state overseer, Tim Hill, is a modern day
great preacher.
He's a preacher of the gospel.
Mark Williams is a great preacher of the gospel and you got stuck with me.
Hallelujah.
But I do my best to preach the gospel.
Amen.
We are a preaching church.
That's what I've always heard when I was growing up.
Even the pastor running about 20 on the backside of the hill over there up a holler.
The preacher would preach the paint off the wall.
Why?
Because preachers are anointed with the power of the Holy Ghost.
We are a preaching church and that is what we are mandated to do.
We are mandated to preach.
So when we have that mandate, where does that lead us?
The first thing is we preach the gospel.
We preach the gospel.
Romans 1, 15 through 16.
Paul would say this, so as much as is in me is I am ready to preach.
My Lord, Paul said, I'm ready to preach.
I'm ready to preach the gospel.
Not anything else.
I'm ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.
For I am not ashamed.
Oh, I love this verse.
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation.
Aren't you glad of that?
To everyone that believes.
We cannot be ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The gospel goes all the way back to Jesus' baptism in Jordan and John's preaching before
that baptism.
John came on the scene.
He was out in the wilderness desert side and he was preaching the gospel.
And the gospel is this.
Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
And John is preaching and baptizing.
He's at Jordan one day.
And John chapter one, he looks up and looks on Jesus who's making his way toward the Jordan.
And here is the declaration that John the Baptist would give.
Behold the lamb of God, which takes away the sin of the world.
And so the gospel is now being proclaimed.
What did we read in our text in Matthew nine?
Jesus goes about their synagogues teaching and preaching the gospel of the kingdom.
That is the gospel of the kingdom.
The kingdom of heaven is at hand.
That he is the Christ the Redeemer, the one, the Messiah who is the bridge to gap between
humanity and that ever-loving father.
The gospel is the good news that Jesus is who the father sent him to be.
He is the son and the only begotten.
That is the good news of the gospel.
So that's what we preach.
And the church has to be careful that we don't get away from the gospel.
Seven steps to this, twelve ways to that.
It may be helpful, but it's not the gospel.
That's not going to deliver a man's soul.
It'll give him some tools to make it through life, but it's not going to deliver his soul.
When you tell a man there's twelve ways to this, and here's number thirteen.
Without Jesus, the other twelve are going to leave you all alone.
But if you've got Jesus, the other twelve are going to help you make it through life.
Hallelujah.
Here's five ways for this, but let me tell you number six.
You can walk out those five, but if you've got Jesus in step one, step two, step three,
step four, step five, and everything's going to be all right.
They can tell you how to have a prosperous and good marriage, and I can tell you how
to get along, but without Jesus, it isn't going to be what God had ordained it to be.
But when you've got Jesus right in the middle, and the two have become one, and the one,
the one effort, and the one desire, and the one heart, it's to know Christ and Christ
alone, then you're going to know truly what love really is.
Love will repent.
Love doesn't hold itself up high.
Love bends town.
I'll tell you all those things, but without Jesus, you've just got a relationship, and
you better hope it best you don't have any rubs in it.
Amen?
But with Jesus, you can still rub the cat backwards, and he'll make the hair lay down.
It's the gospel.
It's the good news of Jesus Christ.
John would say in one of the smaller letters, he would go on to tell you this.
He would say that we have an advocate with the Father, and Christ Jesus is his name.
He will let you know that if a man sins, that advocate is there to cleanse us.
He will let you know that if we are faithful and just to confess our sins, that he is faithful
and just to cleanse us of our sins, and not only that, but all unrighteousness.
Amen?
It's the gospel.
I tried to do it on my own.
How many of you tried to live as good as you possibly could, but good was not found in
you?
There's no good in you until Christ resides upon the throne of our heart.
So we preach, and what we preach is the gospel.
And the reason we preach the gospel is how we preach it.
It's the how we preach the gospel.
There's only one way that we can preach it, and Isaiah begins to tell us about it a little
more plainly in 61 in verse 1.
Look what he says, the spirit of the Lord is upon me because the spirit of the Lord
God is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek.
He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted.
Amen?
And to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison doors to them that
are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our
God to comfort them that mourn.
And here's how we're preaching.
You're preaching under the anointing of the spirit of the Lord.
You can make your way to Luke 418, and Jesus quotes the prophet Isaiah when he stood in
the temple that day.
They handed him the scroll to read, and he unrolled it in Isaiah 61, and he began to
read the spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he's anointed me to preach the gospel.
He's anointed me to lay hands upon the sick and see that they recover, opening of the
eyes of them that are blinded and the bruised to be healed and those who are held captive
to be set free and to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
And it was the year of his walking.
It was a year of his being, the acceptable year.
But look what Isaiah continued to say.
We preach under the anointing and we preach for purpose and a reason.
He said to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion.
It's an appointment to preach unto those that mourn in Zion, to proclaim good news to those
who are mourning in the land, to preach and to proclaim the slept the Lord to those who
mourn.
To give them beauty for ashes.
This is what he's preaching.
To them beauty for ashes.
The oil of joy for mourning.
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.
That they, who?
Those people, the mourning, the heavy, those who are feeling as though they need some beauty
in their life, to them, unto those that they may be called trees of righteousness, the
planting of the Lord that he might be glorified.
Hear me today, we have been anointed to preach and proclaim to you the acceptable year of
the Lord.
And in that acceptable year that you accept this, there's beauty for your ashes.
There's oil for your mourning and there's a garment of praise for the spirit of your
heaviness.
If you're feeling heavy this morning, let me just tell you, lift up those hands and
glorify God.
If you're feeling heavy in heart, soul and mind, there is a garment that you put on.
And I'm telling you, you've got to go to the closet and dig it out of the back and find
it because if you're feeling heavy, the only thing for your heaviness is the lightness
of your praise.
It's a garment that doesn't weigh.
It's a garment that you don't even feel because the more you praise him, the lighter you feel.
The more you praise him, the more the burden of your soul rolls away.
There is a garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness.
There's the oil of joy.
Some of you need an oil bath.
You know what's a new thing?
Well, not so new, but it's out there.
These scented oils get you some frankincense and a little myrrh.
Put your praise on and watch yourself be bathed in the oil of joy because I'm telling you,
you can't remind yourself of how good God is and keep on mourning.
You can't rejoice in his goodness and his faithfulness and still feel heavy.
Somehow, someway, you'll praise your way out of it and there's going to be beauty come
out of the ashes of your life.
My God, you're going to rise up out of the ashes with a cloak of praise and a garment
that glorifies God and he will saturate you, soak you, bathe you in the oil of joy.
Oil soaks in, doesn't it?
Well, he's wanting to soak in you.
He's wanting to get something that'll soak on the inside of you.
Amen?
Isaiah said, and it's the spirit of the Lord that brings this about because the Lord has
anointed me.
Jesus said, the spirit of the Lord is on me.
He is the Lord.
Well, hallelujah.
And here's what I've come for.
I've come to preach.
My Lord didn't preach.
He got up on the side of the mountain.
We hear that sermon of the Beatitudes delivered, that Mount Olivet discourse and he begins to
tell you how you ought to live as a preacher.
He begins to declare to us his goodness and his power, right?
He said, what did he tell him?
He said, I've been sent and so I'm sending you.
And as you go, here's what you're going to do.
I want you to lay hands on the sick and I want to see them recover.
Why?
Because I've anointed you and because of that anointing, I'm sending you and you can cast
out devils in my name.
Hallelujah.
Just for a bonus purposes.
When the devil begins or shows up, use the authority of my name.
It's not you.
It's not me.
It's not the church.
It's not any other thing than Jesus Christ.
Why?
Because every devil in hell's in fear and trembles.
They believe they believe that he is.
They know that he is not just believing.
They know he's the son of God.
They know he's a king who's going to soon return and take authority over everything.
So we preach.
We preach hope.
We preach help.
We preach repent.
We preach rejoice.
We preach pray.
We preach sing.
We preach.
We preach truth.
We preach the gospel.
We preach the say of the Lord.
And why do we do it?
Second Corinthians 2, 1 through 5.
Throw that one up, brother.
Second Corinthians 1, 2 verse 1 through 5.
Look at that real quick.
Second Corinthians 2, 1 through 5.
This is why we're doing it.
That wasn't it.
I wrote it down wrong.
First Corinthians, not second.
Second Corinthians coming up in a minute.
This is why we do it.
This is why I get up here every week.
This is why I do it.
Paul said, and I, brethren, when I come to you, came not with an excellency of speech
or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
For I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus Christ and him crucified, the
gospel.
All right?
And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling.
And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the spirit and of power.
Look, right here's the key, verse 5, that your faith should not stand in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of God.
That's why.
That's why we preach.
You know, there's some eloquent orators out there, right?
There's some guys that can really, they really preach pretty.
It sounds really good.
You're not listening to one of them guys.
You're listening to one of these Paul clones.
You're listening to the guy that may throw in a little theology, but yet he may back
it up with a little redneck lingo.
Redneck lingo is parables for people that I know.
That's all it is.
Petting the cat backwards.
Some of you go, oh yeah, I've done that.
Point made.
The rest of you, I have to explain a little different.
Some of you got that point when it came across, but for you cat people, you know, no, the
cat don't like that.
Paul said, I didn't come with the excellency of speech.
What I came with is some demonstration of the spirit.
Why?
Because I had my own encounter on Damascus road when I struck off my ride, struck blind
for days until a no named preacher came by.
And when he touched me, the scales fell off.
But in my blinded state, I had a conversation with the Lord who called me by my name and
sent me on my straight pathway.
And I'm coming to you when I was there, I was a little meeker, I was a little milder,
but I'm riding to you with all the boldness and the strength and the authority that I
can muster.
And I didn't come with enticing words of menswear.
I didn't try to come with the knowledge and the education that I have as a Pharisee of
the Pharisees.
I can dissect the law with you anyway.
You want it dissected, but what I come with is so that you know I preach through the power
and the anointing of the spirit and the spirits moving among you so that your faith would
not be in men, but in the power of God.
That's why I preach that the power of God is made available to you.
And I proclaim his power to you because the spirit of the Lord is able to demonstrate
to you his authority, his power.
That's why Paul said we preach.
I can make it sound good, but good doesn't get it done.
It's the power of God working in your life.
How many just by a straw pole has ever known for sure the power of God worked in your life?
You don't need any other convincing, do you?
So me try to come up here and eloquently try to explain something else to you, you go and
say, no, the cat don't know what he's talking about.
You come a day late and $20 too short to try to convince me that God's power isn't real
and he isn't demonstrating that power in the day in which we live.
I've heard too many testimony.
I've seen God do too much stuff for you to try to convince me otherwise.
That's what Paul said.
I was convinced nobody persecuted the church any more than I did.
I was holding their coats today.
They stoned Stephen to death.
Matter of fact, I consented to that.
I had the authority to do that.
I saw a little statement yesterday.
I sent somebody, I don't remember who I sent it to.
Said Paul was probably the only person that entered into the heavens through the cheers
of those he martyred.
Oh, that's heavy right there.
Entered into heaven through the cheers of those and whom he martyred.
Standing ovation for Paul.
I guess they may just saw it.
He just got me here a little quicker and I would have had to.
So we preach.
We preach because you need to know the power of God is available for your situation in
crisis.
We preach because the gospel is the only hope for lost humanity.
That's why we preach.
And we're a preaching movement.
We're a preaching church.
That's why we preach.
And so I'm going to end on this last one right here.
The subject of our preaching.
We preach victory.
We preach victory to you.
You are the victor.
Like I've told you already, this is as bad as it gets and you're still the victor in
it right now.
You are the victor.
You are the victorious one.
Why?
Because Christ is the victor.
And it's Christ in you, which is the hope of glory.
So we preach victory.
We preach what Jesus said in this world, you shall have tribulation.
I'm not one of these guys who's going to tell you this is going to be hunky dory because
it's not.
You better buckle down the hatches and you better know what you believe.
I don't know if you can tell it or not, but there's been an open season, a bull's eye
in the spirit realm set on our church.
It excites me.
We've made the devil M-A-D. The devil is mad.
So he's, it ain't a whole lot to clap about because when you make the devil mad, that
means somebody got to show up and smack him in the mouth.
So that's not real enticing, it's not real elegant, but it's still the fact.
When you stir him up, you got to have enough in you to put him in flight.
When we humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God, he exalts us in due season.
And if we draw nigh to him, he'll draw nigh to us.
And let me tell you something, it doesn't matter how mad the devil gets because if God's
getting close to you, he's getting further away.
If God's getting close to you, the devil can't stay where the glory and the power and the
presence of God is.
You got to resist him with everything's within you.
You got to stand against him and draw nigh.
You got to get near.
And it's difficult to get near when you're trying to beat the devil off with a stick
at the same time.
But as you humble yourself, God, I need you.
God, I've got to have you.
In the day of my trouble, the Lord heard me and he showed up.
I cried unto the Lord and he heard my cry.
We're proclaiming victory in spite of the battle.
It's victory in spite of the crisis.
You're victorious in spite of your trouble.
You're victorious in spite of your sickness.
You're victorious in spite of everyone that stands against you.
We preach victory.
Ephesians 6, Paul put it this way.
Finally, finally, somebody say that one, finally.
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might.
It seems to me like Paul's figured something out along the way.
Hello?
Sounds to me like he's talking about God's power quite a bit.
He's talking, it sounds to me like he knows it's God's power that has sustained him through
his troubles.
Forever stoned that he had stoned somebody else with, he laid in the middle of a road
and was stoned as well.
For every one that he commanded to be beaten three times, he was beaten at the post.
Thirty-nine save one stripe three different times.
It all come back to him.
He had to endure, but he was enduring it differently now.
He said, I've been left in the deep three days and nights, but he said, I've also was
called up into the third heaven.
It's about having victory.
It's about knowing that you are victorious.
Finally, when you've done everything you can do, when you had done all you can do, put
on the whole armor of God that you might be able to stand against the wiles, the trickery,
the deceit, the deception of the devil.
For we hear me somebody, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against powers, principalities
and against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in
high places.
This is what we preach.
Wherefore?
Take unto you the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day
and having done all to stand, stand anyway.
Keep on standing.
When you've done everything in your power to stand, keep on standing, stand anyway.
This is what we're preaching.
Stand anyway.
Having your loins gird about.
Listen to it.
Having your loins gird about.
Stand there.
Gird it up with truth.
That's why we preach the word.
The word of God is truth.
And faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of the living God.
Your faith is built in the middle of your trial when you're standing against all odds
to keep on standing.
When the enemy comes in like a flood, there's a standard, there's a pole, there's a stalwart
that rises up in your presence, and it's the word of God who will turn away all of the
wickedness of the enemy.
When you stand firm, you stand whole.
Having on the breastplate of righteousness, your feet shod with the preparation of the
gospel of peace.
That's why we preach the gospel, because it's peace.
My Lord, and above all, taking the shield of faith.
Bear with, you shall, not maybe, not possibly, if it's your turn, no.
You shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked and take the helmet of
salvation, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
Watching always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, my Lord, you've got to have
the spirit in you to pray in the spirit.
And watching therein, too, with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.
So that's what we preach, victory.
Now, 2 Corinthians 10, verse four says this, three declares, for though we walk in the
flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God.
Spirit to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down imaginations and every high thing
that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought
to the obedience of Christ.
We preach victory.
For though we walk in the flesh, your feet hurt, your back hurts, your neck hurts, your
knees hurt, your head hurts, your ears hurt, if you got teeth, they hurt.
If you don't, your gums are sore because your dentures don't fit right.
We walk in the flesh, but we don't war after the flesh.
Too many of us would be in the infirmary somewhere if this was a flesh thing, trying to get healed
up enough to get in, but that's not how we fight.
My feet can hurt and I can still wage war.
I may have sat down, but I'm sitting down with my helmet on.
I still got my sword in my hand.
I got my shield, my faith, my God.
If you don't have anything, if you drop the others along the way, if you drop your helmet,
you still hold your shield over your head.
I've seen too many gladiator movies to not know that your shield can be a very strong
offensive weapon when your sword's got knocked out of your hand.
You got that faith, your helmet's not far away.
If you got faith, you're walking with your feet prepared.
If you got faith, righteousness is upon your chest.
It's your breastplate.
Thanks be unto God who give us us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
He causes us to be victorious.
So we preach victory.
They may leave anyway, but you're victorious.
They may never apologize, but you're victorious.
Bank may actually come and get that car that you couldn't afford and you bought it anyway,
but you're victorious.
See the enemy can't take your soul.
You can surrender it, but he can't take it.
That's the reason we've been instructed, why do you have fear of men?
What can man do?
All he can do is destroy the body.
He can't destroy the soul, but our fear, revere, and all should be of him who can destroy both
body and soul.
You're victorious.
You may feel like a modern day Job.
If it can go wrong, it has gone wrong, but you're still standing.
I don't know how I would encounter and I don't know how I would respond to the comforters
that came to comfort brother Job, his friends.
You've got friends like that.
I've got friends like Job had friends.
You're sitting there.
You've had to shave your head.
You got sores all over you.
You're taking broken pot sherds and scraping the scabs off to let the infection run out.
You're miserable.
Your children are gone.
All of your wealth is gone.
Your wife is in such a state of despair.
She wants you and her together to curse God and give up and leave this world.
Your friends start showing up thinking, okay, I'm going to get a little encouragement.
Stand with me this morning.
Go ahead, stand with me.
I'm going to quit right here.
Thinking, I'm going to get a little encouragement.
My friends have come.
One of them sat and looked at him for seven days and did him say, hey Job, how you doing?
Pulled up to the campfire, sat down, looked at the man and never said a word.
I'm like, dude.
Another comes by and says, what'd you do Job?
What have you done?
How have you sinned against God, Job?
What did you do?
For all of this to come against you, you had to have done something.
Job said, I hadn't done anything.
That may be how you feel.
I've not done anything.
I'm just loving on the Lord.
See, that's the only thing the enemy can come against you with.
He can come against you physically, mentally, emotionally.
He can take your finances away, but he can't touch your faith.
He can't touch your faith.
How many is in a battle?
That's why I'm preaching victory.
Come on down here, warriors.
Come on.
Come on, warriors.
You good right there, sister.
Oh yeah, come on.
You good right there, sister.
Oh yeah, sit down there and you'll see.
We may have you hold your feet up and push you around a victory lap.
Come on, where you at?
How many in a battle?
The enemy's trying to destroy you.
Trying to take everything you've got.
Where you at?
He doesn't fool around, made me mad now.
Devil doesn't make me mad.
I'm tired of fooling with him.
I wish he'd just sit there and look and keep his mouth shut, but that ain't what he's been
doing to me.
One of my favorite scriptures one day.
One day when he's wrapped in that chain, he's going to be shut up.
He's going to be shut up for a thousand years.
We ain't going to listen to him.
We're going to have to fool with him.
We're victorious today.
Anybody else?
Care to admit it, you're in a battle.
You're in a battle.
Come on down.
The rest of us are going to need you to pray over us.
Those of you come and just stand if you're full of faith, come and y'all scoot up just
about a half a step.
Give some of them room.
They may actually pray for us.
We need some folks to pray for us this morning.
Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus we come today.
We are victorious.
Greater are you that's in us than he that's in this world.
We are victorious.
We are the victor.
Thanks be unto God.